leaves town*** copyright (c) by cory doctorow. some rights reserved. someone comes to town, someone leaves town cory doctorow doctorow@craphound.com published by tor books july isbn: http://craphound.com/someone some rights reserved -- =============== about this book =============== this is my third novel, and as with my first, down and out in the magic kingdom (http://craphound.com/down) and my second, eastern standard tribe (http://craphound.com/est), i am releasing it for free on the internet the very same day that it ships to the stores. the books are governed by creative commons licenses that permit their unlimited noncommercial redistribution, which means that you're welcome to share them with anyone you think will want to see them. in the words of woody guthrie: "this song is copyrighted in u.s., under seal of copyright # , for a period of years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. publish it. write it. sing it. swing to it. yodel it. we wrote it, that's all we wanted to do." why do i do this? there are three reasons: * short term in the short term, i'm generating more sales of my printed books. sure, giving away ebooks displaces the occasional sale, when a downloader reads the book and decides not to buy it. but it's far more common for a reader to download the book, read some or all of it, and decide to buy the print edition. like i said in my essay, ebooks neither e nor books, (http://craphound.com/ebooksneitherenorbooks.txt), digital and print editions are intensely complimentary, so acquiring one increases your need for the other. i've given away more than half a million digital copies of my award-winning first novel, down and out in the magic kingdom, and that sucker has blown through *five* print editions (yee-haw!), so i'm not worried that giving away books is hurting my sales. * long term some day, though, paper books will all but go away. we're already reading more words off of more screens every day and fewer words off of fewer pages every day. you don't need to be a science fiction writer to see the writing on the wall (or screen, as the case may be). now, if you've got a poor imagination, you might think that we'll enter that era with special purpose "ebook readers" that simulate the experience of carrying around "real" books, only digital. that's like believing that your mobile phone will be the same thing as the phone attached to your wall, except in your pocket. if you believe this sort of thing, you have no business writing sf, and you probably shouldn't be reading it either. no, the business and social practice of ebooks will be way, way weirder than that. in fact, i believe that it's probably too weird for us to even imagine today, as the idea of today's radio marketplace was incomprehensible to the vaudeville artists who accused the radio station owners of mass piracy for playing music on the air. those people just could *not* imagine a future in which audiences and playlists were statistically sampled by a special "collection society" created by a congressional anti-trust "consent decree," said society to hand out money collected from radio stations (who collected from soap manufacturers and other advertisers), to compensate artists. it was inconceivably weird, and yet it made the artists who embraced it rich as hell. the artists who demanded that radio just *stop* went broke, ended up driving taxis, and were forgotten by history. i know which example i intend to follow. giving away books costs me *nothing*, and actually makes me money. but most importantly, it delivers the very best market-intelligence that i can get. when you download my book, please: do weird and cool stuff with it. imagine new things that books are for, and do them. use it in unlikely and surprising ways. then *tell me about it*. email me (doctorow@craphound.com) with that precious market-intelligence about what electronic text is for, so that i can be the first writer to figure out what the next writerly business model is. i'm an entrepreneur and i live and die by market intel. some other writers have decided that their readers are thieves and pirates, and they devote countless hours to systematically alienating their customers. these writers will go broke. not me -- i love you people. copy the hell out of this thing. * medium term there may well be a time between the sunset of printed text and the appearance of robust models for unfettered distribution of electronic text, an interregnum during which the fortunes of novelists follow those of poets and playwrights and other ink-stained scribblers whose industries have cratered beneath them. when that happens, writerly income will come from incidental sources such as paid speaking engagements and commissioned articles. no, it's not "fair" that novelists who are good speakers will have a better deal than novelists who aren't, but neither was it fair that the era of radio gave a boost to the career of artists who played well in the studios, nor that the age of downloading is giving a boost to the careers of artists who play well live. technology giveth and technology taketh away. i'm an sf writer: it's my job to love the future. my chances of landing speaking gigs, columns, paid assignments, and the rest of it are all contingent on my public profile. the more people there are that have read and enjoyed my work, the more of these gigs i'll get. and giving away books increases your notoriety a whole lot more than clutching them to your breast and damning the pirates. so there you have it: i'm giving these books away to sell more books, to find out more about the market and to increase my profile so that i can land speaking and columnist gigs. not because i'm some patchouli-scented, fuzzy-headed, "information wants to be free" info-hippie. i'm at it because i want to fill my bathtub with money and rub my hands and laugh and laugh and laugh. # developing nations a large chunk of "ebook piracy" (downloading unauthorized ebooks from the net) is undertaken by people in the developing world, where the per-capita gdp can be less than a dollar a day. these people don't represent any kind of commercial market for my books. no one in burundi is going to pay a month's wages for a copy of this book. a ukrainian film of this book isn't going to compete with box-office receipts in the ukraine for a hollywood version, if one emerges. no one imports commercial editions of my books into most developing nations, and if they did. they'd be priced out of the local market. so i've applied a new, and very cool kind of creative commons license to this book: the creative commons developing nations license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/devnations/ . /). what that means is that if you live in a country that's not on the world bank's list of high-income countries (http://rru.worldbank.org/doingbusiness/exploreeconomies/economycharacteristics.aspx) , you get to do practically anything you want with this book. while residents of the rich world are limited to making noncommercial copies of this book, residents of the developing world can do much more. want to make a commercial edition of this book? be my guest. a film? sure thing. a translation into the local language? but of course. the sole restriction is that you *may not export your work with my book beyond the developing world*. your ukrainian film, guyanese print edition, or ghanian translation can be freely exported within the developing world, but can't be sent back to the rich world, where my paying customers are. it's an honor to have the opportunity to help people who are living under circumstances that make mine seem like the lap of luxury. i'm especially hopeful that this will, in some small way, help developing nations bootstrap themselves into a better economic situation. # drm the worst technology idea since the electrified nipple-clamp is "digital rights management," a suite of voodoo products that are supposed to control what you do with information after you lawfully acquire it. when you buy a dvd abroad and can't watch it at home because it's from the wrong "region," that's drm. when you buy a cd and it won't rip on your computer, that's drm. when you buy an itune and you can't loan it to a friend, that's drm. drm doesn't work. every file ever released with drm locks on it is currently available for free download on the internet. you don't need any special skills to break drm these days: you just have to know how to search google for the name of the work you're seeking. no customer wants drm. no one woke up this morning and said, "damn, i wish there was a way to do less with my books, movies and music." drm can't control copying, but it can control competition. apple can threaten to sue real for making realmedia players for the ipod on the grounds that real had to break apple drm to accomplish this. the cartel that runs licensing for dvds can block every new feature in dvds in order to preserve its cushy business model (why is it that all you can do with a dvd you bought ten years ago is watch it, exactly what you could do with it then -- when you can take a cd you bought a decade ago and turn it into a ringtone, an mp , karaoke, a mashup, or a file that you send to a friend?). drm is used to silence and even jail researchers who expose its flaws, thanks to laws like the us dmca and europe's eucd. in case there's any doubt: i hate drm. there is no drm on this book. none of the books you get from this site have drm on them. if you get a drmed ebook, i urge you to break the locks off it and convert it to something sensible like a text file. if you want to read more about drm, here's a talk i gave to microsoft on the subject: http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt and here's a paper i wrote for the international telecommunications union about drm and the developing world: http://www.eff.org/ip/drm/itu_drm.php 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not be modified without the mutual written agreement of the licensor and you. ===== blurb ===== someone comes to town, someone leaves town is a glorious book, but there are hundreds of those.  it is more.  it is a glorious book unlike any book you've ever read. - gene wolfe ========== dedication ========== for the family i was born into and the family i chose. i got lucky both times. ========= the novel ========= alan sanded the house on wales avenue. it took six months, and the whole time it was the smell of the sawdust, ancient and sweet, and the reek of chemical stripper and the damp smell of rusting steel wool. alan took possession of the house on january , and paid for it in full by means of an e-gold transfer. he had to do a fair bit of hand-holding with the realtor to get her set up and running on e-gold, but he loved to do that sort of thing, loved to sit at the elbow of a novitiate and guide her through the clicks and taps and forms. he loved to break off for impromptu lectures on the underlying principles of the transaction, and so he treated the poor realtor lady to a dozen addresses on the nature of international currency markets, the value of precious metal as a kind of financial lingua franca to which any currency could be converted, the poetry of vault shelves in a hundred banks around the world piled with the heaviest of metals, glinting dully in the fluorescent tube lighting, tended by gnomish bankers who spoke a hundred languages but communicated with one another by means of this universal tongue of weights and measures and purity. the clerks who'd tended alan's many stores -- the used clothing store in the beaches, the used book-store in the annex, the collectible tin-toy store in yorkville, the antique shop on queen street -- had both benefited from and had their patience tried by alan's discursive nature. alan had pretended never to notice the surreptitious rolling of eyes and twirling fingers aimed templewise among his employees when he got himself warmed up to a good oration, but in truth very little ever escaped his attention. his customers loved his little talks, loved the way he could wax rhapsodic about the tortured prose in a victorian potboiler, the nearly erotic curve of a beat-up old table leg, the voluminous cuffs of an embroidered silk smoking jacket. the clerks who listened to alan's lectures went on to open their own stores all about town, and by and large, they did very well. he'd put the word out when he bought the house on wales avenue to all his protégés: wooden bookcases! his cell-phone rang every day, bringing news of another wooden bookcase found at this flea market, that thrift store, this rummage sale or estate auction. he had a man he used part-time, tony, who ran a small man-with-van service, and when the phone rang, he'd send tony over to his protégé's shop with his big panel van to pick up the case and deliver it to the cellar of the house on wales avenue, which was ramified by cold storages, root cellars, disused coal chutes and storm cellars. by the time alan had finished with his sanding, every nook and cranny of the cellar was packed with wooden bookcases of every size and description and repair. alan worked through the long toronto winter at his sanding. the house had been gutted by the previous owners, who'd had big plans for the building but had been tempted away by a job in boston. they'd had to sell fast, and no amount of realtor magic -- flowers on the dining-room table, soup simmering on the stove -- could charm away the essential dagginess of the gutted house, the exposed timbers with sagging wires and conduit, the runnels gouged in the floor by careless draggers of furniture. alan got it for a song, and was delighted by his fortune. he was drunk on the wood, of course, and would have paid much more had the realtor noticed this, but alan had spent his whole life drunk on trivial things from others' lives that no one else noticed and he'd developed the alcoholic's knack of disguising his intoxication. alan went to work as soon as the realtor staggered off, reeling with a new year's day hangover. he pulled his pickup truck onto the frozen lawn, unlocked the kryptonite bike lock he used to secure the camper bed, and dragged out his big belt sander and his many boxes of sandpaper of all grains and sizes, his heat strippers and his jugs of caustic chemical peeler. he still had his jumbled, messy place across town in a nondescript two-bedroom on the danforth, would keep on paying the rent there until his big sanding project was done and the house on wales avenue was fit for habitation. alan's sanding project: first, finish gutting the house. get rid of the substandard wiring, the ancient, lead-leaching plumbing, the cracked tile and water-warped crumbling plaster. he filled a half-dozen dumpsters, working with tony and tony's homie nat, who was happy to help out in exchange for cash on the barrelhead, provided that he wasn't required to report for work on two consecutive days, since he'd need one day to recover from the heroic drinking he'd do immediately after alan laid the cash across his palm. once the house was gutted to brick and timber and delirious wood, the plumbers and the electricians came in and laid down their straight shining ducts and pipes and conduit. alan tarped the floors and brought in the heavy sandblaster and stripped the age and soot and gunge off of the brickwork throughout, until it glowed red as a golem's ass. alan's father, the mountain, had many golems that called him home. they lived round the other side of his father and left alan and his brothers alone, because even a golem has the sense not to piss off a mountain, especially one it lives in. then alan tackled the timbers, reaching over his head with palm-sanders and sandpaper of ever finer grains until the timbers were as smooth as adirondack chairs, his chest and arms and shoulders athrob with the agony of two weeks' work. then it was the floorwork, but *not the floors themselves*, which he was saving for last on the grounds that they were low-hanging fruit. this materialized a new lecture in his mind, one about the proper role of low-hanging fruit, a favorite topic of mbas who'd patronize his stores and his person, giving him unsolicited advice on the care and feeding of his shops based on the kind of useless book-learning and jargon-slinging that fortune companies apparently paid big bucks for. when an mba said "low-hanging fruit," he meant "easy pickings," something that could and should be snatched with minimal effort. but *real* low-hanging fruit ripens last, and should be therefore picked as late as possible. further, picking the low-hanging fruit first meant that you'd have to carry your bushel basket higher and higher as the day wore on, which was plainly stupid. low-hanging fruit was meant to be picked last. it was one of the ways that he understood people, and one of the kinds of people that he'd come to understand. that was the game, after all -- understanding people. so the floors would come last, after the molding, after the stairs, after the railings and the paneling. the railings, in particular, were horrible bastards to get clean, covered in ten or thirty coats of enamel of varying colors and toxicity. alan spent days working with a wire brush and pointed twists of steel wool and oozing stinging paint stripper, until the grain was as spotless and unmarked as the day it came off the lathe. *then* he did the floors, using the big rotary sander first. it had been years since he'd last swung a sander around -- it had been when he opened the tin-toy shop in yorkville and he'd rented one while he was prepping the place. the technique came back to him quickly enough, and he fell into a steady rhythm that soon had all the floors cool and dry and soft with naked, exposed woody heartmeat. he swept the place out and locked up and returned home. the next day, he stopped at the portuguese contractor-supply on ossington that he liked. they opened at five a.m., and the men behind the counter were always happy to sketch out alternative solutions to his amateur construction problems, they never mocked him for his incompetence, and always threw in a ten percent "contractor's discount" for him that made him swell up with irrational pride that confused him. why should the son of a mountain need affirmation from runty portugees with pencil stubs behind their ears and scarred fingers? he picked up a pair of foam-rubber knee pads and a ten-kilo box of lint-free shop rags and another carton of disposable paper masks. he drove to the house on wales avenue, parked on the lawn, which was now starting to thaw and show deep muddy ruts from his tires. he spent the next twelve hours crawling around on his knees, lugging a tool bucket filled with sandpaper and steel wool and putty and wood-crayons and shop rags. he ran his fingertips over every inch of floor and molding and paneling, feeling the talc softness of the sifted sawdust, feeling for rough spots and gouges, smoothing them out with his tools. he tried puttying over the gouges in the flooring that he'd seen the day he took possession, but the putty seemed like a lie to him, less honest than the gouged-out boards were, and so he scooped the putty out and sanded the grooves until they were as smooth as the wood around them. next came the beeswax, sweet and shiny. it almost broke his heart to apply it, because the soft, newly exposed wood was so deliciously tender and sensuous. but he knew that wood left to its own would eventually chip and splinter and yellow. so he rubbed wax until his elbows ached, *massaged* the wax into the wood, buffed it with shop rags so that the house shone. twenty coats of urethane took forty days -- a day to coat and a day to dry. more buffing and the house took on a high shine, a slippery slickness. he nearly broke his neck on the slippery staircase treads, and the portuguese helped him out with a bag of clear grit made from ground walnut shells. he used a foam brush to put one more coat of urethane on each tread of the stairs, then sprinkled granulated walnut shells on while it was still sticky. he committed a rare error in judgment and did the stairs from the bottom up and trapped himself on the third floor, with its attic ceilings and dormer windows, and felt like a goddamned idiot as he curled up to sleep on the cold, hard, slippery, smooth floor while he waited for his stairs to dry. the urethane must be getting to his head. the bookcases came out of the cellar one by one. alan wrestled them onto the front porch with tony's help and sanded them clean, then turned them over to tony for urethane and dooring. the doors were uv-filtering glass, hinged at the top and surrounded by felt on their inside lips so that they closed softly. each one had a small brass prop-rod on the left side that could brace it open. tony had been responsible for measuring each bookcase after he retrieved it from alan's protégés' shops and for sending the measurements off to a glazier in mississauga. the glazier was technically retired, but he'd built every display case that had ever sat inside any of alan's shops and was happy to make use of the small workshop that his daughter and son-in-law had installed in his garage when they retired him to the burbs. the bookcases went into the house, along each wall, according to a system of numbers marked on their backs. alan had used tony's measurements and some cad software to come up with a permutation of stacking and shouldering cases that had them completely covering every wall -- except for the wall by the mantelpiece in the front parlor, the wall over the countertop in the kitchen, and the wall beside the staircases -- to the ceiling. he and tony didn't speak much. tony was thinking about whatever people who drive moving vans think about, and alan was thinking about the story he was building the house to write in. may smelled great in kensington market. the fossilized dog shit had melted and washed away in the april rains, and the smells were all springy ones, loam and blossoms and spilled tetrapak fruit punch left behind by the pan-ethnic street-hockey league that formed up spontaneously in front of his house. when the winds blew from the east, he smelled the fish stalls on spadina, salty and redolent of chinese barbecue spices. when it blew from the north, he smelled baking bread in the kosher bakeries and sometimes a rare whiff of roasting garlic from the pizzas in the steaming ovens at massimo's all the way up on college. the western winds smelled of hospital incinerator, acrid and smoky. his father, the mountain, had attuned art to smells, since they were the leading indicators of his moods, sulfurous belches from deep in the caverns when he was displeased, the cold non-smell of spring water when he was thoughtful, the new-mown hay smell from his slopes when he was happy. understanding smells was something that you did, when the mountain was your father. once the bookcases were seated and screwed into the walls, out came the books, thousands of them, tens of thousands of them. little kids' books with loose signatures, ancient first-edition hardcovers, outsized novelty art books, mass-market paperbacks, reference books as thick as cinderblocks. they were mostly used when he'd gotten them, and that was what he loved most about them: they smelled like other people and their pages contained hints of their lives: marginalia and pawn tickets, bus transfers gone yellow with age and smears of long-ago meals. when he read them, he was in three places: his living room, the authors' heads, and the world of their previous owners. they came off his shelves at home, from the ten-by-ten storage down on the lakeshore, they came from friends and enemies who'd borrowed his books years before and who'd "forgotten" to return them, but alan *never* forgot, he kept every book in a great and deep relational database that had begun as a humble flatfile but which had been imported into successive generations of industrial-grade database software. this, in turn, was but a pocket in the ur-database, the inventory in which alan had input the value, the cost, the salient features, the unique identifiers, and the photographic record of every single thing he owned, from the socks in his sock drawer to the pots in his cupboard. maintaining the inventory was serious business, no less important now than it had been when he had begun it in the course of securing insurance for the bookshop. alan was an insurance man's worst nightmare, a customer from hell who'd messenger over five bankers' boxes of detailed, cross-referenced inventory at the slightest provocation. the books filled the shelves, row on row, behind the dust-proof, light-proof glass doors. the books began in the foyer and wrapped around the living room, covered the wall behind the dining room in the kitchen, filled the den and the master bedroom and the master bath, climbed the short walls to the dormer ceilings on the third floor. they were organized by idiosyncratic subject categories, and alphabetical by author within those categories. alan's father was a mountain, and his mother was a washing machine -- he kept a roof over their heads and she kept their clothes clean. his brothers were: a dead man, a trio of nesting dolls, a fortune teller, and an island. he only had two or three family portraits, but he treasured them, even if outsiders who saw them often mistook them for landscapes. there was one where his family stood on his father's slopes, mom out in the open for a rare exception, a long tail of extension cords snaking away from her to the cave and the diesel generator's three-prong outlet. he hung it over the mantel, using two hooks and a level to make sure that it came out perfectly even. tony helped alan install the shallow collectibles cases along the house's two-story stairwell, holding the level while alan worked the cordless powerdriver. alan's glazier had built the cases to alan's specs, and they stretched from the treads to the ceiling. alan filled them with made-in-occupied-japan tin toys, felt tourist pennants from central florida gator farms, a stone from marie laveau's tomb in the st. louis i cemetery in new orleans, tarnished brass zippos, small framed comic-book bodybuilding ads, carved polynesian coconut monkeys, melamine transistor radios, bakelite snow globes, all the tchotchkes he'd accumulated over a lifetime of picking and hunting and digging. they were gloriously scuffed and non-mint: he'd always sold off the sterile mint-in-package goods as quickly as he could, squirreling away the items that were marked with "property of freddy terazzo" in shaky ballpoint, the ones with tooth marks and frayed boxes taped shut with brands of stickytape not offered for sale in fifty years. the last thing to go in was the cellar. they knocked out any wall that wasn't load-bearing, smeared concrete on every surface, and worked in a loose mosaic of beach glass and beach china, smooth and white with spidery blue illustrations pale as a dream. three coats of urethane made the surfaces gleam. then it was just a matter of stringing out the cables for the clip-on halogens whose beams he took care to scatter off the ceilings to keep the glare to a minimum. he moved in his horsehair sofa and armchairs, his big old bed, his pots and pans and sideboard with its novelty decanters, and his entertainment totem. a man from bell canada came out and terminated the data line in his basement, in a room that he'd outfitted with an uninterruptible power supply, a false floor, dry fire extinguishers and a pipe-break sensor. he installed and configured the router, set up his modest rack and home servers, fished three four-pair wires through to the living room, the den, and the attic, where he attached them to unobtrusive wireless access points and thence to weatherproofed omnidirectional antennae made from copper tubing and pvc that he'd affixed to the building's exterior on short masts, aimed out over kensington market, blanketing a whole block with free internet access. he had an idea that the story he was going to write would require some perambulatory cogitation, and he wanted to be able to take his laptop anywhere in the market and sit down and write and hop online and check out little factoids with a search engine so he wouldn't get hung up on stupid details. the house on wales avenue was done. he'd repainted the exterior a lovely robin's-egg blue, fixed the front step, and planted a low-maintenance combination of outsized rocks from the canadian shield and wild grasses on the front lawn. on july first, alan celebrated canada day by crawling out of the attic window onto the roof and watching the fireworks and listening to the collective sighs of the people densely packed around him in the market, then he went back into the house and walked from room to room, looking for something out of place, some spot still rough and unsanded, and found none. the books and the collections lined the walls, the fans whirred softly in the ceilings, the filters beneath the open windows hummed as they sucked the pollen and particulate out of the rooms -- alan's retail experience had convinced him long ago of the selling power of fresh air and street sounds, so he refused to keep the windows closed, despite the fantastic volume of city dust that blew in. the house was perfect. the ergonomic marvel of a chair that ups had dropped off the previous day was tucked under the wooden sideboard he'd set up as a desk in the second-floor den. his brand-new computer sat centered on the desk, a top-of-the-line laptop with a wireless card and a screen big enough to qualify as a home theater in some circles. tomorrow, he'd start the story. # alan rang the next-door house's doorbell at eight a.m. he had a bag of coffees from the greek diner. five coffees, one for each bicycle locked to the wooden railing on the sagging porch plus one for him. he waited five minutes, then rang the bell again, holding it down, listening for the sound of footsteps over the muffled jangling of the buzzer. it took two minutes more, he estimated, but he didn't mind. it was a beautiful summer day, soft and moist and green, and he could already smell the fish market over the mellow brown vapors of the strong coffee. a young woman in long johns and a baggy tartan t-shirt opened the door. she was excitingly plump, round and a little jiggly, the kind of woman alan had always gone for. of course, she was all of twenty-two, and so was certainly not an appropriate romantic interest for him, but she was fun to look at as she ungummed her eyes and worked the sleep out of her voice. "yes?" she said through the locked screen door. her voice brooked no nonsense, which alan also liked. he'd hire her in a second, if he were still running a shop. he liked to hire sharp kids like her, get to know them, try to winkle out their motives and emotions through observation. "good morning!" alan said. "i'm alan, and i just moved in next door. i've brought coffee!" he hefted his sack in her direction. "good morning, alan," she said. "thanks and all, but --" "oh, no need to thank me! just being neighborly. i brought five -- one for each of you and one for me." "well, that's awfully nice of you --" "nothing at all. nice morning, huh? i saw a robin just there, on that tree in the park, not an hour ago. fantastic." "great." she unlatched the screen door and opened it, reaching for the sack. alan stepped into the foyer and handed it to her. "there's cream and sugar in there," he said. "lots -- don't know how you folks take it, so i just figured better sure than miserable, better to err on the side of caution. wow, look at this, your place has a completely different layout from mine. i think they were built at the same time, i mean, they look a lot alike. i don't really know much about architecture, but they really do seem the same, don't they, from the outside? but look at this! in my place, i've got a long corridor before you get to the living room, but your place is all open. i wonder if it was built that way, or if someone did that later. do you know?" "no," she said, hefting the sack. "well, i'll just have a seat while you get your roommates up, all right? then we can all have a nice cup of coffee and a chat and get to know each other." she dithered for a moment, then stepped back toward the kitchen and the stairwell. alan nodded and took a little tour of the living room. there was a very nice media totem, endless shelves of dvds and videos, including a good selection of chinese kung-fu vcds and black and white comedies. there was a stack of guitar magazines on the battered coffee table, and a cozy sofa with an afghan folded neatly on one arm. good kids, he could tell that just by looking at their possessions. not very security-conscious, though. she should have either kicked him out or dragged him around the house while she got her roomies out of bed. he thought about slipping some vcds into his pocket and returning them later, just to make the point, but decided it would be getting off on the wrong foot. she returned a moment later, wearing a fuzzy yellow robe whose belt and seams were gray with grime and wear. "they're coming down," she said. "terrific!" alan said, and planted himself on the sofa. "how about that coffee, hey?" she shook her head, smiled a little, and retrieved a coffee for him. "cream? sugar?" "nope," alan said. "the greek makes it just the way i like it. black and strong and aromatic. try some before you add anything -- it's really fantastic. one of the best things about the neighborhood, if you ask me." another young woman, rail-thin with a shaved head, baggy jeans, and a tight t-shirt that he could count her ribs through, shuffled into the living room. alan got to his feet and extended his hand. "hi there! i'm adam, your new neighbor! i brought coffees!" she shook his hand, her long fingernails sharp on his palm. "natalie," she said. the other young woman passed a coffee to her. "he brought coffees," she said. "try it before you add anything to it." she turned to alan. "i thought you said your name was alan?" "alan, adam, andy. doesn't matter, i answer to any of them. my mom had a hard time keeping our names straight." "funny," natalie said, sipping at her coffee. "two sugars, three creams," she said, holding her hand out. the other woman silently passed them to her. "i haven't gotten your name yet," alan said. "right," the other one said. "you sure haven't." a young man, all of seventeen, with straggly sideburns and a shock of pink hair sticking straight up in the air, shuffled into the room, wearing cutoffs and an unbuttoned guayabera. "adam," natalie said, "this is link, my kid brother. link, this is arthur -- he brought coffees." "hey, thanks, arthur," link said. he accepted his coffee and stood by his sister, sipping reverently. "so that leaves one more," alan said. "and then we can get started." link snorted. "not likely. krishna doesn't get out of bed before noon." "krishna?" alan said. "my boyfriend," the nameless woman said. "he was up late." "more coffee for the rest of us, i suppose," alan said. "let's all sit and get to know one another, then, shall we?" they sat. alan slurped down the rest of his coffee, then gestured at the sack. the nameless woman passed it to him and he got the last one, and set to drinking. "i'm andreas, your new next-door neighbor. i've just finished renovating, and i moved in last night. i'm really looking forward to spending time in the neighborhood -- i work from home, so i'll be around a bunch. feel free to drop by if you need to borrow a cup of sugar or anything." "that's so nice of you," natalie said. "i'm sure we'll get along fine!" "thanks, natalie. are you a student?" "yup," she said. she fished in the voluminous pockets of her jeans, tugging them lower on her knobby hips, and came up with a pack of cigarettes. she offered one to her brother -- who took it -- and one to alan, who declined, then lit up. "studying fashion design at ocad. i'm in my last year, so it's all practicum from now on." "fashion! how interesting," alan said. "i used to run a little vintage clothes shop in the beaches, called tropicál." "oh, i *loved* that shop," she said. "you had the *best* stuff! i used to sneak out there on the streetcar after school." yup. he didn't remember *her*, exactly, but her *type*, sure. solo girls with hardcover sketch books and vintage clothes home-tailored to a nice fit. "well, i'd be happy to introduce you to some of the people i know -- there's a vintage shop that a friend of mine runs in parkdale. he's always looking for designers to help with rehab and repros." "that would be so cool!" "now, link, what do you study?" link pulled at his smoke, ashed in the fireplace grate. "not much. i didn't get into ryerson for electrical engineering, so i'm spending a year as a bike courier, taking night classes, and reapplying for next year." "well, that'll keep you out of trouble at least," alan said. he turned to the nameless woman. "so, what do you do, *apu*?" she said to him, before he could say anything. "oh, i'm retired, mimi," he said. "mimi?" she said. "why not? it's as good a name as any." "her name is --" link started to say, but she cut him off. "mimi is as good a name as any. i'm unemployed. krishna's a bartender." "are you looking for work?" she smirked. "sure. whatcha got?" "what can you do?" "i've got three-quarters of a degree in environmental studies, one year of kinesiology, and a half-written one-act play. oh, and student debt until the year ." "a play!" he said, slapping his thighs. "you should finish it. i'm a writer, too, you know." "i thought you had a clothing shop." "i did. and a bookshop, and a collectibles shop, and an antique shop. not all at the same time, you understand. but now i'm writing. going to write a story, then i imagine i'll open another shop. but i'm more interested in *you*, mimi, and your play. why half-finished?" she shrugged and combed her hair back with her fingers. her hair was brown and thick and curly, down to her shoulders. alan adored curly hair. he'd had a clerk at the comics shop with curly hair just like hers, an earnest and bright young thing who drew her own comics in the back room on her breaks, using the receiving table as a drawing board. she'd never made much of a go of it as an artist, but she did end up publishing a popular annual anthology of underground comics that had captured the interest of the *new yorker* the year before. "i just ran out of inspiration," mimi said, tugging at her hair. "well, there you are. time to get inspired again. stop by any time and we'll talk about it, all right?" "if i get back to it, you'll be the first to know." "tremendous!" he said. "i just know it'll be fantastic. now, who plays the guitar?" "krishna," link said. "i noodle a bit, but he's really good." "he sure is," alan said. "he was in fine form last night, about three a.m.!" he chuckled pointedly. there was an awkward silence. alan slurped down his second coffee. "whoops!" he said. "i believe i need to impose on you for the use of your facilities?" "what?" natalie and link said simultaneously. "he wants the toilet," mimi said. "up the stairs, second door on the right. jiggle the handle after you flush." the bathroom was crowded with too many towels and too many toothbrushes. the sink was powdered with blusher and marked with lipstick and mascara residue. it made alan feel at home. he liked young people. liked their energy, their resentment, and their enthusiasm. didn't like their guitar-playing at three a.m.; but he'd sort that out soon enough. he washed his hands and carefully rinsed the long curly hairs from the bar before replacing it in its dish, then returned to the living room. "abel," mimi said, "sorry if the guitar kept you up last night." "no sweat," alan said. "it must be hard to find time to practice when you work nights." "exactly," natalie said. "exactly right! krishna always practices when he comes back from work. he blows off some steam so he can get to bed. we just all learned to sleep through it." "well," alan said, "to be honest, i'm hoping i won't have to learn to do that. but i think that maybe i have a solution we can both live with." "what's that?" mimi said, jutting her chin forward. "it's easy, really. i can put up a resilient channel and a baffle along that wall there, soundproofing. i'll paint it over white and you won't even notice the difference. shouldn't take me more than a week. happy to do it. thick walls make good neighbors." "we don't really have any money to pay for renovations," mimi said. alan waved his hand. "who said anything about money? i just want to solve the problem. i'd do it on my side of the wall, but i've just finished renovating." mimi shook her head. "i don't think the landlord would go for it." "you worry too much," he said. "give me your landlord's number and i'll sort it out with him, all right?" "all right!" link said. "that's terrific, albert, really!" "all right, mimi? natalie?" natalie nodded enthusiastically, her shaved head whipping up and down on her thin neck precariously. mimi glared at natalie and link. "i'll ask krishna," she said. "all right, then!" alan said. "let me measure up the wall and i'll start shopping for supplies." he produced a matte black, egg-shaped digital tape measure and started shining pinpoints of laser light on the wall, clicking the egg's buttons when he had the corners tight. the portuguese clerks at his favorite store had dissolved into hysterics when he'd proudly shown them the $ gadget, but they were consistently impressed by the exacting cad drawings of his projects that he generated with its output. natalie and link stared in fascination as he did his thing with more showmanship than was technically necessary, though mimi made a point of rolling her eyes. "don't go spending any money yet, cowboy," she said. "i've still got to talk to krishna, and *you've* still got to talk with the landlord." he fished in the breast pocket of his jean jacket and found a stub of pencil and a little steno pad, scribbled his cell phone number, and tore off the sheet. he passed the sheet, pad, and pencil to mimi, who wrote out the landlord's number and passed it back to him. "okay!" alan said. "there you go. it's been a real pleasure meeting you folks. i know we're going to get along great. i'll call your landlord right away and you call me once krishna's up, and i'll see you tomorrow at ten a.m. to start construction, god willin' and the crick don't rise." link stood and extended his hand. "nice to meet you, albert," he said. "really. thanks for the muds, too." natalie gave him a bony hug, and mimi gave him a limp handshake, and then he was out in the sunshine, head full of designs and logistics and plans. # the sun set at nine p.m. in a long summertime blaze. alan sat down on the twig-chair on his front porch, pulled up the matching twig table, and set down a wine glass and the bottle of niagara chardonnay he'd brought up from the cellar. he poured out a glass and held it up to the light, admiring the new blister he'd gotten on his pinky finger while hauling two-by-fours and gyprock from his truck to his neighbors' front room. kids rode by on bikes and punks rode by on skateboards. couples wandered through the park across the street, their murmurous conversations clear on the whispering breeze that rattled the leaves. he hadn't gotten any writing done, but that was all right. he had plenty of time, and once the soundwall was in, he'd be able to get a good night's sleep and really focus down on the story. a chinese girl and a white boy walked down the sidewalk, talking intensely. they were all of six, and the boy had a russian accent. the market's diversity always excited alan. the boy looked a little like alan's brother doug (dan, david, dearborne) had looked when he was that age. doug was the one he'd helped murder. all the brothers had helped with the murder, even charlie (clem, carlos, cory), the island, who'd opened a great fissure down his main fault line and closed it up over doug's corpse, ensuring that their parents would be none the wiser. doug was a stubborn son-of-a-bitch, though, and his corpse had tunneled up over the next six years, built a raft from the bamboo and vines that grew in proliferation on carlos's west coast. he sailed the raft through treacherous seas for a year and a day, beached it on their father's gentle slope, and presented himself to their mother. by that time, the corpse had decayed and frayed and worn away, so that he was little more than a torso and stumps, his tongue withered and stiff, but he pled his case to their mother, and she was so upset that her load overbalanced and they had to restart her. their father was so angry that he quaked and caved in billy (bob, brad, benny)'s room, crushing all his tools and all his trophies. but a lot of time had gone by and the brothers weren't kids anymore. alan was nineteen, ready to move to toronto and start scouting for real estate. only doug still looked like a little boy, albeit a stumpy and desiccated one. he hollered and stamped until his fingerbones rattled on the floor and his tongue flew across the room and cracked on the wall. when his anger was spent, he crawled atop their mother and let her rock him into a long, long slumber. alan had left his father and his family the next morning, carrying a rucksack heavy with gold from under the mountain and walked down to the town, taking the same trail he'd walked every school day since he was five. he waved to the people that drove past him on the highway as he waited at the bus stop. he was the first son to leave home under his own power, and he'd been full of butterflies, but he had a half-dozen good books that he'd checked out of the kapuskasing branch library to keep him occupied on the -hour journey, and before he knew it, the bus was pulling off the gardiner expressway by the skydome and into the midnight streets of toronto, where the buildings stretched to the sky, where the blinking lights of the yonge street sleaze-strip receded into the distance like a landing strip for a horny ufo. his liquid cash was tight, so he spent that night in the rex hotel, in the worst room in the house, right over the cymbal tree that the jazz-drummer below hammered on until nearly two a.m.. the bed was small and hard and smelled of bleach and must, the washbasin gurgled mysteriously and spat out moist sewage odors, and he'd read all his books, so he sat in the window and watched the drunks and the hipsters stagger down queen street and inhaled the smoky air and before he knew it, he'd nodded off in the chair with his heavy coat around him like a blanket. the chinese girl abruptly thumped her fist into the russian boy's ear. he clutched his head and howled, tears streaming down his face, while the chinese girl ran off. alan shook his head, got up off his chair, went inside for a cold washcloth and an ice pack, and came back out. the russian boy's face was screwed up and blotchy and streaked with tears, and it made him look even more like doug, who'd always been a crybaby. alan couldn't understand him, but he took a guess and knelt at his side and wiped the boy's face, then put the ice pack in his little hand and pressed it to the side of his little head. "come on," he said, taking the boy's other hand. "where do your parents live? i'll take you home." # alan met krishna the next morning at ten a.m., as alan was running a table saw on the neighbors' front lawn, sawing studs up to fit the second wall. krishna came out of the house in a dirty dressing gown, his short hair matted with gel from the night before. he was tall and fit and muscular, his brown calves flashing through the vent of his housecoat. he was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and clutching a can of coke. alan shut down the saw and shifted his goggles up to his forehead. "good morning," he said. "i'd stay on the porch if i were you, or maybe put on some shoes. there're lots of nails and splinters around." krishna, about to step off the porch, stepped back. "you must be alvin," he said. "yup," alan said, going up the stairs, sticking out his hand. "and you must be krishna. you're pretty good with a guitar, you know that?" krishna shook briefly, then snatched his hand back and rubbed at his stubble. "i know. you're pretty fucking loud with a table saw." alan looked sheepish. "sorry about that. i wanted to get the heavy work done before it got too hot. hope i'm not disturbing you too much -- today's the only sawing day. i'll be hammering for the next day or two, then it's all wet work -- the loudest tool i'll be using is sandpaper. won't take more than four days, tops, anyway, and we'll be in good shape." krishna gave him a long, considering look. "what are you, anyway?" "i'm a writer -- for now. used to have a few shops." krishna blew a plume of smoke off into the distance. "that's not what i mean. what *are* you, adam? alan? andrew? i've met people like you before. there's something not right about you." alan didn't know what to say to that. this was bound to come up someday. "where are you from?" "up north. near kapuskasing," he said. "a little town." "i don't believe you," krishna said. "are you an alien? a fairy? what?" alan shook his head. "just about what i seem, i'm afraid. just a guy." "just about, huh?" he said. "just about." "there's a lot of wiggle room in *just about*, arthur. it's a free country, but just the same, i don't think i like you very much. far as i'm concerned, you could get lost and never come back." "sorry you feel that way, krishna. i hope i'll grow on you as time goes by." "i hope that you won't have the chance to," krishna said, flicking the dog end of his cigarette toward the sidewalk. # alan didn't like or understand krishna, but that was okay. he understood the others just fine, more or less. natalie had taken to helping him out after her classes, mudding and taping the drywall, then sanding it down, priming, and painting it. her brother link came home from work sweaty and grimy with road dust, but he always grabbed a beer for natalie and alan after his shower, and they'd sit on the porch and kibbitz. mimi was less hospitable. she sulked in her room while alan worked on the soundwall, coming downstairs only to fetch her breakfast and coldly ignoring him then, despite his cheerful greetings. alan had to force himself not to stare after her as she walked into the kitchen, carrying yesterday's dishes down from her room; then out again, with a sandwich on a fresh plate. her curly hair bounced as she stomped back and forth, her soft, round buttocks flexing under her long-johns. on the night that alan and natalie put the first coat of paint on the wall, mimi came down in a little baby-doll dress, thigh-high striped tights, and chunky shoes, her face painted with swaths of glitter. "you look wonderful, baby," natalie told her as she emerged onto the porch. "going out?" "going to the club," she said. "dj none of your fucking business is spinning and krishna's going to get me in for free." "dance music," link said disgustedly. then, to alan, "you know this stuff? it's not playing music, it's playing *records*. snore." "sounds interesting," alan said. "do you have any of it i could listen to? a cd or some mp s?" "oh, *that's* not how you listen to this stuff," natalie said. "you have to go to a club and *dance*." "really?" alan said. "do i have to take ecstasy, or is that optional?" "it's mandatory," mimi said, the first words she'd spoken to him all week. "great fistfuls of e, and then you have to consume two pounds of candy necklaces at an after-hours orgy." "not really," natalie said, *sotto voce*. "but you *do* have to dance. you should go with, uh, mimi, to the club. dj none of your fucking business is *amazing*." "i don't think mimi wants company," alan said. "what makes you say that?" mimi said, making a dare of it with hipshot body language. "get changed and we'll go together. you'll have to pay to get in, though." link and natalie exchanged a raised eyebrow, but alan was already headed for his place, fumbling for his keys. he bounded up the stairs, swiped a washcloth over his face, threw on a pair of old cargo pants and a faded steel pole bathtub t-shirt he'd bought from a head-shop one day because he liked the words' incongruity, though he'd never heard the band, added a faded jean jacket and a pair of high-tech sneakers, grabbed his phone, and bounded back down the stairs. he was convinced that mimi would be long gone by the time he got back out front, but she was still there, the stripes in her stockings glowing in the slanting light. "retro chic," she said, and laughed nastily. natalie gave him a thumbs up and a smile that alan uncharitably took for a simper, and felt guilty about it immediately afterward. he returned the thumbs up and then took off after mimi, who'd already started down augusta, headed for queen street. "what's the cover charge?" he said, once he'd caught up. "twenty bucks," she said. "it's an all-ages show, so they won't be selling a lot of booze, so there's a high cover." "how's the play coming?" "fuck off about the play, okay?" she said, and spat on the sidewalk. "all right, then," he said. "i'm going to start writing my story tomorrow," he said. "your story, huh?" "yup." "what's that for?" "what do you mean?" he asked playfully. "why are you writing a story?" "well, i have to! i've completely redone the house, built that soundwall -- it'd be a shame not to write the story now." "you're writing a story about your house?" "no, *in* my house. i haven't decided what the story's about yet. that'll be job one tomorrow." "you did all that work to have a place to write? man, i thought *i* was into procrastination." he chuckled self-deprecatingly. "i guess you could look at it that way. i just wanted to have a nice, creative environment to work in. the story's important to me, is all." "what are you going to do with it once you're done? there aren't a whole lot of places that publish short stories these days, you know." "oh, i know it! i'd write a novel if i had the patience. but this isn't for publication -- yet. it's going into a drawer to be published after i die." "*what*?" "like emily dickinson. wrote thousands of poems, stuck 'em in a drawer, dropped dead. someone else published 'em and she made it into the canon. i'm going to do the same." "that's nuts -- are you dying?" "nope. but i don't want to put this off until i am. could get hit by a bus, you know." "you're a goddamned psycho. krishna was right." "what does krishna have against me?" "i think we both know what that's about," she said. "no, really, what did i ever do to him?" now they were on queen street, walking east in the early evening crowd, surrounded by summertime hipsters and wafting, appetizing smells from the bistros and jamaican roti shops. she stopped abruptly and grabbed his shoulders and gave him a hard shake. "you're full of shit, ad-man. i know it and you know it." "i really don't know what you're talking about, honestly!" "fine, let's do this." she clamped her hand on his forearm and dragged him down a side street and turned down an alley. she stepped into a doorway and started unbuttoning her alice-blue babydoll dress. alan looked away, embarrassed, glad of the dark hiding his blush. once the dress was unbuttoned to her waist, she reached around behind her and unhooked her white underwire bra, which sagged forward under the weight of her heavy breasts. she turned around, treating him to a glimpse of the full curve of her breast under her arm, and shrugged the dress down around her waist. she had two stubby, leathery wings growing out of the middle of her back, just above the shoulder blades. they sat flush against her back, and as alan watched, they unfolded and flexed, flapped a few times, and settled back into their position, nested among the soft roll of flesh that descended from her neck. involuntarily, he peered forward, examining the wings, which were covered in fine downy brown hairs, and their bases, roped with muscle and surrounded by a mess of ugly scars. "you...*sewed*...these on?" alan said, aghast. she turned around, her eyes bright with tears. her breasts swung free of her unhooked bra. "no, you fucking idiot. i sawed them off. four times a year. they just grow back. if i don't cut them, they grow down to my ankles." # mimi was curiously and incomprehensibly affectionate after she had buttoned up her dress and resumed walking toward the strip of clubs along richmond street. she put her hand on his forearm and murmured funny commentary about the outlandishly attired club kids in their plastic cowboy hats, sailor moon outfits, and plastic tuxedoes. she plucked a cigarette from his lips, dragged on it, and put it back into his mouth, still damp with her saliva, an act that sent a shiver down alan's neck and made the hair on the backs of his hands stand up. she seemed to think that the wings were self-explanatory and needed no further discussion, and alan was content to let them stay in his mind's eye, bat-shaped, powerful, restless, surrounded by their gridwork of angry scars. once they got to the club, shasta disaster, a renovated brick bank with robotic halogen spots that swept the sidewalk out front with a throbbing penis logomark, she let go of his arm and her body stiffened. she said something in the doorman's ear, and he let her pass. when alan tried to follow her, the bouncer stopped him with a meaty hand on his chest. "can i help you sir," he said flatly. he was basically a block of fat and muscle with a head on top, arms as thick as alan's thighs barely contained in a silver button-down short-sleeve shirt that bound at his armpits. "do i pay the cover to you?" alan asked, reaching for his wallet. "no, you don't get to pay a cover. you're not coming in." "but i'm with her," alan said, gesturing in the direction mimi had gone. "i'm krishna's and her neighbor." "she didn't mention it," the bouncer said. he was smirking now. "look," alan said. "i haven't been to a club in twenty years. do you guys still take bribes?" the bouncer rolled his eyes. "some might. i don't. why don't you head home, sir." "that's it, huh?" alan said. "nothing i can say or do?" "don't be a smart guy," the bouncer said. "good night, then," alan said, and turned on his heel. he walked back up to queen street, which was ablaze with tv lights from the open studio out front of the chum-city building. hordes of teenagers in tiny, outrageous outfits milled back and forth from the coffee shops to the studio window, where some band he'd never heard of was performing, generally ambling southward to the clubs. alan bought himself a coffee with a sixteen-syllable latinate trade name ("moch-a-latt-a-meraican-a-spress-a-chino," he liked to call them) at the second cup and hailed a taxi. he felt only the shortest moment of anger at mimi, but it quickly cooled and then warmed again, replaced by bemusement. decrypting the mystical deeds of young people had been his hobby and avocation since he hired his first cranky-but-bright sixteen-year-old. mimi had played him, he knew that, deliberately set him up to be humiliated. but she'd also wanted a moment alone with him, an opportunity to confront him with her wings -- wings that were taking on an air of the erotic now in his imagination, much to his chagrin. he imagined that they were soft and pliable as lips but with spongy cartilage beneath that gave way like livid nipple flesh. the hair must be silky, soft, and slippery as a pubic thatch oiled with sweat and juices. dear oh dear, he was really getting himself worked into a lather, imagining the wings drooping to the ground, unfolding powerfully in his living room, encircling him, enveloping him as his lips enveloped the tendons on her neck, as her vagina enveloped him... whew! the taxi drove right past his place and that gave alan a much-needed distraction, directing the cabbie through the maze of kensington market's one-way streets back around to his front door. he tipped the cabbie a couple of bucks over his customary ten percent and bummed a cigarette off him, realizing that mimi had asked him for a butt but never returned the pack. he puffed and shook his head and stared up the street at the distant lights of college street, then turned back to his porch. "hello, albert," two voices said in unison, speaking from the shadows on his porch. "jesus," he said, and hit the remote on his keyring that switched on the porch light. it was his brother edward, the eldest of the nesting dolls, the bark of their trinity, coarse and tough and hollow. he was even fatter than he'd been as a little boy, fat enough that his arms and legs appeared vestigial and unjointed. he struggled, panting, to his tiny feet -- feet like undersized exclamation points beneath the tapered oh of his body. his face, though doughy, had not gone to undefined softness. rather, every feature had acquired its own rolls of fat, rolls that warred with one another to define his appearance -- nose and cheekbones and brow and lips all grotesque and inflated and blubbery. "eugene," alan said. "it's been a very long time." edward cocked his head. "it has, indeed, big brother. i've got bad news." "what?" edward leaned to the left, the top half of his body tipping over completely, splitting at his narrow leather belt, so that his trunk, neck, and head hung upside down beside his short, cylindrical legs and tiny feet. inside of him was frederick, the perennial middle child. frederick planted his palms on the dry, smooth edges of his older brother's waist and levered himself up, stepping out of ed's legs with the unconscious ease of a lifetime's practice. "it's good to see you, andy," he said. he was pale and wore his habitual owlish expression of surprise at seeing the world without looking through his older brother's eyes. "it's nice to see you, too, frederick," alan said. he'd always gotten along with frederick, always liked his ability to play peacemaker and to lend a listening ear. frederick helped edward upright, methodically circumnavigating his huge belly, retucking his grimy white shirt. then he hitched up his sweatshirt over the hairy pale expanse of his own belly and tipped to one side. alan had been expecting to see gregory, the core, but instead, there was nothing inside frederick. the gregory-shaped void was empty. frederick righted himself and hitched up his belt. "we think he's dead," edward said, his rubbery features distorted into a greek tragedy mask. "we think that doug killed him." he pinwheeled his round arms and then clapped his hands to his face, sobbing. frederick put a hand on his arm. he, too, was crying. # once upon a time, alan's mother gave birth to three sons in three months. birthing sons was hardly extraordinary -- before these three came along, she'd already had four others. but the interval, well, that was unusual. as the eldest, alan was the first to recognize the early signs of her pregnancy. the laundry loads of diapers and play clothes he fed into her belly unbalanced more often, and her spin cycle became almost lackadaisical, so the garments had to hang on the line for days before they stiffened and dried completely. alan liked to sit with his back against his mother's hard enamel side while she rocked and gurgled and churned. it comforted him. the details of her conception were always mysterious to alan. he'd been walking down into town to attend day school for five years, and he'd learned all about the birds and the bees, and he thought that maybe his father -- the mountain -- impregnated his mother by means of some strange pollen carried on the gusts of winds from his deep and gloomy caves. there was a gnome, too, who made sure that the long hose that led from alan's mother's back to the spring pool in his father's belly remained clear and unfouled, and sometimes alan wondered if the gnome dove for his father's seed and fed it up his mother's intake. alan's life was full of mysteries, and he'd long since learned to keep his mouth shut about his home life when he was at school. he attended all three births, along with the smaller kids -- bill and donald (charlie, the island, was still small enough to float in the middle of their father's heart-pool) -- waiting on tenterhooks for his mother's painful off-balance spin cycle to spend itself before reverently opening the round glass door and removing the infant within. edward was fat, even for a baby. he looked like an elongated soccer ball with a smaller ball on top. he cried healthily, though, and gave hearty suck to their mother's exhaust valve once alan had cleaned the soap suds and fabric softener residue from his little body. his father gusted proud, warm, blustery winds over them and their little domestic scene. alan noticed that little edward, for all his girth, was very light, and wondered if the baby was full of helium or some other airy substance. certainly he hardly appeared to be full of *baby*, since everything he ate and drank passed through him in a matter of seconds, hardly digested at all. alan had to go into town twice to buy new twelve-pound boxes of clean white shop rags to clean up the slime trail the baby left behind him. drew, at three, seemed to take a perverse delight in the scummy water, spreading it around the cave as much as possible. the grove in front of the cave mouth was booby trapped with clothesline upon clothesline, all hung with diapers and rags drying out in the early spring sunlight. thirty days later, alan came home from school to find the younger kids surrounding his mother as she rocked from side to side, actually popping free of the grooves her small metal feet had worn in the cave floor over the years. two babies in thirty days! such a thing was unheard of in their father's cave. edward, normally a sweet-tempered baby, howled long screams that resonated through alan's milk teeth and made his testicles shrivel up into hard stones. alan knew his mother liked to be left alone when she was in labor, but he couldn't just stand there and watch her shake and shiver. he went to her and pressed his palms to her top, tried to soothe and restrain her. bill, the second eldest and still only four years old, followed suit. edward's screams grew even louder, loud and hoarse and utterly terrified, echoing off their father's walls and back to them. soon alan was sobbing, too, biting his lip to keep the sounds inside, and so were the other children. dillon wrinkled his brow and screamed a high-pitched wail that could have cut glass. alan's mother rocked harder, and her exhaust hose dislodged itself. a high-pressure jet of cold, soapy water spurted from her back parts, painting the cave wall with suds. edward crawled into the puddle it formed and scooped small handsful of the liquid into his mouth between howls. and then, it stopped. his mother stopped rocking, stopped shaking. the stream trailed off into a trickle. alan stopped crying, and soon the smaller kids followed suit, even edward. the echoes continued for a moment, and then they, too, stopped. the silence was as startling -- and nearly as unbearable -- as the cacophony had been. with a trembling hand, alan opened his mother's door and extracted little frederick. the baby was small and cyanotic blue. alan tipped the baby over and shook him gently, and the baby vomited up a fantastic quantity of wash water, a prodigious stream that soaked the front of alan's school trousers and his worn brown loafers. finally it ended, and the baby let out a healthy yowl. alan shifted the infant to one arm and gingerly reconnected the exhaust hose and set the baby down alongside of its end. the baby wouldn't suck, though. across the cave, from his soggy seat in the puddle of waste water, edward watched the new baby with curious eyes. he crawled across the floor and nuzzled his brother with his high forehead. frederick squirmed and fussed, and edward shoved him to one side and sucked. his little diaper dripped as the liquid passed directly through him. alan patiently picked dripping edward up and put him over one shoulder, and gave frederick the tube to suck. frederick gummed at the hose's end, then fussed some more, whimpering. edward squirmed in his arms, nearly plummeting to the hard stone floor. "billy," alan said to the solemn little boy, who nodded. "can you take care of edward for a little while? i need to clean up." billy nodded again and held out his pudgy arms. alan grabbed some clean shop rags and briskly wiped frederick down, then laid another across billy's shoulder and set edward down. the baby promptly set to snoring. danny started screaming again, with no provocation, and alan took two swift steps to bridge the distance between them and smacked the child hard enough to stun him silent. alan grabbed a mop and bucket and sloshed the puddles into the drainage groove where his mother's waste water usually ran, out the cave mouth and into a stand of choking mountain-grass that fed greedily and thrived riotous in the phosphates from the detergent. frederick did not eat for thirty days, and during that time he grew so thin that he appeared to shrivel like a raisin, going hard and folded in upon himself. alan spent hours patiently spooning sudsy water into his little pink mouth, but the baby wouldn't swallow, just spat it out and whimpered and fussed. edward liked to twine around alan's feet like a cat as he joggled and spooned and fretted over frederick. it was all alan could do not to go completely mad, but he held it together, though his grades slipped. his mother vibrated nervously, and his father's winds grew so unruly that two of the golems came around to the cave to make their slow, peevish complaints. alan shoved a baby into each of their arms and seriously lost his shit upon them, screaming himself hoarse at them while hanging more diapers, more rags, more clothes on the line, tossing his unfinished homework in their faces. but on the thirtieth day, his mother went into labor again -- a labor so frenzied that it dislodged a stalactite and sent it crashing and chundering to the cave floor in a fractious shivering of flinders. alan took a chip in the neck and it opened up a small cut that nevertheless bled copiously and ruined, *ruined* his favorite t-shirt, with snoopy sitting atop his doghouse in an aviator's helmet, firing an imaginary machine gun at the cursed red baron. that was nearly the final straw for alan, but he held fast and waited for the labor to pass and finally unlatched the door and extracted little george, a peanut of a child, a lima-bean infant, curled and fetal and eerily quiet. he set the little half-baby down by the exhaust hose, where he'd put shriveled frederick in a hopeless hope that the baby would suck, would ingest, finally. and ingest frederick did. his dry and desiccated jaw swung open like a snake's, unhinged and spread wide, and he *swallowed* little george, ate him up in three convulsive swallows, the new baby making frederick's belly swell like a balloon. alan swallowed panic, seized frederick by the heels, and shook him upside down. "spit him out," alan cried, "spat him free!" but frederick kept his lips stubbornly together, and alan tired of the terrible business and set the boy with the newest brother within down on a pile of hay he'd brought in to soak up some of edward's continuous excretions. alan put his hands over his face and sobbed, because he'd failed his responsibilities as eldest of their family and there was no one he could tell his woes to. the sound of baby giggles stopped his crying. edward had belly-crawled to frederick's side and he was eating *him*, jaw unhinged and gorge working. he was up to frederick's little bottom, dehydrated to a leathery baby-jerky, and then he was past, swallowing the arms and the chin and the *head*, the giggling, smiling head, the laughing head that had done nothing but whine and fuss since alan had cleared it of its volume of detergenty water, fresh from their mother's belly. and then frederick was gone. horrified, alan rushed over and picked up edward -- now as heavy as a cannonball -- and pried his mouth open, staring down his gullet, staring down into *another mouth*, frederick's mouth, which gaped open, revealing a *third* mouth, george's. the smallest mouth twisted and opened, then shut. edward squirmed furiously and alan nearly fumbled him. he set the baby down in the straw and watched him crawl across to their mother, where he sucked hungrily. automatically, alan gathered up an armload of rags and made ready to wipe up the stream that edward would soon be ejecting. but no stream came. the baby fed and fed, and let out a deep burp in three-part harmony, spat up a little, and drank some more. somehow, frederick and george were in there feeding, too. alan waited patiently for edward to finish feeding, then put him over his shoulder and joggled him until he burped up, then bedded him down in his little rough-hewn crib -- the crib that the golems had carved for alan when he was born -- cleaned the cave, and cried again, leaned up against their mother. # frederick huddled in on himself, half behind edward on the porch, habitually phobic of open spaces. alan took his hand and then embraced him. he smelled of edward's clammy guts and of sweat. "are you two hungry?" alan asked. edward grimaced. "of course we're hungry, but without george there's nothing we can do about it, is there?" alan shook his head. "how long has he been gone?" "three weeks," edward whispered. "i'm so hungry, alan." "how did it happen?" frederick wobbled on his feet, then leaned heavily on edward. "i need to sit down," he said. alan fumbled for his keys and let them into the house, where they settled into the corners of his old overstuffed horsehide sofa. he dialed up the wall sconces to a dim, homey lighting, solicitous of frederick's sensitive eyes. he took an apollo jim beam decanter full of stunning irish whiskey off the sideboard and poured himself a finger of it, not offering any to his brothers. "now, how did it happen?" "he wanted to speak to dad," frederick said. "he climbed out of me and wandered down through the tunnels into the spring pool. the goblin told us that he took off his clothes and waded in and started whispering." like most of the boys, george had believed that their father was most aware in his very middle, where he could direct the echoes of the water's rippling, shape them into words and phrases in the hollow of the great cavern. "so the goblin saw it happen?" "no," frederick said, and edward began to cry again. "no. george asked him for some privacy, and so he went a little way up the tunnel. he waited and waited, but george didn't come back. he called out, but george didn't answer. when he went to look for him, he was gone. his clothes were gone. all that he could find was this." he scrabbled to fit his chubby hand into his jacket's pocket, then fished out a little black pebble. alan took it and saw that it wasn't a pebble, it was a rotted-out and dried-up fingertip, pierced with unbent paperclip wire. "it's dave's, isn't it?" edward said. "i think so," alan said. dave used to spend hours wiring his dropped-off parts back onto his body, gluing his teeth back into his head. "jesus." "we're going to die, aren't we?" frederick said. "we're going to starve to death." edward held his pudgy hands one on top of the other in his lap and began to rock back and forth. "we'll be okay," he lied. "did anyone see dave?" alan asked. "no," frederick said. "we asked the golems, we asked dad, we asked the goblin, but no one saw him. no one's seen him for years." alan thought for a moment about how to ask his next question. "did you look in the pool? on the bottom?" "*he's not there!*" edward said. "we looked there. we looked all around dad. we looked in town. alan, they're both gone." alan felt a sear of acid jet up esophagus. "i don't know what to do," he said. "i don't know where to look. frederick, can't you, i don't know, *stuff* yourself with something? so you can eat?" "we tried," edward said. "we tried rags and sawdust and clay and bread and they didn't work. i thought that maybe we could get a *child* and put him inside, maybe, but god, albert, i don't want to do that, it's the kind of thing dan would do." alan stared at the softly glowing wood floors, reflecting highlights from the soft lighting. he rubbed his stocking toes over the waxy finish and felt its shine. "don't do that, okay?" he said. "i'll think of something. let me sleep on it. do you want to sleep here? i can make up the sofa." "thanks, big brother," edward said. "thanks." # alan walked past his study, past the tableau of laptop and desk and chair, felt the pull of the story, and kept going, pulling his housecoat tighter around himself. the summer morning was already hotting up, and the air in the house had a sticky, dewy feel. he found edward sitting on the sofa, with the sheets and pillowcases folded neatly next to him. "i set out a couple of towels for you in the second-floor bathroom and found an extra toothbrush," alan said. "if you want them." "thanks," edward said, echoing in his empty chest. the thick rolls of his face were contorted into a caricature of sorrow. "where's frederick?" alan asked. "gone!" edward said, and broke into spasms of sobbing. "he's gone he's gone he's gone, i woke up and he was gone." alan shifted the folded linens to the floor and sat next to edward. "what happened?" "you *know* what happened, alan," edward said. "you know as well as i do! dave took him in the night. he followed us here and he came in the night and stole him away." "you don't know that," alan said, softly stroking edward's greasy fringe of hair. "he could have wandered out for a walk or something." "of course i know it!" edward yelled, his voice booming in the hollow of his great chest. "look!" he handed alan a small, desiccated lump, like a black bean pierced with a paperclip wire. "you showed me this yesterday --" alan said. "it's from a *different finger*!" edward said, and he buried his face in alan's shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. "have you looked for him?" alan asked. "i've been waiting for you to get up. i don't want to go out alone." "we'll look together," alan said. he got a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, shoved his feet into birkenstocks, and led edward out the door. the previous night's humidity had thickened to a gray cloudy soup, swift thunderheads coming in from all sides. the foot traffic was reduced to sparse, fast-moving umbrellas, people rushing for shelter before the deluge. ozone crackled in the air and thunder roiled seemingly up from the ground, deep and sickening. they started with a circuit of the house, looking for footprints, body parts. he found a shred of torn gray thrift-store shirt, caught on a rose bramble near the front of his walk. it smelled of the homey warmth of edward's innards, and had a few of frederick's short, curly hairs stuck to it. alan showed it to edward, then folded it into the change pocket of his wallet. they walked the length of the sidewalk, crossed wales, and began to slowly cross the little park. edward circumnavigated the little cement wading pool, tracing the political runes left behind by the market's cheerful anarchist taggers, painfully bent almost double at his enormous waist. "what are we looking for, alan?" "footprints. finger bones. clues." edward puffed back to the bench and sat down, tears streaming down his face. "i'm so *hungry*," he said. alan, crawling around the torn sod left when someone had dragged one of the picnic tables, contained his frustration. "if we can find daniel, we can get frederick and george back, okay?" "all right," edward snuffled. the next time alan looked up, edward had taken off his scuffed shoes and grimy-gray socks, rolled up the cuffs of his tent-sized pants, and was wading through the little pool, piggy eyes cast downward. "good idea," alan called, and turned to the sandbox. a moment later, there was a booming yelp, almost lost in the roll of thunder, and when alan turned about, edward was gone. alan kicked off his birks and splashed up to the hems of his shorts in the wading pool. in the pool's center, the round fountainhead was a twisted wreck, the concrete crumbled and the dry steel and brass fixtures contorted and ruptured. they had long streaks of abraded skin, torn shirt, and blood on them, leading down into the guts of the fountain. cautiously, alan leaned over, looking well down the dark tunnel that had been scraped out of the concrete centerpiece. the thin gray light showed him the rough walls, chipped out with some kind of sharp tool. "edward?" he called. his voice did not echo or bounce back to him. tentatively, he reached down the tunnel, bending at the waist over the rough lip of the former fountain. deep he reached and reached and reached, and as his fingertips hit loose dirt, he leaned farther in and groped blindly, digging his hands into the plug of soil that had been shoveled into the tunnel's bend a few feet below the surface. he straightened up and climbed in, sinking to the waist, and tried to kick the dirt out of the way, but it wouldn't give -- the tunnel had caved in behind the plug of earth. he clambered out, feeling the first fat drops of rain on his bare forearms and the crown of his head. *a shovel*. there was one in the little coach house in the back of his place, behind the collapsed boxes and the bicycle pump. as he ran across the street, he saw krishna, sitting on his porch, watching him with a hint of a smile. "lost another one, huh?" he said. he looked as if he'd been awake all night, now hovering on the brink of sleepiness and wiredness. a roll of thunder crashed and a sheet of rain hurtled out of the sky. alan never thought of himself as a violent person. even when he'd had to throw the occasional troublemaker out of his shops, he'd done so with an almost cordial force. now, though, he trembled and yearned to take krishna by the throat and ram his head, face first, into the column that held up his front porch, again and again, until his fingers were slick with the blood from krishna's shattered nose. alan hurried past him, his shoulders and fists clenched. krishna chuckled nastily and alan thought he knew who got the job of sawing off mimi's wings when they grew too long, and thought, too, that krishna must relish the task. "where you going?" krishna called. alan fumbled with his keyring, desperate to get in and get the keys to the coach house and to fetch the shovel before the new tunnels under the park collapsed. "you're too late, you know," krishna continued. "you might as well give up. too late, too late!" alan whirled and shrieked, a wordless, contorted war cry, a sound from his bestial guts. as his eyes swam back into focus, he saw mimi standing beside krishna, barefoot in a faded housecoat. her eyes were very wide, and as she turned away from him, he saw that her stubby wings were splayed as wide as they'd go, forming a tent in her robe that pulled it up above her knees. alan bit down and clamped his lips together and found his keys. he tracked mud over the polished floors and the ancient, threadbare persian rugs as he ran to the kitchen, snatching the coach-house keys from their hook over the sink. he ran back across the street to the little park, clutching his shovel. he jammed his head into the centerpiece and tried to see which way the tunnel had curved off when it turned, but it was too dark, the dirt too loose. he pulled himself out and took the shovel in his hands like a spear and stabbed it into the concrete bed of the wading pool, listening for a hollowness in the returning sound like a man thudding for a stud under drywall. the white noise of the rain was too high, the rolling thunder too steady. his chest heaved and his tears mingled with the rain streaking down his face as he stabbed, again and again, at the pool's bottom. his mind was scrambled and saturated, his vision clouded with the humid mist rising off his exertion-heated chest and the raindrops caught in his eyelashes. he splashed out of the wading pool and took the shovel to the sod of the park's lawn, picking an arbitrary spot and digging inefficiently and hysterically, the bent shovel tip twisting with each stroke. suddenly strong hands were on his shoulders, another set prizing the shovel from his hands. he looked up and blinked his eyes clear, looking into the face of two young asian police officers. they were bulky from the kevlar vests they wore under their rain slickers, with kind and exasperated expressions on their faces. "sir," the one holding the shovel said, "what are you doing?" alan breathed himself into a semblance of composure. "i..." he started, then trailed off. krishna was watching from his porch, grinning ferociously, holding a cordless phone. the creature that had howled at krishna before scrambled for purchase in alan's chest. alan averted his eyes from krishna's shit-eating, -calling grin. he focused on the cap of the officer in front of him, shrouded in a clear plastic shower cap to keep its crown dry. "i'm sorry," he said. "it was a -- a dog. a stray, or maybe a runaway. a little scottie dog, it jumped down the center of the fountain there and disappeared. i looked down and thought it had found a tunnel that caved in on it." the officer peered at him from under the brim of his hat, dubiousness writ plain on his young, good-looking face. "a tunnel?" alan wiped the rain from his eyes, tried to regain his composure, tried to find his charm. it wasn't to be found. instead, every time he reached for something witty and calming, he saw the streaks of blood and torn clothing, dark on the loose soil of the fountain's center, and no sooner had he dispelled those images than they were replaced with krishna, sneering, saying, "lost another one, huh?" he trembled and swallowed a sob. "i think i need to sit down," he said, as calmly as he could, and he sank slowly to his knees. the hands on his biceps let him descend. "sir, do you live nearby?" one of the cops asked, close in to his ear. he nodded into his hands, which he'd brought up to cover his face. "across the street," he said. they helped him to his feet and supported him as he tottered, weak and heaving, to his porch. krishna was gone once they got there. the cops helped him shuck his drenched shoes and socks and put him down on the overstuffed horsehide sofa. alan recovered himself with an effort of will and gave them his id. "i'm sorry, you must think i'm an absolute lunatic," he said, shivering in his wet clothes. "sir," the cop who'd taken the shovel from him said, "we see absolute lunatics every day. i think you're just a little upset. we all go a little nuts from time to time." "yeah," alan said. "yeah. a little nuts. i had a long night last night. family problems." the cops shifted their weight, showering the floor with raindrops that beaded on the finish. "are you going to be all right on your own? we can call someone if you'd like." "no," alan said, pasting on a weak smile. "no, that's all right. i'll be fine. i'm going to change into some dry clothes and clean up and, oh, i don't know, get some sleep. i think i could use some sleep." "that sounds like an excellent idea," the cop who'd taken the shovel said. he looked around at the bookcases. "you've read all of these?" he asked. "naw," alan said, falling into the rote response from his proprietorship of the bookstore. "what's the point of a bunch of books you've already read?" the joke reminded him of better times and he smiled a genuine smile. # though the stinging hot shower revived him somewhat, he kept quickening into panic at the thought of david creeping into his house in the night, stumping in on desiccated black child-legs, snaggled rictus under mummified lips. he spooked at imagined noises and thudding rain and the dry creaking of the old house as he toweled off and dressed. there was no phone in the mountain, no way to speak to his remaining brothers, the golems, his parents. he balled his fists and stood in the center of his bedroom, shaking with impotent worry. david. none of them had liked david very much. billy, the fortune-teller, had been born with a quiet wisdom, an eerie solemnity that had made him easy for the young alan to care for. carlos, the island, had crawled out of their mother's womb and pulled himself to the cave mouth and up the face of their father, lying there for ten years, accreting until he was ready to push off on his own. but daniel, daniel had been a hateful child from the day he was born. he was colicky, and his screams echoed through their father's caverns. he screamed from the moment he emerged and alan tipped him over and toweled him gently dry and he didn't stop for an entire year. alan stopped being able to tell day from night, lost track of the weeks and months. he'd developed a taste for food, real people food, that he'd buy in town at the loblaws superstore, but he couldn't leave davey alone in the cave, and he certainly couldn't carry the howling, shitting, puking, pissing, filthy baby into town with him. so they ate what the golems brought them: sweet grasses, soft berries, frozen winter fruit dug from the base of the orchards in town, blind winter fish from the streams. they drank snowmelt and ate pine cones and the baby davey cried and cried until alan couldn't remember what it was to live in a world of words and conversations and thought and reflection. no one knew what to do about davey. their father blew warm winds scented with coal dust and loam to calm him, but still davey cried. their mother rocked him on her gentlest spin cycle, but still davey cried. alan walked down the slope to carl's landmass, growing with the dust and rains and snow, and set him down on the soft grass and earth there, but still davey cried, and carlos inched farther and farther toward the st. lawrence seaway, sluggishly making his way out to the ocean and as far away from the baby as possible. after his first birthday, david started taking breaks from his screaming, learning to crawl and then totter, becoming a holy terror. if alan left his schoolbooks within reach of the boy, they'd be reduced to shreds of damp mulch in minutes. by the time he was two, his head was exactly at alan's crotch height and he'd greet his brother on his return from school by charging at full speed into alan's nuts, propelled at unlikely speed on his thin legs. at three, he took to butchering animals -- the rabbits that little bill kept in stacked hutches outside of the cave mouth went first. billy rushed home from his grade-two class, eyes crazed with precognition, and found david methodically wringing the animals' necks and then slicing them open with a bit of sharpened chert. billy had showed david how to knap flint and chert the week before, after seeing a filmstrip about it in class. he kicked the makeshift knife out of davey's hand, breaking his thumb with the toe of the hard leather shoes the golems had made for him, and left davey to bawl in the cave while billy dignified his pets' corpses, putting their entrails back inside their bodies and wrapping them in shrouds made from old diapers. alan helped him bury them, and then found davey and taped his thumb to his hand and spanked him until his arm was too tired to deal out one more wallop. alan made his way down to the living room, the floor streaked with mud and water. he went into the kitchen and filled a bucket with soapy water and gathered up an armload of rags from the rag bag. methodically, he cleaned away the mud. he turned his sopping shoes on end over the grate and dialed the thermostat higher. he made himself a bowl of granola and a cup of coffee and sat down at his old wooden kitchen table and ate mindlessly, then washed the dishes and put them in the drying rack. he'd have to go speak to krishna. # natalie answered the door in a pretty sun dress, combat boots, and a baseball hat. she eyed him warily. "i'd like to speak to krishna," alan said from under the hood of his poncho. there was an awkward silence. finally, natalie said, "he's not home." "i don't believe you," alan said. "and it's urgent, and i'm not in the mood to play around. can you get krishna for me, natalie?" "i told you," she said, not meeting his eyes, "he's not here." "that's enough," alan said in his boss voice, his more-in-anger-than-in-sorrow voice. "get him, natalie. you don't need to be in the middle of this -- it's not right for him to ask you to. get him." natalie closed the door and he heard the deadbolt turn. *is she going to fetch him, or is she locking me out?* he was on the verge of hammering the buzzer again, but he got his answer. krishna opened the door and stepped onto the dripping porch, bulling alan out with his chest. he smiled grimly at alan and made a well-go-on gesture. "what did you see?" alan said, his voice tight but under control. "saw you and that fat guy," krishna said. "saw you rooting around in the park. saw him disappear down the fountain." "he's my brother," alan said. "so what, he ain't heavy? he's fat, but i expect there's a reason for that. i've seen your kind before, adam. i don't like you, and i don't owe you any favors." he turned and reached for the screen door. "no," alan said, taking him by the wrist, squeezing harder than was necessary. "not yet. you said, 'lost another one.' what other one, krishna? what else did you see?" krishna gnawed on his neatly trimmed soul patch. "let go of me, andrew," he said, almost too softly to be heard over the rain. "tell me what you saw," alan said. "tell me, and i'll let you go." his other hand balled into a fist. "goddammit, *tell me*!" alan yelled, and twisted krishna's arm behind his back. "i called the cops," krishna said. "i called them again and they're on their way. let me go, freak show." "i don't like you, either, krishna," alan said, twisting the arm higher. he let go suddenly, then stumbled back as krishna scraped the heel of his motorcycle boot down his shin and hammered it into the top of his foot. he dropped to one knee and grabbed his foot while krishna slipped into the house and shot the lock. then he hobbled home as quickly as he could. he tried to pace off the ache in his foot, but the throbbing got worse, so he made himself a drippy ice pack and sat on the sofa in the immaculate living room and rocked back and forth, holding the ice to his bare foot. # at five, davey graduated from torturing animals to beating up on smaller children. alan took him down to the school on the day after labor day, to sign him up for kindergarten. he was wearing his stiff new blue jeans and sneakers, his knapsack stuffed with fresh binders and pencils. finding out about these things had been alan's first experience with the wide world, a kindergartner sizing up his surroundings at speed so that he could try to fit in. david was a cute kid and had the benefit of alan's experience. he had a foxy little face and shaggy blond hair, all clever smiles and awkward winks, and for all that he was still a monster. they came and got alan twenty minutes after classes started, when his new home-room teacher was still briefing them on the rules and regulations for junior high students. he was painfully aware of all the eyes on his back as he followed the office lady out of the portable and into the old school building where the kindergarten and the administration was housed. "we need to reach your parents," the office lady said, once they were alone in the empty hallways of the old building. "you can't," alan said. "they don't have a phone." "then we can drive out to see them," the office lady said. she smelled of artificial floral scent and ivory soap, like the female hygiene aisle at the drugstore. "mom's still real sick," alan said, sticking to his traditional story. "your father, then," the office lady said. he'd had variations on this conversation with every office lady at the school, and he knew he'd win it in the end. meantime, what did they want? "my dad's, you know, gone," he said. "since i was a little kid." that line always got the office ladies, "since i was a little kid," made them want to write it down for their family christmas newsletters. the office lady smiled a powdery smile and put her hand on his shoulder. "all right, alan, come with me." davey was sitting on the dusty sofa in the vice principal's office. he punched the sofa cushion rhythmically. "alan," he said when the office lady led him in. "hi, dave," alan said. "what's going on?" "they're stupid here. i hate them." he gave the sofa a particularly vicious punch. "i'll get mr davenport," the office lady said, and closed the door behind her. "what did you do?" alan asked. "she wouldn't let me play!" david said, glaring at him. "who wouldn't?" "a girl! she had the blocks and i wanted to play with them and she wouldn't let me!" "what did you hit her with?" alan asked, dreading the answer. "a block," david said, suddenly and murderously cheerful. "i hit her in the eye!" alan groaned. the door opened and the vice principal, mr. davenport, came in and sat behind his desk. he was the punishment man, the one that no one wanted to be sent in to see. "hello, alan," he said gravely. alan hadn't ever been personally called before mr. davenport, but billy got into some spot of precognitive trouble from time to time, rushing out of class to stop some disaster at home or somewhere else in the school. mr. davenport knew that alan was a straight arrow, not someone he'd ever need to personally take an interest in. he crouched down next to darren, hitching up his slacks. "you must be david," he said, ducking down low to meet davey's downcast gaze. davey punched the sofa. "i'm mr. davenport," he said, and extended a hand with a big class ring on it and a smaller wedding band. davey kicked him in the nose, and the vice principal toppled over backward, whacking his head on the sharp corner of his desk. he tumbled over onto his side and clutched his head. "mother*fucker*!" he gasped, and davey giggled maniacally. alan grabbed davey's wrist and bent his arm behind his back, shoving him across his knee. he swatted the little boy on the ass as hard as he could, three times. "don't you ever --" alan began. the vice principal sat up, still clutching his head. "that's enough!" he said, catching alan's arm. "sorry," alan said. "and david's sorry, too, right?" he glared at david. "you're a stupid mother*fucker*!" david said, and squirmed off of alan's lap. the vice principal's lips tightened. "alan," he said quietly, "take your brother into the hallway. i am going to write a note that your mother will have to sign before david comes back to school, after his two-week suspension." david glared at them each in turn. "i'm not coming back to this mother*fucker* place!" he said. he didn't. # the rain let up by afternoon, leaving a crystalline, fresh-mown air hanging over the market. andrew sat in his office by his laptop and watched the sun come out. he needed to find ed, needed to find frank, needed to find grant, but he was out of practice when it came to the ways of the mountain and its sons. whenever he tried to imagine a thing to do next, his mind spun and the worldless howling thing inside him stirred. the more he tried to remember what it was like to be a son of the mountain, the more he felt something he'd worked very hard for, his delicate normalcy, slipping away. so he put his soaked clothes in the dryer, clamped his laptop under his arm, and went out. he moped around the park and the fountain, but the stroller moms whose tots were splashing in the wading pool gave him sufficient dirty looks that he walked up to the greek's, took a table on the patio, and ordered a murderously strong cup of coffee. he opened up the screen and rotated around the little café table until the screen was in the shade and his wireless card was aligned for best reception from the yagi antenna poking out of his back window. he opened up a browser and hit mapquest, then brought up a street-detailed map of the market. he pasted it into his cad app and started to mark it up, noting all the different approaches to his house that davey might take the next time he came. the maps soothed him, made him feel like a part of the known world. augusta avenue and oxford were both out; even after midnight, when the stores were all shuttered, there was far too much foot traffic for davey to pass by unnoticed. but the alleys that mazed the back ways were ideal. some were fenced off, some were too narrow to pass, but most of them -- he'd tried to navigate them by bicycle once and found himself utterly lost. he'd had to turn around slowly until he spotted the cn tower and use it to get his bearings. he poked at the map, sipping the coffee, then ordering another from the greek's son, who hadn't yet figured out that he was a regular and so sneered at his laptop with undisguised contempt. "computers, huh?" he said. "doesn't anyone just read a book anymore?" "i used to own a bookstore," alan said, then held up a finger and moused over to his photo album and brought up the thumbnails of his old bookstore. "see?" the greek's son, thirty with a paunch and sweat-rings under the pits of his white "the greek's" t-shirt, sat down and looked at the photos. "i remember that place, on harbord street, right?" alan smiled. "yup. we lost the store when they blew up the abortion clinic next door," he said. "insurance paid out, but i wasn't ready to start over with another bookstore." the greek's son shook his head. "another coffee, right?" "right," alan said. alan went back to the map, realigning the laptop for optimal reception again. "you got a wireless card in that?" a young guy at the next table asked. he was dressed in kensington market crusty-punk chic, tatts and facial piercings, filth-gray bunchoffuckinggoofs tee, cutoffs, and sweaty high boots draped with chains. "yeah," alan said. he sighed and closed the map window. he wasn't getting anywhere, anyway. "and you get service here? where's your access point?" crusty-punk or no, he sounded as nerdy as any of the web-heads you'd find shopping for bargains on cd blanks on college street. "three blocks that way," alan said, pointing. "hanging off my house. the network name is 'walesave.'" "shit, that's you?" the kid said. "goddammit, you're clobbering our access points!" "what access point?" "access *points*. parasitenet." he indicated a peeling sticker on the lapel of his cut-down leather jacket showing a skull with crossed radio towers underneath it. "i'm trying to get a mesh-net running though all of the market, and you're hammering me. jesus, i was ready to rat you out to the radio cops at the canadian radio and television commission. dude, you've got to turn down the freaking *gain* on those things." "what's a mesh-net?" the kid moved his beer over to alan's table and sat down. "okay, so pretend that your laptop is the access point. it radiates more or less equally in all directions, depending on your antenna characteristics and leaving out the rf shadows that microwaves and stucco and cordless phones generate." he arranged the coffee cup and the beer at equal distances from the laptop, then moved them around to demonstrate the coverage area. "right, so what happens if i'm out of range, over *here* --" he put his beer back on his own table -- "and you want to reach me? well, you could just turn up the gain on your access point, either by increasing the power so that it radiates farther in all directions, or by focusing the transmissions so they travel farther in a line of sight." "right," alan said, sipping his coffee. "right. so both of those approaches suck. if you turn up the power, you radiate over everyone else's signal, so if i've got an access point *here*" -- he held his fist between their tables -- "no one can hear it because you're drowning it out. it's like you're shouting so loud that no one else can carry on a conversation." "so why don't you just use my network? i want to be able to get online anywhere in the market, but that means that anyone can, right?" the crusty-punk waved his hand dismissively. "sure, whatever. but what happens if your network gets shut down? or if you decide to start eavesdropping on other people? or if someone wants to get to the printer in her living room? it's no good." "so, what, you want me to switch to focused antennae?" "that's no good. if you used a focused signal, you're going to have to be perfectly aligned if you're going to talk back to your base, so unless you want to provide a connection to one tiny pinpoint somewhere a couple kilometers away, it won't do you any good." "there's no solution, then? i should just give up?" the crusty-punk held up his hands. "hell, no! there's just no *centralized* solution. you can't be superman, blanketing the whole world with wireless using your almighty antennaprick, but so what? that's what mesh networks are for. check it out." he arranged the beer and the laptop and the coffee cup so that they were strung out along a straight line. "okay, you're the laptop and i'm the coffee cup. we both have a radio and we want to talk to each other. "we *could* turn up the gain on our radios so that they can shout loud enough to be heard at this distance, but that would drown out this guy here." he gestured at the now-empty beer. "we *could* use a focused antenna, but if i move a little bit off the beam" -- he nudged the coffee cup to one side -- "we're dead. but there's a third solution." "we ask the beer to pass messages around?" "fucking right we do! that's the mesh part. every station on the network gets *two* radios -- one for talking in one direction, the other for relaying in the other direction. the more stations you add, the lower the power on each radio -- and the more pathways you get to carry your data." alan shook his head. "it's a fuckin' mind-blower, isn't it?" "sure," alan said. "sure. but does it work? don't all those hops between point *a* and point *b* slow down the connection?" "a little, sure. not so's you'd notice. they don't have to go that far -- the farthest any of these signals has to travel is front street." "what's at front?" "torix -- the main network interchange for the whole city! we stick an antenna out a window there and downlink it into the cage where uunet and psinet meet -- voila, instant -megabit city-wide freenet!" "where do you get the money for that?" "who said anything about money? how much do you think uunet and psi charge each other to exchange traffic with one another? who benefits when uunet and psi cross-connect? is uunet the beneficiary of psi's traffic, or vice versa? internet access only costs money at the *edge* -- and with a mesh-net, there is no edge anymore. it's penetration at the center, just like the devo song." "i'm adrian," alan said. "i'm kurt," the crusty-punk said. "buy me a beer, adrian?" "it'd be my pleasure," alan said. # kurt lived in the back of a papered-over storefront on oxford. the front two-thirds were a maze of peeling, stickered-over stamped-metal shelving units piled high with junk tech: ancient shrink-wrapped software, stacked up low-capacity hard drives, cables and tapes and removable media. alan tried to imagine making sense of it all, flowing it into the inventory, and felt something like vertigo. in a small hollow carved out of the back, kurt had arranged a cluttered desk, a scuffed twin bed and a rack of milk crates filled with t-shirts and underwear. alan picked his way delicately through the store and found himself a seat on an upturned milk crate. kurt sat on the bed and grinned expectantly. "so?" he said. "so what?" alan said. "so what is *this*! isn't it great?" "well, you sure have a lot of *stuff,* i'll give you that," alan said. "it's all dumpstered," kurt said casually. "oh, you dive?" alan said. "i used to dive." it was mostly true. alan had always been a picker, always on the lookout for bargoons, even if they were sticking out of someone's trash bin. sometimes *especially* if they were sticking out of someone's trash bin -- seeing what normal people threw away gave him a rare glimpse into their lives. kurt walked over to the nearest shelving unit and grabbed a pc mini-tower with the lid off. "but did you ever do this?" he stuck the machine under alan's nose and swung the gooseneck desk lamp over it. it was a white-box pc, generic commodity hardware, with a couple of network cards. "what's that?" "it's a junk access point! i made it out of trash! the only thing i bought were the network cards -- two wireless, one ethernet. it's running a freebsd distribution off a cd, so the os can never get corrupted. it's got lots of sweet stuff in the distro, and all you need to do is plug it in, point the antennae in opposite directions, and you're up. it does its own power management, it automagically peers with other access points if it can find 'em, and it does its own dynamic channel selection to avoid stepping on other access points." alan turned his head this way and that, making admiring noises. "you made this, huh?" "for about eighty bucks. it's my fifteenth box. eventually, i wanna have a couple hundred of these." "ambitious," alan said, handing the box back. "how do you pay for the parts you have to buy? do you have a grant?" "a grant? shit, no! i've got a bunch of street kids who come in and take digital pix of the stuff i have no use for, research them online, and post them to ebay. i split the take with them. brings in a couple grand a week, and i'm keeping about fifty street kids fed besides. i go diving three times a week out in concord and oakville and richmond hill, anywhere i can find an industrial park. if i had room, i'd recruit fifty more kids -- i'm bringing it in faster than they can sell it." "why don't you just do less diving?" "are you kidding me? it's all i can do not to go out every night! you wouldn't believe the stuff i find -- all i can think about is all the stuff i'm missing out on. some days i wish that my kids were less honest; if they ripped off some stuff, i'd have room for a lot more." alan laughed. worry for edward and frederick and george nagged at him, impotent anxiety, but this was just so fascinating. fascinating and distracting, and, if not normal, at least not nearly so strange as he could be. he imagined the city gridded up with junk equipment, radiating internet access from the lakeshore to the outer suburbs. the grandiosity took his breath away. "look," kurt said, spreading out a map of kensington market on the unmade bed. "i've got access points here, here, here, and here. another eight or ten and i'll have the whole market covered. then i'm going to head north, cover the u of t campus, and push east towards yonge street. bay street and university avenue are going to be tough -- how can i convince bankers to let me plug this by their windows?" "kurt," alan said, "i suspect that the journey to university avenue is going to be a lot slower than you expect it to be." kurt jutted his jaw out. "what's that supposed to mean?" "there's a lot of real estate between here and there. a lot of trees and high-rises, office towers and empty lots. you're going to have to knock on doors every couple hundred meters -- at best -- and convince them to let you install one of these boxes, made from garbage, and plug it in, to participate in what?" "democratic communication!" kurt said. "ah, well, my guess is that most of the people who you'll need to convince won't really care much about that. won't be able to make that abstract notion concrete." kurt mumbled into his chest. alan could see that he was fuming. "just because you don't have the vision to appreciate this --" alan held up his hand. "stop right there. i never said anything of the sort. i think that this is big and exciting and looks like a lot of fun. i think that ringing doorbells and talking people into letting me nail an access point to their walls sounds like a *lot* of fun. really, i'm not kidding. "but this is a journey, not a destination. the value you'll get out of this will be more in the doing than the having done. the having done's going to take decades, i'd guess. but the doing's going to be something." alan's smile was so broad it ached. the idea had seized him. he was drunk on it. the buzzer sounded and kurt got up to answer it. alan craned his neck to see a pair of bearded neohippies in rasta hats. "are you kurt?" one asked. "yeah, dude, i'm kurt." "marcel told us that we could make some money here? we're trying to raise bus fare to burning man? we could really use the work?" "not today, but maybe tomorrow," kurt said. "come by around lunchtime." "you sure you can't use us today?" "not today," kurt said. "i'm busy today." "all right," the other said, and they slouched away. "word of mouth," kurt said, with a jingling shrug. "kids just turn up, looking for work with the trash." "you think they'll come back tomorrow?" alan was pretty good at evaluating kids and they hadn't looked very reliable. "those two? fifty-fifty chance. tell you what, though: there's always enough kids and enough junk to go around." "but you need to make arrangements to get your access points mounted and powered. you've got to sort it out with people who own stores and houses." "you want to knock on doors?" kurt said. "i think i would," alan said. "i suspect it's a possibility. we can start with the shopkeepers, though." "i haven't had much luck with merchants," kurt said, shrugging his shoulders. his chains jingled and a whiff of armpit wafted across the claustrophobic hollow. "capitalist pigs." "i can't imagine why," alan said. # "wales avenue, huh?" kurt said. they were walking down oxford street, and alan was seeing it with fresh eyes, casting his gaze upward, looking at the lines of sight from one building to another, mentally painting in radio-frequency shadows cast by the transformers on the light poles. "just moved in on july first," alan said. "still getting settled in." "which house?" "the blue one, with the big porch, on the corner." "sure, i know it. i scored some great plumbing fixtures out of the dumpster there last winter." "you're welcome," alan said. they turned at spadina and picked their way around the tourist crowds shopping the chinese importers' sidewalk displays of bamboo parasols and hello kitty slippers, past the fogged-up windows of the dim-sum restaurants and the smell of fresh pork buns. alan bought a condensed milk and kiwi snow-cone from a sidewalk vendor and offered to treat kurt, but he declined. "you never know about those places," kurt said. "how clean is their ice, anyway? where do they wash their utensils?" "you dig around in dumpsters for a living," alan said. "aren't you immune to germs?" kurt turned at baldwin, and alan followed. "i don't eat garbage, i pick it," he said. he sounded angry. "hey, sorry," alan said. "sorry. i didn't mean to imply --" "i know you didn't," kurt said, stopping in front of a dry-goods store and spooning candied ginger into a baggie. he handed it to the age-hunched matron of the shop, who dropped it on her scale and dusted her hands on her black dress. kurt handed her a two-dollar coin and took the bag back. "i'm just touchy, okay? my last girlfriend split because she couldn't get past it. no matter how much i showered, i was never clean enough for her." "sorry," alan said again. "i heard something weird about that blue house on the corner," kurt said. "one of my kids told me this morning, he saw something last night when he was in the park." alan pulled up short, nearly colliding with a trio of cute university girls in wife-beaters pushing bundle-buggies full of newspaper-wrapped fish and bags of soft, steaming bagels. they stepped around him, lugging their groceries over the curb and back onto the sidewalk, not breaking from their discussion. "what was it?" kurt gave him a sideways look. "it's weird, okay? the kid who saw it is never all that reliable, and he likes to embellish." "okay," alan said. the crowd was pushing around them now, trying to get past. the dry-goods lady sucked her teeth in annoyance. "so this kid, he was smoking a joint in the park last night, really late, after the clubs shut down. he was alone, and he saw what he thought was a dog dragging a garbage bag down the steps of your house." "yes?" "so he went over to take a look, and he saw that it was too big to be a garbage bag, and the dog, it looked sick, it moved wrong. he took another step closer and he must have triggered a motion sensor because the porch light switched on. he says..." "what?" "he's not very reliable. he says it wasn't a dog, he said it was like a dried-out mummy or something, and it had its teeth sunk into the neck of this big, fat, naked guy, and it was dragging the fat guy out into the street. when the light came on, though, it gave the fat guy's neck a hard shake, then let go and turned on this kid, walking toward him on stumpy little feet. he says it made a kind of growling noise and lifted up its hand like it was going to slap the kid, and the kid screamed and ran off. when he got to dundas, he turned around and saw the fat guy get dragged into an alley between two of the stores on augusta." "i see," alan said. "it's stupid, i know," kurt said. natalie and link rounded the corner, carrying slices of pizza from pizzabilities, mounded high with eggplant and cauliflower and other toppings that were never intended for use in connection with pizza. they startled on seeing alan and kurt, then started to walk away. "wait," alan called. "natalie, link, wait." he smiled apologetically at kurt. "my neighbors," he said. natalie and link had stopped and turned around. alan and kurt walked to them. "natalie, link, this is kurt," he said. they shook hands all around. "i wanted to apologize," alan said. "i didn't mean to put you between krishna and me. it was very unfair." natalie smiled warily. link lit a cigarette with a great show of indifference. "it's all right," natalie said. "no, it's not," alan said. "i was distraught, but that's no excuse. we're going to be neighbors for a long time, and there's no sense in our not getting along." "really, it's okay," natalie said. "yeah, fine," link said. "three of my brothers have gone missing," alan said. "that's why i was so upset. one disappeared a couple of weeks ago, another last night, and one this morning. krishna..." he thought for a moment. "he taunted me about it. i really wanted to find out what he saw." kurt shook his head. "your brother went missing last night?" "from my house." "so what the kid saw..." alan turned to natalie. "a friend of kurt's was in the park last night. he says he saw my brother being carried off." kurt shook his head. "your brother?" "what do you mean, 'carried off'?" natalie said. she folded her slice in half to keep the toppings from spilling. "someone is stalking my brothers," alan said. "someone very strong and very cunning. three are gone that i know about. there are others, but i could be next." "stalking?" natalie said. "my family is a little strange," alan said. "i grew up in the north country, and things are different there. you've heard of blood feuds?" natalie and link exchanged a significant look. "i know it sounds ridiculous. you don't need to be involved. i just wanted to let you know why i acted so strangely last night." "we have to get back," natalie said. "nice to meet you, kurt. i hope you find your brother, andy." "brothers," alan said. "brothers," natalie said, and walked away briskly. # alan was the oldest of the brothers, and that meant that he was the one who blazed all the new trails in the family. he met a girl in the seventh grade. her name was marci, and she had just transferred in from scotland. her father was a mining engineer, and she'd led a gypsy life that put her in stark contrast to the third-generation homebodies that made up most of the rest of their class. she had red hair and blue eyes and a way of holding her face in repose that made her look cunning at all times. no one understood her accent, but there was a wiry ferocity in her movement that warned off any kid who thought about teasing her about it. alan liked to play in a marshy corner of the woods that bordered the playground after school, crawling around in the weeds, catching toads and letting them go again, spying on the crickets and the secret lives of the larvae that grubbed in the milkweed. he was hunkered down on his haunches one afternoon when marci came crunching through the tall grass. he ducked down lower, then peered out from his hiding spot as she crouched down and he heard the unmistakable patter of urine as she peed in the rushes. his jaw dropped. he'd never seen a girl pee before, had no idea what the squatting business was all about. the wet ground sucked at his sneaker and he tipped back on his ass with a yelp. marci straightened abruptly and crashed over to him, kicking him hard in the ribs when she reached him, leaving a muddy toeprint on his fall windbreaker. she wound up for another kick and he hollered something wordless and scurried back, smearing marsh mud across his jeans and jacket. "you pervert!" she said, pronouncing it yuh peervurrt! "i am not!" he said, still scooting back. "watching from the bushes!" she said. "i wasn't -- i was already here, and you -- i mean, what were *you* doing? i was just minding my own business and you came by, i just didn't want to be bothered, this is *my* place!" "you don't own it," she said, but she sounded slightly chastened. "don't tell anyone i had a piss here, all right?" "i won't," he said. she sat down beside him, unmindful of the mud on her denim skirt. "promise," she said. "it's so embarrassing." "i promise," he said. "swear," she said, and poked him in the ribs with a bony finger. he clutched his hands to his ribs. "look," he said, "i swear. i'm good at secrets." her eyes narrowed slightly. "oh, aye? and i suppose you've lots of secrets, then?" he said nothing, and worked at keeping the smile off the corners of his mouth. she poked him in the ribs, then got him in the stomach as he moved to protect his chest. "secrets, huh?" he shook his head and clamped his lips shut. she jabbed a flurry of pokes and prods at him while he scooted back on his butt, then dug her clawed hands into his tummy and tickled him viciously. he giggled, then laughed, then started to hiccup uncontrollably. he shoved her away roughly and got up on his knees, gagging. "oh, i like you," she said, "just look at that. a wee tickle and you're ready to toss your lunch." she tenderly stroked his hair until the hiccups subsided, then clawed at his belly again, sending him rolling through the mud. once he'd struggled to his feet, he looked at her, panting. "why are you doing this?" "you're not serious! it's the most fun i've had since we moved to this terrible place." "you're a sadist!" he'd learned the word from a book he'd bought from the ten-cent pile out front of the used bookstore. it had a clipped-out recipe for liver cutlets between the pages and lots of squishy grown-up sex things that seemed improbable if not laughable. he'd looked "sadist" up in the class dictionary. "aye," she said. "i'm that." she made claws of her hands and advanced on him slowly. he giggled uncontrollably as he backed away from her. "c'mere, you, you've more torture comin' to ye before i'm satisfied that you can keep a secret." he held his arms before him like a movie zombie and walked toward her. "yes, mathter," he said in a monotone. just as he was about to reach her, he dodged to one side, then took off. she chased him, laughing, halfway back to the mountain, then cried off. he stopped a hundred yards up the road from her, she doubled over with her hands planted on her thighs, face red, chest heaving. "you go on, then," she called. "but it's more torture for you at school tomorrow, and don't you forget it!" "only if you catch me!" he called back. "oh, i'll catch you, have no fear." # she caught him at lunch. he was sitting in a corner of the schoolyard, eating from a paper sack of mushrooms and dried rabbit and keeping an eye on edward-frederick-george as he played tag with the other kindergartners. she snuck up behind him and dropped a handful of gravel down the gap of his pants and into his underpants. he sprang to his feet, sending gravel rattling out the cuffs of his jeans. "hey!" he said, and she popped something into his mouth. it was wet and warm from her hand and it squirmed. he spat it out and it landed on the schoolyard with a soft splat. it was an earthworm, thick with loamy soil. "you!" he said, casting about for a curse of sufficient vehemence. "you!" she hopped from foot to foot in front of him, clearly delighted with this reaction. he reached out for her and she danced back. he took off after her and they were chasing around the yard, around hopscotches and tag games and sand castles and out to the marshy woods. she skidded through the puddles and he leapt over them. she ducked under a branch and he caught her by the hood of her windbreaker. without hesitating, she flung her arms in the air and slithered out of the windbreaker, down to a yellow t-shirt that rode up her back, exposing her pale freckles and the knobs of her spine, the fingers of her ribs. she took off again and he balled the windbreaker up in his fist and took off after her. she stepped behind a bushy pine, and when he rounded the corner she was waiting for him, her hands clawed, digging at his tummy, leaving him giggling. he pitched back into the pine needles and she followed, straddling his waist and tickling him until he coughed and choked and gasped for air. "tell me!" she said. "tell me your secrets!" "stop!" alan said. "please! i'm going to piss myself!" "what's that to me?" she said, tickling more vigorously. he tried to buck her off, but she was too fast. he caught one wrist, but she pinned his other arm with her knee. he heaved and she collapsed on top of him. her face was inches from his, her breath moist on his face. they both panted, and he smelled her hair, which was over his face and neck. she leaned forward and closed her eyes expectantly. he tentatively brushed his lips across hers, and she moved closer, and they kissed. it was wet and a little gross, but not altogether unpleasant. she leaned back and opened her eyes, then grinned at him. "that's enough torture for one day," she said. "you're free to go." # she "tortured" him at morning and afternoon recess for the next two weeks, and when he left school on friday afternoon after the last bell, she was waiting for him in the schoolyard. "hello," she said, socking him in the arm. "hi," he said. "why don't you invite me over for supper this weekend?" she said. "supper?" "yes. i'm your girlfriend, yeah? so you should have me around to your place to meet your parents. next weekend you can come around my place and meet my dad." "i can't," he said. "you can't." "no." "why not?" "it's a secret," he said. "oooh, a secret," she said. "what kind of secret?" "a family secret. we don't have people over for dinner. that's the way it is." "a secret! they're all child molesters?" he shook his head. "horribly deformed?" he shook his head. "what, then? give us a hint?" "it's a secret." she grabbed his ear and twisted it. gently at first, then harder. "a secret?" she said. "yes," he gasped. "it's a secret, and i can't tell you. you're hurting me." "i should hope so," she said. "and it will go very hard for you indeed if you don't tell me what i want to know." he grabbed her wrist and dug his strong fingers into the thin tendons on their insides, twisting his fingertips for maximal effect. abruptly, she released his ear and clenched her wrist hard, sticking it between her thighs. "owwww! that bloody hurt, you bastard. what did you do that for?" "my secrets," alan said, "are secret." she held her wrist up and examined it. "heaven help you if you've left a bruise, alvin," she said. "i'll kill you." she turned her wrist from side to side. "all right," she said. "all right. kiss it better, and you can come to my place for supper on saturday at six p.m.." she shoved her arm into his face and he kissed the soft skin on the inside of her wrist, putting a little tongue in it. she giggled and punched him in the arm. "saturday, then!" she called as she ran off. # edward-felix-gerald were too young to give him shit about his schoolyard romance, and brian was too sensitive, but dave had taken to lurking about the schoolyard, spying on the children, and he'd seen marci break off from a clench with alan, take his hand, and plant it firmly on her tiny breast, an act that had shocked danny to the core. "hi, pervert," david said, as he stepped into the cool of the cave. "pervert" was davey's new nickname for him, and he had a finely honed way of delivering it so that it dripped with contempt. "did you have sex with your *girlfriend* today, *pervert*?" allan turned away from him and helped e-f-g take off his shoes and roll up the cuffs of his pants so that he could go down to the lake in the middle of their father and wade in the shallows, listening to father's winds soughing through the great cavern. "did you touch her boobies? did she suck your pee-pee? did you put your finger in her?" the litany would continue until davey went to bed, and even then he wasn't safe. one night, allen had woken up to see darren standing over him, hands planted on his hips, face twisted into an elaborate sneer. "did you put your penis inside of her?" he'd hissed, then gone back to bed. alby went out again, climbing the rockface faster than doug could keep up with him, so that by the time he'd found his perch high over the woodlands, where he could see the pines dance in the wind and the ant-sized cars zooming along the highways, doug was far behind, likely sat atop their mother, sucking his thumb and sulking and thinking up new perversions to accuse alan of. # saturday night arrived faster than alan could have imagined. he spent saturday morning in the woods, picking mushrooms and checking his snares, then headed down to town on saturday afternoon to get a haircut and to haunt the library. converting his father's gold to cash was easier than getting a library card without an address. there was an old assayer whom the golems had described to him before his first trip to town. the man was cheap but he knew enough about the strangeness on the mountain not to cheat him too badly. the stern librarian who glared at him while he walked the shelves, sometimes looking at the titles, sometimes the authors, and sometimes the dewey decimal numbers had no such fear. the deweys were fascinating. they traced the fashions in human knowledge and wisdom. it was easy enough to understand why the arbiters of the system subdivided motorized land vehicles ( . ) into several categories, but here in the . s, where the books on automobiles were, you could see the planners' deficiencies. automobiles divided into dozens of major subcategories (taxis and limousines, buses, light trucks, cans, lorries, tractor trailers, campers, motorcycles, racing cars, and so on), then ramified into a combinatorial explosion of sub-sub-sub categories. there were dewey numbers on some of the automotive book spines that had twenty digits or more after the decimal, an entire dewey decimal system hidden between . and . . to the librarian, this shelf-reading looked like your garden-variety screwing around, but what really made her nervous were alan's excursions through the card catalogue, which required constant tending to replace the cards that errant patrons made unauthorized reorderings of. the subject headings in the third bank of card drawers were the most interesting of all. they, too, branched and forked and rejoined themselves like the meanderings of an ant colony on the march. he'd go in sequence for a while, then start following cross-references when he found an interesting branch, keeping notes on scraps of paper on top of the file drawer. he had spent quite some time in the mythology categories, looking up golems and goblins, looking up changelings and monsters, looking up seers and demigods, but none of the books that he'd taken down off the shelves had contained anything that helped him understand his family better. his family was uncatalogued and unclassified in human knowledge. # he rang the bell on marci's smart little brick house at bang-on six, carrying some daisies he'd bought from the grocery store, following the etiquette laid down in several rather yucky romance novels he'd perused that afternoon. she answered in jeans and a t-shirt, and punched him in the arm before he could give her the flowers. "don't you look smart?" she said. "well, you're not fooling anyone, you know." she gave him a peck on the cheek and snatched away the daisies. "come along, then, we're eating soon." marci sat him down in the living room, which was furnished with neutral sofas and a neutral carpet and a neutral coffee table. the bookcases were bare. "it's horrible," she said, making a face. she was twittering a little, dancing from foot to foot. alan was glad to know he wasn't the only one who was uncomfortable. "isn't it? the company put us up here. we had a grand flat in scotland." "it's nice," alan said, "but you look like you could use some books." she crossed her eyes. "books? sure -- i've got *ten boxes* of them in the basement. you can come by and help me unpack them." "ten *boxes?*" alan said. "you're making that up." *ten boxes of books!* things like books didn't last long under the mountain, in the damp and with the ever-inquisitive, ever-destructive davey exploring every inch of floor and cave and corridor in search of opportunities for pillage. "i ain't neither," she said. "at least ten. it was a grand flat and they were all in alphabetical order, too." "can we go see?" alan asked, getting up from the sofa. "see boxes?" "yes," alan said. "and look inside. we could unbox them after dinner, okay?" "that's more of an afternoon project," said a voice from the top of the stairs. "that's my da," she said. "come down and introduce yourself to alan, da," she said. "you're not the voice of god, so you can bloody well turn up and show your face." "no more sass, gel, or it will go very hard for you," said the voice. the accent was like marci's squared, thick as oatmeal, liqueur-thick. nearly incomprehensible, but the voice was kind and smart and patient, too. "you'll have a hard time giving me any licks from the top of the stairs, da, and alan looks like he's going to die if you don't at least come down and say hello." alan blushed furiously. "you can come down whenever you like, sir," he said. "that's all right." "that's mighty generous of you, young sir," said the voice. "aye. but before i come down, tell me, are your intentions toward my daughter honorable?" his cheeks grew even hotter, and his ears felt like they were melting with embarrassment. "yes, sir," he said in a small voice. "he's a dreadful pervert, da," marci said. "you should see the things he tries, you'd kill him, you would." she grinned foxish and punched him in the shoulder. he sank into the cushions, face suddenly drained of blood. "*what*?" roared the voice, and there was a clatter of slippers on the neutral carpet of the stairs. alan didn't want to look but found that he couldn't help himself, his head inexorably turned toward the sound, until a pair of thick legs hove into sight, whereupon marci leapt into his lap and threw her arms around his neck. "ge'orff me, pervert!" she said, as she began to cover his face in darting, pecking kisses. he went rigid and tried to sink all the way into the sofa. "all right, all right, that's enough of that," her father said. marci stood and dusted herself off. alan stared at his knees. "she's horrible, isn't she?" said the voice, and a great, thick hand appeared in his field of vision. he shook it tentatively, noting the heavy class ring and the thin, plain wedding band. he looked up slowly. marci's father was short but powerfully built, like the wrestlers on the other kids' lunchboxes at school. he had a shock of curly black hair that was flecked with dandruff, and a thick bristling mustache that made him look very fierce, though his eyes were gentle and bookish behind thick glasses. he was wearing wool trousers and a cable-knit sweater that was unraveling at the elbows. "pleased to meet you, albert," he said. they shook hands gravely. "i've been after her to unpack those books since we moved here. you could come by tomorrow afternoon and help, if you'd like -- i think it's the only way i'll get herself to stir her lazy bottom to do some chores around here." "oh, *da*!" marci said. "who cooks around here? who does the laundry?" "the take-away pizza man does the majority of the cooking, daughter. and as for laundry, the last time i checked, there were two weeks' worth of laundry to do." "da," she said in a sweet voice, "i love you da," she said, wrapping her arms around his trim waist. "you see what i have to put up with?" her father said, snatching her up and dangling her by her ankles. she flailed her arms about and made outraged choking noises while he swung her back and forth like a pendulum, releasing her at the top of one arc so that she flopped onto the sofa in a tangle of thin limbs. "it's a madhouse around here," her father continued as marci righted herself, knocking alan in the temple with a tennis shoe, "but what can you do? once she's a little bigger, i can put her to work in the mines, and then i'll have a little peace around here." he sat down on an overstuffed armchair with a fussy antimacassar. "he's got a huge life-insurance policy," marci said conspiratorially. "i'm just waiting for him to kick the bucket and then i'm going to retire." "oh, aye," her father said. "retire. your life is an awful one, it is. junior high is a terrible hardship, i know." alan found himself grinning. "what's so funny?" marci said, punching him in the shoulder. "you two are," he said, grabbing her arm and then digging his fingers into her tummy, doubling her over with tickles. # there were *twelve* boxes of books. the damp in the basement had softened the cartons to cottage-cheese mush, and the back covers of the bottom layer of paperbacks were soft as felt. to alan, these seemed unremarkable -- all paper under the mountain looked like this after a week or two, even if doug didn't get to it -- but marci was heartbroken. "my books, my lovely books, they're roont!" she said, as they piled them on the living room carpet. "they're fine," alan said. "they'll dry out a little wobbly, but they'll be fine. we'll just spread the damp ones out on the rug and shelve the rest." and that's what they did, book after book -- old books, hardcover books, board-back kids' books, new paperbacks, dozens of green- and orange-spined penguin paperbacks. he fondled them, smelled them. some smelled of fish and chips, and some smelled of road dust, and some smelled of marci, and they had dog ears where she'd stopped and cracks in their spines where she'd bent them around. they fell open to pages that had her favorite passages. he felt wobbly and drunk as he touched each one in turn. "have you read all of these?" alan asked as he shifted the john mortimers down one shelf to make room for the ed mcbains. "naw," she said, punching him in the shoulder. "what's the point of a bunch of books you've already read?" # she caught him in the schoolyard on monday and dragged him by one ear out to the marshy part. she pinned him down and straddled his chest and tickled him with one hand so that he cried out and used the other hand to drum a finger across his lips, so that his cries came out "bibble." once he'd bucked her off, they kissed for a little while, then she grabbed hold of one of his nipples and twisted. "all right," she said. "enough torture. when do i get to meet your family?" "you can't," he said, writhing on the pine needles, which worked their way up the back of his shirt and pricked him across his lower back, feeling like the bristles of a hairbrush. "oh, i can, and i will," she said. she twisted harder. he slapped her hand away. "my family is really weird," he said. "my parents don't really ever go out. they're not like other people. they don't talk." all of it true. "they're mute?" "no, but they don't talk." "they don't talk much, or they don't talk at all?" she pronounced it a-tall. "not at all." "how did you and your brothers learn to talk, then?" "neighbors." still true. the golems lived in the neighboring caves. "and my father, a little." true. "so you have neighbors who visit you?" she asked, a triumphant gleam in her eye. *damn*. "no, we visit them." lying now. sweat on the shag of hair over his ears, which felt like they had coals pressed to them. "when you were a baby?" "no, my grandparents took care of me when i was a baby." deeper. "but they died." bottoming out now. "i don't believe you," she said, and he saw tears glisten in her eyes. "you're too embarrassed to introduce me to your family." "that's not it." he thought fast. "my brother. david. he's not well. he has a brain tumor. we think he'll probably die. that's why he doesn't come to school. and it makes him act funny. he hits people, says terrible things." mixing truth with lies was a *lot* easier. "he shouts and hurts people and he's the reason i can't ever have friends over. not until he dies." her eyes narrowed. "if that's a lie," she said, "it's a terrible one. my ma died of cancer, and it's not something anyone should make fun of. so, it better not be a lie." "it's not a lie," he said, mustering a tear. "my brother david, we don't know how long he'll live, but it won't be long. he acts like a monster, so it's hard to love him, but we all try." she rocked back onto her haunches. "it's true, then?" she asked softly. he nodded miserably. "let's say no more about it, then," she said. she took his hand and traced hieroglyphs on his palm with the ragged edges of her chewed-up fingernails. the recess bell rang and they headed back to school. they were about to leave the marshland when something hard hit alan in the back of the head. he spun around and saw a small, sharp rock skitter into the grass, saw davey's face contorted with rage, lips pulled all the way back off his teeth, half-hidden in the boughs of a tree, winding up to throw another rock. he flinched away and the rock hit the paving hard enough to bounce. marci whirled around, but david was gone, high up in the leaves, invisible, malicious, biding. "what was that?" "i dunno," alan lied, and groaned. # kurt and alan examined every gap between every storefront on augusta, no matter how narrow. kurt kept silent as alan fished his arm up to the shoulder along miniature alleys that were just wide enough to accommodate the rain gutters depending from the roof. they found the alley that frederick had been dragged down near the end of the block, between a mattress store and an egg wholesaler. it was narrow enough that they had to traverse it sideways, but there, at the entrance, were two smears of skin and blood, just above the ground, stretching off into the sulfurous, rotty-egg depths of the alleyway. they slid along the alley's length, headed for the gloom of the back. something skittered away from alan's shoe and he bent down, but couldn't see it. he ran his hands along the ground and the walls and they came back with a rime of dried blood and a single strand of long, oily hair stuck to them. he wiped his palms off on the bricks. "i can't see," he said. "here," kurt said, handing him a miniature maglight whose handle was corrugated by hundreds of toothmarks. alan saw that he was intense, watching. alan twisted the light on. "thanks," he said, and kurt smiled at him, seemed a little taller. alan looked again. there, on the ground, was a sharpened black tooth, pierced by a piece of pipe-cleaner wire. he pocketed the tooth before kurt saw it and delved farther, approaching the alley's end, which was carpeted with a humus of moldering cardboard, leaves, and road turds blown or washed there. he kicked it aside as best he could, then crouched down to examine the sewer grating beneath. the greenish brass screws that anchored it to the ground had sharp cuts in their old grooves where they had been recently removed. he rattled the grating, which was about half a meter square, then slipped his multitool out of his belt holster. he flipped out the phillips driver and went to work on the screws, unconsciously putting kurt's flashlight in his mouth, his front teeth finding purchase in the dents that kurt's own had left there. he realized with a brief shudder that kurt probably used this flashlight while nipple-deep in dumpsters, had an image of kurt transferring it from his gloved hands to his mouth and back again as he dug through bags of kitchen and toilet waste, looking for discarded technology. but the metal was cool and clean against his teeth and so he bit down and worked the four screws loose, worked his fingers into the mossy slots in the grate, lifted it out, and set it to one side. he shone the light down the hole and found another fingerbone, the tip of a thumb, desiccated to the size of a large raisin, and he pocketed that, too. there was a lot of blood here, a little puddle that was still wet in the crusted middle. frederick's blood. he stepped over the grating and shone the light back down the hole, inviting kurt to have a look. "that's where they went," he said as kurt bent down. "that hole?" "that hole," he said. "is that blood?" "that's blood. it's not easy to fit someone my brother's size down a hole like that." he set the grate back, screwed it into place, and passed the torch back to kurt. "let's get out of here," he said. on the street, alan looked at his blood and moss-grimed palms. kurt pushed back his floppy, frizzed-out, bleach-white mohawk and scratched vigorously at the downy brown fuzz growing in on the sides of his skull. "you think i'm a nut," alan said. "it's okay, that's natural." kurt smiled sheepishly. "if it's any consolation, i think you're a *harmless* nut, okay? i like you." "you don't have to believe me, so long as you don't get in my way," alan said. "but it's easier if you believe me." "easier to do what?" "oh, to get along," alan said. # davey leapt down from a rock outcropping as alan made his way home that night, landing on his back. alan stumbled and dropped his school bag. he grabbed at the choking arm around his neck, then dropped to his knees as davey bounced a fist-sized stone off his head, right over his ear. he slammed himself back, pinning davey between himself and the sharp stones on the walkway up to the cave entrance, then mashed backward with his elbows, his head ringing like a gong from the stone's blow. his left elbow connected with davey's solar plexus and the arm around his throat went slack. he climbed to his knees and looked davey in the face. he was blue and gasping, but alan couldn't work up a lot of sympathy for him as he reached up to the side of his head and felt the goose egg welling there. his fingertips came back with a few strands of hair blood-glued to them. he'd been in a few schoolyard scraps and this was always the moment when a teacher intervened -- one combatant pinned, the other atop him. what could you do after this? was he going to take the rock from davey's hand and smash him in the face with it, knocking out his teeth, breaking his nose, blacking his eyes? could he get off of davey without getting back into the fight? he pinned davey's shoulders under his knees and took him by the chin with one hand. "you can't do this, danny," he said, looking into his hazel eyes, which had gone green as they did when he was angry. "do *what*?" "spy on me. try to hurt me. try to hurt my friends. tease me all the time. you can't do it, okay?" "i'll stab you in your sleep, andy. i'll break your fingers with a brick. i'll poke your eyes out with a fork." he was fizzling like a baking-soda volcano, saliva slicking his cheeks and nostrils and chin, his eyes rolling. alan felt helplessness settle on him, weighing down his limbs. how could he let him go? what else could he do? was he going to have to sit on davey's shoulders until they were both old men? "please, davey. i'm sorry about what i said. i just can't bring her home, you understand," he said. "pervert. she's a slut and you're a pervert. i'll tear her titties off." "don't, danny, please. stop, okay?" darren bared his teeth and growled, jerking his head forward and snapping at alan's crotch, heedless of the painful thuds his head made when it hit the ground after each lunge. alan waited to see if he would tire himself out, but when it was clear that he would not tire, alan waited for his head to thud to the ground and then, abruptly, he popped him in the chin, leapt off of him turned him on his belly, and wrenched him to his knees, twisting one arm behind his back and pulling his head back by the hair. he brought davey to his feet, under his control, before he'd recovered from the punch. "i'm telling dad," he said in davey's ear, and began to frog-march him through to the cave mouth and down into the lake in the middle of the mountain. he didn't even slow down when they reached the smooth shore of the lake, just pushed on, sloshing in up to his chest, davey's head barely above the water. "he won't stop," alan said, to the winds, to the water, to the vaulted ceiling, to the scurrying retreat of the goblin. "i think he'll kill me if he goes on. he's torturing me. you've seen it. look at him!" davey was thrashing in the water, his face swollen and bloody, his eyes rattling like dried peas in a maraca. alan's fingers, still buried in davey's shiny blond hair, kept brushing up against the swollen bruises there, getting bigger by the moment. "i'll *fucking* kill you!" davey howled, screaming inchoate into the echo that came back from his call. "shhh," alan said into his ear. "shhh. listen, davey, please, shhh." davey's roar did not abate. alan thought he could hear the whispers and groans of their father in the wind, but he couldn't make it out. "please, shhh," he said, gathering davey in a hug that pinned his arms to his sides, putting his lips up against davey's ear, holding him still. "shhh," he said, and davey stopped twitching against him, stopped his terrible roar, and they listened. at first the sound was barely audible, a soughing through the tunnels, but gradually the echoes chased each other round the great cavern and across the still, dark surface of the lake, and then a voice, illusive as a face in the clouds. "my boys," the voice said, their father said. "my sons. david, alan. you must not fight like this." "he --!" davey began, the echoes of his outburst scattering their father's voice. "shhh," alan said again. "daniel, you must love your brother. he loves you. i love you. trust him. he won't hurt you. i won't let you come to any harm. i love you, son." alan felt danny tremble in his arms, and he was trembling, too, from the icy cold of the lake and from the voice and the words and the love that echoed from every surface. "adam, my son. keep your brother safe. you need each other. don't be impatient or angry with him. give him love." "i will," alan said, and he relaxed his arms so that he was holding danny in a hug and not a pinion. danny relaxed back into him. "i love you, dad," he said, and they trudged out of the water, out into the last warmth of the day's sun, to dry out on the slope of the mountainside, green grass under their bodies and wispy clouds in the sky that they watched until the sun went out. # marci followed him home a week before christmas break. he didn't notice her at first. she was cunning, and followed his boot prints in the snow. a blizzard had blown up halfway through the school day, and by the time class let out, there was fresh knee-deep powder and he had to lift each foot high to hike through it, the shush of his snow pants and the huff of his breath the only sounds in the icy winter evening. she followed the deep prints of his boots on the fresh snow, stalking him like he stalked rabbits in the woods. when he happened to turn around at the cave mouth, he spotted her in her yellow snow-suit, struggling up the mountainside, barely visible in the twilight. he'd never seen an intruder on the mountain. the dirt trail that led up to the cave branched off a side road on the edge of town, and it was too rocky even for the dirt-bike kids. he stood at the cave-mouth, torn by indecision. he wanted to keep walking, head away farther uphill, away from the family's den, but now she'd seen him, had waved to him. his cold-numb face drained of blood and his bladder hammered insistently at him. he hiked down the mountain and met her. "why are you here?" he said, once he was close enough to see her pale, freckled face. "why do you think?" she said. "i followed you home. where do you live, alan? why can't i even see where you live?" he felt tears prick at his eyes. "you just *can't*! i can't bring you home!" "you hate me, don't you?" she said, hands balling up into mittened fists. "that's it." "i don't hate you, marci. i -- i love you," he said, surprising himself. she punched him hard in the arm. "shut up." she kissed his cheek with her cold, dry lips and the huff of her breath thawed his skin, making it tingle. "where do you live, alan?" he sucked air so cold it burned his lungs. "come with me." he took her mittened hand in his and trudged up to the cave mouth. they entered the summer cave, where the family spent its time in the warm months, now mostly empty, save for some straw and a few scattered bits of clothing and toys. he led her through the cave, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, back to the right-angle bend behind a stalactite baffle, toward the sulfur reek of the hot spring on whose shores the family spent its winters. "it gets dark," he said. "i'll get you a light once we're inside." her hand squeezed his tighter and she said nothing. it grew darker and darker as he pushed into the cave, helping her up the gentle incline of the cave floor. he saw well in the dark -- the whole family did -- but he understood that for her this was a blind voyage. they stepped out into the sulfur-spring cavern, the acoustics of their breathing changed by the long, flat hollow. in the dark, he saw edward-frederick-george playing with his matchbox cars in one corner; davey leaned up against their mother, sucking his thumb. billy was nowhere in sight, probably hiding out in his room -- he would, of course, have foreseen this visit. he put her hand against the cave wall, then said, "wait here." he let go of her and walked quickly to the heap of winter coats and boots in the corner and dug through them for the flashlight he used to do his homework by. it was a hand-crank number, and as he squeezed it to life, he pointed it at marci, her face wan and scared in its light. he gave the flashlight a few more pumps to get its flywheel spinning, then passed it to her. "just keep squeezing it," he said. "it doesn't need batteries." he took her hand again. it was limp. "you can put your things on the pile," he said, pointing to the coats and boots. he was already shucking his hat and mittens and boots and snow pants and coat. his skin flushed with the warm vapors coming off of the sulfur spring. "you *live* here?" she said. the light from the flashlight was dimming and he reached over and gave it a couple of squeezes, then handed it back to her. "i live here. it's complicated." davey's eyes were open and he was staring at them with squinted eyes and a frown. "where are your parents?" she said. "it's complicated," he said again, as though that explained everything. "this is my secret. no one else knows it." edward-frederick-george tottered over to them with an armload of toy cars, which he mutely offered to marci, smiling a drooly smile. alan patted him on the head and knelt down. "i don't think marci wants to play cars, okay?" ed nodded solemnly and went back to the edge of the pool and began running his cars through the nearly scalding water. marci reached out a hand ahead of her into the weak light, looked at the crazy shadows it cast on the distant walls. "how can you live here? it's a cave, alan. how can you live in a cave?" "you get used to it," alan said. "i can't explain it all, and the parts that i can explain, you wouldn't believe. but you've been to my home now, marci. i've shown you where i live." davey approached them, a beatific smile on his angelic face. "this is my brother, daniel," alan said. "the one i told you about." "you're his slut," davey said. he was still smiling. "do you touch his peter?" alan flinched, suppressing a desire to smack davey, but marci just knelt down and looked him in the eye. "nope," she said. "are you always this horrible to strangers?" "yes!" davey said, cheerfully. "i hate you, and i hate *him*," he cocked his head alanward. "and you're all *motherfuckers.*" "but we're not wee horrible shits, danny," she said. "we're not filthy-mouthed brats who can't keep a civil tongue." davey snapped his head back and then forward, trying to get her in the bridge of the nose, a favorite tactic of his, but she was too fast for him and ducked it, so that he stumbled and fell to his knees. "your mother's going to be very cross when she finds out how you've been acting. you'll be lucky if you get any christmas pressies," she said as he struggled to his feet. he swung a punch at her groin, and she caught his wrist and then hoisted him to his tiptoes by his arm, then lifted him off the floor, bringing his face up level with hers. "stop it," she said. "*now*." he fell silent and narrowed his eyes as he dangled there, thinking about this. then he spat in her face. marci shook her head slowly as the gob of spit slid down her eyebrow and over her cheek, then she spat back, nailing him square on the tip of his nose. she set him down and wiped her face with a glove. davey started toward her, and she lifted a hand and he flinched back and then ran behind their mother, hiding in her tangle of wires and hoses. marci gave the flashlight a series of hard cranks that splashed light across the washing machine and then turned to alan. "that's your brother?" alan nodded. "well, i see why you didn't want me to come home with you, then." # kurt was properly appreciative of alan's bookcases and trophies, ran his fingertips over the wood, willingly accepted some iced mint tea sweetened with honey, and used a coaster without having to be asked. "a washing machine and a mountain," he said. "yes," alan said. "he kept a roof over our heads and she kept our clothes clean." "you've told that joke before, right?" kurt's foot was bouncing, which made the chains on his pants and jacket jangle. "and now davey's after us," alan said. "i don't know why it's now. i don't know why davey does *anything*. but he always hated me most of all." "so why did he snatch your brothers first?" "i think he wants me to sweat. he wants me scared, all the time. i'm the eldest. i'm the one who left the mountain. i'm the one who came first, and made all the connections with the outside world. they all looked to me to explain the world, but i never had any explanations that would suit davey." "this is pretty weird," he said. alan cocked his head at kurt. he was about thirty, old for a punk, and had a kind of greasy sheen about him, like he didn't remember to wash often enough, despite his protestations about his cleanliness. but at thirty, he should have seen enough to let him know that the world was both weirder than he suspected and not so weird as certain mystically inclined people would like to believe. arnold didn't like this moment of disclosure, didn't like dropping his carefully cultivated habit of hiding this, but he also couldn't help but feel relieved. a part of his mind nagged him, though, and told him that too much of this would waken the worry for his brothers from its narcotized slumber. "i've told other people, just a few. they didn't believe me. you don't have to. why don't you think about it for a while?" "what are you going to do?" "i'm going to try to figure out how to find my brothers. i can't go underground like davey can. i don't think i can, anyway. i never have. but davey's so... *broken*... so small and twisted. he's not smart, but he's cunning and he's determined. i'm smarter than he is. so i'll try to find the smart way. i'll think about it, too." "well, i've got to get ready to go diving," kurt said. he stood up with a jangle. "thanks for the iced tea, adam." "it was nice to meet you, kurt," alan said, and shook his hand. # alan woke with something soft over his face. it was pitch dark, and he couldn't breathe. he tried to reach up, but his arms wouldn't move. he couldn't sit up. something heavy was sitting on his chest. the soft thing -- a pillow? -- ground against his face, cruelly pressing down on the cartilage in his nose, filling his mouth as he gasped for air. he shuddered hard, and felt something give near his right wrist and then his arm was loose from the elbow down. he kept working the arm, his chest afire, and then he'd freed it to the shoulder, and something bit him, hard little teeth like knives, in the fleshy underside of his bicep. flailing dug the teeth in harder, and he knew he was bleeding, could feel it seeping down his arm. finally, he got his hand onto something, a desiccated, mummified piece of flesh. davey. davey's ribs, like dry stones, cold and thin. he felt up higher, felt for the place where davey's arm met his shoulder, and then twisted as hard as he could, until the arm popped free in its socket. he shook his head violently and the pillow slid away. the room was still dark, and the hot, moist air rushed into his nostrils and mouth as he gasped it in. he heard davey moving in the dark, and as his eyes adjusted, he saw him unfolding a knife. it was a clasp knife with a broken hasp and it swung open with the sound of a cockroach's shell crunching underfoot. the blade was rusty. alan flung his freed arm across his body and tried to tug himself loose. he was being held down by his own sheets, which had been tacked or stapled to the bed frame. using all his strength, he rolled over, heaving and bucking, and felt/heard the staples popping free down one side of the bed, just as davey slashed at where his face had been a moment before. the knife whistled past his ear, then scored deeply along his shoulder. his arm flopped uselessly at his side and now they were both fighting one-armed, though davey had a knife and adam was wrapped in a sheet. his bedroom was singularly lacking in anything that could be improvised into a weapon -- he considered trying getting a heavy encyclopedia out to use as a shield, but it was too far a distance and too long a shot. he scooted back on the bed, trying to untangle the sheet, which was still secured at the foot of the bed and all along one side. he freed his good arm just as davey slashed at him again, aiming for the meat of his thigh, the big arteries there that could bleed you out in a minute or two. he grabbed for davey's shoulder and caught it for an instant, squeezed and twisted, but then the skin he had hold of sloughed away and davey was free, dancing back. then he heard, from downstairs, the sound of rhythmic pounding at the door. he'd been hearing it for some time, but hadn't registered it until now. a muffled yell from below. police? mimi? he screamed out, "help!" hoping his voice would carry through the door. apparently, it did. he heard the sound of the small glass pane over the doorknob shatter, and davey turned his head to look in the direction of the sound. alan snatched up the pillow that he'd been smothering under and swung it as hard as he could at davey's head, knocking him around, and the door was open now, the summer night air sweeping up the stairs to the second-floor bedroom. "alan?" it was kurt. "kurt, up here, he's got a knife!" boots on the stairs, and davey standing again, cornered, with the knife, slashing at the air toward him and toward the bedroom door, toward the light coming up the stairs, bobbing, kurt's maglight, clenched in his teeth, and davey bolted for the door with the knife held high. the light stopped moving and there was an instant's tableau, davey caught in the light, cracked black lips peeled back from sharp teeth, chest heaving, knife bobbing, and then alan was free, diving for his knees, bringing him down. kurt was on them before davey could struggle up to his good elbow, kicking the knife away, scattering fingerbones like dice. davey screeched like a rusty hinge as kurt twisted his arms up behind his back and alan took hold of his ankles. he thrashed like a raccoon in a trap, and alan forced the back of his head down so that his face was mashed against the cool floor, muffling his cries. kurt shifted so that his knee and one hand were pinning davey's wrists, fished in his pockets, and came out with a bundle of hairy twine. he set it on the floor next to alan and then shifted his grip back to davey's arms. as soon as alan released the back of davey's head, he jerked it up and snapped his teeth into the top of kurt's calf, just above the top of his high, chain-draped boot. kurt hollered and adam reached out and took the knife, moving quickly before he could think, and smashed the butt into davey's jaw, which cracked audibly. davey let go of kurt's calf and alan worked quickly to lash his feet together, using half the bundle of twine, heedless of how he cut into the thin, cracking skin. he used the knife to snip the string and then handed the roll to kurt, who went to work on danny's wrists. alan got the lights and rolled his brother over, looked into his mad eyes. dale was trying to scream, but with his jaw hanging limp and his teeth scattered, it came out in a rasp. alan stood and found that he was naked, his shoulder and bicep dripping blood down his side into a pool on the polished floor. "we'll take him to the basement," he told kurt, and dug through the laundry hamper at the foot of the bed for jeans. he found a couple of pairs of boxer shorts and tied one around his bicep and the other around his shoulder, using his teeth and chin as a second hand. it took two tries before he had them bound tight enough to still the throb. the bedroom looked like someone had butchered an animal in it, and the floor was gritty with darrel's leavings, teeth and nails and fingerbones. picking his way carefully through the mess, he hauled the sheet off the bed, popping out the remaining staples, which pinged off the bookcases and danced on the polished wood of the floor. he folded it double and laid it on the floor next to davey. "help me roll him onto it," he said, and then saw that kurt was staring down at his shriveled, squirming, hateful brother in horror, wiping his hands over and over again on the thighs of his jeans. he looked up and his eyes were glazed and wide. "i was passing by and i saw the shadows in the window. i thought you were being attacked --" he hugged himself. "i was," alan said. he dug another t-shirt out of his hamper. "here, wrap this around your hands." they rolled davey into the sheet and then wrapped him in it. he was surprisingly heavy, dense. hefting his end of the sheet one-handed, hefting that mysterious weight, he remembered picking up ed-fred-geoff in the cave that first day, remembered the weight of the brother-in-the-brother-in-the-brother, and he had a sudden sickening sense that perhaps davey was so heavy because he'd eaten them. once they had him bound snugly in the sheet, danny stopped thrashing and became very still. they carried him carefully down the dark stairs, the walnut-shell grit echoing the feel of teeth and flakes of skin on the bare soles of alan's feet. they dumped him unceremoniously on the cool mosaic of tile on the floor. they stared at the unmoving bundle for a moment. "wait here, i'm going to get a chair," alan said. "jesus, don't leave me alone here," kurt said. "that kid, the one who saw him -- take -- your brother? no one's seen him since." he looked down at davey with wide, crazed eyes. alan's shoulder throbbed. "all right," he said. "you get a chair from the kitchen, the captain's chair in the corner with the newspaper recycling stacked on it." while kurt was upstairs, alan unwrapped his brother. danny's eyes were closed, his jaw hanging askew, his wrists bound behind him. alan leaned carefully over him and took his jaw and rotated it gently until it popped back into place. "davey?" he said. the eyes were closed, but now there was an attentiveness, an alertness to him. alan stepped back quickly, feeling foolish at his fear of this pathetic, disjointed bound thing on his floor. no two ways about it, though: davey gave him the absolutely willies, making his testicles draw up and the hair on the back of his arms prickle. "set the chair down there," alan said, pointing. he hoisted davey up by his dry, papery armpits and sat him in the seat. he took some duct tape out of a utility drawer under the basement staircase and used it to gum danny down in the chair. "davey," he said again. "i know you can hear me. stop pretending." "that's your brother?" kurt said. "the one who --" "that's him," alan said. "i guess you believe me now, huh?" davey grinned suddenly, mirthless. "still making friends and influencing people, brother?" he said. his voice was wet and hiccuping, like he was drowning in snot. "we're not going to play any games here, davey. you're going to tell me where edward, felix, and griffin are, or i'm going to tear your fingers off and smash them into powder. when i run out of fingers, i'll switch to teeth." kurt looked at him in alarm. he moaned. "jesus, adam --" adam whirled on him, something snapping inside. "don't, kurt, just don't, okay? he tried to kill me tonight. he may already have killed my brothers. this is life or death, and there's no room for sentiment or humanity. get a hammer out of the toolbox, on that shelf." kurt hesitated. "do it!" alan said, pointing at the toolbox. kurt shrank back, looking as though he'd been slapped. he moved as if in a dream, opening the toolbox and pawing through it until he came up with a scarred hammer, one claw snapped off. davey shook his head. "you don't scare me, albert. not for an instant. i have a large supply of fingers and teeth -- all i need. and you -- you're like him. you're a sentimentalist. scared of yourself. scared of me. scared of everything. that's why you ran away. that's why you got rid of me. scared." alan dug in his pocket for the fingerbones and teeth he'd collected. he found the tip of a pinky with a curled-over nail as thick as an oyster's shell, crusted with dirt and blood. "give me the hammer, kurt," he said. davey's eyes followed him as he set the fingertip down on the tiles and raised the hammer. he brought it down just to one side of the finger, hard enough to break the tile. kurt jumped a little, and alan held the hammer up again. "tell me or this time i won't miss," he said, looking davey in the eye. davey shrugged in his bonds. alan swung the hammer again. it hit the fingertip with a jarring impact that vibrated up his arm and resonated through his hurt shoulder. he raised the hammer again. he'd expected the finger to crush into powder, but instead it fissured into three jagged pieces, like a piece of chert fracturing under a hammer-stone. davey's eyes were squeezed down to slits now. "you're the scared one. you can't scare me," he said, his voice choked with phlegm. alan sat on the irregular tile and propped his chin in his palm. "okay, davey, you're right. i'm scared. you've kidnapped our brothers, maybe even killed them. you're terrorizing me. i can't think, i can't sleep. so tell me, danny, why shouldn't i just kill you again, and get rid of all that fear?" "i know where the brothers are," he said instantly. "i know where there are more people like us. all the answers, albert, every answer you've ever looked for. i've got them. and i won't tell you any of them. but so long as i'm walking around and talking, you think that i might." # alan took marci back to his bedroom, the winter bedroom that was no more than a niche in the hot-spring cavern, a pile of rags and a sleeping bag for a bed. it had always been enough for him, but now he was ashamed of it. he took the flashlight from marci and let it wind down, so that they were sitting in darkness. "your parents --" she said, then broke off. "it's complicated." "are they dead?" he reached out in the dark and took her hand. "i don't know how to explain it," he said. "i can lie, and you'll probably think i'm telling the truth. or i can tell the truth, and you'll think that i'm lying." she squeezed his hand. despite the sweaty heat of the cave, her fingers were cold as ice. he covered her hand with his free hand and rubbed at her cold fingers. "tell me the truth," she whispered. "i'll believe you." so he did, in mutters and whispers. he didn't have the words to explain it all, didn't know exactly how to explain it, but he tried. how he knew his father's moods. how he felt his mother's love. after keeping this secret all his life, it felt incredible to be letting it out. his heart thudded in his chest, and his shoulders felt progressively lighter, until he thought he might rise up off his bedding and fly around the cave. if it hadn't been dark, he wouldn't have been able to tell it. it was the dark, and the faint lunar glow of marci's face that showed no expression that let him open up and spill out all the secrets. her fingers squeezed tighter and tighter, and now he felt like singing and dancing, because surely between the two of them, they could find a book in the library or maybe an article in the microfilm cabinets that would *really* explain it to him. he wound down. "no one else knows this," he said. "no one except you." he leaned in and planted a kiss on her cold lips. she sat rigid and unmoving as he kissed her. "marci?" "alan," she breathed. her fingers went slack. she pulled her hand free. suddenly alan was cold, too. the scant inches between them felt like an unbridgeable gap. "you think i'm lying," he said, staring out into the cave. "i don't know --" "it's okay," he said. "i can help you get home now, all right?" she folded her hands on her lap and nodded miserably. on the way out of the cave, eddie-freddie-georgie tottered over, still holding his car. he held it out to her mutely. she knelt down solemnly and took it from him, then patted him on the head. "merry christmas, kiddo," she said. he hugged her leg, and she laughed a little and bent to pick him up. she couldn't. he was too heavy. she let go of him and nervously pried his arms from around her thigh. alan took her down the path to the side road that led into town. the moonlight shone on the white snow, making the world glow bluish. they stood by the roadside for a long and awkward moment. "good night, alan," she said, and turned and started trudging home. # there was no torture at school the next day. she ignored him through the morning, and he couldn't find her at recess, but at lunch she came and sat next to him. they ate in silence, but he was comforted by her presence beside him, a warmth that he sensed more than felt. she sat beside him in afternoon classes, too. not a word passed between them. for alan, it felt like anything they could say to one another would be less true than the silence, but that realization hurt. he'd never been able to discuss his life and nature with anyone and it seemed as though he never would. but the next morning, in the school yard, she snagged him as he walked past the climber made from a jumble of bolted-together logs and dragged him into the middle. it smelled faintly of pee and was a rich source of mysterious roaches and empty beer bottles on monday mornings after the teenagers had come and gone. she was crouched down on her haunches in the snow there, her steaming breath coming in short huffs. she grabbed him by the back of his knit toque and pulled his face to hers, kissing him hard on the mouth, shocking the hell out of him by forcing her tongue past his lips. they kissed until the bell rang, and as alan made his way to class, he felt like his face was glowing like a lightbulb. his homeroom teacher asked him if he was feeling well, and he stammered out some kind of affirmative while marci, sitting in the next row, stifled a giggle. they ate their lunches together again, and she filled the silence with a running commentary of the deficiencies of the sandwich her father had packed her, the strange odors coming from the brown bag that alan had brought, filled with winter mushrooms and some soggy bread and cheese, and the hairiness of the mole on the lunch lady's chin. when they reached the schoolyard, she tried to drag him back to the logs, but he resisted, taking her instead to the marsh where he'd first spied her. the ground had frozen over and the rushes and reeds were stubble, poking out of the snow. he took her mittened hands in his and waited for her to stop squirming. which she did, eventually. he'd rehearsed what he'd say to her all morning: *do you believe me? what am i? am i like you? do you still love me? are you still my friend? i don't understand it any better than you do, but now, now there are two of us who know about it, and maybe we can make sense of it together. god, it's such a relief to not be the only one anymore.* but now, standing there with marci, in the distant catcalls of the playground and the smell of the new snow and the soughing of the wind in the trees, he couldn't bring himself to say it. she either knew these things or she didn't, and if she didn't, he didn't know what he could do to help it. "what?" she said at last. "do you --" he began, then fell silent. he couldn't say the words. she looked irritated, and the sounds and the smells swept over him as the moment stretched. but then she softened. "i don't understand it, alan," she said. "is it true? is it really how you say it is? did i see what i saw?" "it's true," he said, and it was as though the clouds had parted, the world gone bright with the glare off the snow and the sounds from the playground now joyous instead of cruel. "it's true, and i don't understand it any more than you do, marci." "are you...*human*, alan?" "i *think* so," he said. "i bleed. i eat. i sleep. i think and talk and dream." she squeezed his hands and darted a kiss at him. "you kiss," she said. and it was all right again. # the next day was saturday, and marci arranged to meet him at the cave-mouth. in the lee of the wind, the bright winter sun reflected enough heat off the snow that some of it melted away, revealing the stunted winter grass beneath. they sat on the dry snow and listened to the wind whistle through the pines and the hiss of loose snow blowing across the crust. "will i get to meet your da, then?" she said, after they'd watched a jackrabbit hop up the mountainside and disappear into the woods. he sniffed deeply, and smelled the coalface smell of his father's cogitation. "you want to?" he said. "i do." and so he led her inside the mountain, through the winter cave, and back and back to the pool in the mountain's heart. they crept along quietly, her fingers twined in his. "you have to put out the flashlight now," he said. "it'll scare the goblin." his voice shocked him, and her, he felt her startle. it was so quiet otherwise, just the sounds of breathing and of cave winds. so she let the whirring dynamo in the flashlight wind down, and the darkness descended on them. it was cool, but not cold, and the wind smelled more strongly of coalface than ever. "he's in there," alan said. he heard the goblin scamper away. his words echoed over the pool around the corner. "come on." her fingers were very cool. they walked in a slow, measured step, like a king and queen of elfland going for a walk in the woods. he stopped them at the pool's edge. there was almost no light here, but alan could make out the smooth surface of his father's pool. "now what?" she whispered, the hissing of her words susurrating over the pool's surface. "we can only talk to him from the center," he whispered. "we have to wade in." "i can't go home with wet clothes," she whispered. "you don't wear clothes," he said. he let go of her hand and began to unzip his snowsuit. and so they stripped, there on his father's shore. she was luminous in the dark, a pale girl-shape picked out in the ripples of the pool, skinny, with her arms crossed in front of her chest. even though he knew she couldn't see him, he was self-conscious in his nudity, and he stepped into the pool as soon as he was naked. "wait," she said, sounding panicked. "don't leave me!" so he held out his hand for her, and then, realizing that she couldn't see it, he stepped out of the pool and took her hand, brushing her small breast as he did so. he barely registered the contact, though she startled and nearly fell over. "sorry," he said. "come on." the water was cold, but once they were in up to their shoulders, it warmed up, or they went numb. "is it okay?" she whispered, and now that they were in the center of the cavern, the echoes crossed back and forth and took a long time to die out. "listen," andy said. "just listen." and as the echoes of his words died down, the winds picked up, and then the words emerged from the breeze. "adam," his father sighed. marci jumped a foot out of the water, and her splashdown sent watery ripples rebounding off the cavern walls. alan reached out for her and draped his arm around her shoulders. she huddled against his chest, slick cold naked skin goose-pimpled against his ribs. she smelled wonderful, like a fox. it *felt* wonderful, and solemn, to stand there nude, in the heart of his father, and let his secrets spill away. her breathing stilled again. "alan," his father said. "we want to understand, father," alan whispered. "what am i?" it was the question he'd never asked. now that he'd asked it, he felt like a fool: surely his father *knew*, the mountain knew everything, had stood forever. he could have found out anytime he'd thought to ask. "i don't have the answer," his father said. "there may be no answer. you may never know." adam let go of marci, let his arms fall to his sides. "no," he said. "no!" he shouted again, and the stillness was broken. the wind blew cold and hard, and he didn't care. "*no!*" he screamed, and marci grabbed him and put her hand over his mouth. his ears roared with echoes, and they did not die down, but rather built atop one another, to a wall of noise that scared him. she was crying now, scared and openmouthed sobs. she splashed him and water went up his nose and stung his eyes. the wind was colder now, cold enough to hurt, and he took her hand and sloshed recklessly for the shore. he spun up the flashlight and handed it to her, then yanked his clothes over his wet skin, glaring at the pool while she did the same. # in the winter cave, they met a golem. it stood like a statue, brick-red with glowing eyes, beside alan's mother, hands at its sides. golems didn't venture to this side of his father very often, and almost never in daylight. marci caught him in the flashlight's beam as they entered the warm humidity of the cave, shivering in the gusting winds. she fumbled the flashlight and alan caught it before it hit the ground. "it's okay," he said. his chest was heaving from his tantrum, but the presence of the golem calmed him. you could say or do anything to a golem, and it couldn't strike back, couldn't answer back. the sons of the mountain that sheltered -- and birthed? -- the golems owed nothing to them. he walked over to it and folded his arms. "what is it?" he said. the golem bent its head slightly and looked him in the eye. it was man-shaped, but baggier, muscles like frozen mud. an overhang of belly covered its smooth crotch like a kilt. its chisel-shaped teeth clacked together as it limbered up its jaw. "your father is sad," it said. its voice was slow and grinding, like an avalanche. "our side grows cold." "i don't care," alan said. "*fuck* my father," he said. behind him, perched atop their mother, davey whittered a mean little laugh. "you shouldn't --" alan shoved the golem. it was like shoving a boulder. it didn't give at all. "you don't tell me what to do," he said. "you can't tell me what to do. i want to know what i am, how we're possible, and if you can't help, then you can leave now." the winds blew colder, smelling now of the golem's side of the mountain, of clay and the dry bones of their kills, which they arrayed on the walls of their cavern. the golem stood stock still. "does it...*understand*?" marci asked. davey snickered again. "it's not stupid," alan said, calming a little. "it's...*slow*. it thinks slowly and acts slowly. but it's not stupid." he paused for a moment. "it taught me to speak," he said. that did it. he began to cry, biting his lip to keep from making a sound, but the tears rolled down his cheeks and his shoulders shook. the flashlight's beam pinned him, and he wanted to run to his mother and hide behind her, wanted to escape the light. "go," he said softly to the golem, touching its elbow. "it'll be all right." slowly, gratingly, the golem turned and lumbered out of the cave, clumsy and ponderous. marci put her arm around him and he buried his face in her skinny neck, the hot tears coursing down her collarbones. # davey came to him that night and pinned him in the light of the flashlight. he woke staring up into the bright bulb, shielding his eyes. he groped out for the light, but darryl danced back out of reach, keeping the beam in his eyes. the air crackled with the angry grinding of its hand-dynamo. he climbed out of bed naked and felt around on the floor. he had a geode there, he'd broken it and polished it by hand, and it was the size of a softball, the top smooth as glass, the underside rough as a coconut's hide. wordless and swift, he wound up and threw the geode as hard as he could at where he judged davey's head to be. there was a thud and a cry, and the light clattered to the ground, growing more dim as its dynamo whirred to a stop. green blobs chased themselves across his vision, and he could only see darren rolling on the ground by turning his head to one side and looking out of the corner of his eye. he groped toward davey and smelled the blood. kneeling down, he found davey's hand and followed it up to his shoulder, his neck. slick with blood. higher, to davey's face, his forehead, the dent there sanded ragged by the rough side of the geode. the blood flowed freely and beneath his other hand danny's chest heaved as he breathed, shallowly, rapidly, almost panting. his vision was coming back now. he took off his t-shirt and wadded it up, pressed it to davey's forehead. they'd done first aid in class. you weren't supposed to move someone with a head injury. he pressed down with the t-shirt, trying to stanch the blood. then, quick as a whip, davey's head twisted around and he bit down, hard, on alan's thumbtip. albert reeled back, but it was too late: davey had bitten off the tip of his right thumb. alan howled, waking up ed-fred-geoff, who began to cry. davey rolled away, scampering back into the cave's depths. alan danced around the cave, hand clamped between his thighs, mewling. he fell to the floor and squeezed his legs together, then slowly brought his hand up before his face. the ragged stump of his thumb was softly spurting blood in time with his heartbeat. he struggled to remember his first aid. he wrapped his t-shirt around the wound and then pulled his parka on over his bare chest and jammed his bare feet into his boots, then made his way to the cave mouth and scooped up snow under the moon's glow, awkwardly packing a snowball around his hand. he shivered as he made his way back into the winter cave and propped himself up against his mother, holding his hurt hand over his head. the winter cave grew cold as the ice packed around his hand. bobby, woken by his clairvoyant instincts, crept forward with a sheet and draped it over alan. he'd foreseen this, of course -- had foreseen all of it. but bobby followed his own code, and he kept his own counsel, cleaning up after the disasters he was powerless to prevent. deep in the mountains, they heard the echoes of davey's tittering laughter. # "it was wrong to bring her here, adam," billy said to him in the morning, as he fed alan the crusts of bread and dried apples he'd brought him, packing his hand with fresh snow. "i didn't bring her here, she followed me," adam said. his arm ached from holding it aloft, and his back and tailbone were numb with the ache of a night spent sitting up against their mother's side. "and besides, why should it be wrong? whose rules? what rules? what are the *fucking* rules?" "you can feel the rules, brother," he said. he couldn't look alan in the eye, he never did. this was a major speech, coming from bobby. "i can't feel any rules," alan said. he wondered if it was true. he'd never told anyone about the family before. had he known all along that he shouldn't do this? "i can. she can't know. no one can know. even we can't know. we'll never understand it." "where is davey?" "he's doing a...ritual. with your thumb." they sat silent and strained their ears to hear the winds and the distant shuffle of the denizens of the mountain. alan shifted, using his good hand to prop himself up, looking for a comfortable position. he brought his injured hand down to his lap and unwrapped his blood-soaked t-shirt from his fist, gently peeling it away from the glue of dried blood that held it there. his hand had shriveled in the night, from ice and from restricted circulation, and maybe from davey's ritual. alan pondered its crusty, clawed form, thinking that it looked like it belonged to someone -- some*thing* -- else. buddy scaled the stalactite that served as the ladder up to the lofty nook where he slept and came back down holding his water bottle. "it's clean, it's from the pool," he said, another major speech for him. he also had an armload of scavenged diapers, much-washed and worn soft as flannel. he wet one and began to wipe away the crust of blood on alan's arm and hand, working his way up from the elbow, then tackling the uninjured fingers, then, very gently, gently as a feather-touch, slow as a glacier, he worked on alan's thumb. when he was done, alan's hand was clean and dry and cold, and the wound of his thumb was exposed and naked, a thin crust of blood weeping liquid slowly. it seemed to alan that he could see the stump of bone protruding from the wound. he was amazed to see his bones, to get a look at a cross-section of himself. he wondered if he could count the rings and find out how old he was, as he had never been really certain on that score. he giggled ghoulishly. he held out his good hand. "get me up, okay?" bobby hauled him to his feet. "get me some warm clothes, too?" and he did, because he was bobby, and he was always only too glad to help, only too glad to do what service he could for you, even if he would never do you the one service that would benefit you the most: telling you of his visions, helping you avoid the disasters that loomed on your horizon. standing up, walking around, being clean -- he began to feel like himself again. he even managed to get into his snow pants and parka and struggle out to the hillside and the bright sunshine, where he could get a good look at his hand. what he had taken for a bone wasn't. it was a skinny little thumbtip, growing out of the raggedy, crusty stump. he could see the whorl of a fingerprint there, and narrow, nearly invisible cuticles. he touched the tip of his tongue to it and it seemed to him that he could feel a tongue rasping over the top of his missing thumbtip. # "it's disgusting, keep it away," marci said, shrinking away from his hand in mock horror. he held his proto-thumb under her nose and waggled it. "no joking, okay? i just want to know what it *means*. i'm *growing a new thumb*." "maybe you're part salamander. they regrow their legs and tails. or a worm -- cut a worm in half and you get two worms. it's in one of my da's books." he stared at his thumb. it had grown perceptibly, just on the journey into town to marci's place. they were holed up in her room, surrounded by watercolors of horses in motion that her mother had painted. she'd raided the fridge for cold pork pies and cheese and fizzy lemonade that her father had shipped from the marks & spencer in toronto. it was the strangest food he'd ever eaten but he'd developed a taste for it. "wiggle it again," she said. he did, and the thumbtip bent down like a scale model of a thumbtip, cracking the scab around it. "we should go to a doctor," she said. "i don't go to doctors," he said flatly. "you *haven't* gone to a doctor -- doesn't mean you can't." "i don't go to doctors." x-ray machines and stethoscopes, blood tests and clever little flashlights in your ears -- who knew what they'd reveal? he wanted to be the first to discover it, he didn't want to have to try to explain it to a doctor before he understood it himself. "not even when you're sick?" "the golems take care of it," he said. she shook her head. "you're a weirdo, you know that?" "i know it," he said. "i thought my family was strange," she said, stretching out on her tummy on the bed. "but they're not a patch on you." "i know it." he finished his fizzy lemonade and lay down beside her, belching. "we could ask my da. he knows a lot of strange things." he put his face down in her duvet and smelled the cotton covers and her nighttime sweat, like a spice, like cinnamon. "i don't want to do that. please don't tell anyone, all right?" she took hold of his wrist and looked again at the teensy thumb. "wiggle it again," she said. he did. she giggled. "imagine if you were like a worm. imagine if your thumbtip was out there growing another *you*." he sat bolt upright. "do you think that's possible?" he said. his heart was thudding. "do you think so?" she rolled on her side and stared at him. "no, don't be daft. how could your thumb grow another *you?*" "why wouldn't it?" she had no answer for him. "i need to go home," he said. "i need to know." "i'm coming with," she said. he opened his mouth to tell her no, but she made a fierce face at him, her foxy features wrinkled into a mock snarl. "come along then," he said. "you can help me do up my coat." # the winter cave was deserted. he listened at the mouths of all the tunnels, straining to hear davey. from his high nook, brian watched them. "where is he, billy?" alan called. "tell me, godfuckit!" billy looked down from him perch with his sad, hollow eyes -- had he been forgetting to eat again? -- and shook his head. they took to the tunnels. even with the flashlight, marci couldn't match him for speed. he could feel the tunnels through the soles of his boots, he could smell them, he could pick them apart by the quality of their echoes. he moved fast, dragging marci along with his good hand while she cranked the flashlight as hard as she could. he heard her panting, triangulated their location from the way that the shallow noises reflected off the walls. when they found davey at last, it was in the golem's cave, on the other side of the mountain. he was hunkered down in a corner, while the golems moved around him slowly, avoiding him like he was a boulder or a stalagmite that had sprung up in the night. their stony heads turned to regard marci and adam as they came upon them, their luminous eyes lighting on them for a moment and then moving on. it was an eloquent statement for them: *this is the business of the mountain and his sons. we will not intervene.* there were more golems than alan could remember seeing at once, six, maybe seven. the golems made more of their kind from the clay they found at the riverbank whenever they cared to or needed to, and allowed their number to dwindle when the need or want had passed by the simple expedient of deconstructing one of their own back to the clay it had come from. the golems' cave was lined with small bones and skulls, rank and row climbing the walls, twined with dried grasses in ascending geometries. these were the furry animals that the golems patiently trapped and killed, skinned, dressed, and smoked, laying them in small, fur-wrapped bundles in the family's cave when they were done. it was part of their unspoken bargain with the mountain, and the tiny bones had once borne the flesh of nearly every significant meal alan had ever eaten. davey crouched among the bones at the very back of the cave, his back to them, shoulders hunched. the golems stood stock still as marci and he crept up on davey. so intent was he on his work that he didn't notice them, even as they loomed over his shoulder, staring down on the thing he held in his hands. it was alan's thumb, and growing out of it -- allen. tiny, the size of a pipe-cleaner man, and just as skinny, but perfectly formed, squirming and insensate, face contorted in a tiny expression of horror. not so perfectly formed, alan saw, once he was over the initial shock. one of the pipe-cleaner-allen's arms was missing, protruding there from davey's mouth, and he crunched it with lip-smacking relish. alan gawped at it, taking it in, watching his miniature doppelganger, hardly bigger than the thumb it sprouted from, thrash like a worm on a hook. davey finished the arm, slurping it back like a noodle. then he dangled the tiny allen from the thumb, shaking it, before taking hold of the legs, one between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, and he gently, almost lovingly pulled them apart. the allen screamed, a sound as tiny and tortured as a cricket song, and then the left leg wrenched free of its socket. alan felt his own leg twist in sympathy, and then there was a killing rage in him. he looked around the cave for the thing that would let him murder his brother for once and for all, but it wasn't to be found. davey's murder was still to come. instead, he leapt on davey's back, arm around his neck, hand gripping his choking fist, pulling the headlock tighter and tighter. marci was screaming something, but she was lost in the crash of the blood-surf that roared in his ears. davey pitched over backward, trying to buck him off, but he wouldn't be thrown, and he flipped davey over by the neck, so that he landed it a thrash of skinny arms and legs. the allen fell to the floor, weeping and dragging itself one-armed and one-legged away from the melee. then davey was on him, squeezing his injured hand, other thumb in his eye, screeching like a rusted hinge. alan tried to see through the tears that sprang up, tried to reach davey with his good hand, but the rage was leaking out of him now. he rolled desperately, but davey's weight on his chest was like a cannonball, impossibly heavy. suddenly davey was lifted off of him. alan struggled up into a sitting position, clutching his injured hand. davey dangled by his armpits in the implacable hands of one of the golems, face contorted into unrecognizability. alan stood and confronted him, just out of range of his kicking feet and his gnashing teeth, and darrel spat in his face, a searing gob that landed in his eye. marci took his arm and dragged him back toward the cave mouth. he fought her, looking for the little allen, not seeing him. was that him, there, in the shadows? no, that was one of the little bone tableaux, a field mouse's dried bones splayed in an anatomically correct mystic hieroglyph. marci hauled him away, out into the bright snow and the bright sun. his thumb was bleeding anew, dripping fat drops the color of a red crayon into the sun, blood so hot it seemed to sizzle and sink into the snow. # "you need to tell an adult, alan," she said, wrapping his new little thumb in gauze she'd taken from her pocket. "my father knows. my mother knows." he sat with his head between his knees, not daring to look at her, in his nook in the winter cave. she just looked at him, squinting. "they count," he said. "they understand it." she shook her head. "they understand it better than any adult you know would. this will get better on its own, marci. look." he wiggled his thumb at her. it was now the size of the tip of his pinky, and had a well-formed nail and cuticle. "that's not all that has to get better," she said. "you can't just let this fester. your brother. that *thing* in the cave..." she shook her head. "someone needs to know about this. you're not safe." "promise me you won't tell anyone, marci. this is important. no one except you knows, and that's how it has to be. if you tell --" "what?" she got up and pulled her coat on. "what, alan? if i tell and try to help you, what will you do to me?" "i don't know," he mumbled into his chest. "well, you do whatever you have to do," she said, and stomped out of the cave. # davey escaped at dawn. kurt had gone outside to repark his old buick, the trunk bungeed shut over his haul of lcd flat panels, empty laser-toner cartridges, and open gift baskets of pricey japanese cosmetics. alan and davey just glared at each other, but then davey closed his eyes and began to snore softly, and even though alan paced and pinched the bridge of his nose and stretched out his injured arm, he couldn't help it when he sat down and closed his eyes and nodded off. alan woke with a start, staring at the empty loops of duct tape and twine hanging from his captain's chair, dried strings of skin like desiccated banana peel fibers hanging from them. he swore to himself quietly, and shouted shit! at the low basement ceiling. he couldn't have been asleep for more than a few seconds, and the half-window that davey had escaped through gaped open at him like a sneer. he tottered to his feet and went out to find kurt, bare feet jammed into sneakers, bare chest and bandages covered up with a jacket. he found kurt cutting through the park, dragging his heels in the bloody dawn light. kurt looked at his expression, then said, "what happened?" he had his fists at his sides, he looked tensed to run. alan felt that he was waiting for an order. "he got away." "how?" alan shook his head. "can you help me get dressed? i don't think i can get a shirt on by myself." they went to the greek's, waiting out front on the curb for the old man to show up and unchain the chairs and drag them out around the table. he served them tall coffees and omelets sleepily, and they ate in silence, too tired to talk. "let me take you to the doctor?" kurt asked, nodding at the bandage that bulged under his shirt. "no," alan said. "i'm a fast healer." kurt rubbed at his calf and winced. "he broke the skin," he said. "you got all your shots?" "hell yeah. too much crap in the dumpsters. i once found a styro cooler of smashed blood vials in a red cross trash." "you'll be okay, then," alan said. he shifted in his seat and winced. he grunted a little ouch. kurt narrowed his eyes and shook his head at him. "this is pretty fucked up right here," kurt said, looking down into his coffee. "it's only a little less weird for me, if that's any comfort." "it's not," kurt said. "well, that's why i don't usually tell others. you're only the second person to believe it." "maybe i could meet up with the first and form a support group?" alan pushed his omelet away. "you can't. she's dead." # davey haunted the schoolyard. alan had always treated the school and its grounds as a safe haven, a place where he could get away from the inexplicable, a place where he could play at being normal. but now davey was everywhere, lurking in the climber, hiding in the trees, peering through the tinsel-hung windows during class. alan only caught the quickest glimpses of him, but he had the sense that if he turned his head around quickly enough, he'd see him. davey made himself scarce in the mountain, hiding in the golems' cave or one of the deep tunnels. marci didn't come to class after monday. alan fretted every morning, waiting for her to turn up. he worried that she'd told her father, or that she was at home sulking, too angry to come to school, glaring at her christmas tree. davey's grin was everywhere. on wednesday, he got called into the vice principal's office. as he neared it, he heard the rumble of marci's father's thick voice and his heart began to pound in his chest. he cracked the door and put his face in the gap, looking at the two men there: mr. davenport, the vice principal, with his gray hair growing out his large ears and cavernous nostrils, sitting behind his desk, looking awkwardly at marci's father, eyes bugged and bagged and bloodshot, face turned to the ground, looking like a different man, the picture of worry and loss. mr. davenport saw him and crooked a finger at him, looking stern and stony. alan was sure, then, that marci'd told it all to her father, who'd told it all to mr. davenport, who would tell the world, and suddenly he was jealous of his secret, couldn't bear to have it revealed, couldn't bear the thought of men coming to the mountain to catalogue it for the subject index at the library, to study him and take him apart. and he was... afraid. not of what they'd all do to him. what davey would do to them. he knew, suddenly, that davey would not abide their secrets being disclosed. he forced himself forward, his feet dragging like millstones, and stood between the two men, hands in his pockets, nervously twining at his underwear. "alan," marci's father croaked. mr. davenport held up a hand to silence him. "alan," mr. davenport said. "have you seen marci?" alan had been prepared to deny everything, call marci a liar, betray her as she'd betrayed him, make it her word against his. protect her. protect her father and the school and the town from what davey would do. now he whipped his head toward marci's father, suddenly understanding. "no," he said. "not all week! is she all right?" marci's father sobbed, a sound alan had never heard an adult make. and it came tumbling out. no one had seen marci since sunday night. her presumed whereabouts had moved from a friend's place to alan's place to runaway to fallen in a lake to hit by a car and motionless in a ditch, and if alan hadn't seen her -- "i haven't," alan said. "not since the weekend. sunday morning. she said she was going home." another new sound, the sound of an adult crying. marci's father, and his sobs made his chest shake and mr. davenport awkwardly came from behind his desk and set a box of kleenexes on the hard bench beside him. alan caught mr. davenport's eye and the vice principal made a shoo and pointed at the door. # alan didn't bother going back to class. he went straight to the golems' cave, straight to where he knew davey would be -- must be -- hiding, and found him there, playing with the bones that lined the walls. "where is she?" alan said, after he'd taken hold of davey's hair and, without fanfare, smashed his face into the cold stone floor hard enough to break his nose. alan twisted his wrists behind his back and when he tried to get up, alan kicked his legs out from under him, wrenching his arms in their sockets. he heard a popping sound. "where is she?" alan said again, amazing himself with his own calmness. davey was crying now, genuinely scared, it seemed, and alan reveled in the feeling. "i'll kill you," he whispered in davey's ear, almost lovingly. "i'll kill you and put the body where no one will find it, unless you tell me where she is." davey spat out a milk tooth, his right top incisor, and cried around the blood that coursed down his face. "i'm -- i'm *sorry,* alan," he said. "but it was the *secret*." his sobs were louder and harsher than marci's father's had been. "where is she?" alan said, knowing. "with caleb," davey said. "i buried her in caleb." he found his brother the island midway down the mountain, sliding under cover of winter for the seaway. he climbed the island's slope, making for the ring of footprints in the snow, the snow peppered brown with soil and green with grass, and he dug with his hands like a dog, tossing snow soil grass through his legs, digging to loose soil, digging to a cold hand. a cold hand, protruding from the snow now, from the soil, some of the snow red-brown with blood. a skinny, freckled hand, a fingernail missing, torn off leaving behind an impression, an inverse fingernail. a hand, an arm. not attached to anything. he set it to one side, dug, found another hand. another arm. a leg. a head. she was beaten, bruised, eyes swollen and two teeth missing, ear torn, hair caked with blood. her beautiful head fell from his shaking cold hands. he didn't want to dig anymore, but he had to, because it was the secret, and it had to be kept, and -- -- he buried her in caleb, piled dirt grass snow on her parts, and his eyes were dry and he didn't sob. # it was a long autumn and a long winter and a long spring that year, unwiring the market. alan fell into the familiar rhythm of the work of a new venture, rising early, dossing late, always doing two or three things at once: setting up meetings, sweet-talking merchants, debugging his process on the fly. his first victory came from the greek, who was no pushover. the man was over seventy, and had been pouring lethal coffee and cheap beer down the throats of kensington's hipsters for decades and had steadfastly refused every single crackpot scheme hatched by his customers. "larry," andy said, "i have a proposal for you and you're going to hate it." "i hate it already," the greek said. his dapper little mustache twitched. it was not even seven a.m. yet, and the greek was tinkering with the guts of his espresso delivery system, making it emit loud hisses and tossing out evil congealed masses of sin-black coffee grounds. "what if i told you it wouldn't cost you anything?" "maybe i'd hate it a little less." "here's the pitch," alan said, taking a sip of the thick, steaming coffee the greek handed to him in a minuscule cup. he shivered as the stuff coated his tongue. "wow." the greek gave him half a smile, which was his version of roaring hilarity. "here's the pitch. me and that punk kid, kurt, we're working on a community internet project for the market." "computers?" the greek said. "yup," alan said. "pah," the greek said. anders nodded. "i knew you were going to say that. but don't think of this as a computer thing, okay? think of this as a free speech thing. we're putting in a system to allow people all over the market -- and someday, maybe, the whole city -- to communicate for free, in private, without permission from anyone. they can send messages, they can get information about the world, they can have conversations. it's like a library and a telephone and a café all at once." larry poured himself a coffee. "i hate when they come in here with computers. they sit forever at their tables, and they don't talk to nobody, it's like having a place full of statues or zombies." "well, *sure*," alan said. "if you're all alone with a computer, you're just going to fall down the rabbit hole. you're in your own world and cut off from the rest of the world. but once you put those computers on the network, they become a way to talk to anyone else in the world. for free! you help us with this network -- all we want from you is permission to stick up a box over your sign and patch it into your power, you won't even know it's there -- and those customers won't be antisocial, they'll be socializing, over the network." "you think that's what they'll do if i help them with the network?" he started to say, *absolutely*, but bit it back, because larry's bullshit antennae were visibly twitching. "no, but some of them will. you'll see them in here, talking, typing, typing, talking. that's how it goes. the point is that we don't know how people are going to use this network yet, but we know that it's a social benefit." "you want to use my electricity?" "well, yeah." "so it's not free." "not entirely," alan said. "you got me there." "aha!" the greek said. "look, if that's a deal breaker, i'll personally come by every day and give you a dollar for the juice. come on, larry -- the box we want to put in, it's just a repeater to extend the range of the network. the network already reaches to here, but your box will help it go farther. you'll be the first merchant in the market to have one. i came to you first because you've been here the longest. the others look up to you. they'll see it and say, 'larry has one, it must be all right.'" the greek downed his coffee and smoothed his mustache. "you are a bullshit artist, huh? all right, you put your box in. if my electricity bills are too high, though, i take it down." "that's a deal," andy said. "how about i do it this morning, before you get busy? won't take more than a couple minutes." the greek's was midway between his place and kurt's, and kurt hardly stirred when he let himself in to get an access point from one of the chipped shelving units before going back to his place to get his ladder and makita drill. it took him most of the morning to get it securely fastened over the sign, screws sunk deep enough into the old, spongy wood to survive the build up of ice and snow that would come with the winter. then he had to wire it into the sign, which took longer than he thought it would, too, but then it was done, and the idiot lights started blinking on the box kurt had assembled. "and what, exactly, are you doing up there, al?" kurt said, when he finally stumbled out of bed and down the road for his afternoon breakfast coffee. "larry's letting us put up an access point," he said, wiping the pigeon shit off a wire preparatory to taping it down. he descended the ladder and wiped his hands off on his painter's pants. "that'll be ten bucks, please." kurt dug out a handful of coins and picked out enough loonies and toonies to make ten dollars, and handed it over. "you talked the greek into it?" he hissed. "how?" "i kissed his ass without insulting his intelligence." "neat trick," kurt said, and they had a little partner-to-partner high-five. "i'd better login to that thing and get it onto the network, huh?" "yeah," anders said. "i'm gonna order some lunch, lemme get you something." # what they had done, was they had hacked the shit out of those boxes that kurt had built in his junkyard of a storefront of an apartment. "these work?" alan said. he had three of them in a big catering tub from his basement that he'd sluiced clean. the base stations no longer looked like they'd been built out of garbage. they'd switched to low-power mini-atx motherboards that let them shrink the hardware down to small enough to fit in a -dollar all-weather junction box from canadian tire. adam vaguely recognized the day's street-kids as regulars who'd been hanging around the shop for some time, and they gave him the hairy eyeball when he had the audacity to question kurt. these kids of kurt's weren't much like the kids he'd had working for him over the years. they might be bright, but they were a lot...angrier. some of the girls were cutters, with knife scars on their forearms. some of the boys looked like they'd been beaten up a few times too many on the streets, like they were spoiling for a fight. alan tried to unfocus his eyes when he was in the front of kurt's shop, to not see any of them too closely. "they work," kurt said. he smelled terrible, a combination of garbage and sweat, and he had the raccoon-eyed jitters he got when he stayed up all night. "i tested them twice." "you built me a spare?" alan said, examining the neat lines of hot glue that gasketed the sturdy rubberized antennae in place, masking the slightly melted edges left behind by the drill press. "you don't need a spare," kurt said. alan knew that when he got touchy like this, he had to be very careful or he'd blow up, but he wasn't going to do another demo kurt's way. they'd done exactly one of those, at a toronto district school board superintendents meeting, when alan had gotten the idea of using schools' flagpoles and backhaul as test beds for building out the net. it had been a debacle, needless to say. two of the access points had been permanently installed on either end of kurt's storefront and the third had been in storage for a month since it was last tested. one of the street kids, a boy with a pair of improbably enormous raver shoes, looked up at alan. "we've tested these all. they work." kurt puffed up and gratefully socked the kid in the shoulder. "we did." "fine," adam said patiently. "but can we make sure they work now?" "they'll work," kurt had said when alan told him that he wanted to test the access points out before they took them to the meeting. "it's practically solid-state. they're running off the standard distribution. there's almost no configuration." which may or may not have been true -- it certainly sounded plausible to alan's lay ear -- but it didn't change the fact that once they powered up the third box, the other two seized up and died. the blinking network lights fell still, and as kurt hauled out an old vt- terminal and plugged it into the serial ports on the backs of his big, ugly, bestickered, and cig-burned pc cases, it became apparent that they had ceased to honor all requests for routing, association, deassociation, dhcp leases, and the myriad of other networking services provided for by the software. "it's practically solid-state," kurt said, nearly *shouted*, after he'd powered down the third box and found that the other two -- previously routing and humming along happily -- refused to come back up into their known-good state. he gave alan a dirty look, as though his insistence on preflighting were the root of their problems. the street-kid who'd spoken up had jumped when kurt raised his voice, then cringed away. now as kurt began to tear around the shop, looking through boxes of cds and dropping things on the floor, the kid all but cowered, and the other three all looked down at the table. "i'll just reinstall," kurt said. "that's the beauty of these things. it's a standard distro, i just copy it over, and biff-bam, it'll come right back up. no problem. take me ten minutes. we've got plenty of time." then, five minutes later, "shit, i forgot that this one has a different mo-bo than the others." "mo-bo?" alan said, amused. he'd spotted the signs of something very finicky gone very wrong and he'd given up any hope of actually doing the demo, so he'd settled in to watch the process without rancor and to learn as much as he could. "motherboard," kurt said, reaching for a spool of blank cds. "just got to patch the distribution, recompile, burn it to cd, and reboot, and we're on the road." ten minutes later, "shit." "yes?" alan said. "back off, okay?" "i'm going to call them and let them know we're going to be late." "we're *not* going to be late," kurt said, his fingers going into claws on the keyboard. "we're already late," alan said. "shit," kurt said. "let's do this," alan said. "let's bring down the two that you've got working and show them those, and explain the rest." they'd had a fight, and kurt had insisted, as alan had suspected he would, that he was only a minute or two away from bringing everything back online. alan kept his cool, made mental notes of the things that went wrong, and put together a plan for avoiding all these problems the next time around. "is there a spare?" alan said. kurt sneered and jerked a thumb at his workbench, where another junction box sat, bunny-ear antennae poking out of it. alan moved it into his tub. "great," he said. "tested, right?" "all permutations tested and ready to go. you know, you're not the boss around here." "i know it," he said. "partners." he clapped kurt on the shoulder, ignoring the damp gray grimy feeling of the clammy t-shirt under his palm. the shoulder under his palm sagged. "right," kurt said. "sorry." "don't be," alan said. "you've been hard at it. i'll get loaded while you wash up. kurt sniffed at his armpit. "whew," he said. "yeah, okay." when kurt emerged from the front door of his storefront ten minutes later, he looked like he'd at least made an effort. his mohawk and its fins were slicked back and tucked under a baseball hat, his black jeans were unripped and had only one conservative chain joining the wallet in his back pocket to his belt loop. throw in a clean t-shirt advertising an old technology conference instead of the customary old hardcore band and you had an approximation of the kind of geek that everyone knew was in possession of secret knowledge and hence must be treated with attention, if not respect. "i feel like such a dilbert," he said. "you look totally disreputable," alan said, hefting the tub of their access points into the bed of his truck and pulling the bungees tight around it. "punk as fuck." kurt grinned and ducked his head. "stop it," he said. "flatterer." "get in the truck," alan said. kurt drummed his fingers nervously on his palms the whole way to bell offices. alan grabbed his hand and stilled it. "stop worrying," he said. "this is going to go great." "i still don't understand why we're doing this," kurt said. "they're the phone company. they hate us, we hate them. can't we just leave it that way?" "don't worry, we'll still all hate each other when we get done." "so why bother?" he sounded petulant and groggy, and alan reached under his seat for the thermos he'd had filled at the greek's before heading to kurt's place. "coffee," he said, and handed it to kurt, who groaned and swigged and stopped bitching. "why bother is this," alan said. "we're going to get a lot of publicity for doing this." kurt snorted into the thermos. "it's going to be a big deal. you know how big a deal this can be. we're going to communicate that to the press, who will communicate it to the public, and then there will be a shitstorm. radio cops, telco people, whatever -- they're going to try to discredit us. i want to know what they're liable to say." "christ, you're dragging me out for that? i can tell you what they'll say. they'll drag out the four horsemen of the infocalypse: kiddie porn, terrorists, pirates, and the mafia. they'll tell us that any tool for communicating that they can't tap, log, and switch off is irresponsible. they'll tell us we're stealing from isps. it's what they say every time someone tries this: philly, new york, london. all around the world same song." alan nodded. "that's good background -- thanks. i still want to know *how* they say it, what the flaws are in their expression of their argument. and i wanted us to run a demo for some people who we could never hope to sway -- that's a good audience for exposing the flaws in the show. this'll be a good prep session." "so i pulled an all-nighter and busted my nuts to produce a demo for a bunch of people we don't care about? thanks a lot." alan started to say something equally bitchy back, and then he stopped himself. he knew where this would end up -- a screaming match that would leave both of them emotionally overwrought at a time when they needed cool heads. but he couldn't think of what to tell kurt in order to placate him. all his life, he'd been in situations like this: confronted by people who had some beef, some grievance, and he'd had no answer for it. usually he could puzzle out the skeleton of their cause, but sometimes -- times like this -- he was stumped. he picked at the phrase. *i pulled an all-nighter*. kurt pulled an all-nighter because he'd left this to the last minute, not because alan had surprised him with it. he knew that, of course. was waiting, then, for alan to bust him on it. to tell him, *this is your fault, not mine.* to tell him *if this demo fails, it's because you fucked off and left it to the last minute.* so he was angry, but not at alan, he was angry at himself. *a bunch of people we don't care about,* what was that about? ah. kurt knew that they didn't take him seriously in the real world. he was too dirty, too punk-as-fuck, too much of his identity was wrapped up in being alienated and alienating. but he couldn't make his dream come true without alan's help, either, and so alan was the friendly face on their enterprise, and he resented that -- feared that in order to keep up his appearance of punk-as-fuckitude, he'd have to go into the meeting cursing and sneering and that alan would bust him on that, too. alan frowned at the steering wheel. he was getting better at understanding people, but that didn't make him necessarily better at being a person. what should he say here? "that was a really heroic effort, kurt," he said, biting his lip. "i can tell you put a lot of work into it." he couldn't believe that praise this naked could possibly placate someone of kurt's heroic cynicism, but kurt's features softened and he turned his face away, rolled down the window, lit a cigarette. "i thought i'd never get it done," kurt said. "i was so sleepy, i felt like i was half-baked. couldn't concentrate." *you were up all night because you left it to the last minute*, alan thought. but kurt knew that, was waiting to be reassured about it. "i don't know how you get as much done as you do. must be really hard." "it's not so bad," kurt said, dragging on his cigarette and not quite disguising his grin. "it gets easier every time." "yeah, we're going to get this down to a science someday," alan said. "something we can teach anyone to do." "that would be so cool," kurt said, and put his boots up on the dash. "god, you could pick all the parts you needed out of the trash, throw a little methodology at them, and out would pop this thing that destroyed the phone company." "this is going to be a fun meeting," alan said. "shit, yeah. they're going to be terrified of us." "someday. maybe it starts today." # the bell boardroom looked more like a retail operation than a back office, decked out in brand-consistent livery, from the fabric-dyed rag carpets to the avant-garde lighting fixtures. they were given espressos by the young secretary-barista whose skirt-and-top number was some kind of reinterpreted ravewear outfit toned down for a corporate workplace. "so this is the new bell," kurt said, once she had gone. "our tax dollars at work." "this is good work," alan said, gesturing at the blown-up artwork of pan-ethnic models who were extraordinary- but not beautiful-looking on the walls. the bell redesign had come at the same time as the telco was struggling back from the brink of bankruptcy, and the marketing firm they'd hired to do the work had made its name on the strength of the campaign. "makes you feel like using a phone is a really futuristic, cutting-edge activity," he said. his contact at the semiprivatized corporation was a young kid who shopped at one of his protégés' designer furniture store. he was a young turk who'd made a name for himself quickly in the company through a couple of isp acquisitions at fire-sale prices after the dot-bomb, which he'd executed flawlessly, integrating the companies into bell's network with hardly a hiccup. he'd been very polite and guardedly enthusiastic when alan called him, and had invited him down to meet some of his colleagues. though alan had never met him, he recognized him the minute he walked in as the person who had to go with the confident voice he'd heard on the phone. "lyman," he said, standing up and holding out his hand. the guy was slightly asian-looking, tall, with a sharp suit that managed to look casual and expensive at the same time. he shook alan's hand and said, "thanks for coming down." alan introduced him to kurt, and then lyman introduced them both to his colleagues, a gender-parity posse of young, smart-looking people, along with one graybeard (literally -- he had a unix beard of great rattiness and gravitas) who had no fewer than seven devices on his belt, including a line tester and a gps. once they were seated, alan snuck a look at kurt, who had narrowed his eyes and cast his gaze down onto the business cards he'd been handed. alan hadn't been expecting this -- he'd figured on finding himself facing down a group of career bureaucrats -- and kurt was clearly thrown for a loop, too. "well, alan, kurt, it's nice to meet you," lyman said. "i hear you're working on some exciting stuff." "we are," alan said. "we're building a city-wide mesh wireless network using unlicensed spectrum that will provide high-speed, internet connectivity absolutely gratis." "that's ambitious," lyman said, without the skepticism that alan had assumed would greet his statement. "how's it coming?" "well, we've got a bunch of kensington market covered," alan said. "kurt's been improving the hardware design and we've come up with something cheap and reproducible." he opened his tub and handed out the access points, housed in gray high-impact plastic junction boxes. lyman accepted one solemnly and passed it on to his graybeard, then passed the next to an east indian woman in horn-rim glasses whose bitten-down fingernails immediately popped the latch and began lightly stroking the hardware inside, tracing the connections. the third landed in front of lyman himself. "so, what do they do?" alan nodded at kurt. kurt put his hands on the table and took a breath. "they've got three network interfaces; we can do any combination of wired and wireless cards. the os is loaded on a flash-card; it auto-detects any wireless cards and auto-configures them to seek out other access points. when it finds a peer, they negotiate a client-server relationship based on current load, and the client then associates with the server. there's a key exchange that we use to make sure that rogue aps don't sneak into the mesh, and a self-healing routine we use to switch routes if the connection drops or we start to see too much packet loss." the graybeard looked up. "it izz a radio vor talking to gott!" he said. lyman's posse laughed, and after a second, so did kurt. alan must have looked puzzled, for kurt elbowed him in the ribs and said, "it's from indiana jones," he said. "ha," alan said. that movie had come out long before he'd come to the city -- he hadn't seen a movie until he was almost . as was often the case, the reference to a film made him feel like a martian. the graybeard passed his unit on to the others at the table. "does it work?" he said. "yeah," kurt said. "well, that's pretty cool," he said. kurt blushed. "i didn't write the firmware," he said. "just stuck it together from parts of other peoples' projects." "so, what's the plan?" lyman said. "how many of these are you going to need?" "hundreds, eventually," alan said. "but for starters, we'll be happy if we can get enough to shoot down to front." "you're going to try to peer with someone there?" the east indian woman had plugged the ap into a riser under the boardroom table and was examining its blinkenlights. "yeah," alan said. "that's the general idea." he was getting a little uncomfortable -- these people weren't nearly hostile enough to their ideas. "well, that's very ambitious," lyman said. his posse all nodded as though he'd paid them a compliment, though alan wasn't sure. ambitious could certainly be code for "ridiculous." "how about a demo?" the east indian woman said. "course," kurt said. he dug out his laptop, a battered thing held together with band stickers and gaffer tape, and plugged in a wireless card. the others started to pass him back his access points but he shook his head. "just plug 'em in," he said. "here or in another room nearby -- that'll be cooler." a couple of the younger people at the table picked up two of the aps and headed for the hallway. "put one on my desk," lyman told them, "and the other at reception." alan felt a sudden prickle at the back of his neck, though he didn't know why -- just a random premonition that they were on the brink of something very bad happening. this wasn't the kind of vision that brad would experience, that far away look followed by a snap-to into the now, eyes filled with certitude about the dreadful future. more like a goose walking over his grave, a tickle of badness. the east indian woman passed kurt a vga cable that snaked into the table's guts and down into the riser on the floor. she hit a button on a remote and an lcd projector mounted in the ceiling began to hum, projecting a rectangle of white light on one wall. kurt wiggled it into the backside of his computer and spun down the thumbscrews, hit a button, and then his desktop was up on the wall, ten feet high. his wallpaper was a picture of a group of black-clad, kerchiefed protesters charging a police line of batons and gas-grenades. a closer look revealed that the protester running in the lead was probably kurt. he tapped at his touchpad and a window came up, showing relative strength signals for two of the access points. a moment later, the third came online. "i've been working with this network visualizer app," kurt said. "it tries to draw logical maps of the network topology, with false coloring denoting packet loss between hops -- that's a pretty good proxy for distance between two aps." "more like the fade," the graybeard said. "fade is a function of distance," kurt said. alan heard the dismissal in his voice and knew they were getting into a dick-swinging match. "fade is a function of geography and topology," the graybeard said quietly. kurt waved his hand. "whatever -- sure. geography. topology. distance. it's a floor wax and a dessert topping." "i'm not being pedantic," the graybeard said. "you're not just being pedantic," lyman said gently, watching the screen on which four animated jaggy boxes were jumbling and dancing as they reported on the throughput between the routers and the laptop. "not just pedantic," the graybeard said. "if you have a *lot* of these boxes in known locations with known nominal throughput, you can use them as a kind of sensor array. when throughput drops between point foo and point bar, it will tell you something about the physical world between foo and bar." kurt looked up from his screen with a thoughtful look. "huh?" "like, whether a tree had lost its leaves in the night. or whether there were a lot of people standing around in a normally desolate area. or whether there are lots of devices operating between foo and bar that are interfering with them." kurt nodded slowly. "the packets we lose could be just as interesting as the packets we don't lose," he said. a light went on in alan's head. "we could be like jazz critics, listening to the silences instead of the notes," he said. they all looked at him. "that's very good," lyman said. "like a jazz critic." he smiled. alan smiled back. "what are we seeing, craig?" lyman said. "kurt," alan said. "right, kurt," he said. "sorry." "we're seeing the grid here. see how the access points go further up the spectrum the more packets they get? i'm associated with that bad boy right there." he gestured to the box blinking silently in the middle of the board room table. "and it's connected to one other, which is connected to a third." lyman picked up his phone and dialed a speed-dial number. "hey, can you unplug the box on my desk?" a moment later, one of the boxes on the display winked out. "watch this," kurt said, as the remaining two boxes were joined by a coruscating line. "see that? self-healing. minimal packet loss. beautiful." "that's hot," lyman said. "that makes me all wet." they chuckled nervously at his crudity. "seriously." "here," kurt said, and another window popped up, showing twenty or more boxes with marching ant trails between them. "that's a time-lapse of the kensington network. the boxes are running different versions of the firmware, so you can see that in some edge cases, you get a lot more oscillation between two similar signals. we fixed that in the new version." the graybeard said, "how?" "we flip a coin," kurt said, and grinned. "these guys in denmark ran some simulations, proved that a random toss-up worked as well as any other algorithm, and it's a lot cheaper, computationally." "so what's going on just to the northeast of center?" alan paid attention to the patch of screen indicated. three access points were playing musical chairs, dropping signal and reacquiring it, dropping it again. kurt shrugged. "bum hardware, i think. we've got volunteers assembling those boxes, from parts." "parts?" kurt's grin widened. "yeah. from the trash, mostly. i dumpster-dive for 'em." they grinned back. "that's very hot," lyman said. "we're looking at normalizing the parts for the next revision," alan said. "we want to be able to use a single distro that works on all of them." "oh, sure," lyman said, but he looked a little disappointed, and so did kurt. "okay, it works," lyman said. "it works?" he said, nodding the question at his posse. they nodded back. "so what can we do for you?" alan chewed his lip, caught himself at it, stopped. he'd anticipated a slugfest, now he was getting strokes. "how come you're being so nice to us?" kurt said. "you guys are the man." he shrugged at alan. "someone had to say it." lyman smiled. "yeah, we're the phone company. big lumbering dinosaur that is thrashing in the tarpit. the spazz dinosaur that's so embarrassed all the other dinosaurs that none of them want to rescue us." "heh, spazz dinosaur," the east indian woman said, and they all laughed. "heh," kurt said. "but seriously." "seriously," lyman said. "seriously. think a second about the scale of a telco. of this telco. the thousands of kilometers of wire in the ground. switching stations. skilled linesmen and cable-pullers. coders. switches. backhaul. peering arrangements. we've got it all. ever get on a highway and hit a flat patch where you can't see anything to the horizon except the road and the telephone poles and the wires? those are *our wires*. it's a lot of goodness, especially for a big, evil phone company. "so we've got a lot of smart hackers. a lot of cool toys. a gigantic budget. the biggest network any of us could ever hope to manage -- like a model train set the size of a city. "that said, we're hardly nimble. moving a bell is like shifting a battleship by tapping it on the nose with a toothpick. it can be done, but you can spend ten years doing it and still not be sure if you've made any progress. from the outside, it's easy to mistake 'slow' for 'evil.' it's easy to make that mistake from the inside, too. "but i don't let it get me down. it's *good* for a bell to be slow and plodding, most of the time. you don't want to go home and discover that we've dispatched the progress-ninjas to upgrade all your phones with video screens and a hush mode that reads your thoughts. most of our customers still can't figure out voice mail. some of them can't figure out touch-tone dialing. so we're slow. conservative. but we can do lots of killer r&d, we can roll out really hot upgrades on the back end, and we can provide this essential service to the world that underpins its ability to communicate. we're not just cool, we're essential. "so you come in and you show us your really swell and interesting meshing wireless data boxes, and i say, 'that is damned cool.' i think of ways that it could be part of a bell's business plan in a couple decades' time." "a couple decades?" kurt squawked. "jesus christ, i expect to have a chip in my brain and a jetpack in a couple decades' time." "which is why you'd be an idiot to get involved with us," lyman said. "who wants to get involved with you?" kurt said. "no one," alan said, putting his hands on the table, grateful that the conflict had finally hove above the surface. "that's not what we're here for." "why are you here, alvin?" lyman said. "we're here because we're going into the moving-data-around trade, in an ambitious way, and because you folks are the most ambitious moving-data-around tradespeople in town. i thought we'd come by and let you know what we're up to, see if you have any advice for us." "advice, huh?" "yeah. you've got lots of money and linesmen and switches and users and so forth. you probably have some kind of well-developed cosmology of connectivity, with best practices and philosophical ruminations and tasty metaphors. and i hear that you, personally, are really good at making geeks and telcos play together. since we're going to be a kind of telco" -- kurt startled and alan kicked him under the table -- "i thought you could help us get started right." "advice," lyman said, drumming his fingers. he stood up and paced. "one: don't bother. this is at least two orders of magnitude harder than you think it is. there aren't enough junk computers in all of toronto's landfills to blanket the city in free wireless. the range is nothing but three hundred feet, right? less if there are trees and buildings, and this city is all trees and buildings. "two: don't bother. the liability here is stunning. the gear you're building is nice and all, but you're putting it into people's hands and you've got no idea what they're going to do with it. they're going to hack in bigger antennae and signal amplifiers. the radio cops will be on your ass day and night. "what's more, they're going to open it up to the rest of the world and any yahoo who has a need to hide what he's up to is going to use your network to commit unspeakable acts -- you're going to be every pirate's best friend and every terrorist's safest haven. "three: don't bother. this isn't going to work. you've got a cute little routing algorithm that runs with three nodes, and you've got a model that may scale up to , but by the time you get to thousand, you're going to be hitting so much latency and dropping so many packets on the floor and incurring so much signaling overhead that it'll be a gigantic failure. "you want my advice? turn this into a piece of enterprise technology: a cheap way of rolling out managed solutions in hotels and office towers and condos -- building-wide meshes, not city-wide. those guys will pay -- they pay a hundred bucks per punchdown now for wired networking, so they'll gladly cough up a thousand bucks a floor for these boxes, and you'll only need one on every other story. and those people *use* networks, they're not joe consumer who doesn't have the first clue what to do with a network connection." kurt had stiffened up when the rant began, and once he heard the word "consumer," he began to positively vibrate. alan gave him a warning nudge with his elbow. "you're shitting me, right?" kurt said. "you asked me for advice --" lyman said, mildly. "you think we're going to bust our balls to design and deploy all this hardware so that business hotels can save money on cable-pullers? why the hell would we want to do that?" "because it pays pretty well," lyman said. he was shaking his head a little, leaning back from the table, and his posse picked up on it, going slightly restless and fidgety, with a room-wide rustle of papers and clicking of pens and laptop latches. alan held up his hand. "lyman, i'm sorry, we've been unclear. we're not doing this as a money-making venture --" kurt snorted. "it's about serving the public interest. we want to give our neighbors access to tools and ideas that they wouldn't have had before. there's something fundamentally undemocratic about charging money for communications: it means that the more money you have, the more you get to communicate. so we're trying to fix that, in some small way. we are heartily appreciative of your advice, though --" lyman held up a hand. "sorry, alan, i don't mean to interrupt, but there was something i wanted to relate to you two, and i've got to go in about five minutes." apparently, the meeting was at an end. "and i had made myself a note to tell you two about this when i discovered it last week. can i have the floor?" "of course," alan said. "i took a holiday last week," lyman said. "me and my girlfriend. we went to switzerland to see the alps and to visit her sister, who's doing something for the un in geneva. so her sister, she's into, i don't know, saving children from vampires in afghanistan or something, and she has internet access at the office, and can't see any reason to drop a connection in at home. so there i was, wandering the streets of geneva at seven in the morning, trying to find a wifi connection so i can get my email and find out how many ways i can enlarge my penis this week. "no problem -- outside every hotel and most of the cafés, i can find a signal for a network called swisscom. i log on to the network and i fire up a browser and i get a screen asking me for my password. well, i don't have one, but after poking around, i find out that i can buy a card with a temporary password on it. so i wait until some of the little smoke shops open and start asking them if they sell swisscom internet cards, in my terrible, miserable french, and after chuckling at my accent, they look at me and say, 'i have no clue what you're talking about,' shrug, and go back to work. "then i get the idea to go and ask at the hotels. the first one, the guy tells me that they only sell cards to guests, since they're in short supply. the cards are in short supply! three hotels later, they allow as how they'll sell me a -minute card. oh, that's fine. thirty whole minutes of connectivity. whoopee. and how much will that be? only about a zillion swiss pesos. don't they sell cards of larger denominations? oh sure, two hours, hours, seven days -- and each one costs about double the last, so if you want, you can get a seven day card for about as much as you'd spend on a day's worth of connectivity in -minute increments -- about three hundred dollars canadian for a week, just fyi. "well, paying bucks for a week's internet is ghastly, but very swiss, where they charge you if you have more than two bits of cheese at breakfast, and hell, i could afford it. but three hundred bucks for a day's worth of -minute cards? fuck that. i was going to have to find a seven-day card or bust. so i ask at a couple more hotels and finally find someone who'll explain to me that swisscom is the swiss telco, and that they have a retail storefront a couple blocks away where they'd sell me all the cards i wanted, in whatever denominations i require. "by this time, it's nearly nine a.m. and i'm thinking that my girlfriend and her sister are probably up and eating a big old breakfast and wondering where the fuck i am, but i've got too much invested in this adventure to give up when i'm so close to finding the treasure. and so i hied myself off to the swisscom storefront, which is closed, even though the sign says they open at nine and by now it's nine-oh-five, and so much for swiss punctuality. but eventually this sneering kid with last year's faux-hawk comes out and opens the door and then disappears up the stairs at the back of the show room to the second floor, where i follow him. i get up to his counter and say, '*pardonnez moi*,' but he holds up a hand and points behind me and says, 'numero!' i make an elaborate shrug, but he just points again and says, '*numero*!' i shrug again and he shakes his head like he's dealing with some kind of unbelievable moron, and then he steps out from behind his counter and stalks over to a little touchscreen. he takes my hand by the wrist and plants my palm on the touchscreen and a little ribbon of paper with zero-zero-one slides out. i take it and he goes back behind his counter and says, '*numero un*!' "i can tell this is not going to work out, but i need to go through the motions. i go to the counter and ask for a seven-day card. he opens his cash drawer and paws through a pile of cards, then smiles and shakes his head and says, sorry, all sold out. my girlfriend is probably through her second cup of coffee and reading brochures for nature walks in the alps at this point, so i say, fine, give me a one-day card. he takes a moment to snicker at my french, then says, so sorry, sold out those, too. two hours? nope. half an hour? oh, those we got. "think about this for a second. i am sitting there with my laptop in hand, at six in the morning, on a swiss street, connected to swisscom's network, a credit card in my other hand, wishing to give them some money in exchange for the use of their network, and instead i have to go chasing up and down every hotel in geneva for a card, which is not to be found. so i go to the origin of these cards, the swisscom store, and they're sold out, too. this is not a t-shirt or a loaf of bread: there's no inherent scarcity in two-hour or seven-day cards. the cards are just a convenient place to print some numbers, and all you need to do to make more numbers is pull them out of thin air. they're just numbers. we have as many of them as we could possibly need. there's no sane, rational universe in which all the 'two-hour' numbers sell out, leaving nothing behind but ' -minute' numbers. "so that's pretty bad. it's the kind of story that net-heads tell about bell-heads all around the world. it's the kind of thing i've made it my business to hunt down and exterminate here wherever i find it. so i just wrote off my email for that week and came home and downloaded a hundred thousand spams about my cock's insufficient dimensions and went in to work and i told everyone i could find about this, and they all smiled nervously and none of them seemed to find it as weird and ridiculous as me, and then, that friday, i went into a meeting about our new high-speed wifi service that we're piloting in montreal and the guy in charge of the program hands out these little packages to everyone in the meeting, a slide deck and some of the marketing collateral and -- a little prepaid -minute access card. "that's what we're delivering. prepaid cards for internet access. *complet avec* number shortages and business travelers prowling the bagel joints of rue st urbain looking for a shopkeeper whose cash drawer has a few seven-day cards kicking around. "and you come in here, and you ask me, you ask the ruling bell, what advice do we have for your metro-wide free info-hippie wireless dumpster-diver anarcho-network? honestly -- i don't have a fucking clue. we don't have a fucking clue. we're a telephone company. we don't know how to give away free communications -- we don't even know how to charge for it." "that was refreshingly honest," kurt said. "i wanna shake your hand." he stood up and lyman stood up and lyman's posse stood up and they converged on the doorway in an orgy of handshaking and grinning. the graybeard handed over the access point, and the east indian woman ran off to get the other two, and before they knew it, they were out on the street. "i liked him," kurt said. "i could tell," alan said. "remember you said something about an advisory board? how about if we ask him to join?" "that is a *tremendous* and deeply weird idea, partner. i'll send out the invite when we get home." # kurt said that the anarchist bookstore would be a slam dunk, but it turned out to be the hardest sell of all. "i spoke to them last month, they said they were going to run it down in their weekly general meeting. they love it. it's anarcho-radio. plus, they all want high-speed connectivity in the store so they can webcast their poetry slams. just go on by and introduce yourself, tell 'em i sent you." ambrose nodded and skewered up a hunk of omelet and swirled it in the live yogurt the greek served, and chewed. "all right," he said, "i'll do it this afternoon. you look exhausted, by the way. hard night in the salt mines?" kurt looked at his watch. "i got about an hour's worth of diving in. i spent the rest of the night breaking up with monica." "monica?" "the girlfriend." "already? i thought you two just got together last month." kurt shrugged. "longest fucking month of my life. all she wanted to do was go clubbing all night. she hated staying over at my place because of the kids coming by in the morning to work on the access points." "i'm sorry, pal," andy said. he never knew what to do about failed romance. he'd had no experience in that department since the seventh grade, after all. "you'll find someone else soon enough." "too soon!" kurt said. "we screamed at each other for five hours before i finally got gone. it was probably my fault. i lose my temper too easy. i should be more like you." "you're a good man, kurt. don't forget it." kurt ground his fists into his eyes and groaned. "i'm such a fuck-up," he said. alan tugged kurt's hand away from his face. "stop that. you're an extraordinary person. i've never met anyone who has the gifts you possess, and i've met some gifted people. you should be very proud of the work you're doing, and you should be with someone who's equally proud of you." kurt visibly inflated. "thanks, man." they gripped one another's hands for a moment. kurt swiped at his moist eyes with the sleeve of his colorless grey sweatshirt. "okay, it's way past my bedtime," he said. "you gonna go to the bookstore today?" "absolutely. thanks for setting them up." "it was about time i did some of the work, after you got the nut-shop and the cheese place and the salvadoran pupusa place." "kurt, i'm just doing the work that you set in motion. it's all you, this project. i'm just your helper. sleep well." andy watched him slouch off toward home, reeling a little from sleep deprivation and emotional exhaustion. he forked up the rest of his omelet, looked reflexively up at the blinkenlights on the ap over the greek's sign, just above the apostrophe, where he'd nailed it up two months before. since then, he'd nailed up five more, each going more smoothly than the last. at this rate, he'd have every main drag in the market covered by summer. sooner, if he could offload some of the labor onto one of kurt's eager kids. he went back to his porch then, and watched the market wake up. the traffic was mostly bicycling bankers stopping for a fresh bagel on their way down to the business district. the market was quite restful. it shuffled like an old man in carpet slippers, setting up streetside produce tables, twiddling the dials of its many radios looking for something with a beat. he watched them roll past, the salvadoran pupusa ladies, jamaican patty kings, italian butchers, vietnamese pho-tenders, and any number of thrift-store hotties, crusty-punks, strung-out artistes, trustafarians and pretty-boy skaters. as he watched them go past, he had an idea that he'd better write his story soon, or maybe never. maybe never nothing: maybe this was his last season on earth. felt like that, apocalyptic. old debts, come to be settled. he shuffled upstairs and turned on the disused computer, which had sat on his desk for months and was therefore no longer top-of-the-line, no longer nearly so exciting, no longer so fraught with promise. still, he made himself sit in his seat for two full hours before he allowed himself to get up, shower, dress, and head over to the anarchist bookstore, taking a slow route that gave him the chance to eyeball the lights on all the aps he'd installed. the anarchist bookstore opened lackadaisically at or eleven-thirty or sometimes noon, so he'd brought along a nice old john d. macdonald paperback with a gun-toting bikini girl on the cover to read. he liked macdonald's books: you could always tell who the villainesses were because the narrator made a point of noting that they had fat asses. it was as good a way as any to shorthand the world, he thought. the guy who came by to open the store was vaguely familiar to alfred, a kensington stalwart of about forty, whose thrifted slacks and unraveling sweater weren't hip so much as they were just plain old down and out. he had a frizzed-out, no-cut haircut, and carried an enormous army-surplus backpack that sagged with beat-up lefty books and bags of organic vegetariania. "hi there!" arnold said pocketing the book and dusting off his hands. "hey," the guy said into his stringy beard, fumbling with a keyring. "i'll be opening up in a couple minutes, okay? i know i'm late. it's a bad day. okay?" arnold held his hands up, palms out. "hey, no problem at all! take as much time as you need. i'm in no hurry." the anarchist hustled around inside the shop, turning on lights, firing up the cash-register and counting out a float, switching on the coffee machine. alan waited patiently by the doorway, holding the door open with his toe when the clerk hauled out a rack of discounted paperbacks and earning a dirty look for his trouble. "okay, we're open," the anarchist said looking alan in the toes. he turned around and banged back into the shop and perched himself behind the counter, opening a close-typed punk newspaper and burying his nose in it. adam walked in behind him and stood at the counter, politely, waiting. the anarchist looked up from his paper and shook his head exasperatedly. "yes?" alan extended his hand. "hi, i'm archie, i work with kurt, over on augusta?" the anarchist stared at his hand, then shook it limply. "okay," he said. "so, kurt mentioned that he'd spoken to your collective about putting a wireless repeater up over your sign?" the anarchist shook his head. "we decided not to do that, okay." he went back to his paper. andrew considered him for a moment. "so, what's your name?" "i don't like to give out my name," the anarchist said. "call me waldo, all right?" "all right," andy said smiling. "that's fine by me. so, can i ask why you decided not to do it?" "it doesn't fit with our priorities. we're here to make print materials about the movement available to the public. they can get internet access somewhere else. internet access is for people who can afford computers, anyway." "good point," art said. "that's a good point. i wonder if i could ask you to reconsider, though? i'd love a chance to try to explain why this should be important to you." "i don't think so," waldo said. "we're not really interested." "i think you *would* be interested, if it were properly explained to you." waldo picked up his paper and pointedly read it, breathing heavily. "thanks for your time," avi said and left. # "that's *bullshit*," kurt said. "christ, those people --" "i assumed that there was some kind of politics," austin said, "and i didn't want to get into the middle of it. i know that if i could get a chance to present to the whole group, that i could win them over." kurt shook his head angrily. his shop was better organized now, with six access points ready to go and five stuck to the walls as a test bed for new versions of the software. a couple of geeky korean kids were seated at the communal workbench, eating donuts and wrestling with drivers. "it's all politics with them. everything. you should hear them argue about whether it's cool to feed meat to the store cat! who was working behind the counter?" "he wouldn't tell me his name. he told me to call him --" "waldo." "yeah." "well, that could be any of about six of them, then. that's what they tell the cops. they probably thought you were a narc or a fed or something." "i see." "it's not total paranoia. they've been busted before -- it's always bullshit. i raised bail for a couple of them once." andrew realized that kurt thought he was offended at being mistaken for a cop, but he got that. he was weird -- visibly weird. out of place wherever he was. "so they owe me. let me talk to them some more." "thanks, kurt. i appreciate it." "well, you're doing all the heavy lifting these days. it's the least i can do." alan clapped a hand on his shoulder. "none of this would exist without you, you know." he waved his hand to take in the room, the korean kids, the whole market. "i saw a bunch of people at the greek's with laptops, showing them around to each other and drinking beers. in the park, with pdas. i see people sitting on their porches, typing in the twilight. crouched in doorways. eating a bagel in the morning on a bench. people are finding it, and it's thanks to you." kurt smiled a shy smile. "you're just trying to cheer me up," he said. "course i am," andy said. "you deserve to be full of cheer." # "don't bother," andy said. "seriously, it's not worth it. we'll just find somewhere else to locate the repeater. it's not worth all the bullshit you're getting." "screw that. they told me that they'd take one. they're the only ones *i* talked into it. my contribution to the effort. and they're fucking *anarchists* -- they've *got* to be into this. it's totally irrational!" he was almost crying. "i don't want you to screw up your friendships, kurt. they'll come around on their own. you're turning yourself inside out over this, and it's just not worth it. come on, it's cool." he turned around his laptop and showed the picture to kurt. "check it out, people with tails. an entire gallery of them!" there were lots of pictures like that on the net. none of people without belly buttons, though. kurt took a pull off his beer. "disgusting," he said and clicked through the gallery. the greek looked over their shoulder. "it's real?" "it's real, larry," alan said. "freaky, huh?" "that's terrible," the greek said. "pah." there were five or six other network users out on the greek's, and it was early yet. by five-thirty, there'd be fifty of them. some of them brought their own power strips so that they could share juice with their coreligionists. "you really want me to give up?" kurt asked, once the greek had given him a new beer and a scowling look over the litter of picked-at beer label on the table before him. "i really think you should," alan said. "it's a poor use of time." kurt looked ready to cry again. adam had no idea what to say. "okay," kurt said. "fine." he finished his beer in silence and slunk away. # but it wasn't fine, and kurt wouldn't give it up. he kept on beating his head against the blank wall, and every time alan saw him, he was grimmer than the last. "let it *go*," adam said. "i've done a deal with the vacuum-cleaner repair guy across the street." a weird-but-sweet old polish holocaust survivor who'd listened attentively to andy's pitch before announcing that he'd been watching all the hardware go up around the market and had simply been waiting to be included in the club. "that'll cover that corner just fine." "i'm going to throw a party," kurt said. "here, in the shop. no, i'll rent out one of the warehouses on oxford. i'll invite them, the kids, everyone who's let us put up an access point, a big mill-and-swill. buy a couple kegs. no one can resist free beer." alan had started off frustrated and angry with kurt, but this drew him up and turned him around. "that is a *fine* idea," he said. "we'll invite lyman." # lyman had taken to showing up on alan's stoop in the morning sometimes, on his way to work, for a cup of coffee. he'd taken to showing up at kurt's shop in the afternoon, sometimes, on his way home from work, to marvel at the kids' industry. his graybeard had written some code that analyzed packet loss and tried to make guesses about the crowd density in different parts of the market, and lyman took a proprietary interest in it, standing out by bikes on wheels or the portuguese furniture store and watching the data on his pda, comparing it with the actual crowds on the street. he'd only hesitated for a second when andrew asked him to be the inaugural advisor on parasitenet's board, and once he'd said yes, it became clear to everyone that he was endlessly fascinated by their little adhocracy and its experimental telco potential. "this party sounds like a great idea," he said. he was buying the drinks, because he was the one with five-hundred-dollar glasses and a full-suspension racing bike. "lookit that," he said. from the greek's front window, they could see oxford street and a little of augusta, and lyman loved using his pda and his density analysis software while he sat, looking from his colored map to the crowd scene. "lookit the truck as it goes down oxford and turns up augusta. that signature is so distinctive, i could spot it in my sleep. i need to figure out how to sell this to someone -- maybe the cops or something." he tipped andy a wink. kurt opened and shut his mouth a few times, and lyman slapped his palm down on the table. "you look like you're going to bust something," he said. "don't worry. i kid. damn, you've got you some big, easy-to-push buttons." kurt made a face. "you wanted to sell our stuff to luxury hotels. you tried to get us to present at the *skydome*. you're capable of anything." "the skydome would be a great venue for this stuff," lyman said settling into one of his favorite variations of bait-the-anarchist. "the skydome was built with tax-dollars that should have been spent on affordable housing, then was turned over to rich pals of the premier for a song, who then ran it into the ground, got bailed out by the province, and then it got turned over to different rich pals. you can just shut up about the goddamned skydome. you'd have to break both of my legs and *carry me* to get me to set foot in there." "about the party," adam said. "about the party." "yes, certainly," lyman said. "kurt, behave." kurt belched loudly, provoking a scowl from the greek. # the waldos all showed up in a bunch, with plastic brown liter bottles filled with murky homemade beer and a giant bag of skunk-weed. the party had only been on for a couple hours, but it had already balkanized into inward-facing groups: merchants, kids, hackers. kurt kept turning the music way up ("if they're not going to talk with one another, they might as well dance." "kurt, those people are old. old people don't dance to music like this." "shut up, lyman." "make me."), and andy kept turning it down. the bookstore people drifted in, then stopped and moved vaguely toward the middle of the floor, there to found their own breakaway conversational republic. lyman startled. "sara?" he said and one of the anarchists looked up sharply. "lyman?" she had two short ponytails and a round face that made her look teenage young, but on closer inspection she was more lyman's age, mid-thirties. she laughed and crossed the gap to their little republic and threw her arms around lyman's neck. "crispy christ, what are *you* doing here?" "i work with these guys!" he turned to arnold and kurt. "this is my cousin sara," he said. "these are albert and kurt. i'm helping them out." "hi, sara," kurt said. "hey, kurt," she said looking away. it was clear even to alan that they knew each other already. the other bookstore people were looking on with suspicion, drinking their beer out of refillable coffee-store thermos cups. "it's great to meet you!" alan said taking her hand in both of his and shaking it hard. "i'm really glad you folks came down." she looked askance at him, but lyman interposed himself. "now, sara, these guys really, really wanted to talk something over with you all, but they've been having a hard time getting a hearing." kurt and alan traded uneasy glances. they'd carefully planned out a subtle easeway into this conversation, but lyman was running with it. "you didn't know that i was involved, huh?" "surprised the hell outta me," lyman said. "will you hear them out?" she looked back at her collective. "what the hell. yeah, i'll talk 'em into it." # "it starts with the sinking of the *titanic*," kurt said. they'd arranged their mismatched chairs in a circle in the cramped back room of the bookstore and were drinking and eating organic crumbly things with the taste and consistency of mud-brick. sara told kurt that they'd have ten minutes, and alan had told him that he could take it all. alan'd spent the day reading on the net, remembering the arguments that had swayed the most people, talking it over. he was determined that kurt would win this fight. "there's this ship going down, and it's signaling s-o-s, s-o-s, but the message didn't get out, because the shipping lanes were full of other ships with other radios, radios that clobbered the *titanic*'s signal. that's because there were no rules for radio back then, so anyone could light up any transmitter and send out any signal at any frequency. imagine a room where everyone shouted at the top of their lungs, nonstop, while setting off air horns. "after that, they decided that fed regulators would divide up the radio spectrum into bands, and give those bands to exclusive licensees who'd know that their radio waves would reach their destination without being clobbered, because any clobberers would get shut down by the cops. "but today, we've got a better way: we can make radios that are capable of intelligently cooperating with each other. we can make radios that use databases or just finely tuned listeners to determine what bands aren't in use, at any given moment, in any place. they can talk between the gaps in other signals. they can relay messages for other radios. they can even try to detect the presence of dumb radio devices, like tvs and fm tuners, and grab the signal they're meant to be receiving off of the internet and pass it on, so that the dumb device doesn't even realize that the world has moved on. "now, the original radio rules were supposed to protect free expression because if everyone was allowed to speak at once, no one would be heard. that may have been true, but it was a pretty poor system as it went: mostly, the people who got radio licenses were cops, spooks, and media barons. there aren't a lot of average people using the airwaves to communicate for free with one another. not a lot of free speech. "but now we have all this new technology where computers direct the operation of flexible radios, radios whose characteristics are determined by software, and it's looking like the scarcity of the electromagnetic spectrum has been pretty grossly overstated. it's hard to prove, because now we've got a world where lighting up a bunch of smart, agile radios is a crime against the 'legit' license-holders. "but parliament's not going to throw the airwaves open because no elected politician can be responsible for screwing up the voters' televisions, because that's the surest-fire way to not get reelected. which means that when you say, 'hey, our freedom of speech is being clobbered by bad laws,' the other side can say, 'go study some physics, hippie, or produce a working network, or shut up.' "the radios we're installing now are about one millionth as smart as they could be, and they use one millionth as much spectrum as they could without stepping on anyone else's signal, but they're legal, and they're letting more people communicate than ever. there are people all over the world doing this, and whenever the policy wonks go to the radio cops to ask for more radio spectrum to do this stuff with, they parade people like us in front of them. we're like the pinocchio's nose on the face of the radio cops: they say that only their big business buddies can be trusted with the people's airwaves, and we show them up for giant liars." he fell silent and looked at them. adam held his breath. sara nodded and broke the silence. "you know, that sounds pretty cool, actually." # kurt insisted on putting up that access point, while alan and lyman steadied the ladder. sara came out and joked with lyman, and alan got distracted watching them, trying to understand this notion of "cousins." they had an easy rapport, despite all their differences, and spoke in a shorthand of family weddings long past and crotchety relatives long dead. so none of them were watching when kurt overbalanced and dropped the makita, making a wild grab for it, foot slipping off the rung, and toppled backward. it was only kurt's wild bark of panic that got adam to instinctively move, to hold out his arms and look up, and he caught kurt under the armpits and gentled him to the ground, taking the weight of kurt's fall in a bone-jarring crush to his rib cage. "you okay?" alan said once he'd gotten his breath back. "oof," kurt said. "yeah." they were cuddled together on the sidewalk, kurt atop him, and lyman and sara bent to help them apart. "nice catch," lyman said. kurt was helped to his feet, and he declared that he'd sprained his ankle and nothing worse, and they helped him back to his shop, where a couple of his kids doted over him, getting him an ice pack and a pillow and his laptop and one of the many dumpster-dived discmen from around the shop and some of the cds of old punk bands that he favored. there he perched, growly as a wounded bear, master of his kingdom, for the next two weeks, playing online and going twitchy over the missed dumpsters going to the landfill every night without his expert picking over. alan visited him every day and listened raptly while kurt gave him the stats for the day's network usage, and kurt beamed proud the whole while. # one morning, alan threw a clatter of toonies down on the greek's counter and walked around the market, smelling the last night's staggering pissers and the morning's blossoms. here were his neighbors, multicolored heads at the windows of their sagging house adjoining his, link and natalie in the adjacent windows farthest from his front door, mimi's face suspicious at her window, and was that krishna behind her, watching over her shoulder, hand between her wings, fingers tracing the scars depending from the muscles there? he waved at them. the reluctant winter made every day feel like the day before a holiday weekend. the bankers and the retail slaves coming into and out of the market had a festive air. he waved at the neighbors, and link waved back, and then so did natalie, and he hefted his sack of coffees from the greek's suggestively, and mimi shut her curtains with a snap, but natalie and link smiled, and a moment later they were sitting in twig chairs on his porch in their jammies, watching the world go past as the sun began to boil the air and the coffee tasted as good as it smelled. "beautiful day," natalie said rubbing the duckling fuzz on her scalp and closing her eyes. "found any work yet?" alan said remembering his promise to put her in touch with one of his fashionista protégés. she made a face. "in a video store. bo-ring." link made a rude noise. "you are *so* spoiled. not just any video store, she's working at martian signal on queen street." alan knew it, a great shop with a huge selection of cult movies and a brisk trade in zines, transgressive literature, action figures and t-shirts. "it must be great there," he said. she smiled and looked away. "it's okay." she bit her lip. "i don't think i like working retail," she said. "ah, retail!" he said. "retail would be fantastic if it wasn't for the fucking customers." she giggled. "don't let them get to you," he said. "get to be really smart about the stock, so that there's always something you know more about than they do, and when that isn't true, get them to *teach you* more so you'll be in control the next time." she nodded. "and have fun with the computer when it's slow," he said. "what?" "a store like that, it's got the home phone number of about seventy percent of the people in toronto you'd want to ever hang out with. most of your school friends, even the ones you've lost track of. all the things they've rented. all their old addresses -- you can figure out who's living together, who gave their apartment to whom, all of that stuff. that kind of database is way more fun than you realize. you can get lost in it for months." she was nodding slowly. "i can see that," she said. she upended her coffee and set it down. "listen, arbus --" she began, then bit her lip again. she looked at link, who tugged at his fading pink shock of hair. "it's nothing," he said. "we get emotionally overwrought about friends and family. i have as much to apologize for as... well, i owe you an apology." they stared at the park across the street, at the damaged wading pool where edward had vanished. "so, sorries all 'round and kisses and hugs, and now we're all friends again, huh?" link said. natalie made a rude noise and ruffled his hair, then wiped her hand off on his shirt. alan, though, solemnly shook each of their hands in turn, and thanked them. when he was done, he felt as though a weight had been lifted from him. next door, mimi's window slammed shut. "what is it you're doing around here, akin?" link said. "i keep seeing you running around with ladders and tool belts. i thought you were a writer. are you soundproofing the whole market?" "i never told you?" alan said. he'd been explaining wireless networking to anyone who could sit still and had been beginning to believe that he'd run it down for every denizen of kensington, but he'd forgotten to clue in his own neighbors! "right," he said. "are you seated comfortably? then i shall begin. when we connect computers together, we call it a network. there's a *big* network of millions of computers, called the internet." "even *i* know this," natalie said. "shush," alan said. "i'll start at the beginning, where i started a year ago, and work my way forward. it's weird, it's big and it's cool." and he told them the story, the things he'd learned from kurt, the arguments he'd honed on the shopkeepers, the things lyman had told him. "so that's the holy mission," he said at last. "you give everyone a voice and a chance to speak on a level playing field with the rich and powerful, and you make democracy, which is good." he looked at link and natalie, who were looking to one another rather intensely, communicating in some silent idiom of sibling body-language. "plate-o-shrimp," natalie said. "funny coincidence," link said. "we were just talking about this yesterday." "spectrum?" alan quirked his eyebrows. "no, not exactly," natalie said. "about making a difference. about holy missions. wondering if there were any left." "i mean," link said, "riding a bike or renting out videos are honest ways to make a living and all, and they keep us in beer and rent money, but they're not --" "-- *important*." natalie said. "ah," alan said. "ah?" "well, that's the thing we all want, right? making a difference." "yeah." "which is why you went into fashion," link said giving her skinny shoulder a playful shove. she shoved him back. "and why *you* went into electrical engineering!" "okay," alan said. "it's not necessarily about what career you pick. it's about how you do what you do. natalie, you told me you used to shop at tropicál." she nodded. "you liked it, you used to shop there, right?" "yeah." "and it inspired you to go into fashion design. it also provided employment for a couple dozen people over the years. i sometimes got to help out little alternative girls from north toronto buy vintage prom dresses at the end of the year, and i helped motown revival bands put together matching outfits of red blazers and wide trousers. four or five little shops opened up nearby selling the same kind of thing, imitating me -- that whole little strip down there started with tropicál." natalie nodded. "okay, i knew that, i guess. but it's not the same as *really* making a difference, is it?" link flicked his butt to the curb. "you're changing people's lives for the better either way, right?" "exactly," alan said. then link grinned. "but there's something pretty, oh, i dunno, *ballsy*, about this wireless thing, yeah? it's not the same." "not the same," alan said grinning. "better." "how can we help?" # kurt had an assembly line cranking out his access points now. half a dozen street kids worked in the front of his place, in a cleared-out space with a makeshift workbench made from bowed plywood and scratched ikea table-legs. it made alan feel better to watch them making sense of it all, made him feel a little like he felt when he was working on the inventory. the kids worked from noon, when kurt got back from breakfast, until or , when he went out to dive. the kids were smart, but screwed up: half by teenaged hormones and half by bad parents or bad drugs or just bad brain chemistry. alan understood their type, trying to carve some atom of individual identity away from family and background, putting pins through their bodies and affecting unconvincing tough mannerisms. they were often bright -- the used bookstore had been full of their type, buying good, beat-up books off the sale rack for cents, trading them back for cents' credit the next day, and buying more. natalie and link were in that morning, along with some newcomers, montreal street punks trying their hand at something other than squeegee bumming. the punks and his neighbors gave each other uneasy looks, but alan had deliberately put the sugar for the coffee at the punks' end of the table and the cream in front of natalie and the stirs by the bathroom door with the baklava and the napkins, so a rudimentary social intercourse was begun. first, one of the punks (who had a rusty "no future" pin that alan thought would probably go for real coin on the collectors' market) asked natalie to pass her the cream. then link and another punk (foppy silly black hair and a cut-down private school blazer with the short sleeves pinned on with rows of safety pins) met over the baklava, and the punk offered link a napkin. another punk spilled her coffee on her lap, screeching horrendous quebecois blasphemies as curses, and that cracked everyone up, and arnold, watching from near the blanket that fenced off kurt's monkish sleeping area, figured that they would get along. "kurt," he said pulling aside the blanket, handing a double-double coffee over to kurt as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. he was wearing a white t-shirt that was the grimy grey of everything in his domain, and baggy jockeys. he gathered his blankets around him and sipped reverently. kurt cocked his head and listened to the soft discussions going on on the other side of the blanket. "christ, they're at it already?" "i think your volunteers showed up a couple hours ago -- or maybe they were up all night." kurt groaned theatrically. "i'm running a halfway house for geeky street kids." "all for the cause," alan said. "so, what's on the plate for today?" "you know the church kittycorner from your place?" "yeah?" alan said cautiously. "its spire is just about the highest point in the market. an omnidirectional up there..." "the church?" "yeah." "what about the new condos at the top of baldwin? they're tall." "they are. but they're up on the northern edge. from the bell-tower of that church, i bet you could shoot half the houses on the west side of oxford street, along with the backs of all the shops on augusta." "how are we going to get the church to go along with it. christ, what are they, ukrainian orthodox?" "greek orthodox," kurt said. "yeah, they're pretty conservative." "so?" "so, i need a smooth-talking, upstanding cit to go and put the case to the pastor. priest. bishop. whatever." "groan," alex said. "oh, come on, you're good at it." "if i get time," he said. he looked into his coffee for a moment. "i'm going to go home," he said. "home?" "to the mountain," he said. "home," he said. "to my father," he said. "whoa," kurt said. "alone?" alan sat on the floor and leaned back against a milk crate full of low-capacity hard drives. "i have to," he said. "i can't stop thinking of..." he was horrified to discover that he was on the verge of tears. it had been three weeks since davey had vanished into the night, and he'd dreamt of eugene-fabio-greg every night since, terrible dreams, in which he'd dug like a dog to uncover their hands, their arms, their legs, but never their heads. he swallowed hard. he and kurt hadn't spoken of that night since. "i sometimes wonder if it really happened," kurt said. alan nodded. "it's hard to believe. even for me." "i believe it," kurt said. "i won't ever not believe it. i think that's probably important to you." alan felt a sob well up in his chest and swallowed it down again. "thanks," he managed to say. "when are you leaving?" "tomorrow morning. i'm going to rent a car and drive up," he said. "how long?" "i dunno," he said. he was feeling morose now. "a couple days. a week, maybe. no longer." "well, don't sweat the bishop. he can wait. come and get a beer with me tonight before i go out?" "yeah," he said. "that sounds good. on a patio on kensington. we can people-watch." # how alan and his brothers killed davey: very deliberately. alan spent the rest of the winter in the cave, and davey spent the spring in the golem's cave, and through that spring, neither of them went down to the school, so that the younger brothers had to escort themselves to class. when the thaws came and icy meltoff carved temporary streams in the mountainside, they stopped going to school, too -- instead, they played on the mountainside, making dams and canals and locks with rocks and imagination. their father was livid. the mountain rumbled as it warmed unevenly, as the sheets of ice slid off its slopes and skittered down toward the highway. the sons of the mountain reveled in their dark ignorance, their separation from the school and from the nonsensical and nonmagical society of the town. they snared small animals and ate them raw, and didn't wash their clothes, and grew fierce and guttural through the slow spring. alan kept silent through those months, becoming almost nocturnal, refusing to talk to any brother who dared to talk to him. when ed-fred-george brought home a note from the vice principal asking when he thought he'd be coming back to school, alan shoved it into his mouth and chewed and chewed and chewed, until the paper was reduced to gruel, then he spat it by the matted pile of his bedding. the mountain grumbled and he didn't care. the golems came to parley, and he turned his back to them. the stalactites crashed to the cave's floor until it was carpeted in ankle-deep chips of stone, and he waded through them. he waited and bided. he waited for davey to try to come home. # "what have we here?" alan said, as he wandered into kurt's shop, which had devolved into joyous bedlam. the shelves had been pushed up against the wall, clearing a large open space that was lined with long trestle tables. crusty-punks, goth kids, hippie kids, geeks with vintage video-game shirts, and even a couple of older, hard-done-by street people crowded around the tables, performing a conglomeration of arcane tasks. the air hummed with conversation and coffee smells, the latter emanating from a catering-sized urn in the corner. he was roundly ignored -- and before he could speak again, one of the pcs on the floor started booming out fuzzy, grungy rockabilly music that made him think of elvis cassettes that had been submerged in salt water. half of the assembled mass started bobbing their heads and singing along while the other half rolled their eyes and groaned. kurt came out of the back and hunkered down with the pc, turning down the volume a little. "howdy!" he said, spreading his arms and taking in the whole of his dominion. "howdy yourself," alan said. "what do we have here?" "we have a glut of volunteers," kurt said, watching as an old rummy carefully shot a picture of a flat-panel lcd that was minus its housing. "i can't figure out if those laptop screens are worth anything," he said, cocking his head. "but they've been taking up space for far too long. time we moved them." alan looked around and realized that the workers he'd taken to be at work building access points were, in the main, shooting digital pictures of junk from kurt's diving runs and researching them for ebay listings. it made him feel good -- great, even. it was like watching an inventory being assembled from out of chaos. "where'd they all come from?" kurt shrugged. "i dunno. i guess we hit critical mass. you recruit a few people, they recruit a few people. it's a good way to make a couple bucks, you get to play with boss crap, you get paid in cash, and you have colorful co-workers." he shrugged again. "i guess they came from wherever the trash came from. the city provides." the homeless guy they were standing near squinted up at them. "if either of you says something like, *ah, these people were discarded by society, but just as with the junk we rescue from landfills, we have seen the worth of these poor folks and rescued them from the scrapheap of society,* i'm gonna puke." "the thought never crossed my mind," alan said solemnly. "keep it up, wes," kurt said, patting the man on the shoulder. "see you at the greek's tonight?" "every night, so long as he keeps selling the cheapest beer in the market," wes said, winking at alan. "it's cash in the door," kurt said. "buying components is a lot more efficient than trying to find just the right parts." he gave alan a mildly reproachful look. ever since they'd gone to strictly controlled designs, kurt had been heartbroken by the amount of really nice crap that never made its way into an access point. "this is pretty amazing," alan said. "you're splitting the money with them?" "the profit -- anything leftover after buying packaging and paying postage." he walked down the line, greeting people by name, shaking hands, marveling at the gewgaws and gimcracks that he, after all, had found in some nighttime dumpster and brought back to be recycled. "god, i love this. it's like napster for dumpsters." "how's that?" alan asked, pouring himself a coffee and adding some uht cream from a giant, slightly dented box of little creamers. "most of the music ever recorded isn't for sale at any price. like percent of it. and the labels, they've made copyright so strong, no one can figure out who all that music belongs to -- not even them! costs a fortune to clear a song. pal of mine once did a cd of christmas music remixes, and he tried to figure out who owned the rights to all the songs he wanted to use. he just gave up after a year -- and he had only cleared one song! "so along comes napster. it finds the only possible way of getting all that music back into our hands. it gives millions and millions of people an incentive to rip their old cds -- hell, their old vinyl and tapes, too! -- and put them online. no label could have afforded to do that, but the people just did it for free. it was like a barn-raising: a library raising!" alan nodded. "so what's your point -- that companies' dumpsters are being napstered by people like you?" a napsterized inventory. alan felt the *rightness* of it. kurt picked a fragile lcd out of a box of dozens of them and smashed it on the side of the table. "exactly!" he said. "this is garbage -- it's like the deleted music that you can't buy today, except at the bottom of bins at goodwill or at yard sales. tons of it has accumulated in landfills. no one could afford to pay enough people to go around and rescue it all and figure out the copyrights for it and turn it into digital files and upload it to the net -- but if you give people an incentive to tackle a little piece of the problem and a way for my work to help you..." he went to a shelf and picked up a finished ap and popped its latches and swung it open. "look at that -- i didn't get its guts out of a dumpster, but someone else did, like as not. i sold the parts i found in my dumpster for money that i exchanged for parts that someone else found in *her* dumpster --" "her?" "trying not to be sexist," kurt said. "are there female dumpster divers?" "got me," kurt said. "in ten years of this, i've only run into other divers twice or three times. remind me to tell you about the cop later. anyway. we spread out the effort of rescuing this stuff from the landfill, and then we put our findings online, and we move it to where it needs to be. so it's not cost effective for some big corporation to figure out how to use or sell these -- so what? it's not cost-effective for some big dumb record label to figure out how to keep music by any of my favorite bands in print, either. we'll figure it out. we're spookily good at it." "spookily?" "trying to be more poetic." he grinned and twisted the fuzzy split ends of his newly blue mohawk around his fingers. "got a new girlfriend, she says there's not enough poetry in my views on garbage." # they found one of davey's old nests in march, on a day when you could almost believe that the spring would really come and the winter would go and the days would lengthen out to more than a few hours of sour greyness huddled around noon. the reference design for the access point had gone through four more iterations, and if you knew where to look in the market's second-story apartments, rooftops, and lampposts, you could trace the evolution of the design from the clunky pc-shaped boxen in alan's attic on wales avenue to the environment-hardened milspec surplus boxes that kurt had rigged from old circuit boxes he'd found in bell canada's willowdale switching station dumpster. alan steadied the ladder while kurt tightened the wing nuts on the antenna mounting atop the synagogue's roof. it had taken three meetings with the old rabbi before alan hit on the idea of going to the temple's youth caucus and getting *them* to explain it to the old cleric. the synagogue was one of the oldest buildings in the market, a brick-and-stone beauty from . they'd worried about the fight they'd have over drilling through the roof to punch down a wire, but they needn't have: the wood up there was soft as cottage cheese, and showed gaps wide enough to slip the power cable down. now kurt slathered loctite over the nuts and washers and slipped dangerously down the ladder, toe-tips flying over the rungs. alan laughed as he touched down, thinking that kurt's heart was aburst with the feeling of having finished, at last, at last. but then he caught sight of kurt's face, ashen, wide-eyed. "i saw something," he said, talking out of the sides of his mouth. his hands were shaking. "what?" "footprints," he said. "there's a lot of leaves that have rotted down to mud up there, and there were a pair of little footprints in the mud. like a toddler's footprints, maybe. except there were two toes missing from one foot. they were stamped down all around this spot where i could see there had been a lot of pigeon nests, but there were no pigeons there, only a couple of beaks and legs -- so dried up that i couldn't figure out what they were at first. "but i recognized the footprints. the missing toes, they left prints behind like unbent paperclips." alan moved, as in a dream, to the ladder and began to climb it. "be careful, it's all rotten up there," kurt called. alan nodded. "sure, thank you," he said, hearing himself say it as though from very far away. the rooftop was littered with broken glass and scummy puddles of meltwater and little pebbles and a slurry of decomposing leaves, and there, yes, there were the footprints, just as advertised. he patted the antenna box absently, feeling its solidity, and he sat down cross-legged before the footprints and the beaks and the legs. there were no tooth marks on the birds. they hadn't been eaten, they'd been torn apart, like a label from a beer bottle absently shredded in the sunset. he pictured davey sitting here on the synagogue's roof, listening to the evening prayers, and the calls and music that floated over the market, watching the grey winter nights come on and slip away, a pigeon in his hand, writhing. he wondered if he was catching bradley's precognition, and if that meant that bradley was dead now. # bradley was born with the future in his eyes. he emerged from the belly of their mother with bright brown eyes that did not roll aimlessly in the manner of babies, but rather sought out the corners of the cave where interesting things were happening, where movement was about to occur, where life was being lived. before he developed the muscle strength and coordination necessary to crawl, he mimed crawling, seeing how it was that he would someday move. he was the easiest of all the babies to care for, easier even than carlo, who had no needs other than water and soil and cooing reassurance. toilet training: as soon as he understood what was expected of him -- they used the downstream-most bend of one of the underground rivers -- benny could be relied upon to begin tottering toward the spot in sufficient time to drop trou and do his business in just the right spot. (alan learned to pay attention when bruce was reluctant to leave home for a walk during those days -- the same premonition that made him perfectly toilet-trained at home would have him in fretting sweats at the foreknowledge that he has destined to soil himself during the recreation.) his nightmares ran twice: once just before bed, in clairvoyant preview, and again in the depths of rem sleep. alan learned to talk him down from these crises, to soothe the worry, and in the end it worked to everyone's advantage, defusing the nightmares themselves when they came. he never forgot anything -- never forgot to have alan forge a signature on a permission form, never forgot to bring in the fossil he'd found for show-and-tell, never forgot his mittens in the cloakroom and came home with red, chapped hands. once he started school, he started seeing to it that alan never forgot anything, either. he did very well on quizzes and tests, and he never let the pitcher fake him out when he was at bat. after four years alone with the golems, alan couldn't have been more glad to have a brother to keep him company. billy got big enough to walk, then big enough to pick mushrooms, then big enough to chase squirrels. he was big enough to play hide-and-go-seek with, big enough to play twenty questions with, big enough to horse around in the middle of the lake at the center of the mountain with. alan left him alone during the days, in the company of their parents and the golems, went down the mountain to school, and when he got back, he'd take his kid brother out on the mountain face and teach him what he'd learned, even though he was only a little kid. they'd write letters together in the mud with a stick, and in the winter, they'd try to spell out their names with steaming pee in the snow, laughing. "that's a fraction," brad said, chalking " / " on a piece of slate by the side of one of the snowmelt streams that coursed down the springtime mountain. "that's right, three-over-four," alan said. he'd learned it that day in school, and had been about to show it to billy, which meant that brad had remembered him doing it and now knew it. he took the chalk and drew his own / -- you had to do that, or billy wouldn't be able to remember it in advance. billy got down on his haunches. he was a dark kid, dark hair and eyes the color of chocolate, which he insatiably craved and begged for every morning when alan left for school, "bring me, bring me, bring me!" he'd found something. alan leaned in and saw that it was a milkweed pod. "it's an egg," bobby said. "no, it's a weed," alan said. bobby wasn't usually given to flights of fancy, but the shape of the pod was reminiscent of an egg. billy clucked his tongue. "i *know* that. it's also an egg for a bug. living inside there. i can see it hatching. next week." he closed his eyes. "it's orange! pretty. we should come back and find it once it hatches." alan hunkered down next to him. "there's a bug in here?" "yeah. it's like a white worm, but in a week it will turn into an orange bug and chew its way out." he was about three then, which made alan seven. "what if i chopped down the plant?" he said. "would the bug still hatch next week?" "you won't," billy said. "i could, though." "nope," brad said. alan reached for the plant. took it in his hand. the warm skin of the plant and the woody bole of the pod would be so easy to uproot. he didn't do it. that night, as he lay himself down to sleep, he couldn't remember why he hadn't. he couldn't sleep. he got up and looked out the front of the cave, at the countryside unrolling in the moonlight and the far lights of the town. he went back inside and looked in on benji. he was sleeping, his face smooth and his lips pouted. he rolled over and opened his eyes, regarding alan without surprise. "told you so," he said. # alan had an awkward relationship with the people in town. unaccompanied little boys in the grocery store, at the gap, in the library and in toy section of the canadian tire were suspect. alan never "horsed around" -- whatever that meant -- but nevertheless, he got more than his share of the hairy eyeball from the shopkeepers, even though he had money in his pocket and had been known to spend it on occasion. a lone boy of five or six or seven was suspicious, but let him show up with the tiny hand of his dark little brother clasped in his, quietly explaining each item on the shelf to the solemn child, and everyone got an immediate attitude adjustment. shopkeepers smiled and nodded, shoppers mouthed, "so cute," to each other. moms with babies in snuglis bent to chuckle them under their chins. store owners spontaneously gave them candy, and laughed aloud at bryan's cries of "chocolate!" when brian started school, he foresaw and avoided all trouble, and delighted his teachers with his precociousness. alan ate lunch with him once he reached the first grade and started eating in the cafeteria with the rest of the non-kindergartners. brad loved to play with craig after he was born, patiently mounding soil and pebbles on his shore, watering him and patting him smooth, planting wild grasses on his slopes as he crept toward the mouth of the cave. those days -- before darcy's arrival -- were a long idyll of good food and play in the hot sun or the white snow and brotherhood. danny couldn't sneak up on brad and kick him in the back of the head. he couldn't hide a rat in his pillow or piss on his toothbrush. billy was never one to stand pat and eat shit just because davey was handing it out. sometimes he'd just wind up and take a swing at davey, seemingly out of the blue, knocking him down, then prying open his mouth to reveal the chocolate bar he'd nicked from under brad's pillow, or a comic book from under his shirt. he was only two years younger than brad, but by the time they were both walking, brad hulked over him and could lay him out with one wild haymaker of a punch. # billy came down from his high perch when alan returned from burying marci, holding out his hands wordlessly. he hugged alan hard, crushing the breath out of him. the arms felt good around his neck, so he stopped letting himself feel them. he pulled back stiffly and looked at brian. "you could have told me," he said. bram's face went expressionless and hard and cold. telling people wasn't what he did, not for years. it hurt others -- and it hurt him. it was the reason for his long, long silences. alan knew that sometimes he couldn't tell what it was that he knew that others didn't. but he didn't care, then. "you should have told me," he said. bob took a step back and squared up his shoulders and his feet, leaning forward a little as into a wind. "you *knew* and you didn't *tell me* and you didn't *do anything* and as far as i'm concerned, you killed her and cut her up and buried her along with darryl, you coward." adam knew he was crossing a line, and he didn't care. brian leaned forward and jutted his chin out. avram's hands were clawed with cold and caked with mud and still echoing the feeling of frozen skin and frozen dirt, and balled up into fists, they felt like stones. he didn't hit barry. instead, he retreated to his niche and retrieved the triangular piece of flint that he'd been cherting into an arrowhead for school and a hammer stone and set to work on it in the light of a flashlight. # he sharpened a knife for davey, there in his room in the cave, as the boys ran feral in the woods, as the mountain made its slow and ponderous protests. he sharpened a knife, a hunting knife with a rusty blade and a cracked handle that he'd found on one of the woodland trails, beside a hunter's snare, not lost but pitched away in disgust one winter and not discovered until the following spring. but the nicked blade took an edge as he whetted it with the round stone, and the handle regained its grippiness as he wound a cord tight around it, making tiny, precise knots with each turn, until the handle no longer pinched his hand, until the blade caught the available light from the cave mouth and glinted dully. the boys brought him roots and fruits they'd gathered, sweets and bread they'd stolen, small animals they'd caught. ed-fred-george were an unbeatable team when it came to catching and killing an animal, though they were only small, barely out of the second grade. they were fast, and they could coordinate their actions without speaking, so that the bunny or the squirrel could never duck or feint in any direction without encountering the thick, neck-wringing outstretched hands of the pudgy boys. once, they brought him a cat. it went in the night's stew. billy sat at his side and talked. the silence he'd folded himself in unwrapped and flapped in the wind of his beating gums. he talked about the lessons he'd had in school and the lessons he'd had from his big brother, when it was just the two of them on the hillside and alan would teach him every thing he knew, the names of and salient facts regarding every thing in their father's domain. he talked about the truths he'd gleaned from reading chocolate-bar wrappers. he talked about the things that he'd see davey doing when no one else could see it. one day, george came to him, the lima-bean baby grown to toddling about on two sturdy legs, fat and crispy red from his unaccustomed time out-of-doors and in the sun. "you know, he *worships* you," glenn said, gesturing at the spot in his straw bedding where brad habitually sat and gazed at him and chattered. alan stared at his shoelaces. "it doesn't matter," he said. he'd dreamt that night of davey stealing into the cave and squatting beside him, watching him the way that he had before, and of alan knowing, *knowing* that davey was there, ready to rend and tear, knowing that his knife with its coiled handle was just under his pillow, but not being able to move his arms or legs. paralyzed, he'd watched davey grin and reach behind him with agonizing slowness for a rock that he'd lifted high above his head and andrew had seen that the rock had been cherted to a razor edge that hovered a few feet over his breastbone, davey's arms trembling with the effort of holding it aloft. a single drop of sweat had fallen off of davey's chin and landed on alan's nose, and then another, and finally he'd been able to open his eyes and wake himself, angry and scared. the spring rains had begun, and the condensation was thick on the cave walls, dripping onto his face and arms and legs as he slept, leaving behind chalky lime residue as it evaporated. "he didn't kill her," greg said. albert hadn't told the younger brothers about the body buried in craig, which meant that brad had been talking to them, had told them what he'd seen. alan felt an irrational streak of anger at brad -- he'd been blabbing alan's secrets. he'd been exposing the young ones to things they didn't need to know. to the nightmares. "he didn't stop her from being killed," alan said. he had the knife in his hand and hunted through his pile of belongings for the whetstone to hone its edge. greg looked at the knife, and andy followed his gaze to his own white knuckles on the hilt. greg took a frightened step back, and alan, who had often worried that the smallest brother was too delicate for the real world, felt ashamed of himself. he set the knife down and stood, stretching his limbs and leaving the cave for the first time in weeks. # brad found him standing on the slopes of the gentle, soggy hump of charlie's slope, a few feet closer to the seaway than it had been that winter when alan had dug up and reburied marci's body there. "you forgot this," brad said, handing him the knife. alan took it from him. it was sharp and dirty and the handle was grimed with sweat and lime. "thanks, kid," he said. he reached down and took billy's hand, the way he'd done when it was just the two of them. the three eldest sons of the mountain stood there touching and watched the outside world rush and grind away in the distance, its humming engines and puffing chimneys. brendan tugged his hand free and kicked at the dirt with a toe, smoothing over the divot he'd made with the sole of his shoe. andy noticed that the sneaker was worn out and had a hole in the toe, and that it was only laced up halfway. "got to get you new shoes," he said, bending down to relace them. he had to stick the knife in the ground to free his hands while he worked. the handle vibrated. "davey's coming," benny said. "coming now." alan reached out as in his dream and felt for the knife, but it wasn't there, as in his dream. he looked around as the skin on his face tightened and his heart began to pound in his ears, and he saw that it had merely fallen over in the dirt. he picked it up and saw that where it had fallen, it had knocked away the soil that had barely covered up a small, freckled hand, now gone black and curled into a fist like a monkey's paw. marci's hand. "he's coming." benny took a step off the hill. "you won't lose," he said. "you've got the knife." the hand was small and fisted, there in the dirt. it had been just below the surface of where he'd been standing. it had been there, in clarence's soil, for months, decomposing, the last of marci going. somewhere just below that soil was her head, her face sloughing off and wormed. her red hair fallen from her loosened scalp. he gagged and a gush of bile sprayed the hillside. danny hit him at the knees, knocking him into the dirt. he felt the little rotting fist digging into his ribs. his body bucked of its own accord, and he knocked danny loose of his legs. his arm was hot and slippery, and when he looked at it he saw that it was coursing with blood. the knife in his other hand was bloodied and he saw that he'd drawn a long ragged cut along his bicep. a fountain of blood bubbled there with every beat of his heart, blub, blub, blub, and on the third blub, he felt the cut, like a long pin stuck in the nerve. he climbed unsteadily to his feet and confronted danny. danny was naked and the color of the red golem clay. his ribs showed and his hair was matted and greasy. "i'm coming home," danny said, baring his teeth. his breath reeked of corruption and uncooked meat, and his mouth was ringed with a crust of dried vomit. "and you're not going to stop me." "you don't have a home," alan said, pressing the hilt of the knife over the wound in his bicep, the feeling like biting down on a cracked tooth. "you're not welcome." davey was monkeyed over low, arms swinging like a chimp, teeth bared, knees splayed and ready to uncoil and pounce. "you think you'll stab me with that?" he said, jerking his chin at the knife. "or are you just going to bleed yourself out with it?" alan steadied his knife hand before him, unmindful of the sticky blood. he knew that the pounce was coming, but that didn't help when it came. davey leapt for him and he slashed once with the knife, davey ducking beneath the arc, and then davey had his forearm in his hands, his teeth fastened onto the meat of his knife thumb. andre rolled to one side and gripped down hard on the knife, tugging his arm ineffectually against the grip of the cruel teeth and the grasping bony fingers. davey had lost his boyish charm, gone simian with filth and rage, and the sore and weak blows alan was able to muster with his hurt arm didn't seem to register with danny at all as he bit down harder. arnold dragged his arm up higher, dragging the glinting knifetip toward davey's face. drew kicked at his shins, planted a knee alongside his groin. alan whipped his head back, then brought it forward as fast and hard as he could, hammering his forehead into the crown of davey's head so hard that his head rang like a bell. he stunned davey free of his hand and stunned himself onto his back. he felt small hands beneath each armpit, dragging him clear of the hill. brian. and george. they helped him to his feet and breton handed him the knife again. darren got onto his knees, and then to his feet, holding the back of his head. they both swayed slightly, standing to either side of chris's rise. alan's knife-hand was red with blood streaming from the bite wounds and his other arm felt unaccountably heavy now. davey was staggering back and forth a little, eyes dropping to the earth. suddenly, he dropped to one knee and scrabbled in the dirt, then scrambled back with something in his hand. marci's fist. he waggled it at andrew mockingly, then charged, crossing the distance between them with long, loping strides, the fist held out before him like a lance. alan forgot the knife in his hand and shrank back, and then davey was on him again, dropping the fist to the mud and taking hold of alan's knife-wrist, digging his ragged nails into the bleeding bites there. now alan released the knife, so that it, too, fell to the mud, and the sound it made woke him from his reverie. he pulled his hand free of davey's grip and punched him in the ear as hard as he could, simultaneously kneeing him in the groin. davey hissed and punched him in the eye, a feeling like his eyeball was going to break open, a feeling like he'd been stabbed in the back of his eye socket. he planted a foot in the mud for leverage, then flipped danny over so that alan was on top, knees on his skinny chest. the knife was there beside davey's head, and alan snatched it up, holding it ready for stabbing. danny's eyes narrowed. alan could do it. kill him altogether dead finished yeah. stab him in the face or the heart or the lung, somewhere fatal. he could kill davey and make him go away forever. davey caught his eye and held it. and alan knew he couldn't do it, and an instant later, davey knew it, too. he smiled a crusty smile and went limp. "oh, don't hurt me, *please*," he said mockingly. "please, big brother, don't stab me with your big bad knife!" alan hurt all over, but especially on his bicep and his thumb. his head sang with pain and blood loss. "don't hurt me, please!" davey said. billy was standing before him, suddenly. "that's what marci said when he took her, 'don't hurt me, please,'" he said. "she said it over and over again. while he dragged her here. while he choked her to death." alan held the knife tighter. "he said it over and over again as he cut her up and buried her. he *laughed.*" danny suddenly bucked hard, almost throwing him, and before he had time to think, alan had slashed down with the knife, aiming for the face, the throat, the lung. the tip landed in the middle of his bony chest and skated over each rib, going *tink, tink, tink* through the handle, like a xylophone. it scored along the emaciated and distended belly, then sank in just to one side of the smooth patch where a real person -- where marci -- would have a navel. davey howled and twisted free of the seeking edge, skipping back three steps while holding in the loop of gut that was trailing free of the incision. "she said, 'don't hurt me.' she said, 'please.' over and over. he said it, too, and he laughed at her." benny chanted it at him, standing just behind him, and the sound of his voice filled alan's ears. suddenly davey reeled back as a stone rebounded off of his shoulder. they both looked in the direction it had come from, and saw george, with the tail of his shirt aproned before him, filled with small, jagged stones from the edge of the hot spring in their father's depths. they took turns throwing those stones, skimming them over the water, and ed and fred and george had a vicious arm. davey turned and snarled and started upslope toward george, and a stone took him in the back of the neck, thrown by freddie, who had sought cover behind a thick pine that couldn't disguise the red of his windbreaker, red as the inside of his lip, which pouted out as he considered his next toss. he was downslope, and so drew was able to bridge the distance between them very quickly -- he was almost upon felix when a third stone, bigger and faster than the others, took him in the back of the head with terrible speed, making a sound like a hammer missing the nail and hitting solid wood instead. it was ernie, of course, standing on craig's highest point, winding up for another toss. the threesome's second volley hit him all at once, from three sides, high, low, and medium. "killed her, cut her up, buried her," benny chanted. "sliced her open and cut her up," he called. "shut up!" davey screamed. he was bleeding from the back of his head, the blood trickling down the knobs of his spine, and he was crying, sobbing. "killed her, cut her up, sliced her open," ed-fred-george chanted in unison. alan tightened his grip on the cords wound around the handle of his knife, and his knife hand bled from the puncture wounds left by davey's teeth. davey saw him coming and dropped to his knees, crying. sobbing. "please," he said, holding his hands out before him, palms together, begging. "please," he said, as the loop of intestine he'd been holding in trailed free. "please," he said, as alan seized him by the hair, jerked his head back, and swiftly brought the knife across his throat. benny took his knife, and ed-fred-george coaxed clarence into a slow, deep fissuring. they dragged the body into the earthy crack and clarence swallowed up their brother. benny led alan to the cave, where they'd changed his bedding and laid out a half-eaten candy bar, a shopping bag filled with bramble-berries, and a lock of marci's hair, tied into a knot. # alan dragged all of his suitcases up from the basement to the living room, from the tiny tin valise plastered with genuine vintage deco railway stickers to the steamer trunk that he'd always intended to refurbish as a bathroom cabinet. he hadn't been home in fifteen years. what should he bring? clothes were the easiest. it was coming up on the cusp of july and august, and he remembered boyhood summers on the mountain's slopes abuzz with blackflies and syrupy heat. white t-shirts, lightweight trousers, high-tech hiking boots that breathed, a thin jacket for the mosquitoes at dusk. he decided to pack four changes of clothes, which made a very small pile on the sofa. small suitcase. the little rolling carry-on? the wheels would be useless on the rough cave floor. he paced and looked at the spines of his books, and paced more, into the kitchen. it was a beautiful summer day and the tall grasses in the back yard nodded in the soft breeze. he stepped through the screen door and out into the garden and let the wild grasses scrape over his thighs. ivy and wild sunflowers climbed the fence that separated his yard from his neighbors, and through the chinks in the green armor, he saw someone moving. mimi. pacing her garden, neatly tended vegetable beds, some flowering bulbs. skirt and a cream linen blazer that rucked up over her shoulders, moving restlessly. powerfully. alan's breath caught in his throat. her pale, round calves flashed in the sun. he felt himself harden, painfully. he must have gasped, or given some sign, or perhaps she heard his skin tighten over his body into a great goosepimply mass. her head turned. their eyes met and he jolted. he was frozen in his footsteps by her gaze. one cheek was livid with a purple bruise, the eye above it slitted and puffed. she took a step toward him, her jacket opening to reveal a shapeless grey sweatshirt stained with food and -- blood? "mimi?" he breathed. she squeezed her eyes shut, her face turning into a fright mask. "abel," she said. "nice day." "are you all right?" he said. he'd had his girls, his employees, show up for work in this state before. he knew the signs. "is he in the house now?" she pulled up a corner of her lip into a sneer and he saw that it was split, and a trickle of blood wet her teeth and stained them pink. "sleeping," she said. he swallowed. "i can call the cops, or a shelter, or both." she laughed. "i gave as good as i got," she said. "we're more than even." "i don't care," he said. "'even' is irrelevant. are you *safe*?" "safe as houses," she said. "thanks for your concern." she turned back toward her back door. "wait," he said. she shrugged and the wings under her jacket strained against the fabric. she reached for the door. he jammed his fingers into the chain-link near the top and hauled himself, scrambling, over the fence, landing on all fours in a splintering of tomato plants and sticks. he got to his feet and bridged the distance between them. "i don't believe you, mimi," he said. "i don't believe you. come over to my place and let me get you a cup of coffee and an ice pack and we'll talk about it, please?" "fuck off," she said tugging at the door. he wedged his toe in it, took her wrist gently. "please," she said. "we'll wake him." "come over," he said. "we won't wake him." she cracked her arm like a whip, shaking his hand off her wrist. she stared at him out of her swollen eye and he felt the jolt again. some recognition. some shock. some mirror, his face tiny and distorted in her eye. she shivered. "help me over the fence," she said pulling her skirt between her knees -- bruise on her thigh -- and tucking it behind her into her waistband. she jammed her bare toes into the link and he gripped one hard, straining calf in one hand and put the other on her padded, soft bottom, helping her up onto a perch atop the fence. he scrambled over and then took one bare foot, one warm calf, and guided her down. "come inside," he said. she'd never been in his house. natalie and link went in and out to use his bathroom while they were enjoying the sunset on his porch, or to get a beer. but mimi had never crossed his threshold. when she did, it felt like something he'd been missing there had been finally found. she looked around with a hint of a smile on her puffed lips. she ran her fingers over the cast-iron gas range he'd restored, caressing the bakelite knobs. she peered at the titles of the books in the kitchen bookcases, over the honey wood of the mismatched chairs and the smoothed-over scars of the big, simple table. "come into the living room," alan said. "i'll get you an ice pack." she let him guide her by the elbow, then crossed decisively to the windows and drew the curtains, bringing on twilight. he moved aside his piles of clothes and stacked up the suitcases in a corner. "going somewhere?" "to see my family," he said. she smiled and her lip cracked anew, dripping a single dark droplet of blood onto the gleaming wood of the floor, where it beaded like water on wax paper. "home again, home again, jiggety jig," she said. her nearly closed eye was bright and it darted around the room, taking in shelves, fireplace, chairs, clothes. "i'll get you that ice pack," he said. as he went back into the kitchen, he heard her walking around in the living room, and he remembered the first time he'd met her, of walking around her living room and thinking about slipping a vcd into his pocket. he found her halfway up the staircase with one of the shallow bric-a-brac cabinets open before her. she was holding a made-in-occupied-japan tin robot, the paint crazed with age into craquelaire like a dutch master painting in a gallery. "turn it upside down," he said. she looked at him, then turned it over, revealing the insides of the tin, revealing the gaudily printed tuna-fish label from the original can that it had been fashioned from. "huh," she said and peered down into it. he hit the light switch at the bottom of the stairs so that she could see better. "beautiful," she said. "have it," he said surprising himself. he'd have to remove it from the inventory. he restrained himself from going upstairs and doing it before he forgot. for the first time he could remember, she looked flustered. her unbruised cheek went crimson. "i couldn't," she said. "it's yours," he said. he went up the stairs and closed the cabinet, then folded her fingers around the robot and led her by the wrist back down to the sofa. "ice pack," he said handing it to her, releasing her wrist. she sat stiff-spined in on the sofa, the hump of her wings behind her keeping her from reclining. she caught him staring. "it's time to trim them," she said. "oh, yes?" he said, mind going back to the gridwork of old scars by her shoulders. "when they get too big, i can't sit properly or lie on my back. at least not while i'm wearing a shirt." "couldn't you, i don't know, cut the back out of a shirt?" "yeah," she said. "or go topless. or wear a halter. but not in public." "no, not in public. secrets must be kept." "you've got a lot of secrets, huh?" she said. "some," he said. "deep, dark ones?" "all secrets become deep. all secrets become dark. that's in the nature of secrets." she pressed the towel-wrapped bag of ice to her face and rolled her head back and forth on her neck. he heard pops and crackles as her muscles and vertebrae unlimbered. "hang on," he said. he ran up to his room and dug through his t-shirt drawer until he found one that he didn't mind parting with. he brought it back downstairs and held it up for her to see. "steel pole bathtub," he said. "retro chic. i can cut the back out for you, at least while you're here." she closed her eyes. "i'd like that," she said in a small voice. so he got his kitchen shears and went to work on the back of the shirt, cutting a sizable hole in the back of the fabric. he folded duct tape around the ragged edges to keep them from fraying. she watched bemusedly. "freakshow martha stewart," she said. he smiled and passed her the shirt. "i'll give you some privacy," he said, and went back into the kitchen and put away the shears and the tape. he tried not to listen to the soft rustle of clothing in the other room. "alan," she said -- *alan* and not *asshole* or *abel* -- "i could use some help." he stepped cautiously into the living room and saw there, in the curtained twilight, mimi. she was topless, heavy breasts marked red with the outline of her bra straps and wires. they hung weightily, swaying, and stopped him in the doorway. she had her arms lifted over her head, tugging her round belly up, stretching her navel into a cat-eye slit. the t-shirt he'd given her was tangled in her arms and in her wings. her magnificent wings. they were four feet long each, and they stretched, one through the neck hole and the other through the hole he'd cut in the t-shirt's back. they were leathery as he remembered, covered in a downy fur that glowed where it was kissed by the few shafts of light piercing the gap in the drapes. he reached for the questing, almost prehensile tip of the one that was caught in the neck hole. it was muscular, like a strong finger, curling against his palm like a masonic handshake. when he touched her wing, she gasped and shivered, indeterminately between erotic and outraged. they were as he imagined them, these wings, strong and primal and dark and spicy-smelling like an armpit after sex. he gently guided the tip down toward the neck hole and marveled at the intricate way that it folded in on itself, at the play of mysterious muscle and cartilage, the rustle of bristling hair, and the motility of the skin. it accordioned down and he tugged the shirt around it so that it came free, and then he slid the front of the shirt down over her breasts, painfully aware of his erection as the fabric rustled down over her rounded belly. as her head emerged through the shirt, she shook her hair out and then unfolded her wings, slowly and exquisitely, like a cat stretching out, bending forward, spreading them like sails. he ducked beneath one, feeling its puff of spiced air on his face, and found himself staring at the hash of scars and the rigid ropes of hyperextended muscle and joints. tentatively, he traced the scars with his thumbs, then, when she made no move to stop him, he dug his thumbs into the muscles, into their tension. he kneaded at her flesh, grinding hard at the knots and feeling them give way, briskly rubbing the spots where they'd been to get the blood going. her wings flapped gently around him as he worked, not caring that his body was pretzeled into a knot of its own to reach her back, since he didn't want to break the spell to ask her to move over to give him a better angle. he could smell her armpit and her wings and her hair and he closed his eyes and worked by touch, following scar to muscle, muscle to knot, working his way the length and breadth of her back, following the muscle up from the ridge of her iliac crest like a treasure trail to the muscle of her left wing, which was softly twitching with pleasure. she went perfectly still again when he took the wing in his hands. it had its own geometry, hard to understand and irresistible. he followed the mysterious and powerful muscles and bones, the vast expanses of cartilage, finding knots and squeezing them, kneading her as he'd kneaded her back, and she groaned and went limp, leaning back against him so that his face was in her hair and smelling her scalp oil and stale shampoo and sweat. it was all he could do to keep himself from burying his face in her hair and gnawing at the muscles at the base of her skull. he moved as slow as a seaweed and ran his hands over to her other wing, giving it the same treatment. he was rock-hard, pressed against her, her wings all around him. he traced the line of her jaw to her chin, and they were breathing in unison, and his fingers found the tense place at the hinge and worked there, too. then he brushed against her bruised cheek and she startled, and that shocked him back to reality. he dropped his hands to his sides and then stood, realized his erection was straining at his shorts, sat back down again in one of the club chairs, and crossed his legs. "well," he said. mimi unfolded her wings over the sofa-back and let them spread out, then leaned back, eyes closed. "you should try the ice-pack again," he said weakly. she groped blindly for it and draped it over her face. "thank you," she sighed. he suppressed the urge to apologize. "you're welcome," he said. "it started last week," she said. "my wings had gotten longer. too long. krishna came home from the club and he was drunk and he wanted sex. wanted me on the bottom. i couldn't. my wings. he wanted to get the knife right away and cut them off. we do it about four times a year, using a big serrated hunting knife he bought at a sporting-goods store on yonge street, one of those places that sells dud grenades and camou pants and tasers." she opened her eyes and looked at him, then closed them. he shivered and a goose walked over his grave. "we do it in the tub. i stand in the tub, naked, and he saws off the wings right to my shoulders. i don't bleed much. he gives me a towel to bite on while he cuts. to scream into. and then we put them in garden trash bags and he puts them out just before the garbage men arrive, so the neighborhood dogs don't get at them. for the meat." he noticed that he was gripping the arm rests so tightly that his hands were cramping. he pried them loose and tucked them under his thighs. "he dragged me into the bathroom. one second, we were rolling around in bed, giggling like kids in love, and then he had me so hard by the wrist, dragging me naked to the bathroom, his knife in his other fist. i had to keep quiet, so that i wouldn't wake link and natalie, but he was hurting me, and i was scared. i tried to say something to him, but i could only squeak. he hurled me into the tub and i cracked my head against the tile. i cried out and he crossed the bathroom and put his hand over my mouth and nose and then i couldn't breathe, and my head was swimming. "he was naked and hard, and he had the knife in his fist, not like for slicing, but for stabbing, and his eyes were red from the smoke at the club, and the bathroom filled with the booze-breath smell, and i sank down in the tub, shrinking away from him as he grabbed for me. "he -- *growled*. saw that i was staring at the knife. smiled. horribly. there's a piece of granite we use for a soap dish, balanced in the corner of the tub. without thinking, i grabbed it and threw it as hard as i could at him. it broke his nose and he closed his eyes and reached for his face and i wrapped him up in the shower curtain and grabbed his arm and bit at the base of his thumb so hard i heard a bone break and he dropped the knife. i grabbed it and ran back to our room and threw it out the window and started to get dressed." she'd fallen into a monotone now, but her wingtips twitched and her knees bounced like her motor was idling on high. she jiggled. "you don't have to tell me this," he said. she took off the ice pack. "yes, i do," she said. her eyes seemed to have sunk into her skull, vanishing into dark pits. he'd thought her eyes were blue, or green, but they looked black now. "all right," he said. "all right," she said. "he came through the door and i didn't scream. i didn't want to wake up link and natalie. isn't that stupid? but i couldn't get my sweatshirt on, and they would have seen my wings. he looked like he was going to kill me. really. hands in claws. teeth out. crouched down low like a chimp, ready to grab, ready to swing. and i was back in a corner again, just wearing track pants. he didn't have the knife this time, though. "when he came for me, i went limp, like i was too scared to move, and squeezed my eyes shut. listened to his footsteps approach. felt the creak of the bed as he stepped up on it. felt his breath as he reached for me. "i exploded. i've read books on women's self-defense, and they talk about doing that, about exploding. you gather in all your energy and squeeze it tight, and then blamo boom, you explode. i was aiming for his soft parts: balls. eyes. nose. sternum. ears. i'd misjudged where he was, though, so i missed most of my targets. "and then he was on me, kneeling on my tits, hands at my throat. i bucked him but i couldn't get him off. my chest and throat were crushed, my wings splayed out behind me. i flapped them and saw his hair move in the breeze. he was sweating hard, off his forehead and off his nose and lips. it was all so detailed. and silent. neither of us made a sound louder than a grunt. quieter than our sex noises. *now* i wanted to scream, *wanted* to wake up link and natalie, but i couldn't get a breath. "i worked one hand free and i reached for the erection that i could feel just below my tits, reached as fast as a striking snake, grabbed it, grabbed his balls, and i yanked and i squeezed like i was trying to tear them off. "i was. "now *he* was trying to get away and i had him cornered. i kept squeezing. that's when he kicked me in the face. i was dazed. he kicked me twice more, and i ran downstairs and got a parka from the closet and ran out into the front yard and out to the park and hid in the bushes until morning. "he was asleep when i came back in, after natalie and link had gone out. i found the knife beside the house and i went up to our room and i stood there, by the window, listening to you talk to them, holding the knife." she plumped herself on the cushions and flapped her wings once, softly, another puff of that warm air wafting over him. she picked up the tin robot he'd given her from the coffee table and turned it over in her hands, staring up its skirts at the tuna-fish illustration and the japanese ideograms. "i had the knife, and i felt like i had to use it. you know chekhov? 'if a gun is on the mantle in the first act, it must go off in the third.' i write one-act plays. wrote. but it seemed to me that the knife had been in act one, when krishna dragged me into the bathroom. "or maybe act one was when he brought it home, after i showed him my wings. "and act two had been my night in the park. and act three was then, standing over him with the knife, cold and sore and tired, looking at the blood crusted on his face." her face and her voice got very, very small, her expression distant. "i almost used it on myself. i almost opened my wrists onto his face. he liked it when i... rode... his face. like the hot juices. seemed mean-spirited to spill all that hot juice and deny him that pleasure. i thought about using it on him, too, but only for a second. "only for a second. "and then he rolled over and his hands clenched into fists in his sleep and his expression changed, like he was dreaming about something that made him angry. so i left. "do you want to know about when i first showed him these?" she said, and flapped her wings lazily. she took the ice pack from her face and he could see that the swelling had gone down, the discoloration faded to a dim shadow tinged with yellows and umbers. he did, but he didn't. the breeze of her great wings was strangely intimate, that smell more intimate than his touches or the moment in which he'd glimpsed her fine, weighty breasts with their texture of stretch marks and underwire grooves. he was awkward, foolish feeling. "i don't think i do," he said at last. "i think that we should save some things to tell each other for later." she blinked, slow and lazy, and one tear rolled down and dripped off her nose, splashing on the red t-shirt and darkening it to wineish purple. "will you sit with me?" she said. he crossed the room and sat on the other end of the sofa, his hand on the seam that joined the two halves together, crossing the border into her territory, an invitation that could be refused without awkwardness. she covered his hand with hers, and hers was cold and smooth but not distant: immediate, scritching and twitching against his skin. slowly, slowly, she leaned toward him, curling her wing round his far shoulder like a blanket or a lover's arm, head coming to rest on his chest, breath hot on his nipple through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. "alan?" she murmured into his chest. "yes?" "what are we?" she said. "huh?" "are we human? where do we come from? how did we get here? why do i have wings?" he closed his eyes and found that they'd welled up with tears. once the first tear slid down his cheek, the rest came, and he was crying, weeping silently at first and then braying like a donkey in sobs that started in his balls and emerged from his throat like vomit, gushing out with hot tears and hot snot. mimi enveloped him in her wings and kissed his tears away, working down his cheeks to his neck, his adam's apple. he snuffled back a mouthful of mucus and salt and wailed, "i don't know!" she snugged her mouth up against his collarbone. "krishna does," she whispered into his skin. she tugged at the skin with her teeth. "what about your family?" he swallowed a couple of times, painfully aware of her lips and breath on his skin, the enveloping coolth of her wings, and the smell in every breath he took. he wanted to blow his nose, but he couldn't move without breaking the spell, so he hoarked his sinuses back into his throat and drank the oozing oyster of self-pity that slid down his throat. "my family?" "i don't have a family, but you do," she said. "your family must know." "they don't," he said. "maybe you haven't asked them properly. when are you leaving?" "today." "driving?" "got a rental car," he said. "room for one more?" "yes," he said. "then take me," she said. "all right," he said. she raised her head and kissed him on the lips, and he could taste the smell now, and the blood roared in his ears as she straddled his lap, grinding her mons -- hot through the thin cotton of her skirt -- against him. they slid down on the sofa and they groaned into each others' mouths, his voice box resonating with hers. # he parked the rental car in the driveway, finishing his cell phone conversation with lyman and then popping the trunk before getting out. he glanced reflexively up at mimi and krishna's windows, saw the blinds were still drawn. when he got to the living room, mimi was bent over a suitcase, forcing it closed. two more were lined up beside the door, along with three shopping bags filled with tupperwares and ziplocs of food from his fridge. "i've borrowed some of your clothes," she said. "didn't want to have to go back for mine. packed us a picnic, too." he planted his hands on his hips. "you thought of everything, huh?" he said. she cast her eyes down. "i'm sorry," she said in a small voice. "i couldn't go home." her wings unfolded and folded down again nervously. he went and stood next to her. he could still smell the sex on her, and on him. a livid hickey stood out on her soft skin on her throat. he twined her fingers in his and dropped his face down to her ear. "it's okay," he said huskily. "i'm glad you did it." she turned her head and brushed her lips over his, brushed her hand over his groin. he groaned softly. "we have to get driving," he said. "yes," she said. "load the car, then bring it around the side. i'll lie down on the back seat until we're out of the neighborhood." "you've thought about this a lot, huh?" "it's all i've thought of," she said. # she climbed over the back seat once they cleared queen street, giggling as her wings, trapped under her jacket, brushed the roof of the big crown victoria he'd rented. she prodded at the radio and found a college station, staticky and amateurish, and nodded her head along with the mash-up mixes and concert bootlegs the dj was spinning. alan watched her in the rearview and felt impossibly old and strange. she'd been an incredible and attentive lover, using her hands and mouth, her breasts and wings, her whole body to keep him quivering on the brink of orgasm for what felt like hours, before finally giving him release, and then had guided him around her body with explicit instructions and firm hands on his shoulders. when she came, she squeezed him between her thighs and screamed into his neck, twitching and shuddering for a long time afterward, holding him tight, murmuring nonsense and hot breath. in the dark, she'd seemed older. his age, or some indeterminate age. now, sitting next to him, privately spazzing out to the beat, she seemed, oh, or so. a little girl. he felt dirty. "where are we going?" she said, rolling down the window and shouting over the wind as they bombed up the don valley parkway. the traffic had let up at sheppard, and now they were making good time, heading for the faceless surburbs of richmond hill and thornhill, and beyond. "north," he said. "past kapuskasing." she whistled. "how long a drive is it?" "fifteen hours. twenty, maybe. depends on the roads -- you can hit cottage traffic or a bad accident and get hung up for hours. there are good motels between huntsville and north bay if we get tired out. nice neon signs, magic fingers beds. a place i like has 'swiss cabins' and makes a nice rosti for dinner." "god, that's a long trip," she said. "yeah," he said, wondering if she wanted out. "i can pull off here and give you cab fare to the subway station if you wanna stay." "no!" she said quickly. "no. want to go." # she fed him as he drove, slicing cheese and putting it on crackers with bits of olive or pepper or salami. it appeared that she'd packed his entire fridge in the picnic bags. after suppertime, she went to work on an apple, and he took a closer look at the knife she was using. it was a big, black hunting knife, with a compass built into the handle. the blade was black except right at the edge, where it gleamed sharp in the click-clack of the passing highway lights. he was transfixed by it, and the car drifted a little, sprayed gravel from the shoulder, and he overcorrected and fishtailed a little. she looked up in alarm. "you brought the knife," he said, in response to her unasked question. "couldn't leave it with him," she said. "besides, a sharp knife is handy." "careful you don't slice anything off, okay?" "i never cut anything *unintentionally*," she said in a silly-dramatic voice, and socked him in the shoulder. he snorted and went back to the driving, putting the hammer down, eating up the kilometers toward huntsville and beyond. she fed him slices of apple and ate some herself, then rolls of ham with little pieces of pear in them, then sips of cherry juice from a glass bottle. "enough," he said at last. "i'm stuffed, woman!" she laughed. "skinny little fucker -- gotta put some meat on your bones." she tidied the dinner detritus into an empty shopping bag and tossed it over her shoulder into the back seat. "so," she said. "how long since you've been home?" he stared at the road for a while. "fifteen years," he said. "never been back since i left." she stared straight forward and worked her hand under his thigh, so he was sitting on it, then wriggled her knuckles. "i've never been home," she said. he wrinkled his brow. "what's that mean?" he said. "it's a long story," she said. "well, let's get off the highway and get a room and you can tell me, okay?" "sure," she said. # they ended up at the timberline wilderness lodge and pancake house, and mimi clapped her hands at the silk-flowers-and-waterbeds ambience of the room, fondled the grisly jackalope head on the wall, and started running a tub while alan carried in the suitcases. she dramatically tossed her clothes, one item at a time, out the bathroom door, through the clouds of steam, and he caught a glimpse of her round, full ass, bracketed by her restless wings, as she poured into the tub the bottle of cheap bubble-bath she'd bought in the lobby. he dug a t-shirt and a fresh pair of boxers to sleep in out of his suitcase, feeling ridiculously modest as he donned them. his feet crunched over cigarette burns and tangles in the brown shag carpet and he wished he'd brought along some slippers. he flipped through both snowy tv channels and decided that he couldn't stomach a televangelist or a thirty-year-old sitcom right then and flicked it off, sitting on the edge of the bed, listening to the splashing from the bathroom. mimi was in awfully good spirits, considering what she'd been through with krishna. he tried to think about it, trying to make sense of the day and the girl, but the splashing from the tub kept intruding on his thoughts. she began to sing, and after a second he recognized the tune. "white rabbit," by the jefferson airplane. not the kind of thing he'd expect her to be giving voice to; nor she, apparently, for she kept breaking off to giggle. finally, he poked his head through the door. she was folded into the tub, knees and tits above the foamline, wings slick with water and dripping in the tile. her hands were out of sight beneath the suds. she caught his eye and grinned crazily, then her hands shot out of the pool, clutching the hunting knife. "*put on the white rabbit!*" she howled, cackling fiendishly. he leapt back and she continued to cackle. "come back, come back," she choked. "i'm doing the tub scene from *fear and loathing in las vegas*. i thought you were into reading?" he cautiously peeked around the doorjamb, playing it up for comic effect. "give me the knife," he said. "awww," she said, handing it over, butt first. he set it down on the dresser, then hurried back to the bathroom. "haven't you read all those books?" alan grinned. "what's the point of a bunch of books you've already read?" he dropped his boxers and stripped off his t-shirt and climbed into the tub, sloshing gallons of water over the scummy tile floor. # when i was two years old, (she said, later, as she reclined against the headboard and he reclined against her, their asses deforming the rusted springs of the mattress so that it sloped toward them and the tins of soda they'd opened to replenish their bodily fluids lost in sweat and otherwise threatened to tip over on the slope; she encased him in her wings, shutting out the light and filling their air with the smell of cinnamon and pepper from the downy hair) when i was two years old, (she said, speaking into the shaggy hair at the back of his neck, as his sore muscles trembled and as the sweat dried to a white salt residue on his skin, as he lay there in the dark of the room and the wings, watching the constellation of reflected clock-radio lights in the black tv screen) when i was two years old, (she began, her body tensing from toes to tip in a movement that he felt along the length of his body, portending the time when lovers close their eyes and open their mouths and utter the secrets that they hide from everyone, even themselves) when i was two years old, my wings were the size of a cherub's, and they had featherlets that were white as snow. i lived with my "aunt," an old russian lady near downsview air force base, a blasted suburb where the shops all closed on saturday for sabbath and the black-hatted hasids marked the days by walking from one end to the other on their way to temple. the old russian lady took me out for walks in a big black baby buggy the size of a bathtub. she tucked me in tight so that my wings were pinned beneath me. but when we were at home, in her little apartment with the wind-up sputnik that played "the internationale," she would let my wings out and light the candles and watch me wobble around the room, my wings flapping, her chin in her hands, her eyes bright. she made me mashed up cabbage and seed and beef, and bottles of dilute juice. for dessert, we had hard candies, and i'd toddle around with my toys, drooling sugar syrup while the old russian lady watched. by the time i was four, the feathers had all fallen out, and i was supposed to go to school, i knew that. "auntie" had explained to me that the kids that i saw passing by were on their way to school, and that i'd go some day and learn, too. she didn't speak much english, so i grew up speaking a creole of russian, ukrainian, polish and english, and i used my words to ask her, with more and more insistence, when i'd get to go to class. i couldn't read or write, and neither could she. but i could take apart gadgets like nobody's business. someone -- maybe auntie's long dead husband -- had left her a junky tool kit with cracked handles and chipped tips, and i attacked anything that i could get unplugged from the wall: the big cabinet tv and radio, the suitcase record player, the sputnik music box. i unwired the lamps and peered at the workings of the electric kitchen clock. that was four. five was the year i put it all back together again. i started with the lamps, then the motor in the blender, then the toaster elements. i made the old tv work. i don't think i knew how any of it *really* worked -- couldn't tell you a thing about, you know, electrical engineering, but i just got a sense of how it was *supposed* to go together. auntie didn't let me out of the apartment after five. i could watch the kids go by from the window -- skinny hasids with side-curls and filipinos with pretty ribbons and teenagers who smoked, but i couldn't go to them. i watched *sesame street* and *mr. dressup* and i began to soak up english. i began to soak up the idea of playing with other kids. i began to soak up the fact that none of the kids on the tv had wings. auntie left me alone in the afternoons while she went out shopping and banking and whatever else it was she did, and it was during those times that i could get myself into her bedroom and go rooting around her things. she had a lot of mysterious beige foundation garments that were utterly inexplicable, and a little box of jewelry that i liked to taste, because the real gold tasted really rich when i sucked on it, and a stack of old cigarette tins full of frayed photos. the pictures were stiff and mysterious. faces loomed out of featureless black backgrounds: pop-eyed, jug-eared russian farm boys, awkward farm girls with process waves in their hair, everyone looking like they'd been stuffed and mounted. i guess they were her relatives, because if you squinted at them and cocked your head, you could kind of see her features in theirs, but not saggy and wrinkled and three-chinned, but young and tight and almost glowing. they all had big shoulders and clothing that looked like the kind of thing the hasids wore, black and sober. the faces were interesting, especially after i figured out that one of them might belong to auntie, but it was the blackness around them that fascinated me. the boys had black suits and the girls wore black dresses, and behind them was creased blackness, complete darkness, as though they'd put their heads through a black curtain. but the more i stared at the blackness, the more detail i picked out. i noticed the edge of a curtain, a fold, in one photo, and when i looked for it, i could just pick it out in the other photos. eventually, i hit on the idea of using a water glass as a magnifying lens, and as i experimented with different levels of water, more detail leapt out of the old pictures. the curtains hanging behind them were dusty and wrinkled. they looked like they were made of crushed velvet, like the niagara falls souvenir pillow on auntie's armchair in the living room, which had whorls of paisley trimmed into them. i traced these whorls with my eye, and tried to reproduce them with a ballpoint on paper bags i found under the sink. and then, in one of the photos, i noticed that the patterns disappeared behind and above the shoulders. i experimented with different water levels in my glass to bring up the magnification, and i diligently sketched. i'd seen a *polka dot door* episode where the hosts showed how you could draw a grid over an original image and a matching grid on a sheet of blank paper and then copy over every square, reproducing the image in manageable, bite-sized chunks. that's what i did, using the edge of a nail file for a ruler, drawing my grid carefully on the paper bag, and a matching one on the picture, using the blunt tip of a dead pen to make a grid of indentations in the surface of the photo. and i sketched it out, one square at a time. where the pattern was, where it wasn't. what shapes the negative absence-of-pattern took in the photos. as i drew, day after day, i realized that i was drawing the shape of something black that was blocking the curtain behind. then i got excited. i drew in my steadiest hand, tracing each curve, using my magnifier, until i had the shape drawn and defined, and long before i finished, i knew what i was drawing and i drew it anyway. i drew it and then i looked at my paper sack and i saw that what i had drawn was a pair of wings, black and powerful, spread out and stretching out of the shot. # she curled the prehensile tips of her wings up the soles of his feet, making him go, yeek! and jump in the bed. "are you awake?" she said, twisting her head around to brush her lips over his. "rapt," he said. she giggled and her tits bounced. "good," she said. "'cause this is the important part." # auntie came home early that day and found me sitting at her vanity, with the photos and the water glass and the drawings on the paper sacks spread out before me. our eyes met for a moment. her pupils shrank down to tiny dots, i remember it, remember seeing them vanish, leaving behind rings of yellowed hazel. one of her hands lashed out in a claw and sank into my hair. she lifted me out of the chair by my hair before i'd even had a chance to cry out, almost before i'd registered the fact that she was hurting me -- she'd never so much as spanked me until then. she was strong, in that slow old russian lady way, strong enough to grunt ten sacks of groceries in a bundle-buggy up the stairs to the apartment. when she picked me up and tossed me, it was like being fired out of a cannon. i rebounded off the framed motel-room art over the bed, shattering the glass, and bounced twice on the mattress before coming to rest on the floor. my arm was hanging at a funny angle, and when i tried to move it, it hurt so much that i heard a high sound in my ears like a dog whistle. i lay still as the old lady yanked the drawers out of her vanity and upended them on the floor until she found an old book of matches. she swept the photos and my sketches into the tin wastebasket and then lit a match with trembling hands and dropped it in. it went out. she repeated it, and on the fourth try she got the idea of using the match to light all the remaining matches in the folder and drop that into the bin. a moment later, it was burning cheerfully, spitting curling red embers into the air on clouds of dark smoke. i buried my face in the matted carpet and tried not to hear that high note, tried to will away the sick grating feeling in my upper arm. she was wreathed in smoke, choking, when she finally turned to me. for a moment, i refused to meet her eye, sure that she would kill me if i did, would see the guilt and the knowledge in my face and keep her secret with murder. i'd watched enough daytime television to know about dark secrets. but when she bent down to me, with the creak of stretching elastic, and she lifted me to my feet and bent to look me in the eye, she had tears in her eyes. she went to the pile of oddments and junk jewelry that she had dumped out on the floor and sorted through it until she found a pair of sewing shears, then she cut away my t-shirt, supporting my broken arm with her hand. my wings were flapping nervously beneath the fabric, and it got tangled, and she took firm hold of the wingtips and folded them down to my back and freed the shirt and tossed it in the pile of junk on her normally spotless floor. she had spoken to me less and less since i had fixed the television and begun to pick up english, and now she was wordless as she gently rotated my fingerbones and my wristbones, my elbow and my shoulder, minute movements, listening for my teakettle hiss when she hit the sore spots. "is broken," she said. "*cholera*," she said. "i am so sorry, *lovenu*," she said. # "i've never been to the doctor's," she said. "never had a pap smear or been felt for lumps. never, ever had an x-ray. feel this," she said, and put her upper arm before his face. he took it and ran his fingertips over it, finding a hard bump halfway along, opposite her fleshy bicep. "what's this?" he said. "it's how a bone sets if you have a bad break and don't get a cast. crooked." "jesus," he said, giving it another squeeze. now that he knew what it was, he thought -- or perhaps fancied -- that he could feel how the unevenly splintered pieces of bone mated together, met at a slight angle and fused together by the knitting process. "she made me a sling, and she fed me every meal and brushed my teeth. i had to stop her from following me into the toilet to wipe me up. and i didn't care: she could have broken both of my arms if she'd only explained the photos to me, or left them with me so that i could go on investigating them, but she did neither. she hardly spoke a word to me." she resettled herself against the pillows, then pulled him back against her again and plumped his head against her breasts. "are you falling in love with me?" she said. he startled. the way she said it, she didn't sound like a young adult, she sounded like a small child. "mimi --" he began, then stopped himself. "i don't think so. i mean, i like you --" "good," she said. "no falling in love, all right?" # auntie died six months later. she keeled over on the staircase on her way up to the apartment, and i heard her moaning and thrashing out there. i hauled her up the stairs with my good arm, and she crawled along on her knees, making gargling noises. i got her laid out on the rug in the living room. i tried to get her up on the sofa, but i couldn't budge her. so i gave her pillows from the sofa and water and then i tried tea, but she couldn't take it. she threw up once, and i soaked it up with a tea towel that had fussy roses on it. she took my hand and her grip was weak, her strong hands suddenly thin and shaky. it took an hour for her to die. when she died, she made a rasping, rattling sound and then she shat herself. i could smell it. it was all i could smell, as i sat there in the little apartment, six years old, hot as hell outside and stuffy inside. i opened the windows and watched the hasids walk past. i felt like i should *do something* for the old lady, but i didn't know what. i formulated a plan. i would go outside and bring in some grown-up to take care of the old lady. i would do the grocery shopping and eat sandwiches until i was twelve, at which point i would be grown up and i would get a job fixing televisions. i marched into my room and changed into my best clothes, the little alice-blue dress i wore to dinner on sundays, and i brushed my hair and put on my socks with the blue pom-poms at the ankles, and found my shoes in the hall closet. but it had been three years since i'd last worn the shoes, and i could barely fit three toes in them. the old lady's shoes were so big i could fit both feet in either one. i took off my socks -- sometimes i'd seen kids going by barefoot outside, but never in just socks -- and reached for the doorknob. i touched it. i stopped. i turned around again. there was a stain forming under auntie, piss and shit and death-juice, and as i looked at her, i had a firm sense that it wouldn't be *right* to bring people up to her apartment with her like this. i'd seen dead people on tv. they were propped up on pillows, in clean hospital nighties, with rouged cheeks. i didn't know how far i could get, but i thought i owed it to her to try. i figured that it was better than going outside. she was lighter in death, as though something had fled her. i could drag her into the bathroom and prop her on the edge of the tub. i needed to wash her before anyone else came up. i cut away her dress with the sewing shears. she was wearing an elastic girdle beneath, and an enormous brassiere, and they were too tough -- too tight -- to cut through, so i struggled with their hooks, each one going *spung* as i unhooked it, revealing red skin beneath it, pinched and sore-looking. when i got to her bra, i had a moment's pause. she was a modest person -- i'd never even seen her legs without tan compression hose, but the smell was overwhelming, and i just held to that vision of her in a nightie and clean sheets and, you know, *went for it*. popped the hooks. felt it give way as her breasts forced it off her back. found myself staring at. two little wings. the size of my thumbs. bent and cramped. broken. folded. there, over her shoulder blades. i touched them, and they were cold and hard as a turkey neck i'd once found in the trash after she'd made soup with it. # "how did you get out?" "with my wings?" "yeah. with your wings, and with no shoes, and with the old lady dead over the tub?" she nuzzled his neck, then bit it, then kissed it, then bit it again. brushed her fingers over his nipples. "i don't know," she breathed, hot in his ear. he arched his back. "you don't know?" "i don't know. that's all i remember, for five years." he arched his back again, and raked his fingertips over her thighs, making her shudder and jerk her wings back. that's when he saw the corpse at the foot of the bed. it was george. # he went back to school the day after they buried davey. he bathed all the brothers in the hot spring and got their teeth brushed, and he fed them a hot breakfast of boiled mushroom-and-jerky stew, and he gathered up their schoolbooks from the forgotten corners of the winter cave and put them into school bags. then he led them down the hillside on a spring day that smelled wonderful: loam and cold water coursing down the mountainside in rivulets, and new grass and new growth drying out in a hard white sun that seemed to spring directly overhead five minutes after it rose. they held hands as they walked down the hill, and then elliot-franky-george broke away and ran down the hill to the roadside, skipping over the stones and holding their belly as they flew down the hillside. alan laughed at the impatient jig they danced as they waited for him and brad to catch up with them, and brad put an arm around his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek in a moment of uncharacteristic demonstrativeness. he marched right into mr. davenport's office with his brothers in tow. "we're back," he said. mr. davenport peered at them over the tops of his glasses. "you are, are you?" "mom took sick," he said. "very sick. we had to go live with our aunt, and she was too far away for us to get to school." "i see," mr. davenport said. "i taught the littler ones as best as i could," alan said. he liked mr. davenport, understood him. he had a job to do, and needed everything to be accounted for and filed away. it was okay for alan and his brothers to miss months of school, provided that they had a good excuse when they came back. alan could respect that. "and i read ahead in my textbooks. i think we'll be okay." "i'm sure you will be," mr. davenport said. "how is your mother now?" "she's better," he said. "but she was very sick. in the hospital." "what was she sick with?" alan hadn't thought this far ahead. he knew how to lie to adults, but he was out of practice. "cancer," he said, thinking of marci's mother. "cancer?" mr. davenport said, staring hard at him. "but she's better now," alan said. "i see. you boys, why don't you get to class? alan, please wait here a moment." his brothers filed out of the room. and alan shuffled nervously, looking at the class ring on mr. davenport's hairy finger, remembering the time that davey had kicked him. he'd never asked alan where davey was after that, and alan had never offered, and it had been as though they shared a secret. "are you all right, alan?" he asked, settling down behind his desk, taking off his glasses. "yes, sir," alan said. "you're getting enough to eat at home? there's a quiet place where you can work?" "yes," alan said, squirming. "it's fine, now that mom is home." "i see," mr. davenport said. "listen to me, son," he said, putting his hands flat on the desk. "the school district has some resources available: clothes, lunch vouchers, big brother programs. they're not anything you have to be ashamed of. it's not charity, it's just a little booster. a bit of help. the other children, their parents are well and they live in town and have lots of advantages that you and your brothers lack. this is just how we level the playing field. you're a very bright lad, and your brothers are growing up well, but it's no sin to accept a little help." alan suddenly felt like laughing. "we're not underprivileged," he said, thinking of the mountain, of the feeling of being encompassed by love of his father, of the flakes of soft, lustrous gold the golems produced by the handful. "we're very well off," he said, thinking of home, now free of davey and his hateful, spiteful anger. "thank you, though," he said, thinking of his life unfolding before him, free from the terror of davey's bites and spying and rocks thrown from afar. mr. davenport scowled and stared hard at him. alan met his stare and smiled. "it's time for classes," he said. "can i go?" "go," mr. davenport said. he shook his head. "but remember, you can always come here if you have anything you want to talk to me about." "i'll remember," alan said. # six years later, bradley was big and strong and he was the star goalie of all the hockey teams in town, in front of the puck before it arrived, making desperate, almost nonchalant saves that had them howling in the stands, stomping their feet, and sloshing their tim horton's coffee over the bleachers, to freeze into brown ice. in the summer, he was the star pitcher on every softball team, and the girls trailed after him like a long comet tail after the games when the other players led him away to a park to drink illicit beers. alan watched his games from afar, with his schoolbooks on his lap, and eric-franz-greg nearby playing trucks or reading or gnawing on a sucker. by the ninth inning or the final period, the young ones would be too tired to play, and they'd come and lean heavily against alan, like a bag of lead pressing on him, eyes half open, and alan would put an arm around them and feel at one with the universe. it snowed on the afternoon of the season opener for the town softball league that year, fat white wet flakes that kissed your cheeks and melted away in an instant, so soft that you weren't sure they'd be there at all. bradley caught up with alan on their lunch break, at the cafeteria in the high school two blocks from the elementary school. he had his mitt with him and a huge grin. "you planning on playing through the snow?" alan said, as he set down his cheeseburger and stared out the window at the diffuse white radiance of the april noontime bouncing off the flakes. "it'll be gone by tonight. gonna be *warm*," bradley said, and nodded at his jock buddies sitting at their long table, sucking down cokes and staring at the girls. "gonna be a good game. i know it." bradley knew. he knew when they were getting shorted at the assayers' when they brought in the golems' gold, just as he knew that showing up for lunch with a brown bag full of dried squirrel jerky and mushrooms and lemongrass was a surefire way to end up social roadkill in the high school hierarchy, as was dressing like someone who'd been caught in an explosion at the salvation army, and so he had money and he had burgers and he had a pair of narrow-leg jeans from the gap and a roots sweatshirt and a stussy baseball hat and reebok sneakers and he looked, basically, like a real person. alan couldn't say the same for himself, but he'd been making an effort since bradley got to high school, if only to save his brother the embarrassment of being related to the biggest reject in the building -- but alan still managed to exude his don't-fuck-with-me aura enough that no one tried to cozy up to him and make friends with him and scrutinize his persona close in, which was just as he wanted it. bradley watched a girl walk past, a cute thing with red hair and freckles and a skinny rawboned look, and alan remembered that she'd been sitting next to him in class for going on two years now and he'd never bothered to learn her name. and he'd never bothered to notice that she was a dead ringer for marci. "i've always had a thing for redheads," bradley said. "because of you," he said. "you and your girlfriend. i mean, if she was good enough for *you*, well, she had to be the epitome of sophistication and sexiness. back then, you were like a god to me, so she was like a goddess. i imprinted on her, like the baby ducks in bio. it's amazing how much of who i am today i can trace back to those days. who knew that it was all so important?" he was a smart kid, introspective without being moody. integrated. always popping off these fine little observations in between his easy jokes. the girls adored him, the boys admired him, the teachers were grateful for him and the way he bridged the gap between scholarship and athleticism. "i must have been a weird kid," he said. "all that quiet." "you were a great kid," alan said. "it was a lot of fun back then, mostly." "mostly," he said. they both stared at the girl, who noticed them now, and blushed and looked confused. bradley looked away, but alvin held his gaze on her, and she whispered to a friend, who looked at him, and they both laughed, and then alan looked away, too, sorry that he'd inadvertently interacted with his fellow students. he was supposed to watch, not participate. "he was real," bradley said, and alan knew he meant davey. "yeah," alan said. "i don't think the little ones really remember him -- he's more like a bad dream to them. but he was real, wasn't he?" "yeah," alan said. "but he's gone now." "was it right?" "what do you mean?" alan said. he felt a sear of anger arc along his spine. "it's nothing," billy said, mumbling into his tray. "what do you mean, brad?" alan said. "what else should we have done? how can you have any doubts?" "i don't," brad said. "it's okay." alan looked down at his hands, which appeared to belong to someone else: white lumps of dough clenched into hard fists, knuckles white. he made himself unclench them. "no, it's *not* okay. tell me about this. you remember what he was like. what he...did." "i remember it," bryan said. "of course i remember it." he was staring through the table now, the look he got when he was contemplating a future the rest of them couldn't see. "but." alan waited. he was trembling inside. he'd done the right thing. he'd saved his family. he knew that. but for six years, he'd found himself turning in his memory to the little boy on the ground, holding the loops of intestine in through slippery red fingers. for six years, whenever he'd been somewhere quiet long enough that his own inner voices fell still, he'd remember the hair in his fist, the knife's thirsty draught as it drew forth the hot splash of blood from davey's throat. he'd remembered the ragged fissure that opened down clarence's length and the way that davey fell down it, so light and desiccated he was almost weightless. "if you remember it, then you know i did the right thing. i did the only thing." "*we* did the only thing," brian said, and covered alan's hand with his. alan nodded and stared at his cheeseburger. "you'd better go catch up with your friends," he said. "i love you, adam," he said. "i love you, too." billy crossed the room, nodding to the people who greeted him from every table, geeks and jocks and band and all the meaningless tribes of the high school universe. the cute redhead sprinkled a wiggle-finger wave at him, and he nodded at her, the tips of his ears going pink. # the snow stopped by three p.m., and the sun came out and melted it away, so that by the time the game started at five-thirty, its only remnant was the soggy ground around the bleachers with the new grass growing out of the ragged brown memory of last summer's lawn. alan took the little ones for dinner at the diner after school, letting them order double chocolate-chip pancakes. at , they'd settled into a fatness that made him think of a foam-rubber toy, the rolls and dimples at their wrists and elbows and knees like the seams on a doll. "you're starting high school next year?" alan said, as they were pouring syrup on their second helping. he was startled by this -- how had they gotten so old so quickly? "uh-huh," eli said. "i guess." "so you're graduating from elementary school this spring?" "yeah." eli grinned a chocolate smile at him. "it's no big deal. there's a party, though." "where?" "at some kid's house." "it's okay," alan said. "we can celebrate at home. don't let them get to you." "we can't go?" ed suddenly looked a little panicked. "you're invited?" he blurted it out and then wished he hadn't. "of course we're invited," fred said from inside ed's throat. "there's going to be dancing." "you can dance?" alan asked. "we can!" ed said. "we learned in gym," greg said, with the softest, proudest voice, deep within them. "well," alan said. he didn't know what to say. high school. dancing. invited to parties. no one had invited him to parties when he'd graduated from elementary school, and he'd been too busy with the little ones to go in any event. he felt a little jealous, but mostly proud. "want a milkshake?" he asked, mentally totting up the cash in his pocket and thinking that he should probably send brad to dicker with the assayer again soon. "no, thank you," ed said. "we're watching our weight." alan laughed, then saw they weren't joking and tried to turn it into a cough, but it was too late. their shy, chocolate smile turned into a rubber-lipped pout. # the game started bang on time at six p.m., just as the sun was setting. the diamond lights flicked on with an audible click and made a spot of glare that cast out the twilight. benny was already on the mound, he'd been warming up with the catcher, tossing them in fast and exuberant and confident and controlled. he looked good on the mound. the ump called the start, and the batter stepped up to the plate, and benny struck him out in three pitches, and the little ones went nuts, cheering their brother on along with the other fans in the bleachers, a crowd as big as any you'd ever see outside of school, thirty or forty people. the second batter stepped up and benny pitched a strike, another strike, and then a wild pitch that nearly beaned the batter in the head. the catcher cocked his mask quizzically, and benny kicked the dirt and windmilled his arm a little and shook his head. he tossed another wild one, this one coming in so low that it practically rolled across the plate. his teammates were standing up in their box now, watching him carefully. "stop kidding around," alan heard one of them say. "just strike him out." benny smiled, spat, caught the ball, and shrugged his shoulders. he wound up, made ready to pitch, and then dropped the ball and fell to his knees, crying out as though he'd been struck. alan grabbed the little ones' hand and pushed onto the diamond before benny's knees hit the ground. he caught up with benny as he keeled over sideways, bringing his knees up to his chest, eyes open and staring and empty. alan caught his head and cradled it on his lap and was dimly aware that a crowd had formed round them. he felt barry's heart thundering in his chest, and his arms were stuck straight out to his sides, one hand in his pitcher's glove, the other clenched tightly around the ball. "it's a seizure," someone said from the crowd. "is he an epileptic? it's a seizure." someone tried to prize alan's fingers from around barry's head and he grunted and hissed at them, and they withdrew. "barry?" alan said, looking into barry's face. that faraway look in his eyes, a million miles away. alan knew he'd seen it before, but not in years. the eyes came back into focus, closed, opened. "davey's back," barry said. alan's skin went cold and he realized that he was squeezing barry's head like a melon. he relaxed his grip and helped him to his feet, got barry's arm around his shoulders, and helped him off the diamond. "you okay?" one of the players asked as they walked past him, but barry didn't answer. the little ones were walking beside them now, clutching barry's hand, and they turned their back on the town as a family and walked toward the mountain. # george had come to visit him once before, not long after alan'd moved to toronto. he couldn't come without bringing down elliot and ferdinand, of course, but it was george's idea to visit, that was clear from the moment they rang the bell of the slightly grotty apartment he'd moved into in the annex, near the students who were barely older than him but seemed to belong to a different species. they were about by then, and fat as housecats, with the same sense of grace and inertia in their swinging bellies and wobbling chins. alan welcomed them in. edward was wearing a pair of wool trousers pulled nearly up to his nipples and short suspenders that were taut over his sweat-stained white shirt. he was grinning fleshily, his hair damp with sweat and curled with the humidity. he opened his mouth, and george's voice emerged. "this place is..." he stood with his mouth open, while inside him, george thought. "*incredible.* i'd never..." he closed his mouth, then opened it again. "*dreamed*. what a..." now ed spoke. "jesus, figure out what you're going to say before you say it, willya? this is just plain --" "rude," came fede's voice from his mouth. "i'm sorry," came george's voice. ed was working on his suspenders, then unbuttoning his shirt and dropping his pants, so that he stood in grimy jockeys with his slick, tight, hairy belly before alan. he tipped himself over, and then alan was face-to-face with freddy, who was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts with blue and white stripes. freddy was scowling comically, and alan hid a grin behind his hand. freddy tipped to one side and there was george, short and delicately formed and pale as a frozen french fry. he grabbed freddy's hips like handles and scrambled out of him, springing into the air and coming down on the balls of his feet, holding his soccer-ball-sized gut over his hulk underoos. "it's incredible," he hooted, dancing from one foot to the other. "it's brilliant! god! i'm never, ever going home!" "oh, yes?" alan said, not bothering to hide his smile as frederick and george separated and righted themselves. "and where will you sleep, then?" "here!" he said, running around the tiny apartment, opening the fridge and the stove and the toaster oven, flushing the toilet, turning on the shower faucets. "sorry," alan called as he ran by. "no vacancies at the hotel anders!" "then i won't sleep!" he cried on his next pass. "i'll play all night and all day in the streets. i'll knock on every door on every street and introduce myself to every person and learn their stories and read their books and meet their kids and pet their dogs!" "you're bonkers," alan said, using the word that the lunch lady back at school had used when chastising them for tearing around the cafeteria. "easy for you to say," greg said, skidding to a stop in front of him. "easy for you -- you're *here*, you got *away*, you don't have to deal with *davey* --" he closed his mouth and his hand went to his lips. alan was still young and had a penchant for the dramatic, so he went around to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of vodka out of the freezer and banged it down on the counter, pouring out four shots. he tossed back his shot and returned the bottle to the freezer. george followed suit and choked and turned purple, but managed to keep his expression neutral. fred and ed each took a sip, then set the drinks down with a sour face. "how's home?" alan said quietly, sliding back to sit on the minuscule counter surface in his kitchenette. "it's okay," ed mumbled, perching on the arm of the goodwill sofa that came with the apartment. without his brothers within him, he moved sprightly and lightly. "it's fine," fred said, looking out the window at the street below, craning his neck to see bloor street and the kids smoking out front of the brunswick house. "it's awful," greg said, and pulled himself back up on the counter with them. "and i'm not going back." the two older brothers looked balefully at him, then mutely appealed to alan. this was new -- since infancy, earl-frank-geoff had acted with complete unity of will. when they were in the first grade, alan had wondered if they were really just one person in three parts -- that was how close their agreements were. "brian left last week," greg said, and drummed his heels on the grease-streaked cabinet doors. "didn't say a word to any of us, just left. he comes and goes like that all the time. sometimes for weeks." craig was halfway around the world, he was in toronto, and brian was god-knew-where. that left just ed-fred-george and davey, alone in the cave. no wonder they were here on his doorstep. "what's he doing?" "he just sits there and watches us, but that's enough. we're almost finished with school." he dropped his chin to his chest. "i thought we could finish here. find a job. a place to live." he blushed furiously. "a girl." ed and fred were staring at their laps. alan tried to picture the logistics, but he couldn't, not really. there was no scenario in which he could see his brothers carrying on with -- "don't be an idiot," ed said. he sounded surprisingly bitter. he was usually a cheerful person -- or at least a fat and smiling person. alan realized for the first time that the two weren't equivalent. george jutted his chin toward the sofa and his brothers. "they don't know what they want to do. they think that, 'cause it'll be hard to live here, we should hide out in the cave forever." "alan, talk to him," fred said. "he's nuts." "look," george said. "you're gone. you're *all* gone. the king under the mountain now is davey. if we stay there, we'll end up his slaves or his victims. let him keep it. there's a whole world out here we can live in. "i don't see any reason to let my handicap keep me down." "it's not a handicap," edward said patiently. "it's just how we are. we're different. we're not like the rest of them." "neither is alan," george said. "and here he is, in the big city, living with them. working. meeting people. out of the mountain." "alan's more like them than he is like us," frederick said. "we're not like them. we can't pass for them." alan's jaw hung slack. handicapped? passing? like them? not like them? he'd never thought of his brothers this way. they were just his brothers. just his family. they could communicate with the outside world. they were people. different, but the same. "you're just as good as they are," he said. and that shut them up. they all regarded him, as if waiting for him to go on. he didn't know what to say. were they, really? was he? was he better? "what are we, alan?" edward said it, but frederick and george mouthed the words after he'd said them. "you're my brothers," he said. "you're. . ." "i want to see the city," george said. "you two can come with me, or you can meet me when i come back." "you *can't* go without us," frederick said. "what if we get hungry?" "you mean, what if i don't come back, right?" "no," frederick said, his face turning red. "well, how hungry are you going to get in a couple hours? you're just worried that i'm going to wander off and not come back. fall into a hole. meet a girl. get drunk. and you won't ever be able to eat again." he was pacing again. ed and fred looked imploringly at him. "why don't we all go together?" alan said. "we'll go out and do something fun -- how about ice-skating?" "skating?" george said. "jesus, i didn't ride a bus for hours just to go *skating*." edward said, "i want to sleep." frederick said, "i want dinner." perfect, alan thought. "perfect. we'll all be equally displeased with this, then. the skating's out in front of city hall. there are lots of people there, and we can take the subway down. we'll have dinner afterward on queen street, then turn in early and get a good night's sleep. tomorrow, we'll negotiate something else. maybe chinatown and the zoo." they are stared at him. "this is a limited-time offer," alan said. "i had other plans tonight, you know. going once, going twice --" "let's go," george said. he went and took his brothers' hands. "let's go, okay?" they had a really good time. # george's body was propped up at the foot of the bed. he was white and wrinkled as a big toe in a bathtub, skin pulled tight in his face so that his hairline and eyebrows and cheeks seemed raised in surprise. alan smelled him now, a stink like a mouse dead between the gyprock in the walls, the worst smell imaginable. he felt mimi breathing behind him, her chest heaving against his back. he reached out and pushed aside the wings, moving them by their translucent membranes, fingers brushing the tiny fingerlets at the wingtips, recognizing in their touch some evolutionary connection with his own hands. george toppled over as alan stepped off the bed, moving in the twilight of the light from under the bathroom door. mimi came off the bed on the other side and hit the overhead light switch, turning the room as bright as an icebox, making alan squint painfully. she closed the blinds quickly, then went to the door and shot the chain and the deadbolt closed. mimi looked down at him. "ugly sumbitch, whoever he was." "my brother," alan said. "oh," she said. she went back around the bed and sat on the edge, facing the wall. "sorry." she crossed her leg and jiggled her foot, making the springs squeak. alan wasn't listening. he knelt down and touched george's cheek. the skin was soft and spongy, porous and saturated. cold. his fingertips came away with shed white flakes of translucent skin clinging to them. "davey?" alan said. "are you in here?" mimi's foot stilled. they both listened intently. there were night-time sounds in the motel, distant muffled tvs and car engines and fucking, but no sound of papery skin thudding on ground-down carpet. "he must have come up through the drain," alan said. "in the bathroom." the broad pale moon of george's belly was abraded in long grey stripes. he stood and, wiping his hand on his bare thigh, reached for the bathroom doorknob. the door swung open, revealing the sanitized-for-your-protection brightness of the bathroom, the water sloshed on the floor by mimi earlier, the heaps of damp towels. "how'd he find us here?" mimi, in her outsized blazer and track pants, touched him on his bare shoulder. he suddenly felt terribly naked. he backed out of the bathroom, shoving mimi aside, and numbly pulled on his jeans and a shapeless sweatshirt that smelled of mimi and had long curly hairs lurking in the fabric that stuck to his face like cobwebs. he jammed his feet into his sneakers. he realized that he'd had to step over his brother's body six times to do this. he looked at his brother again. he couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. the abraded belly. the rictus. his balls, shrunk to an albino walnut, his cock shriveled up to unrecognizability. the hair, curly, matted all over his body, patchily rubbed away. he paced in the little run beside the bed, the only pacing room he had that didn't require stepping over george's body, back and forth, two paces, turn, two paces, turn. "i'm going to cover him up," mimi said. "good, fine," alan said. "are you going to be okay?" "yes, fine," alan said. "are you freaking out?" alan didn't say anything. george looked an awful lot like davey had, the day they killed him. # mimi found a spare blanket in the closet, reeking of mothballs and scarred with a few curdled cigarette burns, and she spread it out on the floor and helped him lift grant's body onto it and wind it tightly around him. "what now?" she said. he looked down at the wound sheet, the lump within it. he sat down heavily on the bed. his chest was tight, and his breath came in short *hup*s. she sat beside him and put an arm around his shoulder, tried to pull his head down to her bosom, but he stiffened his neck. "i knew this was coming," he said. "when we killed darren, i knew." she stood and lit a cigarette. "this is your family business," she said, "why we're driving up north?" he nodded, not trusting his voice, seeing the outlines of grad's face, outlined in moth-eaten blanket. "so," she said. "let's get up north, then. take an end." the night was cold, and they staggered under the weight of the body wound in the blanket and laid him out in the trunk of the car, shifting luggage and picnic supplies to the back seat. at two a.m., the motel lights were out and the road was dark and silent but for the soughing of wind and the distant sounds of night animals. "are you okay to drive?" she said, as she piled their clothes indiscriminately into the suitcases. "what?" he said. the cool air on his face was waking him up a little, but he was still in a dream-universe. the air was spicy and outdoors and it reminded him powerfully of home and simpler times. he looked at mimi without really seeing her. "are you okay to drive?" the keys were in his hands, the car smelling of the detailing-in-a-can mist that the rental agency sprayed on the upholstery to get rid of the discount traveler farts between rentals. "i can drive," he said. home, and the mountain, and the washing machine, and the nook where he'd slept for years, and the golems, and the cradle they'd hewn for him. another ten or twelve hours' driving and they'd be at the foot of the trail where the grass grew to waist-high. "well, then, *drive*." she got in the car and slammed her door. he climbed in, started the engine, and put the hertzmobile into reverse. # two hours later, he realized that he was going to nod off. the thumps of the body sliding in the trunk and the suitcases rattling around in the back seat had lost their power to keep him awake. the body's thumping had hardly had the power to begin with. once the initial shock had passed, the body became an object only, a thing, a payload he had to deliver. alan wondered if he was capable of feeling the loss. "you were eleven then," he said. it was suddenly as though no time had past since they'd sat on the bed and she'd told him about auntie. "yes," she said. "it was as though no time had passed." a shiver went up his back. he was wide awake. "no time had passed." "yes. i was living with a nice family in oakville who were sending me to a nice girls' school where we wore blazers over our tunics, and i had a permanent note excusing me from gym classes. in a building full of four hundred girls going through puberty, one more fat shy girl who wouldn't take her top off was hardly noteworthy." "the family, they were nice. waspy. they called me cheryl. with a why. when i asked them where i'd been before, about 'auntie,' they looked sad and hurt and worried for me, and i learned to stop. they hugged me and touched my wings and never said anything -- and never wiped their hands on their pants after touching them. they gave me a room with a computer and a cd player and a little tv of my own, and asked me to bring home my friends. "i had none. "but they found other girls who would come to my 'birthday' parties, on may , which was exactly two months after their son's birthday and two months before their daughter's birthday. "i can't remember any of their names. "but they made me birthday cards and they made me breakfast and dinner and they made me welcome. i could watch them grilling burgers in the back yard by the above ground pool in the summer from my bedroom window. i could watch them building forts or freezing skating rinks in the winter. i could listen to them eating dinner together while i did my homework in my bedroom. there was a place for me at the dinner-table, but i couldn't sit there, though i can't remember why." "wait a second," alan said. "you don't remember?" she made a sad noise in her throat. "i was told i was welcome, but i knew i wasn't. i know that sounds paranoid -- crazy. maybe i was just a teenager. there was a reason, though, i just don't know what it was. i knew then. they knew it, too -- no one blamed me. they loved me, i guess." "you stayed with them until you went to school?" "almost. their daughter went to waterloo, then the next year, their son went to mcgill in montreal, and then it was just me and them. i had two more years of high school, but it just got unbearable. with their children gone, they tried to take an interest in me. tried to make me eat with them. take me out to meet their friends. every day felt worse, more wrong. one night, i went to a late movie by myself downtown and then got to walking around near the clubs and looking at the club kids and feeling this terrible feeling of loneliness, and when i was finally ready to go home, the last train had already gone. i just spent the night out, wandering around, sitting in a back booth at sneaky dee's and drinking cokes, watching the sun come up from the top of christie pitts overlooking the baseball diamond. i was a -year-old girl from the suburbs wearing a big coat and staring at her shoelaces, but no one bugged me. "when i came home the next morning, no one seemed particularly bothered that i'd been away all night. if anything, the parental people might have been a little distraught that i came home. 'i think i'll get my own place,' i said. they agreed, and agreed to put the lease in their name to make things easier. i got a crummy little basement in what the landlord called cabbagetown but what was really regent park, and i switched out to a huge, anonymous high school to finish school. worked in a restaurant at nights and on weekends to pay the bills." the night highway rushed past them, quiet. she lit a cigarette and rolled down her window, letting in the white-noise crash of the wind and the smell of the smoke mixed with the pine-and-summer reek of the roadside. "give me one of those," alan said. she lit another and put it between his lips, damp with her saliva. his skin came up in goosepimples. "who knows about your wings?" he said. "krishna knows," she said. "and you." she looked out into the night. "the family in oakville. if i could remember where they lived, i'd look them up and ask them about it. can't. can't remember their names or their faces. i remember the pool, though, and the barbecue." "no one else knows?" "there was no one else before krishna. no one that i remember, anyway." "i have a brother," he said, then swallowed hard. "i have a brother named brad. he can see the future." "yeah?" "yeah." he pawed around for an ashtray and discovered that it had been removed, along with the lighter, from the rental car's dashboard. cursing, he pinched off the coal of the cigarette and flicked it to the roadside, hoping that it would burn out quickly, then he tossed the butt over his shoulder at the back seat. as he did, the body in the trunk rolled while he navigated a curve in the road and he braked hard, getting the car stopped in time for him to open the door and pitch a rush of vomit onto the roadway. "you okay to drive?" "yeah. i am." he sat up and put the car into gear and inched to the shoulder, then put it in park and set his blinkers. the car smelled of sour food and sharp cigarettes and god, it smelled of the body in the trunk. "it's not easy to be precognizant," alan said, and pulled back onto the road, signaling even though there were no taillights or headlights for as far as the eye could see. "i believe it," she said. "he stopped telling us things after a while. it just got him into trouble. i'd be studying for an exam and he'd look at me and shake his head, slowly, sadly. then i'd flunk out, and i'd be convinced that it was him psyching me out. or he'd get picked for kickball and he'd say. 'what's the point, this team's gonna lose,' and wander off, and they'd lose, and everyone would hate him. he couldn't tell the difference between what he knew and what everyone else knew. didn't know the difference between the past and the future, sometimes. so he stopped telling us, and when we figured out how to read it in his eyes, he stopped looking at us. "then something really -- something terrible... someone i cared about died. and he didn't say anything about it. i could have -- stopped -- it. prevented it. i could have saved her life, but he wouldn't talk." he drove. "for real, he could see the future?" she said softly. her voice had more emotion than he'd ever heard in it and she rolled down the window and lit another cigarette, pluming smoke into the roar of the wind. "yeah," alan said. "*a* future or *the* future, i never figured it out. a little of both, i suppose." "he stopped talking, huh?" "yeah," alan said. "i know what that's like," mimi said. "i hadn't spoken more than three words in the six months before i met krishna. i worked at a direct-mail house, proofreading the mailing labels. no one wanted to say anything to me, and i just wanted to disappear. it was soothing, in a way, reading all those names. i'd dropped out of school after christmas break, just didn't bother going back again, never paid my tuition. i threw away my houseplants and flushed my fish down the toilet so that there wouldn't be any living thing that depended on me." she worked her hand between his thigh and the seat. "krishna sat next to me on the subway. i was leaning forward because my wings were long -- the longest they've ever been -- and wearing a big parka over them. he leaned forward to match me and tapped me on the shoulder. "i turned to look at him and he said, 'i get off at the next stop. will you get off with me and have a cup of coffee? i've been riding next to you on the subway for a month, and i want to find out what you're like.' "i wouldn't have done it, except before i knew what i was doing, i'd already said, 'i beg your pardon?' because i wasn't sure i'd heard him right. and once i'd said that, once i'd spoken, i couldn't bear the thought of not speaking again." # they blew through kapuskasing at ten a.m., on a grey morning that dawned with drizzle and bad-tempered clouds low overhead. the little main drag -- which alan remembered as a bustling center of commerce where he'd waited out half a day to change buses -- was deserted, the only evidence of habitation the occasional car pulling through a donut store drive-through lane. "jesus, who divorced me this time?" mimi said, ungumming her eyes and stuffing a fresh cigarette into her mouth. "*fear and loathing* again, right?" "it's *the* road-trip novel," she said. "what about *on the road*?" "oh, *that*," she said. "pfft. kerouac was a martian on crank. dope fiend prose isn't fit for human consumption." "thompson isn't a dope fiend?" "no. that was just a put-on. he wrote *about* drugs, not *on* drugs." "have you *read* kerouac?" "i couldn't get into it," she said. he pulled sharply off the road and into a parking lot. "what's this?" she said. "the library," he said. "come on." it smelled just as it had when he was , standing among the aisles of the biggest collection of books he'd ever seen. sweet, dusty. "here," he said, crossing to the fiction section. the fiction section at the library in town had fit into three spinner racks. here, it occupied its own corner of overstuffed bookcases. "here," he said, running his finger down the plastic brodart wraps on the spines of the books, the faded dewey labels. h, i, j, k... there it was, the edition he'd remembered from all those years ago. *on the road.* "come on," he said. "we've got it." "you can't check that out," she said. he pulled out his wallet as they drew up closer to the checkout counter. he slid out the plastic id holder, flipping past the health card and the driver's license -- not a very good likeness of his face or his name on either, and then produced a library card so tattered that it looked like a pirate's map on parchment. he slid it delicately out of the plastic sleeve, unbending the frayed corner, smoothing the feltlike surface of the card, the furry type. he slid the card and the book across the counter. mimi and the librarian -- a boy of possibly mimi's age, who wore a mesh-back cap just like his patrons, but at a certain angle that suggested urbane irony -- goggled at it, as though alan had slapped down a museum piece. the boy picked it up with such roughness that alan flinched on behalf of his card. "this isn't --" the boy began. "it's a library card," alan said. "they used to let me use it here." the boy set it down on the counter again. mimi peered at it. "there's no name on that card," she said. "never needed one," he said. he'd gotten the card from the sour-faced librarian back home, tricked her out of it by dragging along bradley and encouraging him to waddle off into the shelves and start pulling down books. she'd rolled it into her typewriter and then they'd both gone chasing after brad, then she'd asked him again for his name and they'd gone chasing after brad, then for his address, and then brad again. eventually, he was able to simply snitch it out of the platen of the humming selectric and walk out. no one ever looked closely at it again -- not even the thoroughly professional staffers at the kapuskasing branch who'd let him take out a stack of books to read in the bus station overnight while he waited for the morning bus to toronto. he picked up the card again then set it down. it was the first piece of identification he ever owned, and in some ways, the most important. "i have to give you a new card," the mesh-back kid said. "with a bar code. we don't take that card anymore." he picked it up and made to tear it in half. "no!" alan roared, and lunged over the counter to seize the kid's wrists. the kid startled back and reflexively tore at the card, but alan's iron grip on his wrists kept him from completing the motion. the kid dropped the card and it fluttered to the carpet behind the counter. "give it to me," alan said. the boy's eyes, wide with shock, began to screw shut with pain. alan let go his wrists, and the kid chafed them, backing away another step. his shout had drawn older librarians from receiving areas and offices behind the counter, women with the look of persons accustomed to terminating children's mischief and ejecting rowdy drunks with equal aplomb. one of them was talking into a phone, and two more were moving cautiously toward them, sizing them up. "we should go," mimi said. "i need my library card," he said, and was as surprised as anyone at the pout in his voice, a sound that was about six years old, stubborn, and wounded. mimi looked hard at him, then at the librarians converging on them, then at the mesh back kid, who had backed all the way up to a work surface several paces back of him. she planted her palms on the counter and swung one foot up onto it, vaulting herself over. alan saw the back of her man's jacket bulge out behind her as her wings tried to spread when she took to the air. she snatched up the card, then planted her hands again and leapt into the air. the toe of her trailing foot caught the edge of the counter and she began to tumble, headed for a face-plant into the greyed-out industrial carpet. alan had the presence of mind to catch her, her tit crashing into his head, and gentle her to the floor. "we're going," mimi said. "now." alan hardly knew where he was anymore. the card was in mimi's hand, though, and he reached for it, making a keening noise deep in his throat. "here," she said, handing it to him. when he touched the felted card stock, he snapped back to himself. "sorry," he said lamely to the mesh-back kid. mimi yanked his arm and they jumped into the car and he fumbled the key into the ignition, fumbled the car to life. his head felt like a balloon on the end of a taut string, floating some yards above his body. he gunned the engine and the body rolled in the trunk. he'd forgotten about it for a while in the library and now he remembered it again. maybe he felt something then, a twitchy twinge of grief, but he swallowed hard and it went away. the clunk-clunk of the wheels going over the curb as he missed the curb-cut back out onto the road, mimi sucking breath in a hiss as he narrowly avoided getting t-boned by a rusted-out pickup truck, and then the hum of the road under his wheels. "alan?" mimi said. "it was my first piece of identification," he said. "it made me a person who could get a book out of the library." they drove on, heading for the city limits at a few klicks over the speed limit. fast, lots of green lights. "what did i just say?" alan said. "you said it was your first piece of id," mimi said. she was twitching worriedly in the passenger seat. alan realized that she was air-driving, steering and braking an invisible set of controls as he veered around the traffic. "you said it made you a person --" "that's right," alan said. "it did." # he never understood how he came to be enrolled in kindergarten. even in those late days, there were still any number of nearby farm folk whose literacy was so fragile that they could be intimidated out of it by a sheaf of school enrollment forms. maybe that was it -- the five-year-old alan turning up at the school with his oddly accented english and his martian wardrobe of pieces rescued from roadside ditches and snitched off of clotheslines, and who was going to send him home on the first day of school? surely the paperwork would get sorted out by the time the first permission-slip field trip rolled around, or possibly by the time vaccination forms were due. and then it just fell by the wayside. alan got the rest of his brothers enrolled, taking their forms home and forging indecipherable scrawls that satisfied the office ladies. his own enrollment never came up in any serious way. permission slips were easy, inoculations could be had at the walk-in clinic once a year at the fire house. until he was eight, being undocumented was no big deal. none of his classmates carried id. but his classmates *did* have big wheels, catcher's mitts, batmobiles, action figures, fonzie lunchboxes, and kodiak boots. they had parents who came to parents' night and sent trays of cupcakes to class on birthdays -- alan's birthday came during the summer, by necessity, so that this wouldn't be an issue. so did his brothers', when their time came to enroll. at eight, he ducked show-and-tell religiously and skillfully, but one day he got caught out, empty-handed and with all the eyes in the room boring into him as he fumfuhed at the front of the classroom, and the teacher thought he was being kind by pointing out that his hand-stitched spring moccasins -- a tithe of the golems -- were fit subject for a brief exposition. "did your mom buy you any real shoes?" it was asked without malice or calculation, but alan's flustered, red-faced, hot stammer chummed the waters and the class sharks were on him fast and hard. previously invisible, he was now the subject of relentless scrutiny. previously an observer of the playground, he was now a nexus of it, a place where attention focused, hunting out the out-of-place accent, the strange lunch, the odd looks and gaps in knowledge of the world. he thought he'd figured out how to fit in, that he'd observed people to the point that he could be one, but he was so wrong. they watched him until easter break, when school let out and they disappeared back into the unknowable depths of their neat houses, and when they saw him on the street headed for a shop or moping on a bench, they cocked their heads quizzically at him, as if to say, *do i know you from somewhere?* or, if he was feeling generous, *i wonder where you live?* the latter was scarier than the former. for his part, he was heartsick that he turned out not to be half so clever as he'd fancied himself. there wasn't much money around the mountain that season -- the flakes he'd brought down to the assayer had been converted into cash for new shoes for the younger kids and chocolate bars that he'd brought to fill bradley's little round belly. he missed the school library achingly during that week, and it was that lack that drove him to the town library. he'd walked past the squat brown brick building hundreds of times, but had never crossed its threshold. he had a sense that he wasn't welcome there, that it was not intended for his consumption. he slunk in like a stray dog, hid himself in the back shelves, and read books at random while he observed the other patrons coming and going. it took three days of this for him to arrive at his strategy for getting his own library card, and the plan worked flawlessly. bradley pulled the books off the back shelves for the final time, the librarian turned in exasperation for the final time, and he was off and out with the card in his hand before the librarian had turned back again. credentialed. he'd read the word in a book of war stories. he liked the sound of it. # "what did krishna do?" "what do you mean?" she was looking at him guardedly now, but his madness seemed to have past. "i mean," he said, reaching over and taking her hand, "what did krishna do when you went out for coffee with him?" "oh," she said. she was quiet while they drove a narrow road over a steep hill. "he made me laugh." "he doesn't seem that funny," alan said. "we went out to this coffee shop in little italy, and he sat me down at a tiny green metal table, even though it was still cold as hell, and he brought out tiny cups of espresso and a little wax-paper bag of biscotti. then he watched the people and made little remarks about them. 'she's a little old to be breeding,' or 'oh, is that how they're wearing their eyebrow in the old country?' or 'looks like he beats his wife with his slipper for not fixing his kraft dinner right.' and when he said it, i *knew* it wasn't just a mean little remark, i *knew* it was true. somehow, he could look at these people and know what they were self-conscious about, what their fears were, what their little secrets were. and he made me laugh, even though it didn't take long before i guessed that that meant that he might know my secret." "so we drank our coffee," she said, and then stopped when the body thudded in the trunk again when they caught some air at the top of a hill. "we drank it and he reached across the table and tickled my open palm with his fingertips and he said, 'why did you come out with me?' "and i mumbled and blushed and said something like, 'you look like a nice guy, it's just coffee, shit, don't make a big deal out of it,' and he looked like i'd just canceled christmas and said, 'oh, well, too bad. i was hoping it was a big deal, that it was because you thought i'd be a good guy to really hang out with a *lot*, if you know what i mean.' he tickled my palm again. i was a blushing virgin, literally though i'd had a couple boys maybe possibly flirt with me in school, i'd never returned the signals, never could. "i told him i didn't think i could be romantically involved with him, and he flattened out his palm so that my hand was pinned to the table under it and he said, 'if it's your deformity, don't let that bother you. i thought i could fix that for you.' i almost pretended i didn't know what he meant, but i couldn't really, i knew he knew i knew. i said, 'how?' as in, *how did you know* and *how can you fix it*? but it just came out in a little squeak, and he grinned like christmas was back on and said, 'does it really matter?' "i told him it didn't, and then we went back to his place in kensington market and he kissed me in the living room, then he took me upstairs to the bathroom and took off my shirt and he --" "he cut you," alan said. "he fixed me," she said. alan reached out and petted her wings through her jacket. "were you broken?" "of *course* i was," she snapped, pulling back. "i couldn't *talk* to people. i couldn't *do* anything. i wasn't a person," she said. "right," alan said. "i'm following you." she looked glumly at the road unraveling before them, grey and hissing with rain. "is it much farther?" she said. "an hour or so, if i remember right," he said. "i know how stupid that sounds," she said. "i couldn't figure out if he was some kind of pervert who liked to cut or if he was some kind of pervert who liked girls like me or if i was lucky or in trouble. but he cut them, and he gave me a towel to bite on the first time, but i never needed it after that. he'd do it quick, and he kept the knife sharp, and i was able to be a person again -- to wear cute clothes and go where i wanted. it was like my life had started over again." the hills loomed over the horizon now, low and rolling up toward the mountains. one of them was his. he sucked in a breath and the car wavered on the slick road. he pumped the brakes and coasted them to a stop on the shoulder. "is that it?" she said. "that's it," he said. he pointed. his father was green and craggy and smaller than he remembered. the body rolled in the trunk. "i feel --" he said. "we're taking him home, at least. and my father will know what to do." "no boy has ever taken me home to meet his folks," she said. alan remembered the little fist in the dirt. "you can wait in the car if you want," he said. # krishna came home, (she said, as they sat in the parked car at a wide spot in the highway, looking at the mountains on the horizon) krishna came home, (she said, after he'd pulled off the road abruptly, put the car into park, and stared emptily at the mountains ahead of them) krishna came home, (she said, lighting a cigarette and rolling down the window and letting the shush of the passing cars come fill the car, and she didn't look at him, because the expression on his face was too terrible to behold) and he came through the door with two bags of groceries and a bottle of wine under one arm and two bags from a ravewear shop on queen street that i'd walked past a hundred times but never gone into. he'd left me in his apartment that morning, with his television and his books and his guitar, told me to make myself at home, told me to call in sick to work, told me to take a day for myself. i felt...*glorious*. gloried *in*. he'd been so attentive. he'd touched me. no one had touched me in so long. no one had *ever* touched me that way. he'd touched me with...*reverence*. he's gotten this expression on his face like, like he was in *church* or something. he'd kept breathing something too low for me to hear and when he put his lips right to my ear, i heard what he'd been saying all along, "oh god, oh god, my god, oh god," and i'd felt a warmness like slow honey start in my toes and rise through me like sap to the roots of my hair, so that i felt like i was saturated with something hot and sweet and delicious. he came home that night with the makings of a huge dinner with boiled soft-shell crabs, and a bottle of completely decent chilean red, and three dresses for me that i could never, ever wear. i tried to keep the disappointment off my face as he pulled them out of the bag, because i *knew* they'd never go on over my wings, and they were *so* beautiful. "this one will look really good on you," he said, holding up a heidi dress with a scoop neck that was cut low across the back, and i felt a hot tear in the corner of my eye. i'd never wear that dress in front of anyone but him. i couldn't, my wings would stick out a mile. i knew what it meant to be different: it meant living in the second floor with the old russian auntie, away from the crowds and their eyes. i knew then what i was getting in for -- the rest of my life spent hidden away from the world, with only this man to see and speak to. i'd been out in the world for only a few years, and i had barely touched it, moving in silence and stealth, watching and not being seen, but oh, i had *loved it*, i realized. i'd thought i'd hated it, but i'd loved it. loved the people and their dialogue and their clothes and their mysterious errands and the shops full of goods and every shopper hunting for something for someone, every one of them part of a story that i would never be part of, but i could be *next to* the stories and that was enough. i was going to live in an attic again. i started to cry. he came to me. he put his arms around me. he nuzzled my throat and licked up the tears as they slid past my chin. "shhh," he said. "shhh." he took off my jacket and my sweater, peeled down my jeans and my panties, and ran his fingertips over me, stroking me until i quietened. he touched me reverently still, his breath hot on my skin. no one had ever touched me like that. he said, "i can fix you." i said, "no one can fix me." he said, "i can, but you'll have to be brave." i nodded slowly. i could do brave. he led me by the hand into the bathroom and he took a towel down off of the hook on the back of the door and folded it into a long strip. he handed it to me. "bite down on this," he said, and helped me stand in the tub and face into the corner, to count the grid of tiles and the greenish mildew in the grout. "hold still and bite down," he said, and i heard the door close behind me. reverent fingertips on my wing, unfolding it, holding it away from my body. "be brave," he said. and then he cut off my wing. it hurt so much, i pitched forward involuntarily and cracked my head against the tile. it hurt so much i bit through two thicknesses of towel. it hurt so much my legs went to mush and i began to sit down quickly, like i was fainting. he caught me, under my armpits, and held me up, and i felt something icy pressed to where my wing had been -- i closed my eyes, but i heard the leathery thump as my wing hit the tile floor, a wet sound -- and gauzy fabric was wrapped around my chest, holding the icy towel in place over the wound, once twice thrice, between my tits. "hold still," he said. and he cut off the other one. i screamed this time, because he brushed the wound he'd left the first time, but i managed to stay upright and to not crack my head on anything. i felt myself crying but couldn't hear it, i couldn't hear anything, nothing except a high sound in my ears like a dog whistle. he kissed my cheek after he'd wound a second bandage, holding a second cold compress over my second wound. "you're a very brave girl," he said. "come on." he led me into the living room, where he pulled the cushions off his sofa and opened it up to reveal a hide-a-bed. he helped me lie down on my belly, and arranged pillows around me and under my head, so that i was facing the tv. "i got you movies," he said, and held up a stack of dvd rental boxes from martian signal. "we got *pretty in pink*, *the blues brothers*, *the princess bride*, a robin williams stand-up tape and a really funny-looking porno called *edward penishands*." i had to smile in spite of myself, in spite of the pain. he stepped into his kitchenette and came back with a box of chocolates. "truffles," he said. "so you can laze on the sofa, eating bonbons." i smiled more widely then. "such a beautiful smile," he said. "want a cup of coffee?" "no," i said, choking it out past my raw-from-screaming throat. "all right," he said. "which video do you want to watch?" "*princess bride*," i said. i hadn't heard of any of them, but i didn't want to admit it. "you don't want to start with edward penishands?" # alan stood out front of the video shop for a while, watching natalie wait on her customers. she was friendly without being perky, and it was clear that the mostly male clientele had a bit of a crush on her, as did her mooning, cow-eyed co-worker who was too distracted to efficiently shelve the videos he pulled from the box before him. alan smiled. hiring cute girls for your shop was tricky business. if they had brains, they'd sell the hell out of your stock and be entertaining as hell; but a lot of pretty girls (and boys!) had gotten a free ride in life and got affronted when you asked them to do any real work. natalie was clearly efficient, and alan knew that she wasn't afraid of hard work, but it was good to see her doing her thing, quickly and efficiently taking people's money, answering their questions, handing them receipts, counting out change... he would have loved to have had someone like her working for him in one of his shops. once the little rush at the counter was cleared, he eased himself into the shop. natalie *was* working for him, of course, in the impromptu assembly line in kurt's storefront. she'd proven herself to be as efficient at assembling and testing the access points as she was at running the till. "alan!" she said, smiling broadly. her co-worker turned and scowled jealously at him. "i'm going on break, okay?" she said to him, ignoring his sour puss. "what, now?" he said petulantly. "no, i thought i'd wait until we got busy again," she said, not unkindly, and smiled at him. "i'll be back in ten," she said. she came around the counter with her cigs in one hand and her lighter in the other. "coffee?" she said. "absolutely," he said, and led her up the street. "you liking the job?" he said. "it's better now," she said. "i've been bringing home two or three movies every night and watching them, just to get to know the stock, and i put on different things in the store, the kind of thing i'd never have watched before. old horror movies, tentacle porn, crappy kung-fu epics. so now they all bow to me." "that's great," alan said. "and kurt tells me you've been doing amazing work with him, too." "oh, that's just fun," she said. "i went along on a couple of dumpster runs with the gang. i found the most amazing cosmetics baskets at the shiseido dumpster. never would have thought that i'd go in for that girly stuff, but when you get it for free out of the trash, it feels pretty macha. smell," she said, tilting her head and stretching her neck. he sniffed cautiously. "very macha," he said. he realized that the other patrons in the shop were eyeballing him, a middle-aged man, with his face buried in this alterna-girl's throat. he remembered suddenly that he still hadn't put in a call to get her a job somewhere else, and was smitten with guilt. "hey," he said. "damn. i was supposed to call tropicál and see about getting you a job. i'll do it right away." he pulled a little steno pad out of his pocket and started jotting down a note to himself. she put her hand out. "oh, that's okay," she said. "i really like this job. i've been looking up all my old high school friends: you were right, everyone i ever knew has an account with martian signal. god, you should *see* the movies they rent." "you keep that on file, huh?" "sure, everything. it's creepy." "do you need that much info?" "well, we need to know who took a tape out last if someone returns it and says that it's broken or recorded over or whatever --" "so you need, what, the last couple months' worth of rentals?" "something like that. maybe longer for the weirder tapes, they only get checked out once a year or so --" "so maybe you keep the last two names associated with each tape?" "that'd work." "you should do that." she snorted and drank her coffee. "i don't have any say in it." "tell your boss," he said. "it's how good ideas happen in business -- people working at the cash register figure stuff out, and they tell their bosses." "so i should just tell my boss that i think we should change our whole rental system because it's creepy?" "damned right. tell him it's creepy. you're keeping information you don't need to keep, and paying to store it. you're keeping information that cops or snoops or other people could take advantage of. and you're keeping information that your customers almost certainly assume you're not keeping. all of those are good reasons *not* to keep that information. trust me on this one. bosses love to hear suggestions from people who work for them. it shows that you're engaged, paying attention to their business." "god, now i feel guilty for snooping." "well, maybe you don't mention to your boss that you've been spending a lot of time looking through rental histories." she laughed. god, he liked working with young people. "so, why i'm here," he said. "yes?" "i want to put an access point in the second-floor window and around back of the shop. your boss owns the building, right?" "yeah, but i really don't think i can explain all this stuff to him --" "i don't need you to -- i just need you to introduce me to him. i'll do all the explaining." she blushed a little. "i don't know, abe..." she trailed off. "is that a problem?" "no. yes. i don't know." she looked distressed. suddenly he was at sea. he'd felt like he was in charge of this interaction, like he understood what was going on. he'd carefully rehearsed what he was going to say and what natalie was likely to say, and now she was, what, afraid to introduce him to her boss? because why? because the boss was an ogre? then she would have pushed back harder when he told her to talk to him about the rental records. because she was shy? natalie wasn't shy. because -- "i'll do it," she said. "sorry. i was being stupid. it's just -- you come on a little strong sometimes. my boss, i get the feeling that he doesn't like it when people come on strong with him." ah, he thought. she was nervous because he was so goddamned weird. well, there you had it. he couldn't even get sad about it. story of his life, really. "thanks for the tip," he said. "what if i assure you that i'll come on easy?" she blushed. it had really been awkward for her, then. he felt bad. "okay," she said. "sure. sorry, man --" he held up a hand. "it's nothing." he followed her back to the store and he bought a tin robot made out of a pepsi can by some artisan in vietnam who'd endowed it with huge tin testicles. it made him laugh. when he got home, he scanned and filed the receipt, took a picture, and entered it into the inventory, and by the time he was done, he was feeling much better. # they got into kurt's car at five p.m., just as the sun was beginning to set. the sun hung on the horizon, *right* at eye level, for an eternity, slicing up their eyeballs and into their brains. "summer's coming on," alan said. "and we've barely got the market covered," kurt said. "at this rate, it'll take ten years to cover the whole city." alan shrugged. "it's the journey, dude, not the destination -- the act of organizing all these people, of putting up the aps, of advancing the art. it's all worthwhile in and of itself." kurt shook his head. "you want to eat vietnamese?" "sure," alan said. "i know a place," he said, and nudged the car through traffic and on to the don valley parkway. "where the hell are we *going*?" alan said, once they'd left the city limits and entered the curved, identical cookie-cutter streets of the industrial suburbs in the north end. "place i know," kurt said. "it's really cheap and really good. all the peel region cops eat there." he snapped his fingers. "oh, yeah, i was going to tell you about the cop," he said. "you were," alan said. "so, one night i'd been diving there." kurt pointed to an anonymous low-slung, sprawling brown building. "they print hockey cards, baseball cards, monster cards -- you name it." he sipped at his donut-store coffee and then rolled down the window and spat it out. "shit, that was last night's coffee," he said. "so, one night i was diving there, and i found, i dunno, fifty, a hundred boxes of hockey cards. slightly dented at the corners, in the trash. i mean, hockey cards are just *paper*, right? the only thing that makes them valuable is the companies infusing them with marketing juju and glossy pictures of mullet-head, no-tooth jocks." "tell me how you really feel," alan said. "sorry," kurt said. "the hockey players in junior high were real jerks. i'm mentally scarred. "so i'm driving away and the law pulls me over. the local cops, they know me, mostly, 'cause i phone in b&es when i spot them, but these guys had never met me before. so they get me out of the car and i explain what i was doing, and i quote the part of the trespass to property act that says that i'm allowed to do what i'm doing, and then i open the trunk and i show him, and he busts a *nut*: 'you mean you found these in the *garbage?* my kid spends a fortune on these things! in the *garbage*?' he keeps saying, 'in the garbage?' and his partner leads him away and i put it behind me. "but then a couple nights later, i go back and there's someone in the dumpster, up to his nipples in hockey cards." "the cop," alan said. "the cop," kurt said. "right." "that's the story about the cop in the dumpster, huh?" alan said. "that's the story. the moral is: we're all only a c-hair away from jumping in the dumpster and getting down in it." "c-hair? i thought you were trying not to be sexist?" "*c* stands for *cock*, okay?" alan grinned. he and kurt hadn't had an evening chatting together in some time. when kurt suggested that they go for a ride, alan had been reluctant: too much on his mind those days, too much *danny* on his mind. but this was just what he needed. what they both needed. "okay," alan said. "we going to eat?" "we're going to eat," kurt said. "the vietnamese place is just up ahead. i once heard a guy there trying to speak thai to the waiters. it was amazing -- it was like he was a tourist even at home, an ugly fucked-up tourist. people suck." "do they?" alan said. "i quite like them. you know, there's pretty good vietnamese in chinatown." "this is good vietnamese." "better than chinatown?" "better situated," kurt said. "if you're going dumpster diving afterward. i'm gonna take your cherry, buddy." he clapped a hand on alan's shoulder. real people didn't touch alan much. he didn't know if he liked it. "god," alan said. "this is so sudden." but he was happy about it. he'd tried to picture what kurt actually *did* any number of times, but he was never very successful. now he was going to actually go out and jump in and out of the garbage. he wondered if he was dressed for it, picturing bags of stinky kitchen waste, and decided that he was willing to sacrifice his jeans and the old gap shirt he'd bought one day after the shirt he'd worn to the store -- the wind-up toy store? -- got soaked in a cloudburst. the vietnamese food was really good, and the family who ran the restaurant greeted kurt like an old friend. the place was crawling with cops, a new two or three every couple minutes, stopping by to grab a salad roll or a sandwich or a go-cup of pho. "cops always know where to eat fast and cheap and good," kurt mumbled around a mouthful of pork chop and fried rice. "that's how i found this place, all the cop cars in the parking lot." alan slurped up the last of his pho and chased down the remaining hunks of rare beef with his chopsticks and dipped them in chili sauce before popping them in his mouth. "where are we going?" he asked. kurt jerked his head in the direction of the great outdoors. "wherever the fates take us. i just drive until i get an itch and then i pull into a parking lot and hit the dumpsters. there's enough dumpsters out this way, i could spend fifty or sixty hours going through them all, so i've got to be selective. i know how each company's trash has been running -- lots of good stuff or mostly crap -- lately, and i trust my intuition to take me to the right places. i'd love to go to the sega or nintendo dumpsters, but they're like stalag thirteen -- razorwire and motion-sensors and armed guards. they're the only companies that take secrecy seriously." suddenly he changed lanes and pulled up the driveway of an industrial complex. "spidey-sense is tingling," he said, as he killed his lights and crept forward to the dumpster. "ready to lose your virginity?" he said, lighting a cigarette. "i wish you'd stop using that metaphor," alan said. "ick." but kurt was already out of the buick, around the other side of the car, pulling open alan's door. "that dumpster is full of cardboard," he said, gesturing. "it's recycling. that one is full of plastic bottles. more recycling. this one," he said, *oof*ing as he levered himself over it, talking around the maglight he'd clenched between his teeth, "is where they put the good stuff. looky here." alan tried to climb the dumpster's sticky walls, but couldn't get a purchase. kurt, standing on something in the dumpster that crackled, reached down and grabbed him by the wrist and hoisted him up. he scrambled over the dumpster's transom and fell into it, expecting a wash of sour kitchen waste to break over him, and finding himself, instead, amid hundreds of five-inch cardboard boxes. "what's this?" he asked. kurt was picking up the boxes and shaking them, listening for the rattle. "this place is an import/export wholesaler. they throw out a lot of defective product, since it's cheaper than shipping it all back to taiwan for service. but my kids will fix it and sell it on ebay. here," he said, opening a box and shaking something out, handing it to him. he passed his light over to alan, who took it, unmindful of the drool on the handle. it was a rubber duckie. alan turned it over and saw it had a hard chunk of metal growing out of its ass. "more of these, huh?" kurt said. "i found about a thousand of these last month. they're usb keychain drives, low-capacity, like mb. plug them in and they show up on your desktop like a little hard drive. they light up in all kinds of different colors. the problem is, they've all got a manufacturing defect that makes them glow in just one color -- whatever shade the little gel carousel gets stuck on. "i've got a couple thousand of these back home, but they're selling briskly. go get me a couple cardboard boxes from that dumpster there and we'll snag a couple hundred more." alan gawped. the dumpster was seven feet cubed, the duckies a few inches on a side. there were thousands and thousands of duckies in the dumpster: more than they could ever fit into the buick. in a daze, he went off and pulled some likely flattened boxes out of the trash and assembled them, packing them with the duckies that kurt passed down to him from atop his crunching, cracking mound of doomed duckies that he was grinding underfoot. once they'd finished, kurt fussed with moving the boxes around so that everything with a bootprint was shuffled to the bottom. "we don't want them to know that we've been here or they'll start hitting the duckies with a hammer before they pitch 'em out." he climbed into the car and pulled out a bottle of window cleaner and some paper towels and wiped off the steering wheel and the dash and the handle of his flashlight, then worked a blob of hand sanitizer into his palms, passing it to alan when he was done. alan didn't bother to point out that as kurt had worked, he'd transferred the flashlight from his mouth to his hands and back again a dozen times -- he thought he understood that this ritual was about kurt assuring himself that he was not sinking down to the level of rummies and other garbage pickers. as if reading his mind, kurt said, "you see those old rum-dums pushing a shopping cart filled with empty cans down spadina? fucking *morons* -- they could be out here pulling lcds that they could turn around for ten bucks a pop, but instead they're rooting around like raccoons in the trash, chasing after nickel deposits." "but then what would you pick?" kurt stared at him. "you kidding me? didn't you *see*? there's a hundred times more stuff than i could ever pull. christ, if even one of them had a squint of ambition, we could *double* the amount we save from the trash." "you're an extraordinary person," alan said. he wasn't sure he meant it as a compliment. after all, wasn't *he* an extraordinary person, too? # alan was stunned when they found a dozen hard drives that spun up and revealed themselves to be of generous capacity and moreover stuffed with confidential looking information when he plugged them into the laptop that kurt kept under the passenger seat. he was floored when they turned up three slightly elderly toshiba laptops, each of which booted into a crufty old flavor of windows, and only one of which had any obvious material defects: a starred corner in its lcd. he was delighted by the dumpsters full of plush toys, by the lightly used office furniture, by the technical books and the cds of last year's software. the smells were largely inoffensive -- kurt mentioned that the picking was better in winter when the outdoors was one big fridge, but alan could hardly smell anything except the sour smell of an old dumpster and occasionally a whiff of coffee grounds. they took a break at the vietnamese place for coconut ice and glasses of sweet iced coffee, and kurt nodded at the cops in the restaurant. alan wondered why kurt was so pleasant with these cops out in the boonies but so hostile to the law in kensington market. "how are we going to get connectivity out of the market?" kurt said. "i mean, all this work, and we've hardly gotten four or five square blocks covered." "buck up," alan said. "we could spend another two years just helping people in the market use what we've installed, and it would still be productive." kurt's mouth opened, and alan held his hand up. "not that i'm proposing that we do that. i just mean there's plenty of good that's been done so far. what we need is some publicity for it, some critical mass, and some way that we can get ordinary people involved. we can't fit a critical mass into your front room and put them to work." "so what do we get them to do?" "it's a good question. there's something i saw online the other day i wanted to show you. why don't we go home and get connected?" "there's still plenty of good diving out there. no need to go home anyway -- i know a place." they drove off into a maze of cul-de-sacs and cheaply built, gaudy monster homes with triple garages and sagging rain gutters. the streets had no sidewalks and the inevitable basketball nets over every garage showed no signs of use. kurt pulled them up in front of a house that was indistinguishable from the others and took the laptop from under the buick's seat, plugging it into the cigarette lighter and flipping its lid. "there's an open network here," kurt said as he plugged in the wireless card. he pointed at the dormer windows in the top room. "how the hell did you find that?" alan said, looking at the darkened window. there was a chain-link gate at the side of the house, and in the back an aboveground pool. kurt laughed. "these 'security consultants'" -- he made little quotes with his fingers -- "wardrove toronto. they went from one end of the city to the other with a gps and a wireless card and logged all the open access points they found, then released a report claiming that all of those access points represented ignorant consumers who were leaving themselves vulnerable to attacks and making internet connections available to baby-eating terrorists. "one of the access points they identified was *mine*, for chrissakes, and mine was open because i'm a crazy fucking anarchist, not because i'm an ignorant 'consumer' who doesn't know any better, and that got me to thinking that there were probably lots of people like me around, running open aps. so one night i was out here diving and i *really* was trying to remember who'd played the sundance kid in butch cassidy, and i knew that if i only had a net connection i could google it. i had a stumbler, an app that logged all the open wifi access points that i came into range of, and a gps attachment that i'd dived that could interface with the software that mapped the aps on a map of toronto, so i could just belt the machine in there on the passenger seat and go driving around until i had a list of all the wireless internet that i could see from the street. "so i got kind of bored and went back to diving, and then i did what i usually do at the end of the night, i went driving around some residential streets, just to see evidence of humanity after a night in the garbage, and also because the people out here sometimes put out nice sofas and things. "when i got home, i looked at my map and there were tons of access points out by the industrial buildings, and some on the commercial strips, and a few out here in the residential areas, but the one with the best signal was right here, and when i clicked on it, i saw that the name of the network was 'parasitenet.'" alan said, "huh?" because parasitenet was kurt's name for his wireless project, though they hadn't used it much since alan got involved and they'd gotten halfway legit. but still. "yeah," kurt said. "that's what i said -- huh? so i googled parasitenet to see what i could find, and i found an old message i'd posted to toronto.talk.wireless when i was getting started out, a kind of manifesto about what i planned to do, and google had snarfed it up and this guy, whoever he is, must have read it and decided to name his network after it. "so i figger: this guy *wants* to share packets with me, for sure, and so i always hunt down this ap when i want to get online." "you've never met him, huh?" "never. i'm always out here at two a.m. or so, and there's never a light on. keep meaning to come back around five some afternoon and ring the bell and say hello. never got to it." alan pursed his lips and watched kurt prod at the keyboard. "he's got a shitkicking net connection, though -- tell you what. feels like a t , and the ip address comes off of an isp in waterloo. you need a browser, right?" alan shook his head. "you know, i can't even remember what it was i wanted to show you. there's some kind of idea kicking at me now, though..." kurt shifted his laptop to the back seat, mindful of the cords and the antenna. "what's up?" "let's do some more driving around, let it perk, okay? you got more dumpsters you want to show me?" "brother, i got dumpsters for weeks. months. years." # it was the wardriving, of course. alan called out the names of the networks that they passed as they passed them, watching the flags pop up on the map of toronto. they drove the streets all night, watched the sun go up, and the flags multiplied on the network. alan didn't even have to explain it to kurt, who got it immediately. they were close now, thinking together in the feverish drive-time on the night-dark streets. "here's the thing," kurt said as they drank their coffees at the vesta lunch, a grimy -hour diner that alan only seemed to visit during the smallest hours of the morning. "i started off thinking, well, the cell companies are screwed up because they think that they need to hose the whole city from their high towers with their powerful transmitters, and my little boxes will be lower-power and smarter and more realistic and grassroots and democratic." "right," alan said. "i was just thinking of that. what could be more democratic than just encouraging people to use their own access points and their own internet connections to bootstrap the city?" "yeah," kurt said. "sure, you won't get to realize your dream of getting a free internet by bridging down at the big cage at front street, but we can still play around with hardware. and convincing the people who *already* know why wifi is cool to join up has got to be easier than convincing shopkeepers who've never heard of wireless to let us put antennae and boxes on their walls." "right," kurt said, getting more excited. "right! i mean, it's just ego, right? why do we need to *control* the network?" he spun around on his cracked stool and the waitress gave him a dirty look. "gimme some apple pie, please," he said. "this is the best part: it's going to violate the hell out of everyone's contracts with their isps -- they sell you an all-you-can-eat internet connection and then tell you that they'll cut off your service if you're too hungry. well, fuck that! it's not just community networking, it'll be civil disobedience against shitty service-provider terms of service!" there were a couple early morning hard-hats in the diner who looked up from their yolky eggs to glare at him. kurt spotted them and waved. "sorry, boys. ever get one of those ideas that's so good, you can't help but do a little dance?" one of the hard-hats smiled. "yeah, but his wife always turns me down." he socked the other hard-hat in the shoulder. the other hard-hat grunted into his coffee. "nice. very nice. you're gonna be a *lot* of fun today, i can tell." they left the diner in a sleepdep haze and squinted into the sunrise and grinned at each other and burped up eggs and sausages and bacon and coffee and headed toward kurt's buick. "hang on," alan said. "let's have a walk, okay?" the city smelled like morning, dew and grass and car-exhaust and baking bread and a whiff of the distant cadbury's factory oozing chocolate miasma over the hills and the streetcar tracks. around them, millions were stirring in their beds, clattering in their kitchens, passing water, and taking on vitamins. it invigorated him, made him feel part of something huge and all-encompassing, like being in his father the mountain. "up there," kurt said, pointing to a little playground atop the hill that rose sharply up dupont toward christie, where a herd of plastic rocking horses swayed creakily in the breeze. "up there," alan agreed, and they set off, kicking droplets of dew off the grass beside the sidewalk. the sunrise was a thousand times more striking from atop the climber, filtered through the new shoots on the tree branches. kurt lit a cigarette and blew plumes into the shafting light and they admired the effect of the wind whipping it away. "i think this will work," alan said. "we'll do something splashy for the press, get a lot of people to change the names of their networks -- more people will use the networks, more will create them... it's a good plan." kurt nodded. "yeah. we're smart guys." something smashed into alan's head and bounced to the dirt below the climber. a small, sharp rock. alan reeled and tumbled from the climber, stunned, barely managing to twist to his side before landing. the air whooshed out of his lungs and tears sprang into his eyes. gingerly, he touched his head. his fingers came away wet. kurt was shouting something, but he couldn't hear it. something moved in the bushes, moved into his line of sight. moved deliberately into his line of sight. danny. he had another rock in his hand and he wound up and pitched it. it hit alan in the forehead and his head snapped back and he grunted. kurt's feet landed in the dirt a few inches from his eyes, big boots a-jangle with chains. davey flitted out of the bushes and onto the plastic rocking-horses, jumping from the horse to the duck to the chicken, leaving the big springs beneath them to rock and creak. kurt took two steps toward him, but davey was away, under the chain link fence and over the edge of the hill leading down to dupont street. "you okay?" kurt said, crouching down beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "need a doctor?" "no doctors," alan said. "no doctors. i'll be okay." they inched their way back to the car, the world spinning around them. the hard-hats met them on the way out of the vesta lunch and their eyes went to alan's bloodied face. they looked away. alan felt his kinship with the woken world around him slip away and knew he'd never be truly a part of it. # he wouldn't let kurt walk him up the steps and put him to bed, so instead kurt watched from the curb until alan went inside, then gunned the engine and pulled away. it was still morning rush hour, and the market-dwellers were clacking toward work on hard leather shoes or piling their offspring into minivans. alan washed the blood off his scalp and face and took a gingerly shower. when he turned off the water, he heard muffled sounds coming through the open windows. a wailing electric guitar. he went to the window and stuck his head out and saw krishna sitting on an unmade bed in the unsoundproofed bedroom, in a grimy housecoat, guitar on his lap, eyes closed, concentrating on the screams he was wringing from the instrument's long neck. alan wanted to sleep, but the noise and the throb of his head -- going in counterpoint -- and the sight of davey, flicking from climber to bush to hillside, scuttling so quickly alan was scarce sure he'd seen him, it all conspired to keep him awake. he bought coffees at the donut time on college -- the greek's wouldn't be open for hours -- and brought it over to kurt's storefront, but the lights were out, so he wandered slowly home, sucking back the coffee. # benny had another seizure halfway up the mountain, stiffening up and falling down before they could catch him. as billy lay supine in the dirt, alan heard a distant howl, not like a wolf, but like a thing that a wolf had caught and is savaging with its jaws. the sound made his neck prickle and when he looked at the little ones, he saw that their eyes were rolling crazily. "got to get him home," alan said, lifting benny up with a grunt. the little ones tried to help, but they just got tangled up in benny's long loose limbs and so alan shooed them off, telling them to keep a lookout behind him, look for davey lurking on an outcropping or in a branch, rock held at the ready. when they came to the cave mouth again, he heard another one of the screams. brendan stirred over his shoulders and alan set him down, heart thundering, looking every way for davey, who had come back. "he's gone away for the night," burt said conversationally. he sat up and then gingerly got to his feet. "he'll be back in the morning, though." the cave was destroyed. alan's books, ern-felix-grad's toys were smashed. their clothes were bubbling in the hot spring in rags and tatters. brian's carvings were broken and smashed. schoolbooks were ruined. "you all right?" alan said. brian dusted himself off and stretched his arms and legs out. "i'll be fine," he said. "it's not me he's after." alan stared blankly as the brothers tidied up the cave and made piles of their belongings. the little ones looked scared, without any of the hardness he remembered from that day when they'd fought it out on the hillside. benny retreated to his perch, but before the sun set and the cave darkened, he brought a couple blankets down and dropped them beside the nook where alan slept. he had his baseball bat with him, and it made a good, solid aluminum sound when he leaned it against the wall. silently, the small ones crossed the cave with a pile of their own blankets, george bringing up the rear with a torn t-shirt stuffed with sharp stones. alan looked at them and listened to the mountain breathe around them. it had been years since his father had had anything to say to them. it had been years since their mother had done anything except wash the clothes. was there a voice in the cave now? a wind? a smell? he couldn't smell anything. he couldn't hear anything. benny propped himself up against the cave wall with a blanket around his shoulders and the baseball bat held loose and ready between his knees. a smell then, on the wind. sewage and sulfur. a stink of fear. alan looked to his brothers, then he got up and left the cave without a look back. he wasn't going to wait for davey to come to him. the night had come up warm, and the highway sounds down at the bottom of the hill mingled with the spring breeze in the new buds on the trees and the new needles on the pines, the small sounds of birds and bugs foraging in the new year. alan slipped out the cave mouth and looked around into the twilight, hoping for a glimpse of something out of the ordinary, but apart from an early owl and a handful of fireflies sparking off like distant stars, he saw nothing amiss. he padded around the mountainside, stooped down low, stopping every few steps to listen for footfalls. at the high, small entrance to the golems' cave, he paused, lay on his belly, and slowly peered around the fissure. it had been years since alvin had come up to the golems' cave, years since one had appeared in their father's cave. they had long ago ceased bringing their kills to the threshold of the boys' cave, ceased leaving pelts in neat piles on the eve of the waning moon. the view from the outcropping was stunning. the village had grown to a town, fast on its way to being a city. a million lights twinkled. the highway cut a glistening ribbon of streetlamps through the night, a straight line slicing the hills and curves. there were thousands of people down there, all connected by a humming net-work -- a work of nets, cunning knots tied in a cunning grid -- of wire and radio and civilization. slowly, he looked back into the golems' cave. he remembered it as being lined with ranks of bones, a barbarian cathedral whose arches were decorated with ranked skulls and interlocked, tiny animal tibia. now those bones were scattered and broken, the ossified wainscoting rendered gap-toothed by missing and tumbled bones. alan wondered how the golems had reacted when darl had ruined their centuries of careful work. then, looking more closely, he realized that the bones were dusty and grimed, cobwebbed and moldering. they'd been lying around for a lot longer than a couple hours. alan crept into the cave now, eyes open, ears straining. puffs of dust rose with his footfalls, illuminated in the moonlight and city light streaming in from the cave mouth. another set of feet had crossed this floor: small, boyish feet that took slow, arthritic steps. they'd come in, circled the cave, and gone out again. alan listened for the golems and heard nothing. he did his own slow circle of the cave, peering into the shadows. where had they gone? there. a streak of red clay, leading to a mound. alan drew up alongside of it and made out the runny outlines of the legs and arms, the torso and the head. the golem had dragged itself into this corner and had fallen to mud. the dust on the floor was red. dried mud. golem-dust. how long since he'd been in this cave? how long since he'd come around this side of the mountain? two months. three? four? longer. how long had the golems lain dead and dust in this cave? they'd carved his cradle. fed him. taught him to talk and to walk. in some sense, they were his fathers, as much as the mountain was. he fished around inside himself for emotion and found none. relief, maybe. relief. the golems were an embodiment of his strangeness, as weird as his smooth, navelless belly, an element of his secret waiting to surface and -- what? what had he been afraid of? contempt? vivisection? he didn't know anymore, but knew that he wanted to fit in and that the golems' absence made that more possible. there was a smell on the wind in here, the death and corruption smell he'd noticed in the sleeping cave. father was worried. no. davey was inside. that was his smell, the smell of davey long dead and back from the grave. alan walked deeper into the tunnels, following his nose. # davey dropped down onto his shoulders from a ledge in an opening where the ceiling stretched far over their heads. he was so light, at first alan thought someone had thrown a blanket over his shoulders. then the fingers dug into his eyes. then the fingers fishhooked the corner of his mouth. then the screech, thick as a desiccated tongue, dry as the dust of a golem, like no sound and like all the sounds at once. the smell of corruption was everywhere, filling his nostrils like his face has been ground into a pile of rotten meat. he tugged at the dry, thin hands tangled in his face, and found them strong as iron bands, and then he screamed. then they were both screeching and rolling on the ground, and he had danny's thumb in his hand, bending it back painfully, until *snap*, it came off clean with a sound like dry wood cracking. doug was off him then, crawling off toward the shadows. alan got to his knees, still holding the thumb, and made ready to charge him, holding his sore face with one hand, when he heard the slap of running footfalls behind him and then bill was streaking past him, baseball bat at ready, and he swung it like a polo-mallet and connected with a hollow crunch of aluminum on chitinous leathery skin. the sound shocked alan to his feet, wet sick rising in his gorge. benny was winding up for a second blow, aiming for darren's head this time, an out-of-the park *smack* that would have knocked that shrunken head off the skinny, blackened neck, and alan shouted, "no!" and roared at benny and leapt for him. as he sailed through the air, he thought he was saving *benny* from the feeling he'd carried with him for a decade, but as he connected with benny, he felt a biting-down feeling, clean and hard, and he knew he was defending *drew*, saving him for once instead of hurting him. he was still holding on to the thumb, and davey was inches from his face, and he was atop benny, and they breathed together, chests heaving. alan wobbled slowly to his feet and dropped the thumb onto drew's chest, then he helped billy to his feet and they limped off to their beds. behind them, they heard the dry sounds of davey getting to his feet, coughing and hacking with a crunch of thin, cracked ribs. # he was sitting on their mother the next morning. he was naked and unsexed by desiccation -- all the brothers, even little george, had ceased going about in the nude when they'd passed through puberty -- sullen and silent atop the white, chipped finish of her enamel top, so worn and ground down that it resembled a collection of beach-china. it had been a long time since any of them had sought solace in their mother's gentle rocking, since, indeed, they had spared her a thought beyond filling her belly with clothes and emptying her out an hour later. the little ones woke first and saw him, taking cover behind a stalagmite, peering around, each holding a sharp, flat rock, each with his pockets full of more. danny looked at each in turn with eyes gone yellow and congealed, and bared his mouthful of broken and blackened teeth in a rictus that was equal parts humor and threat. bradley was the next to wake, his bat in his hand and his eyelids fluttering open as he sprang to his feet, and then alan was up as well, a hand on his shoulder. he crouched down and walked slowly to davey. he had the knife, handle wound with cord, once-keen edge gone back to rust and still reddened with ten-year-old blood, but its sharpness mattered less than its history. "welcome me home," davey rasped as alan drew closer. "welcome me home, mother*fucker*. welcome me home, *brother*." "you're welcome in this home," alan said, but davey wasn't welcome. just last week, alan had seen a nice-looking bedroom set that he suspected he could afford -- the golems had left him a goodly supply of gold flake, though with the golems gone he supposed that the sacks were the end of the family's no-longer-bottomless fortune. but with the bedroom set would come a kitchen table, and then a bookcase, and a cooker and a fridge, and when they were ready, he could send each brother on his way with the skills and socialization necessary to survive in the wide world, to find women and love and raise families of their own. then he could go and find himself a skinny redheaded girl with a scots accent, and in due time her belly would swell up and there would be a child. it was all planned out, practically preordained, but now here they were, with the embodied shame sitting on their mother, his torn thumb gleaming with the wire he'd used to attach it back to his hand. "that's very generous, *brother*," danny said. "you're a prince among *men*." "let's go," alan said. "breakfast in town. i'm buying." they filed out and alan spared davey a look over his shoulder as they slipped away, head down on his knees, rocking in time with their mother. # krishna grinned at him from the front porch as he staggered home from kurt's storefront. he was dressed in a hoodie and huge, outsized raver pants that dangled with straps and reflectors meant to add kinetic reflections on the dance floor. "hello, neighbor," he said as alan came up the walkway. "good evening?" alan stopped and put his hands on his hips, straightened his head out on his neck so that he was standing tall. "i understand what he gets out of *you*," alan said. "i understand that perfectly well. who couldn't use a little servant and errand boy? "but what i don't understand, what i can't understand, what i'd like to understand is: what can you get out of the arrangement?" krishna shrugged elaborately. "i have no idea what you're talking about." "we had gold, in the old days. is that what's bought you? maybe you should ask me for a counteroffer. i'm not poor." "i'd never take a penny that *you* offered -- voluntarily." krishna lit a nonchalant cig and flicked the match toward his dry, xeroscaped lawn. there were little burnt patches among the wild grasses there, from other thrown matches, and that was one mystery-let solved, then, wasn't it? "you think i'm a monster," alan said. krishna nodded. "yup. not a scary monster, but a monster still." alan nodded. "probably," he said. "probably i am. not a human, maybe not a person. not a real person. but if i'm bad, he's a thousand times worse, you know. he's a scary monster." krishna dragged at his cigarette. "you know a lot of monsters, don't you?" alan said. he jerked his head toward the house. "you share a bed with one." krishna narrowed his eyes. "she's not scary, either." "you cut off her wings, but it doesn't make her any less monstrous. "one thing i can tell you, you're pretty special: most real people never see us. you saw me right off. it's like *dracula*, where most of the humans couldn't tell that there was a vampire in their midst." "van helsing could tell," krishna said. "he hunted dracula. you can't hunt what you can't see," he said. "so your kind has been getting a safe free ride for god-knows-how-long. centuries. living off of us. passing among us. passing for us." "van helsing got killed," alan said. "didn't he? and besides that, there was someone else who could see the vampires: renfield. the pathetic pet and errand boy. remember renfield in his cage in the asylum, eating flies? trying to be a monster? von helsing recognized the monster, but so did renfield." "i'm no one's renfield," krishna said, and spat onto alan's lawn. first fire, then water. he was leaving his mark on alan's land, that was certain. "you're no van helsing, either," alan said. "what's the difference between you and a racist, krishna? you call me a monster, why shouldn't i call you a paki?" he stiffened at the slur, and so did alan. he'd never used the word before, but it had sprung readily from his lips, as though it had lurked there all along, waiting to be uttered. "racists say that there's such a thing as 'races' within the human race, that blacks and whites and chinese and indians are all members of different 'races,'" krishna said. "which is bullshit. on the other hand, you --" he broke off, left the thought to hang. he didn't need to finish it. alan's hand went to his smooth belly, the spot where real people had navels, old scarred remnants of their connections to real, human mothers. "so you hate monsters, krishna, all except for the ones you sleep with and the ones you work for?" "i don't work for anyone," he said. "except me." alan said, "i'm going to pour myself a glass of wine. would you like one?" krishna grinned hard and mirthless. "sure, neighbor, that sounds lovely." alan went inside and took out two glasses, got a bottle of something cheap and serviceable from niagara wine country out of the fridge, worked the corkscrew, all on automatic. his hands shook a little, so he held them under the cold tap. stuck to the wall over his work surface was a magnetic bar, and stuck to it was a set of very sharp chef's knives that were each forged from a single piece of steel. he reached for one and felt its comfort in his hand, seductive and glinting. it was approximately the same size as the one he'd used on davey, a knife that he'd held again and again, reached for in the night and carried to breakfast for months. he was once robbed at knifepoint, taking the deposit to the bank after christmas rush, thousands of dollars in cash in a brown paper sack in his bag, and the mugger -- a soft-spoken, middle-aged man in a good suit -- knew exactly what he was carrying and where, must have been casing him for days. the soft-spoken man had had a knife about this size, and when alan had seen it pointed at him, it had been like an old friend, one whose orbit had escaped his gravity years before, so long ago that he'd forgotten about their tender camaraderie. it was all he could do not to reach out and take the knife from the man, say hello again and renew the friendship. he moved the knife back to the magnet bar and let the field tug it out of his fingers and *snap* it back to the wall, picked up the wine glasses, and stepped back out onto the porch. krishna appeared not to have stirred except to light a fresh cigarette. "you spit in mine?" krishna said. though their porches adjoined, alan walked down his steps and crossed over the lawn next door, held the glass out to krishna. he took it and their hands brushed each other, the way his hand had brushed the soft-spoken man's hand when he'd handed over the sack of money. the touch connected him to something human in a way that made him ashamed of his desperation. "i don't normally drink before noon," adam said. "i don't much care when i drink," krishna said, and took a slug. "sounds like a dangerous philosophy for a bartender," adam said. "why? plenty of drunk bartenders. it's not a hard job." krishna spat. "big club, all you're doing is uncapping beers and mixing shooters all night. i could do it in my sleep." "you should quit," alan said. "you should get a better job. no one should do a job he can do in his sleep." krishna put a hand out on alan's chest, the warmth of his fingertips radiating through alan's windbreaker. "don't try to arrange me on your chessboard, monster. maybe you can move natalie around, and maybe you can move around a bunch of kensington no-hopers, and maybe you can budge my idiot girlfriend a couple of squares, but i'm not on the board. i got my job, and if i leave it, it'll be for me." alan retreated to his porch and sipped his own wine. his mouth tasted like it was full of blood still, a taste that was woken up by the wine. he set the glass down. "i'm not playing chess with you," he said. "i don't play games. i try to help -- i *do* help." krishna swigged the glass empty. "you wanna know what makes you a monster, alvin? that attitude right there. you don't understand a single fucking thing about real people, but you spend all your time rearranging them on your board, and you tell them and you tell yourself that you're helping. "you know how you could help, man? you could crawl back under your rock and leave the people's world for people." something snapped in alan. "canada for canadians, right? send 'em back where they came from, right?" he stalked to the railing that divided their porches. the taste of blood stung his mouth. krishna met him, moving swiftly to the railing as well, hood thrown back, eyes hard and glittering and stoned. "you think you can make me feel like a racist, make me *guilty*?" his voice squeaked on the last syllable. "man, the only day i wouldn't piss on you is if you were on fire, you fucking freak." some part of alan knew that this person was laughable, a renfield eating bugs. but that voice of reason was too quiet to be heard over the animal screech that was trying to work its way free of his throat. he could smell krishna, cigarettes and booze and club and sweat, see the gold flecks in his dark irises, the red limning of his eyelids. krishna raised a hand as if to slap him, smirked when he flinched back. then he grabbed krishna's wrist and pulled hard, yanking the boy off his feet, slamming his chest into the railing hard enough to shower dried spider's nests and flakes of paint to the porch floor. "i'm every bit the monster my brother is," he hissed in krishna's ear. "i *made* him the monster he is. *don't squirm*," he said, punching krishna hard in the ear with his free hand. "listen. you can stay away from me and you can stay away from my family, or you can enter a world of terrible hurt. it's up to you. nod if you understand." krishna was still, except for a tremble. the moment stretched, and alan broke it by cracking him across the ear again. "nod if you understand, goddammit," he said, his vision going fuzzily black at the edges. krishna was silent, still, coiled. any minute now, he would struggle free and they'd be in a clinch. he remembered kneeling on davey's chest, holding the rock over him and realizing that he didn't know what to do next, taking davey to their father. only davey had struck him first. he'd only been restraining him, defending himself. alan had hit krishna first. "nod if you understand, krishna," he said, and heard a note of pleading in his voice. krishna held still. alan felt like an idiot, standing there, his neighbor laid out across the railing that divided their porches, the first cars of the day driving past and the first smells of bread and fish and hospital and pizza blending together there in the heart of the market. he let go and krishna straightened up, his eyes downcast. for a second, alan harbored a germ of hope that he'd bested krishna and so scared him into leaving him alone. then krishna looked up and met his eye. his face was blank, his eyes like brown marbles, heavy lidded, considering, not stoned at all anymore. sizing alan up, calculating the debt he'd just amassed, what it would take to pay it off. he picked up alan's wine glass, and alan saw that it wasn't one of the cheapies he'd bought a couple dozen of for an art show once, but rather irish crystal that he'd found at a flea market in hamilton, a complete fluke and one of his all-time miracle thrift scores. krishna turned the glass one way and another in his hand, letting it catch the sunrise, bend the light around the smudgy fingerprints. he set it down then, on the railing, balancing it carefully. he took one step back, then a second, so that he was almost at the door. they stared at each other and then he took one, two running steps, like a soccer player winding up for a penalty kick, and then he unwound, leg flying straight up, tip of his toe catching the wine glass so that it hurtled straight for alan's forehead, moving like a bullet. alan flinched and the glass hit the brick wall behind him, disintegrating into a mist of glass fragments that rained down on his hair, down his collar, across the side of his face, in his ear. krishna ticked a one-fingered salute off his forehead, wheeled, and went back into his house. the taste of blood was in alan's mouth. more blood coursed down his neck from a nick in his ear, and all around him on the porch, the glitter of crystal. he went inside to get a broom, but before he could clean up, he sat down for a moment on the sofa to catch his breath. he fell instantly asleep on the creaking horsehide, and when he woke again, it was dark and raining and someone else had cleaned up his porch. # the mountain path had grown over with weeds and thistles and condoms and cans and inexplicable maxi-pads and doll parts. she clung to his hand as he pushed through it, stepping in brackish puddles and tripping in sink holes. he navigated the trail like a mountain goat, while mimi lagged behind, tugging his arm every time she misstepped, jerking it painfully in its socket. he turned to her, ready to snap, *keep the fuck up, would you?* and then swallowed the words. her eyes were red-rimmed and scared, her full lips drawn down into a clown's frown, bracketed by deep lines won by other moments of sorrow. he helped her beside him and turned his back on the mountain, faced the road and the town and the car with its trunk with its corpse with his brother, and he put an arm around her shoulders, a brotherly arm, and hugged her to him. "how're you doing there?" he said, trying to make his voice light, though it came out so leaden the words nearly thudded in the wet dirt as they fell from his mouth. she looked into the dirt at their feet and he took her chin and turned her face up so that she was looking into his eyes, and he kissed her forehead in a brotherly way, like an older brother coming home with a long-lost sister. "i used to want to know all the secrets," she said in the smallest voice. "i used to want to understand how the world worked. little things, like heavy stuff goes at the bottom of the laundry bag, or big things, like the best way to get a boy to chase you is to ignore him, or medium things, like if you cut an onion under running water, your eyes won't sting, and if you wash your fingers afterward with lemon-juice they won't stink. "i used to want to know all the secrets, and every time i learned one, i felt like i'd taken -- a step. on a journey. to a place. a destination: to be the kind of person who knew all this stuff, the way everyone around me seemed to know all this stuff. i thought that once i knew enough secrets, i'd be like them. "i don't want to learn secrets anymore, andrew." she shrugged off his arm and took a faltering step down the slope, back toward the road. "i'll wait in the car, okay?" "mimi," he said. he felt angry at her. how could she be so selfish as to have a crisis *now*, *here*, at this place that meant so much to him? "mimi," he said, and swallowed his anger. # his three brothers stayed on his sofa for a week, though they only left one wet towel on the floor, only left one sticky plate in the sink, one fingerprint-smudged glass on the counter. he'd just opened his first business, the junk shop -- not yet upscale enough to be called an antiques shop -- and he was pulling the kinds of long hours known only to er interns and entrepreneurs, showing up at to do the books, opening at , working until three, then turning things over to a minimum-wage kid for two hours while he drove to the city's thrift shops and picked for inventory, then working until eight to catch the evening trade, then answering creditors and fighting with the landlord until ten, staggering into bed at eleven to sleep a few hours before doing it all over again. so he gave them a set of keys and bought them a metropass and stuffed an old wallet with $ in twenties and wrote his phone number on the brim of a little pork pie hat that looked good on their head and turned them loose on the city. the shop had all the difficulties of any shop -- snarky customers, shoplifting teenagers, breakage, idiots with jumpy dogs, never enough money and never enough time. he loved it. every stinking minute of it. he'd never gone to bed happier and never woken up more full of energy in his life. he was in the world, finally, at last. until his brothers arrived. he took them to the store the first morning, showed them what he'd wrought with his own two hands. thought that he'd inspire them to see what they could do when they entered the world as well, after they'd gone home and grown up a little. which they would have to do very soon, as he reminded them at every chance, unmoved by george's hangdog expression at the thought. they'd walked around the shop slowly, picking things up, turning them over, having hilarious, embarrassing conversations about the likely purpose of an old soloflex machine, a grubby pink epilady leg razor, a bakelite coffee carafe. the arguments went like this: george: look, it's a milk container! ed: i don't think that that's for milk. fred: you should put it down before you drop it, it looks valuable. george: why don't you think it's for milk? look at the silver inside, that's to reflect off the white milk and make it look, you know, cold and fresh. fred: put it down, you're going to break it. george: fine, i'll put it down, but tell me, why don't you think it's for milk? ed: because it's a thermos container, and that's to keep hot stuff hot, and it's got a screwtop and whatever it's made of looks like it'd take a hard knock without breaking. and so on, nattering at each other like cave men puzzling over a walkman, until alan was called upon to settle the matter with the authoritative answer. it got so that he set his alarm for four a.m. so that he could sneak past their snoring form on the sofa and so avoid the awkward, desperate pleas to let them come with him into the shop and cadge a free breakfast of poutine and eggs from the harvey's next door while they were at it. george had taken up coffee on his second day in the city, bugging the other two until they got him a cup, six or seven cups a day, so that they flitted from place to place like a hummingbird, thrashed in their sleep, babbled when they spoke. it came to a head on the third night, when they dropped by the shop while he was on the phone and ducked into the back room in order to separate into threes again, with george wearing the pork pie hat even though it was a size too big for his head and hung down around his ears. adam was talking to a woman who'd come into the shop that afternoon and greatly admired an institutional sofa from the mid-seventies whose lines betrayed a pathetic slavish devotion to danish moderne aesthetics. the woman had sat on the sofa, admired the sofa, walked around the sofa, hand trailing on its back, had been fascinated to see the provenance he'd turned up, an inventory sticker from the university of toronto maintenance department indicating that this sofa had originally been installed at the robarts library, itself of great and glorious aesthetic obsolescence. here was adam on the phone with this woman, closing a deal to turn a $ , profit on an item he'd acquired at the goodwill as-is center for five bucks, and here were his brothers, in the store, angry about something, shouting at each other about something. they ran around like three fat lunatics, reeking of the bo that they exuded like the ass end of a cow: loud, boorish, and indescribably weird. weird beyond the quaint weirdness of his little curiosity show. weird beyond the interesting weirdness of the punks and the goths and the mods who were wearing their subcultures like political affiliations as they strolled by the shops. those were redeemable weirds, weirds within the bounds of normal human endeavor. his brothers, on the other hand, were utterly, utterly irredeemable. he sank down behind the counter as george said something to fred in their own little shorthand language, a combination of grunts and nonsense syllables that the three had spoken together for so long that he'd not even noticed it until they were taken out of their context and put in his. he put his back against the wall and brought his chest to his knees and tried to sound like he had a belly button as he said to the woman, "yes, absolutely, i can have this delivered tomorrow if you'd like to courier over a check." this check, it was enough money to keep his business afloat for another days, to pay his rent and pay the minimum-wage kid and buy his groceries. and there were his brothers, and now ed was barking like a dog -- a rare moment of mirth from him, who had been the sober outer bark since he was a child and rarely acted like the -year-old he was behaving like today. "is everything all right?" she said down the phone, this woman who'd been smartly turned out in a cashmere sweater and a checked scarf and a pair of boot-cut jeans that looked new and good over her designer shoes with little heels. they'd flirted a little, even though she was at least ten years older than him, because flirting was a new thing for alan, and he'd discovered that he wasn't bad at it. "everything is fine," he said. "just some goofballs out in the street out front. how about if i drop off the sofa for six o'clock?" "killed her, cut her up, sliced her open," george screeched suddenly, skidding around the counter, rolling past him, yanking the phone out of the wall. and in that moment, he realized what the sounds they had been making in their private speech had been: they had been a reenactment, a grunting, squeaking playback of the day, the fateful day, the day he'd taken his knife and done his mischief with it. he reached for the phone cable and plugged it back into the wall, but it was as though his hand were moving of its own accord, because his attention was focused elsewhere, on the three of them arrayed in a triangle, as they had been on the hillside, as they had been when they had chanted at him when the knife grip was sure in the palm of his hands. the ritual -- that's what it was, it was a *ritual* -- the ritual had the feel of something worn smooth with countless repetitions. he found himself rigid with shock, offended to his bones. this was what they did now, in the cave, with davey sitting atop their mother, black and shriveled, this was how they behaved, running through this reenactment of his great shame, of the day danny died? no wonder darrel had terrorized them out of their home. they were beyond odd and eccentric, they were -- unfit. unfit for polite company. for human society. the phone in his hand rang. it was the woman. "you know, i'm thinking that maybe i should come back in with a tape measure and measure up the sofa before i commit to it. it's a lot of money, and to be honest, i just don't know if i have room --" "what if i measure it for you? i could measure it for you and call you back with the numbers." the three brothers stared at him with identical glassy, alien stares. "that's okay. i can come in," and he knew that she meant, *i won't ever come in again.* "what if i bring it by anyway? i could bring it by tomorrow night and you could see it and make up your mind. no obligation." "that's very kind of you, but i'm afraid that i'll be out tomorrow evening --" "friday? i could come by friday --" he was trying to remember how to flirt now, but he couldn't. "i could come by and we could have a glass of wine or something," and he knew he'd said the exact wrong thing. "it's all right," she said coldly. "i'll come by later in the week to have another look. "i have to go now, my husband is home," and he was pretty sure she wasn't married, but he said good bye and hung up the phone. he looked at his solemn brothers now and they looked at him. "when are you going home?" he said, and edward looked satisfied and fred looked a little disappointed and george looked like he wanted to throw himself in front of a subway, and his bottom lip began to tremble. "it was ed's game," he said. "the davey game, it was his." he pointed a finger. "you know, i'm not like them. i can be on my own. i'm what *they* need, they're not what *i* need." the other two stared at their fat bellies in the direction of their fat feet. andrew had never heard george say this, had never even suspected that this thought lurked in his heart, but now that it was out on the table, it seemed like a pretty obvious fact to have taken note of. all things being equal, things weren't equal. he was cold and numb. "that's a really terrible thing to say, george," is what he said. "that's easy for you to say," is what george said. "you are here, you are in the *world*. it's easy for you to say that we should be happy with things the way they are." george turned on his heel and put his head down and bulled out the door, slamming it behind him so that the mail slot rattled and the glass shook and a stack of nice melamine cafeteria trays fell off a shelf and clattered to the ground. he didn't come back that night. he didn't come back the next day. ed and fred held their grumbling tummies and chewed at the insides of their plump cheeks and sat on the unsold danish modern sofa in the shop and freaked out the few customers that drifted in and then drifted out. "this is worse than last time," ed said, licking his lips and staring at the donut that albert refused to feel guilty about eating in front of them. "last time?" he said, not missing felix's quick warning glare at ed, even though ed appeared to. "he went away for a whole day, just disappeared into town. when he came back, he said that he'd needed some away time. that he'd had an amazing day on his own. that he wanted to come and see you and that he'd do it whether we wanted to come or not." "ah," alvin said, understanding then how the three had come to be staying with him. he wondered how long they'd last without the middle, without the ability to eat. he remembered holding the infant eddie in his arms, the boy light and hollowed out. he remembered holding the three boys at once, heavy as a bowling ball. "ah," he said. "i'll have to have a word with him." # when greg came home, alan was waiting for him, sitting on the sofa, holding his head up with one hand. eli and fred snored uneasily in his bed, breathing heavily through their noses. "hey," he said as he came through the door, scuffing at the lock with his key for a minute or two first. he was rumpled and dirty, streaked with grime on his jawline and hair hanging limp and greasy over his forehead. "greg," alan said, nodding, straightening out his spine and listening to it pop. "i'm back," george said, looking down at his sneakers, which squished with grey water that oozed over his carpet. art didn't say anything, just sat pat and waited, the way he did sometimes when con artists came into the shop with some kind of scam that they wanted him to play along with. it worked the same with george. after a hard stare at his shoes, he shook his head and began to defend himself, revealing the things that he knew were indefensible. "i had to do it, i just had to. i couldn't live in that cave, with that thing, anymore. i couldn't live inside those two anymore. i'm going crazy. there's a whole world out here and every day i get farther away from it. i get weirder. i just wanted to be normal. "i just wanted to be like you. "they stopped letting me into the clubs after i ran out of money, and they kicked me out of the cafés. i tried to ride the subway all night, but they threw me off at the end of the line, so i ended up digging a transfer out of a trash can and taking an all-night bus back downtown. "no one looked at me twice that whole time, except to make sure that i was gone. i walked back here from eglinton." that was five miles away, a good forty minute walk in the night and the cold and the dark. greg pried off his sneakers with his toes and then pulled off his grey, squelching socks. "i couldn't find anyone who'd let me use the toilet," he said, and alan saw the stain on his pants. he stood up and took greg by the cold hand, as he had when they were both boys, and said, "it's all right, gord. we'll get you cleaned up and changed and put you to bed, okay? just put your stuff in the hamper in the bathroom and i'll find you a change of clothes and make a couple sandwiches, all right?" and just as easy as that, george's spirit was tamed. he came out of the shower pink and steaming and scrubbed, put on the sweats that adam found for him in an old gym bag, ate his sandwiches, and climbed into adam's bed with his brothers. when he saw them again next, they were reassembled and downcast, though they ate the instant oatmeal with raisins and cream that he set out for them with gusto. "i think a bus ticket home is about forty bucks, right?" alan said as he poured himself a coffee. they looked up at him. ed's eyes were grateful, his lips clamped shut. "and you'll need some food on the road, another fifty or sixty bucks, okay?" ed nodded and adam set down a brown hundred-dollar bill, then put a purple ten on top of it. "for the taxi to the greyhound station," he added. # they finished their oatmeal in silence, while adam puttered around the apartment, stripping the cheese-smelling sheets and oily pillowcases off his bed, rinsing the hairs off the soap, cleaning the toilet. erasing the signs of their stay. "well," he said at length. "i should get going to the shop." "yeah," ed said, in george's voice, and it cracked before he could close his lips again. "right," adam said. "well." they patted their mouth and ran stubby fingers through their lank hair, already thinning though they were still in their teens. they stood and cracked their knuckles against the table. they patted their pockets absently, then pocketed the hundred and the ten. "well," adam said. they left, turning to give him the keys he'd had cut for them, a gesture that left him feeling obscurely embarrassed and mean-spirited even though -- he told himself -- he'd put them up and put up with them very patiently indeed. and then he left, and locked the door with his spare keys. useless spare keys. no one would ever come to stay with him again. # what i found in the cave, (he said, lying in the grass on the hillside, breathing hard, the taste of vomit sour in his mouth, his arms and legs sore from the pumping run down the hillside) what i found in the cave, (he said, and she held his hand nervously, her fingers not sure of how hard to squeeze, whether to caress) what i found in the cave, (he said, and was glad that she hadn't come with him, hadn't been there for what he'd seen and heard) what i found in the cave was the body of my first girlfriend. her skeleton, polished to a gleam and laid out carefully on the floor. her red hair in a long plait, brushed out and brittle, circled over her small skull like a halo. he'd laid her out before my mother, and placed her fingernails at the exact tips of her fingerbones. the floor was dirty and littered with rags and trash. it was dark and it stank of shit, there were piles of shit here and there. the places where my brothers had slept had been torn apart. my brother bradley, his nook was caved in. i moved some of the rocks, but i didn't find him under there. benny was gone. craig was gone. ed, frankie, and george were gone. even davey was gone. all the parts of the cave that made it home were gone, except for my mother, who was rusted and sat askew on the uneven floor. one of her feet had rusted through, and her generator had run dry, and she was silent and dry, with a humus-paste of leaves and guano and gunk sliming her basket. i went down to the cave where my father spoke to us, and i found that i -- i -- i found that i couldn't see in the dark anymore. i'd never had a moment's pause in the halls of my father, but now i walked falteringly, the sounds of my footsteps not like the steps of a son of the mountain at all. i heard them echo back and they sounded like an outsider, and i fell twice and hurt my head, here -- (he touched the goose egg he'd raised on his forehead) and i got dizzy, and then i was in the pool, but it didn't sound right and i couldn't hear it right, and i got my clothes off and then i stood there with them in my arms -- (his hand came back bloody and he wiped it absently on the grass and mimi took hold of it) because. if i put them down. it was dark. and i'd never find them again. so i bundled them all up and carried them over my head and i waded in and the water had never been so cold and had never felt so oily and there was a smell to it, a stagnant smell. i waded out and i stood and i shivered and i whispered, "father?" and i listened. i heard the sound of the water i'd disturbed, lapping around my ears and up on the shore. i smelled the sewage and oil smell, but none of the habitual smells of my father: clean water, coalface, sulfur, grass, and lime. i picked my way out of the water again and i walked to the shore, and it was too dark to put on my clothes, so i carried them under one arm and felt my way back to the summer cave and leaned against my mother and waited to drip dry. i'd stepped in something soft that squished and smelled between my mother and my father, and i didn't want to put on my socks until i'd wiped it off, but i couldn't bring myself to wipe it on the cave floor. marci's eye sockets looked up at the ceiling. she'd been laid out with so much care, i couldn't believe that davey had had anything to do with it. i thought that benny must be around somewhere, looking in, taking care. i closed my eyes so that i wasn't looking into the terrible, recriminating stare, and i leaned my head up against my mother, and i breathed until the stink got to me and then i pried myself upright and walked out of the cave. i stopped and stood in the mouth of the cave and listened as hard as i could, but my father wasn't speaking. and the smell was getting to me. # she got him dressed and she fed him sips of water and she got him standing and walked him in circles around the little paddock he'd collapsed in. "i need to get georgie out of the car," he said. "i'm going to leave him in the cave. it's right." she bit her lip and nodded slowly. "i can help you with that," she said. "i don't need help," he said lamely. "i didn't say you did, but i can help anyway." they walked down slowly, him leaning on her arm like an old man, steps faltering in the scree on the slope. they came to the road and stood before the trunk as the cars whizzed past them. he opened the trunk and looked down. the journey hadn't been good to gregg. he'd come undone from his winding sheet and lay face down, neck stiff, his nose mashed against the floor of the trunk. his skin had started to flake off, leaving a kind of scale or dandruff on the flat industrial upholstery inside the trunk. alan gingerly tugged loose the sheet and began, awkwardly, to wrap it around his brother, ignoring the grit of shed skin and hair that clung to his fingers. mimi shook him by the shoulder hard, and he realized she'd been shaking him for some time. "you can't do that here," she said. "would you listen to me? you can't do that here. someone will see." she held something up. his keys. "i'll back it up to the trailhead," she said. "close the trunk and wait for me there." she got behind the wheel and he sloped off to the trailhead and stood, numbly, holding the lump on his forehead and staring at a rusted coke can in a muddy puddle. she backed the car up almost to his shins, put it in park, and came around to the trunk. she popped the lid and looked in and wrinkled her nose. "okay," she said. "i'll get him covered and we'll carry him up the hill." "mimi --" he began. "mimi, it's okay. you don't need to go in there for me. i know it's hard for you --" she squeezed his hand. "i'm over it, andy. now that i know what's up there, it's not scary any longer." he watched her shoulders work, watched her wings work, as she wrapped up his brother. when she was done, he took one end of the bundle and hoisted it, trying to ignore the rain of skin and hair that shook off over the bumper and his trousers. "up we go," she said, and moved to take the front. "tell me when to turn." they had to set him down twice before they made it all the way up the hill. the first time, they just stood in silence, wiping their cramped hands on their thighs. the second time, she came to him and put her arm around his shoulders and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek that felt like a feather. "almost there?" she said. he nodded and bent to pick up his end. mimi plunged through the cave mouth without a moment's hesitation and they set him down just inside the entrance, near a pair of stained cotton y-fronts. alan waited for his heart to stop thudding and the sweat to cool on his brow and then he kicked the underwear away as an afterthought. "god," he said. she moved to him, put her arm around his shoulder. "you're being brave," she said. "god," he said again. "let it out, you know, if you want to." but he didn't, he wanted to sit down. he moved to his mother's side and leaned against her. mimi sat on her hunkers before him and took his hand and tried to tilt his chin up with one finger, but he resisted her pull and she rose and began to explore the cave. he heard her stop near marci's skeleton for a long while, then move some more. she circled him and his mother, then opened her lid and stared into her hamper. he wanted to tell her not to touch his mother, but the words sounded ridiculous in his head and he didn't dare find out how stupid they sounded moving through freespace. and then the washing machine bucked and made a snapping sound and hummed to life. *the generator's dead,* he thought. *and she's all rusted through.* and still the washing machine moved. he heard the gush of water filling her, a wet and muddy sound. "what did you do?" he asked. he climbed slowly to his feet, facing away from his mother, not wanting to see her terrible bucking as she wobbled on her broken foot. "nothing," mimi said. "i just looked inside and it started up." he stared at his mother, enraptured, mesmerized. mimi stole alongside of him and he noticed that she'd taken off her jacket and the sweatshirt, splaying out her wings around her. her hand found his and squeezed. the machine rocked. his mother rocked and gurgled and rushed, and then she found some local point of stability and settled into a soft rocking rhythm. the rush of water echoed off the cave walls, a white-noise shushing that sounded like skis cutting through powder. it was a beautiful sound, one that transported him to a million mornings spent waiting for the boys' laundry to finish and be hung on the line. *all gone.* he jerked his head up so fast that something in his neck cracked, needling pain up into his temples and forehead. he looked at mimi, but she gave no sign of having heard the voice, the words, *all gone.* *all gone.* mimi looked at him and cocked her head. "what?" she said. he touched her lips with a finger, forgetting to be mindful of the swelling there, and she flinched away. there was a rustle of wings and clothing. *my sons, all my sons, gone.* the voice emerged from that white-noise roar of water humming and sloshing back and forth in her basket. mimi squeezed his hand so hard he felt the bones grate. "mom?" he said softly, his voice cracking. he took half a step toward the washer. *so tired. i'm worn out. i've been worn out.* he touched the enamel on the lid of the washer, and felt the vibrations through his fingertips. "i can -- i can take you home," he said. "i'll take care of you, in the city." *too late.* there was a snapping sound and then a front corner of the machine settled heavily. one rusted out foot, broken clean off, rolled across the cave floor. the water sounds stilled. mimi breathed some words, something like oh my god, but maybe in another language, or maybe he'd just forgotten his own tongue. "i need to go," he said. # they stayed in a different motel on their way home from the mountain, and mimi tried to cuddle him as he lay in the bed, but her wings got in the way, and he edged over to his side until he was almost falling off before she took the hint and curled up on her side. he lay still until he heard her snore softly, then rose and went and sat on the toilet, head in his hands, staring at the moldy grout on the tiled floor in the white light, trying not to think of the bones, the hank of brittle red hair, tied tightly in a shopping bag in the trunk of the rental car. sunrise found him pacing the bathroom, waiting for mimi to stir, and when she padded in and sat on the toilet, she wouldn't meet his eye. he found himself thinking of her standing in the tub, rolled towel between her teeth, as krishna approached her wings with his knife, and he went back into the room to dress. "we going to eat breakfast?" she asked in the smallest voice. he said nothing, couldn't will himself to talk. "there's still food in the car," she said after some silence had slipped by. "we can eat that." and without any more words, they climbed into the car and he put the pedal down, all the way to toronto, stopping only once for gas and cigarettes after he smoked all the ones left in her pack. when they cleared the city limits and drove under the viaduct at danforth avenue, getting into the proper downtown, he eased off the parkway and into the city traffic, taking the main roads with their high buildings and stoplights and people, people, people. "we're going home?" she said. the last thing she'd said was, "are you hungry?" fourteen hours before and he'd only shook his head. "yes," he said. "oh," she said. was krishna home? she was rooting in her purse now, and he knew that she was looking for her knife. "you staying with me?" he said. "can i?" she said. they were at a red light, so he looked into her eyes. they were shiny and empty as marbles. "yes," he said. "of course. and i will have a word with krishna." she looked out the window. "i expect he'll want to have a word with you, too." # link rang his doorbell one morning while he was hunched over his computer, thinking about the story he was going to write. when he'd moved into the house, he'd felt the shape of that story. all the while that he'd sanded and screwed in bookcases, it had floated just below the surface, its silhouette discernible through the ripples. but when adam left mimi watching television and sat at his desk in the evening with the humming, unscuffed, and gleaming laptop before him, fingers poised over the keys, nothing came. he tapped out an opening sentence, 	i suspect that my father is dead and deleted it. then undid the delete. he called up the inventory and stroked the spacebar with his thumb, paging through screensful of pictures and keywords and pricetags and scanned-in receipts. he flipped back to the story and deleted his sentence. 	my dead brother had been hiding out on the synagogue's roof for 	god knows how long. the last thing he wanted was to write an autobiography. he wanted to write a story about the real world, about the real people who inhabited it. he hit the delete key. 	the video-store girl never got bored behind her counter, because 	she could always while away the hours looking up the rental 	histories of the popular girls who'd shunned her in high school. that's when link rang his doorbell and he startled guiltily and quit the text editor, saving the opening sentence. which had a lot of promise, he thought. "link!" he said. "come in!" the kid had put on ten or fifteen pounds since they'd first met, and no longer made alan want to shout, *someone administer a sandwich* stat*!* most of it was muscle from hard riding as a bike messenger, a gig that link had kept up right through the cold winter, dressing up like a gore-tex martian in tights and ski goggles and a fleece that showed hints of purple beneath its skin of crusted road salt and pollution. andrew had noticed the girls in the market and at kurt's shop noticing link, whose spring wardrobe showed off all that new muscle to new effect, and gathered from the various hurt looks and sulks from the various girls that link was getting more ass than a toilet-seat. 	her brother spent the winter turning into the kind of stud that 	she'd figured out how to avoid before she finished high school, 	and it pained her to see the hordes of dumb-bunnies making 	goo-goo eyes at him. that would be a good second sentence for his story. "you okay, abby?" link said, looking concerned. albert realized that he'd been on another planet for a moment there. "sorry, just fell down a rabbit hole," he said, flapping his arms comically. "i was writing " -- felt *good* to say that -- "and i'm in a bit of a, how you say, creative fog." link took a step back. "i don't want to disturb you," he said. 	but for all that, she still approved his outfits before he left 	the house, refusing to let him succumb to the ephemeral awful 	trendiness of mesh-back caps and too-tight boy-scout jamboree 	shirts. instead, she put him into slightly fitted cotton shirts 	that emphasized his long lean belly and his broad shoulders. "don't sweat it. i could use a break. come in and have a drink or something." he checked the yellowing face of the tick-tock clock he kept on the mantelpiece and saw that it was just past noon. "past lunchtime, that means that it's okay to crack a beer. you want a beer?" 	and for all that, her brother still managed to come home looking 	like some kind of frat-rat pussy-hound, the kind of boy she'd 	always hoped he wouldn't be. "beer would be great," link said. he stepped into the cool of the living room and blinked as his eyes adjusted. "this really is a hell of a place," he said, looking around at the glass cases, the teetering stacks of books that andrew had pulled down and not reshelved, making ziggurats of them instead next to all the chairs. "what can i do for you?" adam said, handing him a glass of upper canada lager with a little wedge of lime. he'd bought a few cases of beer that week and had been going through them steadily in the living room, paging through the most favored of his books, trying to find something, though he wasn't sure what. link sipped. "summer's here," he said. "yeah," alan said. "well, the thing is, summer. i'm going to be working longer hours and, you know, evenings. well. i mean. i'm years old, andy." alan raised an eyebrow and sat back in his chair. "what's the message you're trying to convey to me, link?" "i'm not going to be going around your friend's shop anymore. i really had fun doing it all year, but i want to try something different with my spare time this summer, you understand?" "sure," alan said. he'd had kids quit on him before. that's what kids did. attention spans. "right. and, well, you know: i never really understood what we were *doing*..." "which part?" "the wifi stuff --" "well, you see --" "stop, okay? i've heard you explain it ten times now and i still don't get it. maybe after a semester or two of electrical engineering it'll make more sense." "okay," adam said, smiling broadly to show no hard feelings. "hey," he said, carefully. "if you didn't understand what we were doing, then why did you do it?" link cocked his head, as if examining him for traces of sarcasm, then looked away. "i don't know. it was exciting, even if i didn't quite get it. everyone else seemed to get it, sort of, and it was fun to work alongside of them, and sometimes the money was okay." 	which is why she decided to -- 	 damn, what did she decide to do? that was shaping up to be a really good opener. 	which is why she wasn't surprised when he didn't come home for 	three nights in a row. aha. "no hard feelings, link," adam said. "i'm really grateful for the help you gave us and i hope you'll think about helping again in the fall..." 	but on the fourth night, she got worried, and she started 	calling his friends. they were all poor students, so none of 	them had land-line numbers you could look up in the phone book, 	but that was okay, since they all had accounts with the video 	store where she worked, with their deadbeat pre-paid mobile 	numbers listed. "yeah, that sounds great, you know, september, it gets dark early. just got word that i got into ryerson for the fall, so i'll be taking engineering classes. maybe i can help out that way?" "perfect," alan said. link took a step backward, drained his beer, held out the glass. "well, thanks," link said, and turned. alan reached past him and opened the door. there were a couple of girls there, little suburban girls of the type that you could find by the hatful in the market on saturday mornings, shopping for crazy clothes at the vintage shops. they looked , but might have been as old as or and just heartbreakingly naive. link looked over his shoulder and had the decency to look slightly embarrassed as they smiled at him. "okay, thanks, then," he said, and one of the girls looked past him to get a glimpse inside the house. andy instinctively stepped aside to give her a better view of his showroom and he was about to offer her a soda before he caught himself. "you've got a nice place," she said. "look at all those books!" her friend said, "have you read all those books?" she was wearing thick concealer over her acne, but she had a round face and heart-shaped lips that he wouldn't have been surprised to see on the cover of a magazine. she said it with a kind of sneer. link said, "are you kidding? what's the point of a houseful of books you've already read?" they both laughed adoringly -- if adam was feeling uncharitable, he'd say it was simpering, not laughing, and took off for the exciting throngs in the market. alan watched them go, with link's empty glass in one hand and his full glass in the other. it was hot out in the market, sunny, and it felt like the spring had rushed up on him and taken him by surprise when he wasn't looking. he had owned the house for more than a year now, and the story only had three or four paragraphs to it (and none of them were written down yet!). 	"you can't wash shit," is what her mother said when she called 	home and asked what she should do about her brother. "that kid's 	been a screw-up since he was five years old." he should write the story down. he went back upstairs and sat down at the keyboard and pecked out the sentences that had come to him, but they seemed very sterile there aglow on the screen, in just the same way that they'd felt restless and alive a moment before. the sunny day beamed through the study window and put a glare up on his screen that made it hard to type, and when he moved to the other side of the desk, he found himself looking out the window at the city and the spring. he checked his calendar and his watch and saw that he only had a couple hours before the reporter from now magazine came by. the reporter -- a summer intern -- was the only person to respond to his all-fluff press release on the open network. he and kurt had argued about the wording all night and when he was done, he almost pitched it out, as the editorial thrash had gutted it to the point of meaninglessness. oh well. the breeze made the new leaves in the trees across the street sway, and now the sun was in his eyes, and the sentences were inert on the screen. he closed the lid of the laptop and grabbed his coat and left the house as fast as he could, obscurely worried that if he didn't leave then, he wouldn't get out all day. # as he got closer to kurt's storefront, he slowed down. the crowds were thick, laughing suburban kids and old men in buttoned-up cardigans and fisherman's caps and subcultural tropical fish of all kinds: goths and punks and six kinds of ravers and hippies and so forth. he spied link sitting on the steps leading up to one of the above-shop apartments, passing a cigarette to a little girl who sat between his knees. link didn't see him, he was laughing at something the boy behind him said. alan looked closer. it was krishna, except he'd shaved his head and was wearing a hoodie with glittering piping run along the double seams, a kind of future-sarcastic raver jumper that looked like it had been abandoned on the set of *space: *. krishna had his own little girl between *his* knees, with heart-shaped lips and thick matte concealer over her zits. his hand lay casually on her shoulder, and she brushed her cheek against it. alan felt the air whuff out of him as though he'd been punched in the stomach, and he leaned up against the side of a fruit market, flattening himself there. he turned his head from side to side, expecting to see mimi, and wanting to rush out and shield her from the sight, but she was nowhere to be seen, and anyway, what business was it of his? and then he spied natalie, standing at the other end of the street, holding on to the handles of one of the show bicycles out front of bikes on wheels. she was watching her brother closely, with narrowed eyes. 	it was her fault, in some way. or at least she thought it 	was. she'd caught him looking at internet porn and laughed at 	him, humiliating him, telling him he should get out and find a 	girl whose last name wasn't "jpeg." he saw that her hands were clenched into fists and realized that his were, too. 	it was her fault in some way, because she'd seen the kind of 	person he was hanging out with and she hadn't done a thing about 	it. he moved into the crowd and waded through it, up the street on the opposite side from his neighbors. he closed in on natalie and ended up right in front of her before she noticed he was there. "oh!" she said, and blushed hard. she'd been growing out her hair for a couple months and it was long enough to clip a couple of barrettes to. with the hair, she looked less skinny, a little older, a little less vulnerable. she tugged at a hank of it absently. "hi." "we going to do anything about that?" he said, jerking his head toward the steps. krishna had his hand down the little girl's top now, cupping her breast, then laughing when she slapped it away. she shrugged, bit her lip. she shook her head angrily. "none of my business. none of *your* business." she looked at her feet. "look, there's a thing i've been meaning to tell you. i don't think i can keep on volunteering at the shop, okay? i've got stuff to do, assignments, and i'm taking some extra shifts at the store --" he held up a hand. "i'm grateful for all the work you've done, natalie. you don't need to apologize." "okay," she said. she looked indecisively around, then seemed to make up her mind and she hugged him hard. "take care of yourself, okay?" it struck him as funny. "i can take care of myself just fine, don't worry about me for a second. you still looking for fashion work? i think tropicál will be hiring for the summer. i could put in that phone-call." "no," she said. "no, that's okay." she looked over his shoulder and her eyes widened. he turned around and saw that krishna and link had spotted them, and that krishna was whispering something in link's ear that was making link grin nastily. "i should go," she said. krishna's hand was still down the little girl's top, and he jiggled her breast at alan. # the reporter had two lip piercings, and a matt of close-cropped micro-dreads, and an attitude. "so here's what i don't get. you've got the market wired --" "unwired," kurt said, breaking in for the tenth time in as many minutes. alan shot him a dirty look. "unwired, right." the kid made little inverted commas with his fingertips, miming, *yes, that is a very cute jargon you've invented, dork.* "you've got the market unwired and you're going to connect up your network with the big interchange down on front street." "well, *eventually*," alan said. the story was too complicated. front street, the market, open networks...it had no focus, it wasn't a complete narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. he'd tried to explain it to mimi that morning, over omelets in his kitchen, and she'd been totally lost. "eventually?" the kid took on a look of intense, teenaged skepticism. he claimed to be , but he looked about and had been the puck in an intense game of eyeball hockey among the cute little punk girls who'd been volunteering in the shopfront when he'd appeared. "that's the end-goal, a citywide network with all-we-can eat free connectivity, fully anonymized and hardened against malicious attackers and incidental environmental interference." alan steepled his fingers and tried to look serious and committed. "okay, that's the goal." "but it's not going to be all or nothing. we want to make the community a part of the network. getting people energized about participating in the network is as important as providing the network itself -- hell, the network *is* people. so we've got this intermediate step, this way that everyone can pitch in." "and that is, what, renaming your network to parasitenet?" kurt nodded vigorously. "zactly." "and how will i find these parasitenet nodes? will there be a map or something with all this information on it?" alan nodded slowly. "we've been thinking about a mapping application --" "but we decided that it was stupid," kurt said. "no one needed to draw a map of the web -- it just grew and people found its weird corners on their own. networks don't *need* centralized authority, that's just the chains on your mind talking --" "the chains on my mind?" the kid snorted. alan held his hands up placatingly. "wait a second," he said. "let's take a step back here and talk about *values*. the project here is about free expression and cooperation. sure, it'd be nice to have a city-wide network, but in my opinion, it's a lot more important to have a city full of people working on that network because they value expression and understand how cooperation gets us more of that." "and we'll get this free expression how?" "by giving everyone free internet access." the kid laughed and shook his head. "that's a weird kind of 'free,' if you don't mind my saying so." he flipped over his phone. "i mean, it's like, 'free speech if you can afford a two-thousand-dollar laptop and want to sit down and type on it.'" "i can build you a desktop out of garbage for twenty bucks," kurt said. "we're drowning in pc parts." "sure, whatever. but what kind of free expression is that? free expression so long as you're sitting at home with your pc plugged into the wall?" "well, it's not like we're talking about displacing all the other kinds of expression," alan said. "this is in addition to all the ways you've had to talk --" "right, like this thing," the kid said. he reached into his pocket and took out a small phone. "this was free -- not twenty dollars, not even two thousand dollars -- just free, from the phone company, in exchange for a one-year contract. everyone's got one of these. i went trekking in india, you see people using these out in the bush. and you know what they use them for? speech! not speech-in-quotes meaning some kind of abstract expression, but actual *talking.*" the kid leaned forward and planted his hands on his knees and suddenly he was a lot harder to dismiss as some subculture-addled intern. he had that fiery intensity that alan recognized from himself, from kurt, from the people who believe. alan thought he was getting an inkling into why this particular intern had responded to his press release: not because he was too ignorant to see through the bullshit, but just the opposite. "but that's communication through the *phone company*," kurt said, wonderment in his voice that his fellow bohemian couldn't see how sucktastic that proposition was. "how is that free speech?" the kid rolled his eyes. "come off it. you old people, you turn up your noses whenever someone ten years younger than you points out that cell phones are actually a pretty good way for people to communicate with each other -- even subversively. i wrote a term paper last year on this stuff: in kenya, electoral scrutineers follow the ballot boxes from the polling place to the counting house and use their cell phones to sound the alarm when someone tries to screw with them. in the philippines, twenty thousand people were mobilized in minutes in front of the presidential palace when they tried to shut down the broadcast of the corruption hearings. "and yet every time someone from my generation talks about how important phones are to democracy, there's always some old pecksniff primly telling us that our phones don't give us *real* democracy. it's so much bullshit." he fell silent and they all stared at each other for a moment. kurt's mouth hung open. "i'm not old," he said finally. "you're older than me," the kid said. his tone softened. "look, i'm not trying to be cruel here, but you're generation-blind. the internet is great, but it's not the last great thing we'll ever invent. my pops was a mainframe guy, he thought pcs were toys. you're a pc guy, so you think my phone is a toy." alan looked off into the corner of the back room of kurt's shop for a while, trying to marshal his thoughts. back there, among the shelves of milk crates stuffed with t-shirts and cruft, he had a thought. "okay," he said. "fair enough. it may be that today, in the field, there's a lot of free expression being enabled with phones. but at the end of the day" -- he thought of lyman -- "this is the *phone company* we're talking about. big lumbering dinosaur that is thrashing in the tar pit. the spazz dinosaur that's so embarrassed all the other dinosaurs that none of them want to rescue it. "back in the sixties, these guys sued to keep it illegal to plug anything other than their rental phones into their network. but more to the point, you get a different kind of freedom with an internet network than a phone-company network -- even if the internet network lives on top of the phone-company network. "if you invent a new way of using the phone network -- say, a cheaper way of making long-distance calls using voice-over-ip, you can't roll that out on the phone network without the permission of the carrier. you have to go to him and say, 'hey, i've invented a way to kill your most profitable line of business, can you install it at your switching stations so that we can all talk long distance for free?' "but on the net, anyone can invent any application that he can get his buddies to use. no central authority had to give permission for the web to exist: a physicist just hacked it together one day, distributed the software to his colleagues, and in just a very short while, people all over the world had the web. "so the net can live on top of the phone network and it can run voice-calling as an application, but it's not tied to the phone network. it doesn't care whose wires or wireless it lives on top of. it's got all these virtues that are key to free expression. that's why we care about this." the kid nodded as he talked, impatiently, signaling in body language that even alan could read that he'd heard this already. "yes, in this abstract sense, there are a bunch of things to like about your internet over there. but i'm talking about practical, nonabstract, nontheoretical stuff over here. the real world. i can get a phone for *free*. i can talk to *everyone* with it. i can say *anything* i want. i can use it *anywhere*. sure, the phone company is a giant conspiracy by the man to keep us down. but can you really tell me with a straight face that because i can't invent the web for my phone or make free long distance calls i'm being censored?" "of course not," kurt said. alan put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "fine, it's not an either-or thing. you can have your phones, i can have my internet, and we'll both do our thing. it's not like the absence of the web for phones or high long-distance charges are *good* for free expression, christ. we're trying to unbreak the net so that no one can own it or control it. we're trying to put it on every corner of the city, for free, anonymously, for anyone to use. we're doing it with recycled garbage, and we're paying homeless teenagers enough money to get off the street as part of the program. what's not to fucking like?" the kid scribbled hard on his pad. "*now* you're giving me some quotes i can use. you guys need to work on your pitch. 'what's not to fucking like?' that's good." # he and link saw each other later that day, and link still had his two little girls with him, sitting on the patio at the greek's, drinking beers, and laughing at his jokes. "hey, you're the guy with the books," one of them said when he passed by. he stopped and nodded. "that's me, all right," he said. link picked at the label of his beer bottle and added to the dandruff of shredded paper in the ashtray before him. "hey, abe," he said. "hey, link," he said. he looked down at the little girls' bags. "you've made some finds," he said. "congratulations." they were wearing different clothes now -- double-knit neon pop-art dresses and horn-rim shades and white legs flashing beneath the tabletop. they kicked their toes and smiled and drank their beers, which seemed comically large in their hands. casually, he looked to see who was minding the counter at the greek's and saw that it was the idiot son, who wasn't smart enough to know that serving liquor to minors was asking for bad trouble. "where's krishna?" he asked. one girl compressed her heart-shaped lips into a thin line. 	and so she resolved to help her brother, because when it's your 	fault that something has turned to shit, you have to wash 	shit. and so she resolved to help her brother, which meant that, 	step one, she had to get him to stop screwing up. "he took off," the girl said. her pancake makeup had sweated away during the day and her acne wasn't so bad that she'd needed it. "he took off running, like he'd forgotten something important. looked scared." "why don't you go get more beers," link said angrily, cutting her off, and alan had an intuition that link had become krishna's renfield, a recursion of renfields, each nesting inside the last like russian dolls in reverse: big link inside medium krishna inside the stump that remained of darrel. 	and that meant that she had to take him out of the company of 	his bad companions, which she would accomplish through the 	simple expedient of scaring the everlasting fuck out of them. she sulked off and the remaining girl looked down at her swinging toes. "where'd he go, link?" alan said. if krishna was in a hurry to go somewhere or see something, he had an idea of what it was about. link's expression closed up like a door slamming shut. "i don't know," he said. "how should i know?" the other girl scuffed her toes and took a sip of her beer. their gazes all flicked down to the bottle. "the greek would bar you for life if he knew you were bringing underaged drinkers into here," alan said. "plenty of other bars in the market," link said, shrugging his newly broad shoulders elaborately. 	trey was the kid who'd known her brother since third grade and 	whose puberty-induced brain damage had turned him into an utter 	turd. she once caught him going through the bathroom hamper, 	fetishizing her panties, and she'd shouted at him and he'd just 	ducked and grinned a little-boy grin that she had been incapable 	of wiping off his face, no matter how she raged. she would enjoy 	this. "and they all know the greek," alan said. "three, two, one." he turned on his heel and began to walk away. "wait!" link called. the girl swallowed a giggle. he sounded desperate and not cool at all anymore. alan stopped and turned his body halfway, looking impatiently over his shoulder. link mumbled something. "what?" "behind kurt's place," link said. "he said he was going to go look around behind kurt's place." "thank you, link," he said. he turned all the way around and got down to eye level with the other girl. "nice to meet you," he said. he wanted to tell her, *be careful* or *stay alert* or *get out while the getting's good*, but none of that seemed likely to make much of an impression on her. she smiled and her friend came back with three beers. "you've got a great house," she said. her friend said, "yeah, it's amazing." "well, thank you," he said. "bye," they said. link's gaze bored into the spot between his shoulder blades the whole way to the end of the block. # the back-alleys of kensington were a maze of coach houses, fences, dead ends and narrow doorways. kids who knew their secrets played ball-hockey nearly undisturbed by cars, junkies turned them into reeking pissoirs, homeless people dossed down in the lees of their low, crazy-angled buildings, teenagers came and necked around corners. but alan knew their secrets. he'd seen the aerial maps, and he'd clambered their length and breadth and height with kurt, checking sight lines for his network, sticking virtual pushpins into the map on his screen where he thought he could get some real benefit out of an access point. so once he reached kensington avenue, he slipped behind a guyanese patty stand and stepped through a wooden gate and began to make his way to the back of kurt's place. cautiously. from behind, the riot of colors and the ramshackle signs and subculture of kensington was revealed as a superfice, a skin stretched over slightly daggy brick two-stories with tiny yards and tumbledown garages. from behind, he could be walking the back ways of any anonymous housing development, a no-personality greyzone of nothing and no one. the sun went behind a cloud and the whole scene turned into something monochromatic, a black-and-white clip from an old home movie. carefully, he proceeded. carefully, slipping from doorway to doorway, slipping up the alleyway to the next, to the corner that led to the alley that led to kurt's. carefully, listening, watching. and he managed to sneak up on krishna and davey, and he knew that for once, he'd be in the position to throw the rocks. krishna sat with his back against the cinderblock wall near kurt's back door, knees and hands splayed, head down in a posture of supplication. he had an unlit cigarette in his mouth, which he nervously shifted from corner to corner, like a soggy toothpick. behind him, standing atop the dented and scabrous garbage cans, dumont. he rested his head on his folded arms, which he rested on the sill, and he stood on tiptoe to see in the window. "i'm hungry," krishna said. "i want to go get some food. can i go and get food and come back?" "quiet," dewayne said. "not another fucking word, you sack of shit." he said it quietly in a neutral tone that was belied by his words. he settled his head back on his folded forearms like a babe settling its head in a bosom and looked back through the window. "ah," he said, like he had taken a drink. krishna climbed slowly to his feet and stood off a pace or two, staring at drew. he reached into the pocket of his old bomber jacket and found a lighter and flicked it nervously a couple times. "don't you light that cigarette," davey said. "don't you dare." "how long are we going to be here?" krishna's whine was utterly devoid of his customary swagger. "what kind of person is he?" davey said. "what kind of person is he? he is in love with my brother, looks at him with cow-eyes when he sees him, hangs on his words like a love-struck girl." he laughed nastily. "like *your* love-struck girl, like she looks at him. "i wonder if he's had her yet. do you think he has?" "i don't care," krishna said petulantly, and levered himself to his feet. he began to pace and alan hastily backed himself into the doorway he'd been hiding in. "she's mine, no matter who she's fucking. i *own* her." "look at that," darrel said. "look at him talking to them, his little army, like a general giving them a pep talk. he got that from my brother, i'm sure. everywhere he goes, he leaves a trail of manipulators who run other people's lives." alan's stomach clenched in on itself, and his butt and thighs ached suddenly, like he'd been running hard. he thought about his protégés with their shops and their young employees, learning the trade from them as they'd learned it from him. how long had don been watching him? "when are we going to do it?" krishna spat out his cigarette and shook another out of his pack and stuck it in his mouth. "don't light it," drew said. "we're going to do it when i say it's time to do it. you have to watch first -- watching is the most important part. it's how you find out what needs doing and to whom. it's how you find out where you can do the most damage." "i know what needs doing," krishna said. "we can just go in there and trash the place and fuck him up. that'd suit me just fine. send the right message, too." danny hopped down off the trash can abruptly and krishna froze in his paces at the dry rasp of hard blackened skin on the pavement. davey walked toward him in a bowlegged, splay-hipped gait that was more a scuttle than a walk, the motion of some inhuman creature not accustomed to two legs. "have you ever watched your kind, ever? do you understand them, even a little? just because you managed to get a little power over one of my people, you think you understand it all. you don't. that one in there is bone-loyal to my brother. if you vandalized his little shop, he'd just go to my brother for protection and end up more loyal and more. please stop thinking you know anything, it'll make it much easier for us to get along." krishna stiffened. "i know things," he said. "your pathetic little birdie girl is *nothing*," davey said. he stumped over to krishna, stood almost on his toes, looking up at him. krishna took an involuntary step backward. "a little one-off, a changeling without clan or magic of any kind." krishna stuck his balled fists into the pockets of his space-age future-sarcastic jacket. "i know something about *you*," he said. "about *your* kind." "oh, yes?" davey's tone was low, dangerous. "i know how to recognize you, even when you're passing for normal. i know how to spot you in a crowd, in a second." he smiled. "you've been watching my kind all your life, but i've been watching your kind for all of *mine*. i've seen you on the subway and running corner stores, teaching in classrooms and driving to work." davey smiled then, showing blackened stumps. "yes, you can, you certainly can." he reached out one small, delicate hand and stroked the inside of krishna's wrist. "you're very clever that way, you are." krishna closed his eyes and breathed heavily through his nose, as though in pain or ecstasy. "that's a good skill to have." they stood there for a moment while davey slowly trailed his fingertips over krishna's wrist. then, abruptly, he grabbed krishna's thumb and wrenched it far back. krishna dropped abruptly to his knees, squeaking in pain. "you can spot my kind, but you know nothing about us. you *are* nothing, do you understand me?" krishna nodded slowly. alan felt a sympathetic ache in his thumb and a sympathetic grin on his face at the sight of krishna knelt down and made to acquiesce. "you understand me?" krishna nodded again. davey released him and he climbed slowly to his feet. davey took his wrist again, gently. "let's get you something to eat," he said. before alan knew it, they were nearly upon him, walking back down the alley straight toward his hiding place. blood roared in his ears and he pressed his back up against the doorway. they were only a step or two away, and after a couple of indiscreetly loud panting gasps, he clamped his lips shut and held his breath. there was no way they could miss him. he pressed his back harder against the door, and it abruptly swung open and a cold hand wrapped itself around his bicep and pulled his through into a darkened, oil- and must-smelling garage. he tripped over his own heel and started to go over, but a pair of hands caught him and settled him gently to the floor. "quiet," came a hoarse whisper in a voice he could not place. and then he knew who his rescuer was. he stood up silently and gave billy a long hug. he was as skinny as death. # 	trey's phone number was still current in the video store's 	database, so she called him. 	"hey, trey," she said. "it's lara." 	 	"lara, heeeeeeyyyy," he said, in a tone that left no doubt that 	he was picturing her panties. "sorry, your bro ain't here." 	"want to take me out to dinner tonight?" 	 	the silence on the other end of the line made her want to laugh, 	but she bit her lip and rolled her eyes and amused the girl 	browsing the chop-socky epics and visibly eavesdropping. 	"trey?" 	 	"lara, uh, yes, i'd love to, sure. is this like a group thing 	or..." 	"no, trey, i thought i'd keep this between the two of us. i'll 	be at the store until six -- meet me here?" 	"yeah, okay. okay! sure. i'll see you tonight." # brad was so thin he looked like a corpse. he was still tall, though, and his hair and beard were grown out into long, bad-smelling straggles of knot and grime. in the half-light of the garage, he had the instantly identifiable silhouette of a street person. he gathered adam up in a hug that reeked of piss and booze, a hug like a bundle of twigs in his arms. "i love you," he whispered. andrew backed away and held him at arm's length. his skin had gone to deep creases lined with soot, his eyes filmed with something that looked like pond scum. "brady. what are you doing here?" he held a finger up to his lips, then opened the door again onto the now-empty alley. alan peered the way that davey and krishna had gone, just in time to see them turn a distant corner. "give it another minute," blake said, drawing the door nearly closed again. a moment later, they heard another door open and then kurt's chain-draped boots jangled past, headed the other way. they listened to them recede, and then brian swung the door wide again. "it's okay now," he said. they stepped out into the sunlight and bert started to walk slowly away. alan caught up with him and bert took his arm with long bony fingers, leaning on him. he had a slight limp. "where have you been?" alan asked when they had gone halfway home through deft, confident turnings led by blake. "watching you," he said. "of course. when i came to the city, i worked out at the racetrack for a week and made enough money to live off of for a couple months, and avoided the tough guys who watched me winning and waited to catch me alone at the streetcar stop. i made enough and then i went to watch you. "i knew where you were, of course. always knew where you were. i could see you whenever i closed my eyes. i knew when you opened your shops and i went by at night and in the busy parts of the day so that i could get a better sense of them. i kept an eye on you, alan, watched over you. i had to get close enough to smell you and hear you and see you, though, it wasn't enough to see you in my mind. "because i had to know the *why*. i could see the *what*, but i had to know the *why* -- why were you opening your stores? why were you saying the things you said? i had to get close enough because from the outside, it's impossible to tell if you're winking because you've got a secret, or if you've got dust in your eye, or if you're making fun of someone who's winking, or if you're trying out a wink to see how it might feel later. "it's been four years i've been watching you when i could, going back to the track for more when i ran out of money, and you know what? i know what you're doing." alan nodded. "yeah," he said. "you're watching. you're doing what i'm doing. you're watching them to figure out what they're doing." alvin nodded. "yeah," he said. "you don't know any more about the world than i do." albert nodded. "yeah," he said. billy shook his head and leaned more heavily on alan's arm. "i want a drink," he said. "i've got some vodka in the freezer," alan said. "i'll take some of the irish whiskey on the sideboard in the living room." adam looked at him sharply and he shrugged and smiled an apologetic smile. "i've been watching," he said. they crossed the park together and buddy stopped to look hard at the fountain. "that's where he took edward, right? i saw that." "yeah," alvin said. "do you know where he is now?" "yeah," billy said. "gone." "yeah," adam said. "yeah." they started walking now, billy's limp more pronounced. "what's with your leg?" "my foot. i lost a couple toes last year to frostbite and never got them looked at properly." he reeked of piss and booze. "they didn't...grow back?" bradley shook his head. "they didn't," he said. "not mine. hello, krishna," he said. alan looked to his neighbors' porch. krishna stood there, stock still, against the wall. "friend of yours, huh?" krishna said. "boyfriend?" "he offered me a bottle of wine if i let him take me home," bradley said. "best offer i had all week. wanna make it a threesome? an *'ow you say* 'mange ma twat?'" krishna contorted his face into an elaborate sneer. "puke," he said. "bye, krishna," buddy said. alan put his key into the lock and let them in. blaine made a hobbling beeline for the sideboard and picked up the jim beam apollo commemorative decanter that adam kept full of bushmills and poured himself a tall glass of it. he drank it back in two swallows, then rolled his tongue around in his mouth with his eyes closed while he breathed out the fumes. "i have been thinking about that bottle ever since you bought it," he said. "this stuff is legendary. god, that's good. i mean, that's fucking magical." "it's good," andrew said. "you can have more if you want." "yeah," burke said, and poured out another drink. he carried it and the decanter to the sofa and settled into it. "nice sofa," he said. "nice living room. nice house. not very normal, though." "no," andrew said. "i'm not fitting in very well." "i fit in great." he drank back another glug of whiskey and poured out another twenty dollars' worth. "just great, it's the truth. i'm totally invisible and indistinguishable. i've been sleeping at the scott mission for six months now and no one has given me a second glance. they can't even steal my stuff, because when they try, when they come for my shoes or my food in the night, i'm always awake and watching them and just shaking my head." the whole living room stank of whiskey fumes with an ammoniac tinge. "what if i find you some clothes and a towel?" "would i clean myself up? would i get rid of this protective coloration and become visible again?" he drank more, breathed out the fumes. "sure, why not. why not. time to be visible. you've seen me, krishna's seen me. davey's gonna see me. least i got to see them first." and so he let his older brother lead him by the hand upstairs to the bathroom with its damp-swollen paperbacks and framed kitsch-art potty-training cartoons. and so he let his brother put him under the stinging hot shower and shampoo his hair and scrub him vigorously with a back brush, sluicing off the ground-in grime of the streets -- though the calous pads on his hands remained as dark with soot as the feet of an alleycat. and so he let his older brother wash the stumps of his toes where the skin was just a waxy pucker of scar, like belly buttons, which neither of them had. and so he let his brother trim away his beard, first with scissors and then with an electric razor, and so he let his brother brush out his long hair and tie it back with an elastic taken from around a bunch of broccoli in the vegetable crisper. and so, by the time the work was done and he was dressed in too-big clothes that hung over his sunken chest and spindly legs like a tent, he was quite sober and quite clean and quite different. "you look fine," adam said, as brent fingered his chin and watched the reflection in the full-length mirror on the door of alan's study. "you look great." "i look conspicuous. visible. used to be that eyes just slid off of me. now they'll come to rest on me, if only for a few seconds." andy nodded. "sure, that's right. you know, being invisible isn't the same as being normal. normal people are visible." "yeah," brad said, nodding miserably. he pawed again at the smooth hollows of his cheeks. "you can stay in here," alan said, gesturing at his study. the desk and his laptop and his little beginning of a story sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by a litter of access points in various stages of repair and printed literature full of optimistic, nontechnical explanations of parasitenet. "i'll move all that stuff out." "yeah," billy said. "you should. just put it in the basement in boxes. i've been watching you screw around with that wireless stuff and you know, it's not real normal, either. it's pretty desperately weird. danny's right -- that kurt guy, following you around, like he's in love with you. that's not normal." he flushed, and his hands were in fists. "christ, adam, you're living in this goddamned museum and nailing those stupid science-fair projects to the sides of buildings. you've got this comet tail of druggy kids following you around, buying dope with the money they make off of the work they do for you. you're not just visible, you're *strobing*, and you're so weird even *i* get the crawlies around you." his bare feet slapped the shining cool wood as he paced the room, lame foot making a different sound from the good one. andy looked out the window at the green maple-keys rattling in the wind. "they're buying drugs?" benny snorted. "you're bankrolling weekly heroin parties at two warehouses on oxford, and three raves a month down on liberty street." he looked up at the ceiling. "mimi's awake now," he said. "better introduce me." mimi kept her own schedule, mostly nocturnal, padding quietly around his house while he slept, coming silently to bed after he rose, while he was in the bathroom. she hadn't spoken a word to him in more than a week, and he had said nothing to her. but for the snores and the warmth of the bed when he lay down and the morning dishes in the sink, she might not have been living with him at all. but for his constant awareness of her presence in his house and but for the shirts with cut-away backs in the laundry hamper, he might be living all on his own. but for the knife that he found under the mattress, compass set into the handle, serrated edge glinting, he might have forgotten those wings, which drooped near to the floor now. footsteps crossing between the master bedroom and the bathroom. pausing at the top of the stairs. a soft cough. "alan?" "it's okay, mimi," he said. she came down in a pair of his boxer shorts, with the topsheet complicatedly draped over her chest in a way that left her wings free. their tips touched the ground. "this is my brother bentley," adam said. "i told you about him." "you can see the future," she said reproachfully. "you have wings," he said. she held out her hand and he shook it. "i want breakfast," she said. "sounds good to me," brent said. alan nodded. "i'll cook." # he made pancakes and cut up pears and peaches and apples and bananas for fruit salad. "this reminds me of the pancake house in town," bart said. "remember?" adam nodded. it had been ed-fred-george's favorite sunday dinner place. "do you live here now?" mimi said. alan said, "yes." she slipped her hand into his and squeezed his thumb. it felt good and unexpected. "are you going to tell her?" billy said. she withdrew her hand. "what is it." her voice was cold. billy said, "there's no good comes of keeping secrets. krishna and davey are planning to attack kurt. krishna says he owns you. he'll probably come for you." "did you see that?" adam said. "him coming for her?" "not that kind of seeing. i just understand enough about people to know what that means." 	trey met her at six, and he was paunchier than she'd remembered, 	his high school brawn run to a little fat. he shoved a gift into 	her hand, a brown paper bag with a quart of cheap vodka in 	it. she thanked him simperingly and tucked it in her 	knapsack. "it's a nice night. let's get takeout and eat it in 	high park." 	she saw the wheels turn in his head, meal plus booze plus 	secluded park equals pussy, pussy, pussy, and she let the tip of 	her tongue touch her lips. this would be even easier than she'd 	thought. "how can you tell the difference?" arthur said. "between seeing and understanding?" "you'll never mistake them. seeing it is like remembering spying on someone, only you haven't spied on him yet. like you were standing behind him and he just didn't notice. you hear it, you smell it, you see it. like you were standing *in* him sometimes, like it happened to you. "understanding, that's totally different. that's like a little voice in your head explaining it to you, telling you what it all means." "oh," andy said. "you thought you'd seen, right?" "yeah. thought that i was running out of time and going to die, or kill davey again, or something. it was a feeling, though, not like being there, not like having anything explained." "is that going to happen?" mimi asked brad. brad looked down at the table. "'answer unclear, ask again later.' that's what this magic -ball i bought in a store once used to say." "does that mean you don't know?" "i think it means i don't want to know." # "don't worry," bert said. "kurt's safe tonight." alan stopped lacing up his shoes and slumped back on the bench in his foyer. mimi had done the dishes, bill had dried, and he'd fretted about kurt. but it wasn't until he couldn't take it anymore and was ready to go and find him, bring him home if necessary, that billy had come to talk to him. "do you know that for sure?" "yes. he has dinner with a woman, then he takes her dumpster diving and comes home and goes to bed. i can see that." "but you don't see everything?" "no, but i saw that." "fine," adam said. he felt hopeless in the face of these predictions, as though the future were something set and immutable. "i need to use the bathroom," billy said, and made his way upstairs while alan moved to a sofa and paged absently through an old edition of *alice in wonderland* whose marbled frontispiece had come detached. a moment later, mimi joined him, sitting down next to him, her wings unfolded across the sofa back. "how big are they going to get, do you think?" she said, arranging them. "you don't know?" "they're bigger than they've ever been. that was good food," she said. "i think i should go talk to krishna." adam shook his head. "whoa." "you don't need to be in between us. maybe i can get him to back off on you, on your family." "mimi, i don't even want to discuss it." "it's the right thing to do," she said. "it's not fair to you to stay." "you want to have your wings cut," alan said. "that's why you want to go back to him." she shied back as though he'd slapped her. "no --" "you do. but what billy didn't tell you is that krishna's out there with other women, i saw him today. with a girl. young. pretty. normal. if he takes you back, it will be as a toy, not as a lover. he can't love." "christ," she said. "why are you saying this?" "because i don't want to watch you self-destruct, mimi. stay here. we'll sort out krishna together. and my brother. billy's here now, that means they can't sneak up on us." "and these?" she said, flapping her wings, one great heave that sent currents of air across the room, that blew the loose frontispiece from *alice in wonderland* toward the fireplace grate. "you'll sort these out, too?" "what do you want from me, mimi?" he was angry now. she hadn't spoken a word to him in weeks, and now -- "cut them off, alan. make me into someone who can go out again, who can be seen. do it. i have the knife." adam squeezed his eyes shut. "no," he said. "good-bye," she said, and stood, headed for the stairs. upstairs, the toilet flushed and they heard the sink running. "wait!" he said, running after her. she had her hand on the doorknob. "no," she said. she was crying now. "i won't stay. i won't be trapped again. better to be with him than trapped --" "i'll do it," he said. "if you still want me to do it in two days, i'll do it." she looked gravely at him. "don't you lie to me about this," she said. "don't you dare be lying." he took her hands. "i swear," he said. from the top of the stairs then, "whups," said billy. "i think i'll just tuck myself into bed." mimi smiled and hugged alan fiercely. 	trey's ardor came out with his drunkenness. first a clammy arm 	around her shoulder, then a casual grope at her boob, then a 	sloppy kiss on the corner of her mouth. that was as far as she 	was going to let it go. she waited for him to move in for 	another kiss, then slipped out from under his arm so that he 	fell into the roots of the big tree they'd been leaning 	against. she brained him with the vodka bottle before he'd had a 	chance to recover, then, as he rocked and moaned, she calmly 	took the hunting knife she'd bought at the yonge street 	survivalist store out of her bag. she prized one of his hands 	off his clutched head and turned it over, then swiftly drew the 	blade across his palm, laying it open to the muscle. 	she hadn't been sure that she'd be capable of doing that, but it 	was easier than she'd thought. she had nothing to worry 	about. she was capable of that and more. # they climbed into bed together at the same time for the first time since they'd come home, like a domesticated couple, and mimi dug under her pillow and set something down with a tin *tink* on the bedstand, a sound too tinny to be the hunting knife. alan squinted. it was the robot, the one he'd given her, the pretty thing with the dutch master craquelure up its tuna-can skirts. "he's beautiful," she said. "like you." she wrapped her wings around him tightly, soft fur softer than any down comforter, and pressed her dimpled knees into the hollows of his legs, snuggling in. 	he cried like a baby once the pain in his hand set in. she 	pointed the knifepoint at his face, close enough to stab him if 	need be. "i won't kill you if you don't scream," she said. "but 	i will be taking one joint of one toe and one joint of one 	finger tonight. just so you know." he tried not to fall asleep, tried to stay awake and savor that feeling of her pressed against him, of her breath on the nape of his neck, of the enfolded engulfment of her wings, but he couldn't keep his eyes open. soon enough, he was asleep. what roused him, he couldn't say, but he found himself groggily awake in the close heat of those wings, held tight. he listened attentively, heard something else, a tinny sound. the robot. his bladder was full. he gently extricated himself from mimi, from her wings, and stood. there was the robot, silhouetted on the end table. he smiled and padded off to the toilet. he came back to find mimi splayed across the whole bed, occupying its length and breadth, a faintly naughty smile on her face. he began to ease himself into bed again, when he heard the sound, tinny, a little rattle. he looked at the robot. it was moving. its arms were moving. that was impossible. its arms were painted on. he sat up quickly, rousing mimi, who let out a small sound, and something small and bent emerged from behind the robot and made a dash for the edge of the end table. the way the thing ran, it reminded him of an animal that had been crippled by a trap. he shrank back from it instinctively, even as he reached out for the table light and switched it on. mimi scrunched her eyelids and flung an arm over her face, but he hardly noticed, even when she gave an outraged groan. he was looking at the little, crippled thing, struggling to get down off the end table on mimi's side of the bed. it was the allen. though he hadn't seen it in nearly years, he recognized it. tiny, malformed, and bandy-legged, it was still the spitting image of him. had davey been holding on to it all these years? tending it in a cage? torturing it with pins? mimi groaned again. "switch off the light, baby," she said, a moment's domesticity. "in a sec," he said, and edged closer to the allen, which was huddled in on itself, staring and crazy. "shhh," adam breathed. "it's okay." he very slowly moved one hand toward the end table, leaning over mimi, kneeing her wing out of the way. the allen shied back farther. "what're you doing?" mimi said, squinting up at him. "be very still," he said to her. "i don't want to frighten it. don't scream or make any sudden movements. i'm counting on you." her eyes grew round and she slowly looked over toward the end table. she sucked in sudden air, but didn't scream. "what is --" "it's me," he said. "it grew out of a piece of me. my thumb. after davey bit it off." "jesus," she said. the allen was quaking now, and alan cooed to it. "it's hurt," mimi said. "a long time ago," andreas said. "no, now. it's bleeding." she was right. a small bead of blood had formed beneath it. he extended his hand farther. its bandy scurry was pathetic. holding his breath, alan lifted the allen gently, cradling it in his palms. it squirmed and thrashed weakly. "shh," he said again. his hands were instantly made slippery and sticky with its blood. "shh." something sharp pricked at his hand. now that he had it up close, he could see where the blood was coming from: a broken-off sewing needle, shoved rudely through its distended abdomen. "cover up," bradley said, "i'm coming up." they heard his lopsided tread on the steps. mimi pulled the blanket up around her chin. "okay," she said. bert opened the door quickly. he wore nothing but the oversized jeans that alan had given him, his scrawny chest and mutilated feet bare. "it's going to die," brad said, hunkering down beside the bed. "davey pinned it and then sent link over with it. it can't last through the night." adam felt like he was choking. "we can help it," he said. "it can heal. it healed before." "it won't this time. see how much pain it's in? it's out of its mind." "so what do you want me to do?" "we need to put it out of its misery," brad said. "it's the right thing." in his hands, the thing squirmed and made a small, hurt sound. "shhh," alan said. the sound it made was like sobbing, but small, so small. and weak. mimi said, "i think i'm going to be sick." "yeah," brian said. "yeah, i can see that." she lifted herself out of bed, unmindful of her nudity, and pushed her way past him to the door, to the bathroom. 	"stop being such a baby," she told trey as he clutched at his 	foot. "it's almost stopped bleeding already." 	he looked up at her with murder in his eyes. "shall i take 	another one?" she said. he looked away. 	"if i get word that you've come within a mile of my brother, i 	will come back and take your eyes. the toe and the finger joint 	were just a down payment on that." 	he made a sullen sound, so she took his vain and girlish blond 	hair in her fist and tugged his head back and kissed his throat 	with the knife. 	"nod if you understand. slowly." 	 # "the knife is under mimi's pillow." "i can't do it," alan said. "i know," brian said. "i will." and he did. took the knife. took the allen. it cried. mimi threw up in another room, the sound more felt than heard. the toilet flushed and brian's hands were sure and swift, but not sure enough. the allen made a sound like a dog whistle. bruce's hand moved again, and then it was over. he dug a sock out of the hamper and rolled up the allen's remains in it. "i'll bury it," he said. "in the back." numbly, alan stood and began dressing. "no," he said. "i will." mimi joined them, wrapped in a blanket. alan dug and brent held the sock and mimi watched solemnly. a trapezoid of light knifed across the back garden. they looked up and saw krishna staring down at them from a third-floor window. he was smiling very slightly. a moment later, link appeared in the window, reeling like he was drunk, giggling. they all looked at one another for a frozen moment, then alan turned back to his shoveling. he dug down three feet, and brent laid the little allen down in the earth gently as putting it to bed, and alan filled the hole back up. mimi looked back up at the window, eyes locked on krishna's. "i'm going inside," adam announced. "are you coming?" "yeah," mimi said, but she didn't. she stayed out there for ten minutes, then twenty, and when alan looked out his window at her, he saw she was still staring up at krishna, mesmerized. he loudly opened his window and leaned out. mimi's eyes flicked to him, and then she slowly made her way back into the house. 	she took his pants and his shoes and left him in the park, 	crying and drunk. all things considered, it had gone well. when 	trey told her that he had no idea where her brother was, she 	believed him. it was okay, she'd find her brother. he had lots 	of friends. alan thought that that was the end of the story, maybe. short and sweet. a kind of lady or the tiger thing. let the reader's imagination do the rest. there on the screen, it seemed awfully thin. here in the house he'd built for it, it seemed awfully unimportant. such a big and elaborate envelope for such a small thing. he saved the file and went back up to bed. mimi was asleep, which was good, because he didn't think he'd be able to fall asleep with her twice that night. he curled up on his side of the bed and closed his eyes and tried to forget the sound the allen had made. # 	"what is wrong with you?" 	 	"not a thing," she said. her brother's phone-call hadn't been 	unexpected. 	"you're fucking insane." 	 	"maybe," she said. 	 	"what do you *want from me*?" 	 	"i want you to behave yourself." 	 	"you're completely fucking insane." he woke to find billy gone, and had a momentary panic, a flashback to the day that fred had gone missing in the night. but then he found a note on the kitchen table, terse: "gone out. b." the handwriting sent him back through the years to the days before davey came home, the days when they'd been a family, when he'd signed brad's report cards and hugged him when he came home with a high-scoring paper. mimi came down while he was holding the note, staring at the few spare words there. she was draped in her wings. "where did he go?" "i don't know," alan said. "out." "is this what your family is like?" "yeah," alan said. "this is what they're like." "are you going to go out, too?" "yeah." "fine," she said. she was angry. she stomped out of the kitchen, and stepped on her own wing, tripping, going over on her face. "tomorrow, you cut these tomorrow!" she said, and her wings flared open, knocking the light fixtures a-swing and tumbling piles of books. "tomorrow!" she said. # "good morning, natalie," he said. she was red-eyed and her face was puffy, and her hand shook so that the smoke from her cigarette rose in a nervous spiral. "andy," she said, nodding. he looked at her across the railing that divided their porches. "would you like to join me for a coffee?" "i'm hardly dressed for it," she said. she was wearing a pair of cutoffs and house slippers and a shapeless green t-shirt that hung down past her butt. "the greek doesn't stand on ceremony," he said. he was hardly dressed better. he hadn't wanted to go up to the master bedroom and face mimi, so he'd dressed himself out of the laundry hamper in the basement. "i don't have *shoes*, alan." "you could go in and get some," he said. she shook her head. her shoulders were tensed, her whole skinny body a cringe. "we'll go barefoot and sit on the patio," he said after a moment, kicking his shoes off. she looked at him and gave a sad laugh. "okay." the sidewalk was still cool enough for bare feet. the greek didn't give their bare feet a second look, but brought iced coffees and yogurt with walnuts and honey. "do you want to tell me about them?" "it's been bad ever since -- ever since mimi left. all of a sudden, krishna's link's best friend. he follows him around." alan nodded. "krishna beat mimi up," he said. "i know it," she said. "i heard it. i didn't do anything, goddamn me, but i heard it happen." "eat," he said. "here." he reached for a clean napkin from the next table and handed it to her. she dried her eyes and wiped her nose and ate a spoonful of yogurt. "drink," he said, and handed her the coffee. she drank. "they brought those girls home last night. *little* girls. teenyboppers. disappeared into their bedrooms. the noises they made." "drink," alan said, and then handed her the napkin again. "drunk. they got them drunk and brought them home." "you should get out of there," andrew said, surprising himself. "get out. today, even. go stay with your mom and find a new apartment next month." she set her cup down carefully. "no," she said. "i'm serious. it's a bad situation that you can't improve and the more you stay there, the worse it's going to get." "that's not a practical suggestion." "staying there, in potential danger, is not practical. you need to get out. staying there will only make things worse for you." she clenched her jaw. "you know, there comes a point where you're not giving advice anymore. there comes a point where you're just moralizing, demonstrating your hypothetical superiority when it comes to doing the right thing. that's not very fucking helpful, you know. i'm holding my shit together right now, and rather than telling me that it's not enough, you could try to help me with the stuff i'm capable of." alan digested this. she'd said it loudly, and a few of the other morning patrons at the greek's were staring at them. he looked away, across the street, and spied billy standing in a doorway, watching. billy met his eyes, then looked away. "i'm sorry, natalie," he said. "you're right." she blew air out her nostrils. "what about this. you can knock on my door any time. i'll make up the sofa for you." he thought of mimi and cringed inwardly. she'd have to stay upstairs and be quiet if there were strangers in the house. then he remembered his promise about her wings. he bit his lip. she let out a harsh chuckle. "will i be any safer there?" "what does that mean?" "you're the weirdest person i've ever met, alvin. i mean, sorry, no offense, but why the hell would i knock on your door?" she stood and turned on her barefoot heel and took herself away, walking at a brisk and gingerly pace. barry moseyed over and sat in her seat. "she'll be okay," he said. he picked up her spoon and began to finish her breakfast. "you know, i can't watch the way i could yesterday, not anymore. too visible. what do i do now?" aaron shrugged. "find a job. be visible. get a place to live. we can have each other over for dinner." brett said, "maybe i could get a job where i got to watch. security guard." august nodded. he closed his eyes. "she's very pretty," barry said. "prettier than mimi." "if you say so." "kurt's awake." "yeah?" "yeah. you could introduce me to him." 	i did it for your own good, you know. she couldn't bring herself 	to say the words, for the enormity of what she'd done was 	overwhelming her. she'd found three of his friends and treated 	each of them to an evening of terror and hurt, and none of them 	would tell her where her brother was, none of them knew. maybe 	they'd been innocent all along. 	"where are you?" 	 	"far from you," he said. in the background, she heard a girl 	crying. # "it's going to happen, we're going to cover the whole market," kurt said. he had the latest coverage map out and it looked like he was right. "look at this." the overlapping rings of wifi false-colored over the map were nearly total. "are those our own nodes, or just friendlies?" alan asked, all his confusion and worry forgotten at the sight of the map. "those are our own," kurt said. "not so many friendlies." he tapped a key and showed a map of the city with a pitiful sprinkling of fellow travelers who'd opened up their networks and renamed them "parasitenet." "you'll have more," buddy said. kurt looked a question at alan. "my brother brent," he said. "meet kurt." they shook. "your brother?" adam nodded. "not one of the missing ones?" he shook his head. "a different one." "it's nice to meet you." kurt wiped off his palms. adam looked around the little private nest at the back of the shop, at the small, meshed-in window on the back wall. danny watched at that window sometimes. "i'm gonna send a screengrab of this to lyman, he'll bust a nut." it made anton smile. lyman and kurt were the unlikeliest of pals, but pals they were. "you do that." "why aren't you wearing shoes?" anton smiled shyly. "no volunteers today?" kurt shrugged, a jingle of chains. "nope. slow day. some days just are. was thinking of seeing a movie or something. wanna come?" "i can't," anton said. "sure," brett said, oblivious to the fact that the invitation hadn't really been directed at him. "i'd like that." "o-kaaay," kurt said. "great. gimme an hour or so and meet me out front." "it's a date." # he was half a block from home when he spotted natalie sitting on her porch, staring at the park. kurt and link were gone. the patio at the greek's was full. he was stood in his bare feet in the middle of kensington market on a busy shopping day, and he had absolutely nowhere to go. nowhere he belonged. he realized that natalie had never put him in touch with her boss at martian signal. barefoot, there wasn't much of anywhere he could go. but he didn't want to be home with mimi and he didn't want to walk past natalie. barefoot, he ended up in the alleyway behind kurt's again, with nowhere else to go. # blake and kurt got back around suppertime, and by then alan had counted every shingle on the roofs of the garages, had carefully snapped the sharps off of two syringes he found in some weeds, and then sat and waited until he was ready to scream. blake walked confidently into the shop, through kurt's nest, and to the back door. he opened it and smiled at adam. "come on in," he said. "right," alan said. "how was the movie?" "it was fine," kurt said. "incredible," burt said. "i mean, *incredible*. god, i haven't been to the movies in ten years at least. so *loud*, jesus, i've never heard anything like that." "it was just a&e," kurt said. "asses and explosions." alan felt a wave of affection for his friend, and an indefinite sadness, a feeling that they were soon to be parted. kurt stretched and cracked his knuckles. "getting time for me to go out diving." "let's go get some dinner, okay?" andy said to brad. "g'night guys," kurt said, locking the door behind them. 	"i'm sorry," she said. there had been five minutes of 	near-silence on the line, only the girl crying in the background 	at his end. she wasn't sure if he'd set the phone down or if he 	was listening, but the "sorry" drew a small audible breath out 	of him. 	"i'm really, really sorry," she said, and her hands felt sticky 	with blood. "god, i just wanted to *save you*." # mimi was back in bed when they got home. alan took a shower and scrubbed at his feet, then padded silently around the shuttered bedroom, dressing in the dark. mimi made a sleepful noise. "i'm making dinner," he said. "want some?" "can you bring it up here?" she said. "yeah, sure," he said. "i just can't face --" she waved a hand at the door, then let it flop back down to the bed. "it's all right, babe," he said. he and brad ate dinner in silence in the kitchen, boiled hot dogs with cheese and sliced baby tomatoes from the garden and lemonade from scratch. bradley ate seven. mimi had three bites out of the one that he brought up to her room, and when he went up to collect her plate, she was asleep and had the covers wrapped snugly around her. he took a spare sheet and a blanket out of the linen closet and brought it downstairs and made up the living room sofa. in moments, he was sleeping. this night, he was keenly aware of what had roused him from sleep. it was a scream, at the back of the house. a scared, drunken scream that was half a roar. he was at the back door in a moment, still scrubbing at his eyes with his fists, and bennett was there already. he opened the door and hit the switch that turned on the garden lights, the back porch lights, the garage lights in the coach house. it was bright enough to dazzle him, but he'd squinted in anticipation. so it only took him a moment to take in the tableau. there was link, on the ground, splayed out and face down, wearing boxer shorts and nothing else, his face in a vegetable bed in the next door yard. there was krishna, standing in the doorway, face grim, holding a hammer and advancing on link. he shouted, something wordless and alarmed, and link rolled over and climbed up to his feet and lurched a few steps deeper into the postage-stamp-sized yard, limping badly. krishna advanced two steps into the yard, hammer held casually at his waist. alan, barefoot, ran to the dividing fence and threw himself at it going up it like a cat, landing hard and painfully, feeling something small and important give in his ankle. krishna nodded cordially at him, then hefted the hammer again. krishna took another step toward alan and then natalie, moving so fast that she was a blur, streaked out of the back door, leaping onto krishna's back. she held there for a minute and he rocked on his heels, but then he swung the hammer back, the claws first. it took her just above her left eye with a sound like an awl punching through leather and her cry was terrible. she let go and fell over backward, holding her face, screaming. but it was enough time, enough distraction, and alan had hold of krishna's wrist. remembering a time a long time ago, he pulled krishna's hand to his face, heedless of the shining hammer, and bit down on the base of his thumb as hard as he could, until krishna loosed the hammer with a shout. it grazed alan's temple and then bounced off his collarbone on the way to the ground, and he was momentarily stunned. and here was link, gasping with each step, left leg useless, but hauling himself forward anyway, big brawny arms reaching for krishna, pasting a hard punch on his cheek and then taking hold of his throat and bearing him down to the ground. alan looked around. benny was still on his side of the fence. mimi's face poked out from around the door. the sound of another hard punch made him look around as link shook the ache out of his knuckles and made to lay another on krishna's face. he had a forearm across his throat, and krishna gasped for breath. "don't," adam said. link looked at him, lip stuck out in belligerence. "stop me," he said. "try it. fucker took a hammer to my *knee*." natalie went to him, her hand over her face. "don't do it," she said. she put a hand on his shoulder. "we'll call the cops." krishna made a choking sound. link eased up on him a little, and he drew a ragged breath. "go ahead and call them," he rasped. alan took a slow step back. "brian, can you bring me the phone, please?" link looked at his sister, blood streaming down her face, at krishna's misshapen nose and mouth, distorted into a pink, meaty sneer. he clenched each fist in turn. "no cops," he said. natalie spat. "why the hell not?" she spat again. blood was running into her eye, down her cheek, into her mouth. "the girl, she's inside. drunk. she's only ." alan watched the brother and sister stare at one another. blaine handed him the phone. he hit a speed dial. "i need a taxi to toronto western hospital at wales avenue, at augusta," he said. he hung up. "go out front," he told natalie. "get a towel for your face on your way." "andrew --" she said. "i'll call the cops," he said. "i'll tell them where to find you." it was as she turned to go that krishna made a lunge for the hammer. billy was already kicking it out of the way, and link, thrown from his chest, got up on one knee and punched him hard in the kidneys, and he went back down. natalie was crying again. "go," alan said, gently. "we'll be okay." she went. link's chest heaved. "i think you need to go to the hospital too, link," alan said. the injured knee was already so swollen that it was visible, like a volleyball, beneath his baggy trousers. "no," link said. "i wait here." "you don't want to be here when the cops arrive," alan said. krishna, face down in the dirt, spat. "he's not going to call any cops," he said. "it's grown-up stuff, little boy. you should run along." absently, link punched him in the back of the head. "shut up," he said. he was breathing more normally now. he shifted and made a squeaking sound. "i just heard the cab pull up," alan said. "brian can help you to the front door. you can keep your sister company, get your knee looked at." "the girl --" he said. "yes. she'll be sober in the morning, and gone. i'll see to it," adam said. "all right?" brian helped him to his feet and toward the door, and andrew stood warily near krishna. "get up," he said. mimi, in his doorway, across the fence, made a sound that was half a moan. krishna lay still for a moment, then slowly struggled to his knees and then his feet. "now what?" krishna said, one hand pressed to his pulped cheek. "i'm not calling the cops," he said. "no," krishna said. "remember what i told you about my brother? i *made him*. i'm stronger than him, krishna. you picked the wrong dracula to renfield for. you are doomed. when you leave him, he will hunt you down. if you don't leave him, i'll get you. you made this situation." billy was back now, in the doorway, holding the hammer. he'd hand it to adam if he asked for it. he could use it. after all, once you've killed your brother, why not kill his renfield, too? krishna looked scared, a little scared. andrew teased at how that felt and realized that it didn't feel like he'd thought it would. it didn't feel good. "go, krishna," he said. "get out of this house and get out of my sight and don't ever come back again. stay away from my brother. you will never profit by your association with him. he is dead. the best he can do for you is make you dead, too. go." and krishna went. slowly. painfully. he stood and hobbled toward the front door. mimi watched him go, and she smiled once he was gone. benny said, "kurt's shop is on fire." # they ran, the two of them, up augusta, leaving mimi behind, wrapped in her blanket. they could smell the smoke as soon as they crossed kensington, and they could see the flames licking out of the dark black clouds just a moment later. the smell was terrible, a roiling chemical reek that burned the skin and the lungs and the eyes. all those electronics, crisping and curling and blackening. "is he in there?" alan said. "yes," barry said. "trapped." "call the fire department," andrew said, and ran for the door, fishing in his pocket for his keys. "call ." he got the door open and left his keys in the lock, pulling his shirt up over his head. he managed a step into the building, two steps, and the heat beat him back. he sucked up air and ran for it again. the heat was incredible, searing. he snorted half a breath and felt the hair inside his nostrils scorch and curl and the burning was nearly intolerable. he dropped down on all fours and tried to peer under the smoke, tried to locate kurt, but he couldn't find him. alan crawled to the back of the store, to kurt's den, sure that his friend would have been back there, worn out from a night's dumpster diving. he took a false turn and found himself up against the refrigerator. the little piece of linoleum that denoted kurt's kitchen was hot and soft under his hands, melting and scorching. he reoriented himself, spinning around slowly, and crawled again. tears were streaming freely down his face, and between them and the smoke, he could barely see. he drew closer to the shop's rear, nearly there, and then he was there, looking for kurt. he found him, leaned up against the emergency door at the back of the shop, fingers jammed into the sliver of a gap between the door's bottom and the ground. alan tried the door's pushbar, but there was something blocking the door from the other side. he tried slapping kurt a couple times, but he would not be roused. his breath came in tiny puffs. alan took his hand, then the other hand, and hoisted his head and neck and shoulders up onto his back and began to crawl for the front door, going as fast as he could in the blaze. he got lost again, and the floor was hot enough to raise blisters. when he emerged with kurt, he heard the sirens. he breathed hard in the night air. as he watched, two fire trucks cleared the corner, going the wrong way down one-way augusta, speeding toward him. he looked at billy. "what?" "is kurt all right?" "sure, he's fine." he thought a moment. "the ambulance man will want to talk with him, he said. "and the tv people, soon. "let's get out of here," brad said. "all right," he said. "now you're talking." though it was only three or four blocks back to adam's place, it took the better part of half an hour, relying on the back alleys and the dark to cover his retreat, hoping that the ambulance drivers and firefighters wouldn't catch him here. having to lug kurt made him especially suspect, and he didn't have a single good explanation for being caught toting around an unconscious punk in the dead of night. "come on, brent," adam said. "let's get home and put this one to bed and you and me have a nice chat." "you don't want me to call an ambulance?" kurt startled at this and his head lolled back, one eye opened a crack. "no," alan said. "no ambulances. no cops. no firemen. just me and him. i'll make him better," he said. the smoke smell was terrible and pervaded everything, no matter which direction the wind blew from. adam was nearly home when he realized that his place and his lover and everything he cared about in the entire world were *also* on fire, which couldn't possibly be a coincidence. # the flames licked his porch and the hot air had blown out two of the windows on the second story. the flames were lapping at the outside of the building, crawling over the inside walls. no coincidence. kurt coughed hard, his chest spasming against alan's back. alan set him down, as in a dream. as in a dream, he picked his way through the flames on his porch and reached for the doorknob. it burned his hand. it was locked. his keys were in kurt's door, all the way up augusta. "around the back," bentley called, headed for the fence gate. alan vaulted the porch rail, crashing though the wild grasses and ornamental scrub. "come on," bentley said. his hand throbbed with the burn. the back yard was still lit up like christmas, all the lights ablaze, shining through the smoke, the ash of books swirling in it, buoyed aloft on hot currents, fragments of words chasing each other like clouds of gnats. "alan," kurt croaked. somehow, he'd followed them back into the yard. "alan." he held out his hand, which glowed blue-white. alan looked closer. it was his pda, stubby wireless card poking out of it. "i'm online. look." alan shook his head. "not now." mimi, somewhere up there was mimi. "look," kurt croaked. he coughed again and went down to his knees. arnos took the pda in hand and peered at it. it was a familiar app, the traffic analysis app, the thing that monitored packet loss between the nodes. lyman and kurt had long since superimposed the logical network map over a physical map of the market, using false-color overlays to show the degree to which the access points were well connected and firing on all cylinders. the map was painted in green, packets flying unimpeded throughout the empty nighttime market. and there, approaching him, moving through the alleys toward his garage, a blob of interference, a slow, bobbing something that was scattering radio waves as it made its way toward him. even on a three-inch screen, he recognized that walk. davey. not a coincidence, the fires. "mimi!" he called. the back window was blown out, crystal slivers of glass all around him on the back lawn. "*mimi!*" billy was at his side, holding something. a knife. the knife. serrated edge. sharp. cracked handle wound with knotted twine, but as he reached for it, it wasn't cracked. it was the under-the-pillow knife, the wings knife, krishna's knife. "you forgot this," he said, taking the pda. then davey was in the yard. he cocked his head and eyed the knife warily. "where'd you get that?" he said. adam shifted his grip for slashing, and took one step forward, stamping his foot down as he did it. davey retreated a step, then took two steps forward. "he set the fires," bentley said. "she's as good as dead. cooked. won't be long now, she'll be cooked." darren looked at him for the first time. "oh, yes," he said. "that's about right. i never found you, no matter how i looked. you don't get found if you don't want to." brent shook his head. "he set the fire, he used gasoline. up the stairs, so it would spread up every floor quickly." aaron growled and lunged forward, slicing wildly, but davey's scurry was surprising and fast and nimble. "you're going to stab me again, cut me again? what do you suppose that will get you?" "he's weaker than he was, then. we got six years, then. he's weaker. we'll get ten years. twenty." billy was hopping from foot to foot. "*do it*." alan sliced and stabbed again, and the knife's point caught danny's little bandy leg, like cutting through a loaf of stale bread, and danny gasped and hopped back another step. "he gave you the knife, didn't he? he gave you the knife last time. last time, he took me to the school yard and showed me you and your girlfriend. he explained all about girlfriends to me and about what it would mean once our secret was out. he taught me the words, taught me to say *pervert*. remember, billy? remember how you taught me?" andrew hesitated. "he taught me the ritual with your thumbtip, how to make the little you, and then he took it away from me for safekeeping. he kept it in one of his rabbit cages, around on the other side of the mountain. it's not there now. have you seen it? does he still have it? "he never liked having a little brother, not me or the others, but he liked having that little thing around to torture." billy hissed. "she'll be dead in minutes," he said. "in seconds. another one dead. his doing! "killed her, cut her up, buried her," benny chanted. "sliced her open and cut her up," he shrilled. alan let the knife fall from his hands. benny leapt for danny, hands outstretched. danny braced for the impact, rolled with him, and came up on top of him, small hands in benny's eyes, grinding. there were sirens out front now, lots of sirens. a distant crash, and a rain of glass fell about his shoulders. he turned and looked up, looked up into the dormer window of his attic, four stories up. mimi's head poked out from the window, wreathed in smoke, her face smudged and eyes screwed up. "mimi!" he cried. she climbed unsteadily onto the windowsill, perched there for a moment. then she leaned forward, ducked her head, and slipped into the sky. her magnificent wings unfolded in the smoke, in the hot ash, in the smoldering remains of all of alan's life in human society. her magnificent wings unfolded and caught the air with a sound he heard and with a downdraft of warm air that blew his hair off his forehead like a lover's hand, smoky smell and spicy smell. she flew. the sirens grew louder and she swooped over the yard. she gave two powerful beats of her wings and rose higher than the roof, then she circled the yard in great loops, coming lower and lower with each pass. davey and benny watched her. kurt watched her. alan watched her. she was coming straight for him. he held out his arms and she fell into them, enfolding them both in her wings, her great and glorious wings. "come on," she said. kurt was already limping for the alley. benny and david had already melted away. they were alone in the yard, and the sirens were so loud now, and there were the reflections of emergency lights bouncing off the smoke around them. "come on," she said, and she put her arms around his waist, locking her wrists. it took five beats of her wings to get them aloft, and they barely cleared the fence, but they banked low over the alley and she beat her wings again and then they were gaining altitude, catching an updraft from the burning house on wales avenue, rising so high into the sky that he felt like they would fly to the moon. # the day that lyman and kurt were on the cover of now magazine, they dropped by martian signal to meet with natalie's boss. lyman carried the pitch package, color-matched, polyethnic, edgy and cool, with great copy. natalie met them. she'd grown out her hair and wore it with bangs hanging over the scar on her forehead, just over her left eye, two punctures with little dents. three surgeries had cleared all the bone fragments from the orbit of that eye, and she'd kept her sight. once she was out of the hospital, she quickly became the best employee martian signal had ever had. she quickly became manager. she quickly undertook to make several improvements in the daily operations of the store that increased turnover by percent. she slowly and reluctantly hired her brother, but his gimpy knee made it hard for him to bend down to reshelve, and he quickly quit. kurt and natalie hugged, and lyman formally shook her hand, and then shook her boss's hand. it took less than an hour to convince her boss to let them put up their access point. on the way back, three different people stopped them and told them how much they liked the article, and swore that the first thing they'd do when they got home would be to open up their networks and rename them parasitenet. lyman handled the thank-you's for this, and kurt smiled and fiddled with his pda and watched the sky, looking for a girl with wings as wide as a house. # i went to the house, (she said, as he tended the fire, turning the yams in the coals and stirring the pot in which his fish stew bubbled) i went to the house, (she said, resting up from the long flight she'd flown from toronto to craig's distant, warm shores, far away from kensington market and krishna and billy and danny) i went to the house, (she said, and andy worked hard to keep the grin off his face, for he'd been miserable during her long absence and now he could scarcely contain his delight) i went to the house, and there was no one home. i had the address you'd given me, and it was just like you'd described it to me, down to the basketball hoop in the driveway. it was empty. but it was as i'd remembered it. they'd lived there. i'd lived there. you were right, that was the house. that was the house i'd lived in. i rang the doorbell, then i peeked in through a crack in the blinds. the rooms were empty. no furniture. just blinds. it was night, and no one was looking, so i flew up to the third floor, to the window i'd stared out all those times. the window was unlatched, and i slid aside the screen and let myself in. the room was empty. no carpet. no frilly bed and stuffed animals. no desk. no clothes in the closet, no hangers. the only thing in the room was a small box, plugged into the wall, with a network cable snaking away into the phone jack. it had small lights on it, blinking. it was like the one you'd had in your attic. a wireless access point. i remembered their names, then. oliver and patricia. they'd been my mother and father for a few years. set me up with my first apartment. this had been their house. i slept there that day, then, come nightfall, i set out again to come home to you. # something woke andy from his sound sleep, nestled in her wings, in her arms. a tread on craig's inviolable soil, someone afoot on his brother. slowly, he got himself loose of mimi and sat up and looked around. the golem standing before him was small, and its eyes glowed red. it bent over and set something down on the earth, a fur-wrapped bundle of smoked meat. it nodded at him. he nodded back. "thank you," he said. mimi put her hand on his calf. "is it okay?" "it's right," he said. "just as it was meant to be." he returned to her arms and they kissed. "no falling in love," she said. "perish the thought," he said. she bit his lip and he bit hers and they kissed again, and then he was asleep, and at peace. === bio === canadian-born cory doctorow (craphound.com) is the european affairs coordinator for the electronic frontier foundation (eff.org). he is the coeditor of the popular weblog boing boing -- boingboing.net -- with millions of visitors every month. he won the john w. campbell award for best new writer at the hugo awards and his novel down and out in the magic kingdom (http://craphound.com/down/) won the locus award for best first novel the same year that his short story collection a place so foreign and eight more (http://craphound.com/place/) won the sunburst award for best canadian science fiction book. his other books include eastern standard tribe (http://craphound.com/est/) and rapture of the nerds (with charles stross). join my mailing list for infrequent notices of books, articles, stories and appearances. http://www.ctyme.com/mailman/listinfo/doctorow ========================= machine-readable metadata ========================= <rdf:rdf xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/ . /" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w .org/ / / -rdf-syntax-ns#"> <work rdf:about="http://craphound.com/someone"> <dc:title>someone comes to town, someone leaves town</dc:title> <dc:date> - - </dc:date> <dc:description>a novel by cory doctorow </dc:description> <dc:creator><agent> <dc:title>cory doctorow</dc:title> </agent></dc:creator> <dc:rights><agent> <dc:title>cory doctorow</dc:title> </agent></dc:rights> <dc:type rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/text" /> <license rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/ . " /> </work> <license rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/ . "> <requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/attribution" /> <permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/reproduction" /> <permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/distribution" /> <prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/commercialuse" /> <requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/notice" /> </license> <rdf:rdf xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w .org/ / / -rdf-syntax-ns#"> <license rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/devnations/ . /"> <permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/reproduction" /> <permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/distribution" /> <requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/notice" /> <requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/attribution" /> <permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/derivativeworks" /> <prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/highincomenationuse" /> </license> </rdf:rdf> eof part a zen and the art of the internet copyright (c) brendan p. kehoe permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this guide provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this booklet under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this booklet into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the author. zen and the art of the internet a beginner's guide to the internet first edition january by brendan p. kehoe this is revision . of february , . copyright (c) brendan p. kehoe the composition of this booklet was originally started because the computer science department at widener university was in desperate need of documentation describing the capabilities of this "great new internet link" we obtained. it's since grown into an effort to acquaint the reader with much of what's currently available over the internet. aimed at the novice user, it attempts to remain operating system "neutral"---little information herein is specific to unix, vms, or any other environment. this booklet will, hopefully, be usable by nearly anyone. a user's session is usually offset from the rest of the paragraph, as such: prompt> command the results are usually displayed here. the purpose of this booklet is two-fold: first, it's intended to serve as a reference piece, which someone can easily grab on the fly and look something up. also, it forms a foundation from which people can explore the vast expanse of the internet. zen and the art of the internet doesn't spend a significant amount of time on any one point; rather, it provides enough for people to learn the specifics of what his or her local system offers. one warning is perhaps in order---this territory we are entering can become a fantastic time-sink. hours can slip by, people can come and go, and you'll be locked into cyberspace. remember to do your work! with that, i welcome you, the new user, to the net. brendan@cs.widener.edu chester, pa acknowledgements certain sections in this booklet are not my original work---rather, they are derived from documents that were available on the internet and already aptly stated their areas of concentration. the chapter on usenet is, in large part, made up of what's posted monthly to news.announce.newusers, with some editing and rewriting. also, the main section on archie was derived from whatis.archie by peter deutsch of the mcgill university computing centre. it's available via anonymous ftp from archie.mcgill.ca. much of what's in the telnet section came from an impressive introductory document put together by suranet. some definitions in the one are from an excellent glossary put together by colorado state university. this guide would not be the same without the aid of many people on the net, and the providers of resources that are already out there. i'd like to thank the folks who gave this a read-through and returned some excellent comments, suggestions, and criticisms, and those who provided much-needed information on the fly. glee willis deserves particular mention for all of his work; this guide would have been considerably less polished without his help. andy blankenbiller <rablanke@crdec .apgea.army.mil> andy blankenbiller, army at aberdeen bajan@cs.mcgill.ca alan emtage, mcgill university computer science department brian fitzgerald <fitz@mml .meche.rpi.edu> brian fitzgerald, rensselaer polytechnic institute john goetsch <ccjg@hippo.ru.ac.za> john goetsch, rhodes university, south africa composer@chem.bu.edu jeff kellem, boston university's chemistry department kraussw@moravian.edu bill krauss, moravian college steve lodin <deaes!swlodin@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> steve lodin, delco electronics mike nesel <nesel@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov> mike nesel, nasa bob <neveln@cs.widener.edu> bob neveln, widener university computer science department wamapi@dunkin.cc.mcgill.ca (wanda pierce) wanda pierce, mcgill university computing centre joshua.r.poulson@cyber.widener.edu joshua poulson, widener university computing services de @ornl.gov dave sill, oak ridge national laboratory bsmart@bsmart.tti.com bob smart, citicorp/tti emv@msen.com ed vielmetti, vice president of msen craig e. ward <cew@venera.isi.edu> craig ward, usc/information sciences institute (isi) glee willis <willis@unssun.nevada.edu> glee willis, university of nevada, reno charles yamasaki <chip@oshcomm.osha.gov> chip yamasaki, osha network basics we are truly in an information society. now more than ever, moving vast amounts of information quickly across great distances is one of our most pressing needs. from small one-person entrepreneurial efforts, to the largest of corporations, more and more professional people are discovering that the only way to be successful in the ' s and beyond is to realize that technology is advancing at a break-neck pace---and they must somehow keep up. likewise, researchers from all corners of the earth are finding that their work thrives in a networked environment. immediate access to the work of colleagues and a "virtual" library of millions of volumes and thousands of papers affords them the ability to encorporate a body of knowledge heretofore unthinkable. work groups can now conduct interactive conferences with each other, paying no heed to physical location---the possibilities are endless. you have at your fingertips the ability to talk in "real-time" with someone in japan, send a , -word short story to a group of people who will critique it for the sheer pleasure of doing so, see if a macintosh sitting in a lab in canada is turned on, and find out if someone happens to be sitting in front of their computer (logged on) in australia, all inside of thirty minutes. no airline (or tardis, for that matter) could ever match that travel itinerary. the largest problem people face when first using a network is grasping all that's available. even seasoned users find themselves surprised when they discover a new service or feature that they'd never known even existed. once acquainted with the terminology and sufficiently comfortable with making occasional mistakes, the learning process will drastically speed up. domains getting where you want to go can often be one of the more difficult aspects of using networks. the variety of ways that places are named will probably leave a blank stare on your face at first. don't fret; there is a method to this apparent madness. if someone were to ask for a home address, they would probably expect a street, apartment, city, state, and zip code. that's all the information the post office needs to deliver mail in a reasonably speedy fashion. likewise, computer addresses have a structure to them. the general form is: a person's email address on a computer: user@somewhere.domain a computer's name: somewhere.domain the user portion is usually the person's account name on the system, though it doesn't have to be. somewhere.domain tells you the name of a system or location, and what kind of organization it is. the trailing domain is often one of the following: com usually a company or other commercial institution or organization, like convex computers (convex.com). edu an educational institution, e.g. new york university, named nyu.edu. gov a government site; for example, nasa is nasa.gov. mil a military site, like the air force (af.mil). net gateways and other administrative hosts for a network (it does not mean all of the hosts in a network). {the matrix, . one such gateway is near.net.} org this is a domain reserved for private organizations, who don't comfortably fit in the other classes of domains. one example is the electronic frontier foundation named eff.org. each country also has its own top-level domain. for example, the us domain includes each of the fifty states. other countries represented with domains include: au australia ca canada fr france uk the united kingdom. these also have sub-domains of things like ac.uk for academic sites and co.uk for commercial ones. fqdn (fully qualified domain name) the proper terminology for a site's domain name (somewhere.domain above) is its fully qualified domain name (fqdn). it is usually selected to give a clear indication of the site's organization or sponsoring agent. for example, the massachusetts institute of technology's fqdn is mit.edu; similarly, apple computer's domain name is apple.com. while such obvious names are usually the norm, there are the occasional exceptions that are ambiguous enough to mislead---like vt.edu, which on first impulse one might surmise is an educational institution of some sort in vermont; not so. it's actually the domain name for virginia tech. in most cases it's relatively easy to glean the meaning of a domain name---such confusion is far from the norm. internet numbers every single machine on the internet has a unique address, {at least one address, possibly two or even three---but we won't go into that.} called its internet number or ip address. it's actually a -bit number, but is most commonly represented as four numbers joined by periods (.), like . . . . this is sometimes also called a dotted quad; there are literally thousands of different possible dotted quads. the arpanet (the mother to today's internet) originally only had the capacity to have up to systems on it because of the way each system was addressed. in the early eighties, it became clear that things would fast outgrow such a small limit; the -bit addressing method was born, freeing thousands of host numbers. each piece of an internet address (like ) is called an "octet," representing one of four sets of eight bits. the first two or three pieces (e.g. . . ) represent the network that a system is on, called its subnet. for example, all of the computers for wesleyan university are in the subnet . . they can have numbers like . . . , . . . , up to thousand possible combinations (possible computers). ip addresses and domain names aren't assigned arbitrarily---that would lead to unbelievable confusion. an application must be filed with the network information center (nic), either electronically (to hostmaster@nic.ddn.mil) or via regular mail. resolving names and numbers ok, computers can be referred to by either their fqdn or their internet address. how can one user be expected to remember them all? they aren't. the internet is designed so that one can use either method. since humans find it much more natural to deal with words than numbers in most cases, the fqdn for each host is mapped to its internet number. each domain is served by a computer within that domain, which provides all of the necessary information to go from a domain name to an ip address, and vice-versa. for example, when someone refers to foosun.bar.com, the resolver knows that it should ask the system foovax.bar.com about systems in bar.com. it asks what internet address foosun.bar.com has; if the name foosun.bar.com really exists, foovax will send back its number. all of this "magic" happens behind the scenes. rarely will a user have to remember the internet number of a site (although often you'll catch yourself remembering an apparently obscure number, simply because you've accessed the system frequently). however, you will remember a substantial number of fqdns. it will eventually reach a point when you are able to make a reasonably accurate guess at what domain name a certain college, university, or company might have, given just their name. the networks internet the internet is a large "network of networks." there is no one network known as the internet; rather, regional nets like suranet, prepnet, nearnet, et al., are all inter-connected (nay, "inter-networked") together into one great living thing, communicating at amazing speeds with the tcp/ip protocol. all activity takes place in "real-time." uucp the uucp network is a loose association of systems all communicating with the uucp protocol. (uucp stands for `unix-to-unix copy program'.) it's based on two systems connecting to each other at specified intervals, called polling, and executing any work scheduled for either of them. historically most uucp was done with unix equipment, although the software's since been implemented on other platforms (e.g. vms). for example, the system oregano polls the system basil once every two hours. if there's any mail waiting for oregano, basil will send it at that time; likewise, oregano will at that time send any jobs waiting for basil. bitnet bitnet (the "because it's time network") is comprised of systems connected by point-to-point links, all running the nje protocol. it's continued to grow, but has found itself suffering at the hands of the falling costs of internet connections. also, a number of mail gateways are in place to reach users on other networks. the physical connection the actual connections between the various networks take a variety of forms. the most prevalent for internet links are k leased lines (dedicated telephone lines carrying kilobit-per-second connections) and t links (special phone lines with mbps connections). also installed are t links, acting as backbones between major locations to carry a massive mbps load of traffic. these links are paid for by each institution to a local carrier (for example, bell atlantic owns prepnet, the main provider in pennsylvania). also available are slip connections, which carry internet traffic (packets) over high-speed modems. uucp links are made with modems (for the most part), that run from baud all the way up to as high as . kbps. as was mentioned in the networks, the connections are of the store-and-forward variety. also in use are internet-based uucp links (as if things weren't already confusing enough!). the systems do their uucp traffic over tcp/ip connections, which give the uucp-based network some blindingly fast "hops," resulting in better connectivity for the network as a whole. uucp connections first became popular in the 's, and have remained in wide-spread use ever since. only with uucp can joe smith correspond with someone across the country or around the world, for the price of a local telephone call. bitnet links mostly take the form of bps modems connected from site to site. often places have three or more links going; the majority, however, look to "upstream" sites for their sole link to the network. "the glory and the nothing of a name" byron, {churchill's grave} ----------- electronic mail the desire to communicate is the essence of networking. people have always wanted to correspond with each other in the fastest way possible, short of normal conversation. electronic mail (or email) is the most prevalent application of this in computer networking. it allows people to write back and forth without having to spend much time worrying about how the message actually gets delivered. as technology grows closer and closer to being a common part of daily life, the need to understand the many ways it can be utilized and how it works, at least to some level, is vital. part of daily life (as has been evidenced by the isdn effort, the need to understand the many ways it can be utilized and how it works, at least to some level, is vital. email addresses electronic mail is hinged around the concept of an address; the section on networking basics made some reference to it while introducing domains. your email address provides all of the information required to get a message to you from anywhere in the world. an address doesn't necessarily have to go to a human being. it could be an archive server, {see archive servers, for a description.} a list of people, or even someone's pocket pager. these cases are the exception to the norm---mail to most addresses is read by human beings. %@!.: symbolic cacophony email addresses usually appear in one of two forms---using the internet format which contains @, an "at"-sign, or using the uucp format which contains !, an exclamation point, also called a "bang." the latter of the two, uucp "bang" paths, is more restrictive, yet more clearly dictates how the mail will travel. to reach jim morrison on the system south.america.org, one would address the mail as jm@south.america.org. but if jim's account was on a uucp site named brazil, then his address would be brazil!jm. if it's possible (and one exists), try to use the internet form of an address; bang paths can fail if an intermediate site in the path happens to be down. there is a growing trend for uucp sites to register internet domain names, to help alleviate the problem of path failures. another symbol that enters the fray is %---it acts as an extra "routing" method. for example, if the uucp site dream is connected to south.america.org, but doesn't have an internet domain name of its own, a user debbie on dream can be reached by writing to the address not smallexample! debbie%dream@south.america.org the form is significant. this address says that the local system should first send the mail to south.america.org. there the address debbie%dream will turn into debbie@dream, which will hopefully be a valid address. then south.america.org will handle getting the mail to the host dream, where it will be delivered locally to debbie. all of the intricacies of email addressing methods are fully covered in the book "!%@@:: a directory of electronic mail addressing and networks" published by o'reilly and associates, as part of their nutshell handbook series. it is a must for any active email user. write to nuts@ora.com for ordering information. sending and receiving mail we'll make one quick diversion from being os-neuter here, to show you what it will look like to send and receive a mail message on a unix system. check with your system administrator for specific instructions related to mail at your site. a person sending the author mail would probably do something like this: % mail brendan@cs.widener.edu subject: print job's stuck i typed `print babe.gif' and it didn't work! why?? the next time the author checked his mail, he would see it listed in his mailbox as: % mail "/usr/spool/mail/brendan": messages new unread u joeuser@foo.widene tue may : / print job's stuck ? which gives information on the sender of the email, when it was sent, and the subject of the message. he would probably use the reply command of unix mail to send this response: ? r to: joeuser@@foo.widener.edu subject: re: print job's stuck you shouldn't print binary files like gifs to a printer! brendan try sending yourself mail a few times, to get used to your system's mailer. it'll save a lot of wasted aspirin for both you and your system administrator. anatomy of a mail header an electronic mail message has a specific structure to it that's common across every type of computer system. {the standard is written down in rfc- . see also rfcs for more info on how to get copies of the various rfcs.} a sample would be: >from bush@hq.mil sat may : : received: from hq.mil by house.gov with smtp id aa ( . /smi for dan@house.gov); sat, may : : - date: sat, may : : - from: the president <bush@hq.mil> message-id: < .aa @hq.mil> to: dan@senate.gov subject: meeting hi dan .. we have a meeting at : a.m. with the joint chiefs. please don't oversleep this time. the first line, with from and the two lines for received: are usually not very interesting. they give the "real" address that the mail is coming from (as opposed to the address you should reply to, which may look much different), and what places the mail went through to get to you. over the internet, there is always at least one received: header and usually no more than four or five. when a message is sent using uucp, one received: header is added for each system that the mail passes through. this can often result in more than a dozen received: headers. while they help with dissecting problems in mail delivery, odds are the average user will never want to see them. most mail programs will filter out this kind of "cruft" in a header. the date: header contains the date and time the message was sent. likewise, the "good" address (as opposed to "real" address) is laid out in the from: header. sometimes it won't include the full name of the person (in this case the president), and may look different, but it should always contain an email address of some form. the message-id: of a message is intended mainly for tracing mail routing, and is rarely of interest to normal users. every message-id: is guaranteed to be unique. to: lists the email address (or addresses) of the recipients of the message. there may be a cc: header, listing additional addresses. finally, a brief subject for the message goes in the subject: header. the exact order of a message's headers may vary from system to system, but it will always include these fundamental headers that are vital to proper delivery. bounced mail when an email address is incorrect in some way (the system's name is wrong, the domain doesn't exist, whatever), the mail system will bounce the message back to the sender, much the same way that the postal service does when you send a letter to a bad street address. the message will include the reason for the bounce; a common error is addressing mail to an account name that doesn't exist. for example, writing to lisa simpson at widener university's computer science department will fail, because she doesn't have an account. {though if she asked, we'd certainly give her one.} from: mail delivery subsystem <mailer-daemon> date: sat, may : : - to: mg@gracie.com cc: postmaster@cs.widener.edu subject: returned mail: user unknown ----- transcript of session follows ----- while talking to cs.widener.edu: >>> rcpt to:<lsimpson@cs.widener.edu> <<< <lsimpson@cs.widener.edu>... user unknown lsimpson... user unknown as you can see, a carbon copy of the message (the cc: header entry) was sent to the postmaster of widener's cs department. the postmaster is responsible for maintaining a reliable mail system on his system. usually postmasters at sites will attempt to aid you in getting your mail where it's supposed to go. if a typing error was made, then try re-sending the message. if you're sure that the address is correct, contact the postmaster of the site directly and ask him how to properly address it. the message also includes the text of the mail, so you don't have to retype everything you wrote. ----- unsent message follows ----- received: by cs.widener.edu id aa ; sat, may : : - date: sat, may : : - from: matt groening <mg@gracie.com> message-id: < .aa @gracie.com> to: lsimpson@cs.widener.edu subject: scripting your future episodes reply-to: writing-group@gracie.com .... verbiage ... the full text of the message is returned intact, including any headers that were added. this can be cut out with an editor and fed right back into the mail system with a proper address, making redelivery a relatively painless process. mailing lists people that share common interests are inclined to discuss their hobby or interest at every available opportunity. one modern way to aid in this exchange of information is by using a mailing list---usually an email address that redistributes all mail sent to it back out to a list of addresses. for example, the sun managers mailing list (of interest to people that administer computers manufactured by sun) has the address sun-managers@eecs.nwu.edu. any mail sent to that address will "explode" out to each person named in a file maintained on a computer at northwestern university. administrative tasks (sometimes referred to as administrivia) are often handled through other addresses, typically with the suffix -request. to continue the above, a request to be added to or deleted from the sun managers list should be sent to sun-managers-request@eecs.nwu.edu. when in doubt, try to write to the -request version of a mailing list address first; the other people on the list aren't interested in your desire to be added or deleted, and can certainly do nothing to expedite your request. often if the administrator of a list is busy (remember, this is all peripheral to real jobs and real work), many users find it necessary to ask again and again, often with harsher and harsher language, to be removed from a list. this does nothing more than waste traffic and bother everyone else receiving the messages. if, after a reasonable amount of time, you still haven't succeeded to be removed from a mailing list, write to the postmaster at that site and see if they can help. exercise caution when replying to a message sent by a mailing list. if you wish to respond to the author only, make sure that the only address you're replying to is that person, and not the entire list. often messages of the sort "yes, i agree with you completely!" will appear on a list, boring the daylights out of the other readers. likewise, if you explicitly do want to send the message to the whole list, you'll save yourself some time by checking to make sure it's indeed headed to the whole list and not a single person. a list of the currently available mailing lists is available in at least two places; the first is in a file on ftp.nisc.sri.com called interest-groups under the netinfo/ directory. it's updated fairly regularly, but is large (presently around k), so only get it every once in a while. the other list is maintained by gene spafford (spaf@cs.purdue.edu), and is posted in parts to the newsgroup news.lists semi-regularly. (usenet news, for info on how to read that and other newsgroups.) listservs on bitnet there's an automated system for maintaining discussion lists called the listserv. rather than have an already harried and overworked human take care of additions and removals from a list, a program performs these and other tasks by responding to a set of user-driven commands. areas of interest are wide and varied---ethics-l deals with ethics in computing, while adnd-l has to do with a role-playing game. a full list of the available bitnet lists can be obtained by writing to listserv@bitnic.bitnet with a body containing the command list global however, be sparing in your use of this---see if it's already on your system somewhere. the reply is quite large. the most fundamental command is subscribe. it will tell the listserv to add the sender to a specific list. the usage is subscribe foo-l your real name it will respond with a message either saying that you've been added to the list, or that the request has been passed on to the system on which the list is actually maintained. the mate to subscribe is, naturally, unsubscribe. it will remove a given address from a bitnet list. it, along with all other listserv commands, can be abbreviated---subscribe as sub, unsubscribe as unsub, etc. for a full list of the available listserv commands, write to listserv@bitnic.bitnet, giving it the command help. as an aside, there have been implementations of the listserv system for non-bitnet hosts (more specifically, unix systems). one of the most complete is available on cs.bu.edu in the directory pub/listserv. "i made this letter longer than usual because i lack the time to make it shorter." pascal, provincial letters xvi -------------- anonymous ftp ftp (file transfer protocol) is the primary method of transferring files over the internet. on many systems, it's also the name of the program that implements the protocol. given proper permission, it's possible to copy a file from a computer in south africa to one in los angeles at very fast speeds (on the order of -- k per second). this normally requires either a user id on both systems or a special configuration set up by the system administrator(s). there is a good way around this restriction---the anonymous ftp service. it essentially will let anyone in the world have access to a certain area of disk space in a non-threatening way. with this, people can make files publicly available with little hassle. some systems have dedicated entire disks or even entire computers to maintaining extensive archives of source code and information. they include gatekeeper.dec.com (digital), wuarchive.wustl.edu (washington university in saint louis), and archive.cis.ohio-state.edu (the ohio state university). the process involves the "foreign" user (someone not on the system itself) creating an ftp connection and logging into the system as the user anonymous, with an arbitrary password: name (foo.site.com:you): anonymous password: jm@south.america.org custom and netiquette dictate that people respond to the password: query with an email address so that the sites can track the level of ftp usage, if they desire. (addresses for information on email addresses). the speed of the transfer depends on the speed of the underlying link. a site that has a bps slip connection will not get the same throughput as a system with a k leased line (the physical connection, for more on what kinds of connections can exist in a network). also, the traffic of all other users on that link will affect performance. if there are thirty people all ftping from one site simultaneously, the load on the system (in addition to the network connection) will degrade the overall throughput of the transfer. ftp etiquette lest we forget, the internet is there for people to do work. people using the network and the systems on it are doing so for a purpose, whether it be research, development, whatever. any heavy activity takes away from the overall performance of the network as a whole. the effects of an ftp connection on a site and its link can vary; the general rule of thumb is that any extra traffic created detracts from the ability of that site's users to perform their tasks. to help be considerate of this, it's highly recommended that ftp sessions be held only after normal business hours for that site, preferably late at night. the possible effects of a large transfer will be less destructive at a.m. than p.m. also, remember that if it's past dinner time in maine, it's still early afternoon in california---think in terms of the current time at the site that's being visited, not of local time. basic commands while there have been many extensions to the various ftp clients out there, there is a de facto "standard" set that everyone expects to work. for more specific information, read the manual for your specific ftp program. this section will only skim the bare minimum of commands needed to operate an ftp session. creating the connection the actual command to use ftp will vary among operating systems; for the sake of clarity, we'll use ftp here, since it's the most general form. there are two ways to connect to a system---using its hostname or its internet number. using the hostname is usually preferred. however, some sites aren't able to resolve hostnames properly, and have no alternative. we'll assume you're able to use hostnames for simplicity's sake. the form is ftp somewhere.domain domains for help with reading and using domain names (in the example below, somewhere.domain is ftp.uu.net). you must first know the name of the system you want to connect to. we'll use ftp.uu.net as an example. on your system, type: ftp ftp.uu.net (the actual syntax will vary depending on the type of system the connection's being made from). it will pause momentarily then respond with the message connected to ftp.uu.net. and an initial prompt will appear: uunet ftp server (version . mon feb : : est ) ready. name (ftp.uu.net:jm): to which you should respond with anonymous: uunet ftp server (version . mon feb : : est ) ready. name (ftp.uu.net:jm): anonymous the system will then prompt you for a password; as noted previously, a good response is your email address: guest login ok, send ident as password. password: jm@south.america.org guest login ok, access restrictions apply. ftp> the password itself will not echo. this is to protect a user's security when he or she is using a real account to ftp files between machines. once you reach the ftp> prompt, you know you're logged in and ready to go. notice the ftp.uu.net:joe in the name: prompt? that's another clue that anonymous ftp is special: ftp expects a normal user accounts to be used for transfers. dir at the ftp> prompt, you can type a number of commands to perform various functions. one example is dir---it will list the files in the current directory. continuing the example from above: ftp> dir port command successful. opening ascii mode data connection for /bin/ls. total drwxr-xr-x nov .forward -rw-rw-r-- jun .hushlogin drwxrwxr-x jun census drwxrwxr-x jan : clarinet ... etc etc ... -rw-rw-r-- may : newthisweek.z ... etc etc ... -rw-rw-r-- may : uumap.tar.z drwxrwxr-x may : uunet-info transfer complete. bytes received in . seconds ( . kbytes/s) ftp> the file newthisweek.z was specifically included because we'll be using it later. just for general information, it happens to be a listing of all of the files added to uunet's archives during the past week. the directory shown is on a machine running the unix operating system---the dir command will produce different results on other operating systems (e.g. tops, vms, et al.). learning to recognize different formats will take some time. after a few weeks of traversing the internet, it proves easier to see, for example, how large a file is on an operating system you're otherwise not acquainted with. with many ftp implementations, it's also possible to take the output of dir and put it into a file on the local system with ftp> dir n* outfilename the contents of which can then be read outside of the live ftp connection; this is particularly useful for systems with very long directories (like ftp.uu.net). the above example would put the names of every file that begins with an n into the local file outfilename. cd at the beginning of an ftp session, the user is in a "top-level" directory. most things are in directories below it (e.g. /pub). to change the current directory, one uses the cd command. to change to the directory pub, for example, one would type ftp> cd pub which would elicit the response cwd command successful. meaning the "change working directory" command (cd) worked properly. moving "up" a directory is more system-specific---in unix use the command cd .., and in vms, cd [-]. get and put the actual transfer is performed with the get and put commands. to get a file from the remote computer to the local system, the command takes the form: ftp> get filename where filename is the file on the remote system. again using ftp.uu.net as an example, the file newthisweek.z can be retrieved with ftp> get newthisweek.z port command successful. opening ascii mode data connection for newthisweek.z ( bytes). transfer complete. local: newthisweek.z remote: newthisweek.z bytes received in . seconds ( kbytes/s) ftp> the section below on using binary mode instead of ascii will describe why this particular choice will result in a corrupt and subsequently unusable file. if, for some reason, you want to save a file under a different name (e.g. your system can only have -character filenames, or can only have one dot in the name), you can specify what the local filename should be by providing get with an additional argument ftp> get newthisweek.z uunet-new which will place the contents of the file newthisweek.z in uunet-new on the local system. the transfer works the other way, too. the put command will transfer a file from the local system to the remote system. if the permissions are set up for an ftp session to write to a remote directory, a file can be sent with ftp> put filename as with get, put will take a third argument, letting you specify a different name for the file on the remote system. ascii vs binary in the example above, the file newthisweek.z was transferred, but supposedly not correctly. the reason is this: in a normal ascii transfer (the default), certain characters are translated between systems, to help make text files more readable. however, when binary files (those containing non-ascii characters) are transferred, this translation should not take place. one example is a binary program---a few changed characters can render it completely useless. to avoid this problem, it's possible to be in one of two modes---ascii or binary. in binary mode, the file isn't translated in any way. what's on the remote system is precisely what's received. the commands to go between the two modes are: ftp> ascii type set to a. (note the a, which signifies ascii mode.) ftp> binary type set to i. (set to image format, for pure binary transfers.) note that each command need only be done once to take effect; if the user types binary, all transfers in that session are done in binary mode (that is, unless ascii is typed later). the transfer of newthisweek.z will work if done as: ftp> binary type set to i. ftp> get newthisweek.z port command successful. opening binary mode data connection for newthisweek.z ( bytes). transfer complete. local: newthisweek.z remote: newthisweek.z bytes received in . seconds ( . kbytes/s) note: the file size ( ) is different from that done in ascii mode ( ) bytes; and the number matches the one in the listing of uunet's top directory. we can be relatively sure that we've received the file without any problems. mget and mput the commands mget and mput allow for multiple file transfers using wildcards to get several files, or a whole set of files at once, rather than having to do it manually one by one. for example, to get all files that begin with the letter f, one would type ftp> mget f* similarly, to put all of the local files that end with .c: ftp> mput *.c rather than reiterate what's been written a hundred times before, consult a local manual for more information on wildcard matching (every dos manual, for example, has a section on it). normally, ftp assumes a user wants to be prompted for every file in a mget or mput operation. you'll often need to get a whole set of files and not have each of them confirmed---you know they're all right. in that case, use the prompt command to turn the queries off. ftp> prompt interactive mode off. likewise, to turn it back on, the prompt command should simply be issued again. joe granrose's list monthly, joe granrose (odin@pilot.njin.net) posts to usenet (usenet news) an extensive list of sites offering anonymous ftp service. it's available in a number of ways: the usenet groups comp.misc and comp.sources.wanted anonymous ftp from pilot.njin.net [ . . . ], in /pub/ftp-list. write to odin@pilot.njin.net with a subject: line of listserv-request and a message body of send help. please don't bother joe with your requests---the server will provide you with the list. the archie server archie is always in lowercase a group of people at mcgill university in canada got together and created a query system called archie. it was originally formed to be a quick and easy way to scan the offerings of the many anonymous ftp sites that are maintained around the world. as time progressed, archie grew to include other valuable services as well. the archie service is accessible through an interactive telnet session, email queries, and command-line and x-window clients. the email responses can be used along with ftpmail servers for those not on the internet. (ftp-by-mail servers, for info on using ftpmail servers.) using archie today currently, archie tracks the contents of over anonymous ftp archive sites containing over a million files stored across the internet. collectively, these files represent well over gigabytes of information, with new entries being added daily. the archie server automatically updates the listing information from each site about once a month. this avoids constantly updating the databases, which could waste network resources, yet ensures that the information on each site's holdings is reasonably up to date. to access archie interactively, telnet to one of the existing servers. {see telnet, for notes on using the telnet program.} they include archie.ans.net (new york, usa) archie.rutgers.edu (new jersey, usa) archie.sura.net (maryland, usa) archie.unl.edu (nebraska, usa) archie.mcgill.ca (the first archie server, in canada) archie.funet.fi (finland) archie.au (australia) archie.doc.ic.ac.uk (great britain) at the login: prompt of one of the servers, enter archie to log in. a greeting will be displayed, detailing information about ongoing work in the archie project; the user will be left at a archie> prompt, at which he may enter commands. using help will yield instructions on using the prog command to make queries, set to control various aspects of the server's operation, et al. type quit at the prompt to leave archie. typing the query prog vine.tar.z will yield a list of the systems that offer the source to the x-windows program vine; a piece of the information returned looks like: host ftp.uu.net ( . . . ) last updated : jan location: /packages/x/contrib file rw-r--r-- oct : vine.tar.z host nic.funet.fi ( . . . ) last updated : jan location: /pub/x /contrib file rw-rw-r-- nov : vine.tar.z archie clients there are two main-stream archie clients, one called (naturally enough) archie, the other xarchie (for x-windows). they query the archie databases and yield a list of systems that have the requested file(s) available for anonymous ftp, without requiring an interactive session to the server. for example, to find the same information you tried with the server command prog, you could type % archie vine.tar.z host athene.uni-paderborn.de location: /local/x /more_contrib file -rw-r--r-- nov vine.tar.z host emx.utexas.edu location: /pub/mnt/source/games file -rw-r--r-- may vine.tar.z host export.lcs.mit.edu location: /contrib file -rw-r--r-- oct : vine.tar.z note that your system administrator may not have installed the archie clients yet; the source is available on each of the archie servers, in the directory archie/clients. using the x-windows client is much more intuitive---if it's installed, just read its man page and give it a whirl. it's essential for the networked desktop. mailing archie users limited to email connectivity to the internet should send a message to the address archie@archie.mcgill.ca with the single word help in the body of the message. an email message will be returned explaining how to use the email archie server, along with the details of using ftpmail. most of the commands offered by the telnet interface can be used with the mail server. the whatis database in addition to offering access to anonymous ftp listings, archie also permits access to the whatis description database. it includes the names and brief synopses for over , public domain software packages, datasets and informational documents located on the internet. additional whatis databases are scheduled to be added in the future. planned offerings include listings for the names and locations of online library catalog programs, the names of publicly accessible electronic mailing lists, compilations of frequently asked questions lists, and archive sites for the most popular usenet newsgroups. suggestions for additional descriptions or locations databases are welcomed and should be sent to the archie developers at archie-l@cs.mcgill.ca. "was f@"ur pl@"undern!" ("what a place to plunder!") gebhard leberecht bl@"ucher ------ usenet news original from: chip@count.tct.com (chip salzenberg) [most recent change: may by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (gene spafford)] the first thing to understand about usenet is that it is widely misunderstood. every day on usenet the "blind men and the elephant" phenomenon appears, in spades. in the opinion of the author, more flame wars (rabid arguments) arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of usenet than from any other source. and consider that such flame wars arise, of necessity, among people who are on usenet. imagine, then, how poorly understood usenet must be by those outside! no essay on the nature of usenet can ignore the erroneous impressions held by many usenet users. therefore, this section will treat falsehoods first. keep reading for truth. (beauty, alas, is not relevant to usenet.) what usenet is usenet is the set of machines that exchange articles tagged with one or more universally-recognized labels, called newsgroups (or "groups" for short). (note that the term newsgroup is correct, while area, base, board, bboard, conference, round table, sig, etc. are incorrect. if you want to be understood, be accurate.) the diversity of usenet if the above definition of usenet sounds vague, that's because it is. it is almost impossible to generalize over all usenet sites in any non-trivial way. usenet encompasses government agencies, large universities, high schools, businesses of all sizes, home computers of all descriptions, etc. every administrator controls his own site. no one has any real control over any site but his own. the administrator gets his power from the owner of the system he administers. as long as the owner is happy with the job the administrator is doing, he can do whatever he pleases, up to and including cutting off usenet entirely. c'est la vie. what usenet is not usenet is not an organization. usenet has no central authority. in fact, it has no central anything. there is a vague notion of "upstream" and "downstream" related to the direction of high-volume news flow. it follows that, to the extent that "upstream" sites decide what traffic they will carry for their "downstream" neighbors, that "upstream" sites have some influence on their neighbors. but such influence is usually easy to circumvent, and heavy-handed manipulation typically results in a backlash of resentment. usenet is not a democracy. a democracy can be loosely defined as "government of the people, by the people, for the people." however, as explained above, usenet is not an organization, and only an organization can be run as a democracy. even a democracy must be organized, for if it lacks a means of enforcing the peoples' wishes, then it may as well not exist. some people wish that usenet were a democracy. many people pretend that it is. both groups are sadly deluded. usenet is not fair. after all, who shall decide what's fair? for that matter, if someone is behaving unfairly, who's going to stop him? neither you nor i, that's certain. usenet is not a right. some people misunderstand their local right of "freedom of speech" to mean that they have a legal right to use others' computers to say what they wish in whatever way they wish, and the owners of said computers have no right to stop them. those people are wrong. freedom of speech also means freedom not to speak; if i choose not to use my computer to aid your speech, that is my right. freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. usenet is not a public utility. some usenet sites are publicly funded or subsidized. most of them, by plain count, are not. there is no government monopoly on usenet, and little or no control. usenet is not a commercial network. many usenet sites are academic or government organizations; in fact, usenet originated in academia. therefore, there is a usenet custom of keeping commercial traffic to a minimum. if such commercial traffic is generally considered worth carrying, then it may be grudgingly tolerated. even so, it is usually separated somehow from non-commercial traffic; see comp.newprod. usenet is not the internet. the internet is a wide-ranging network, parts of which are subsidized by various governments. the internet carries many kinds of traffic; usenet is only one of them. and the internet is only one of the various networks carrying usenet traffic. usenet is not a unix network, nor even an ascii network. don't assume that everyone is using "rn" on a unix machine. there are vaxen running vms, ibm mainframes, amigas, and ms-dos pcs reading and posting to usenet. and, yes, some of them use (shudder) ebcdic. ignore them if you like, but they're out there. usenet is not software. there are dozens of software packages used at various sites to transport and read usenet articles. so no one program or package can be called "the usenet software." software designed to support usenet traffic can be (and is) used for other kinds of communication, usually without risk of mixing the two. such private communication networks are typically kept distinct from usenet by the invention of newsgroup names different from the universally-recognized ones. usenet is not a uucp network. uucp is a protocol (some might say protocol suite, but that's a technical point) for sending data over point-to-point connections, typically using dialup modems. usenet is only one of the various kinds of traffic carried via uucp, and uucp is only one of the various transports carrying usenet traffic. well, enough negativity. propagation of news in the old days, when uucp over long-distance dialup lines was the dominant means of article transmission, a few well-connected sites had real influence in determining which newsgroups would be carried where. those sites called themselves "the backbone." but things have changed. nowadays, even the smallest internet site has connectivity the likes of which the backbone admin of yesteryear could only dream. in addition, in the u.s., the advent of cheaper long-distance calls and high-speed modems has made long-distance usenet feeds thinkable for smaller companies. there is only one pre-eminent uucp transport site today in the u.s., namely uunet. but uunet isn't a player in the propagation wars, because it never refuses any traffic---it gets paid by the minute, after all; to refuse based on content would jeopardize its legal status as an enhanced service provider. all of the above applies to the u.s. in europe, different cost structures favored the creation of strictly controlled hierarchical organizations with central registries. this is all very unlike the traditional mode of u.s. sites (pick a name, get the software, get a feed, you're on). europe's "benign monopolies", long uncontested, now face competition from looser organizations patterned after the u.s. model. group creation as discussed above, usenet is not a democracy. nevertheless, currently the most popular way to create a new newsgroup involves a "vote" to determine popular support for (and opposition to) a proposed newsgroup. newsgroup creation, for detailed instructions and guidelines on the process involved in making a newsgroup. if you follow the guidelines, it is probable that your group will be created and will be widely propagated. however, due to the nature of usenet, there is no way for any user to enforce the results of a newsgroup vote (or any other decision, for that matter). therefore, for your new newsgroup to be propagated widely, you must not only follow the letter of the guidelines; you must also follow its spirit. and you must not allow even a whiff of shady dealings or dirty tricks to mar the vote. so, you may ask: how is a new user supposed to know anything about the "spirit" of the guidelines? obviously, she can't. this fact leads inexorably to the following recommendation: if you're a new user, don't try to create a new newsgroup alone. if you have a good newsgroup idea, then read the news.groups newsgroup for a while (six months, at least) to find out how things work. if you're too impatient to wait six months, then you really need to learn; read news.groups for a year instead. if you just can't wait, find a usenet old hand to run the vote for you. readers may think this advice unnecessarily strict. ignore it at your peril. it is embarrassing to speak before learning. it is foolish to jump into a society you don't understand with your mouth open. and it is futile to try to force your will on people who can tune you out with the press of a key. if you're unhappy... property rights being what they are, there is no higher authority on usenet than the people who own the machines on which usenet traffic is carried. if the owner of the machine you use says, "we will not carry alt.sex on this machine," and you are not happy with that order, you have no usenet recourse. what can we outsiders do, after all? that doesn't mean you are without options. depending on the nature of your site, you may have some internal political recourse. or you might find external pressure helpful. or, with a minimal investment, you can get a feed of your own from somewhere else. computers capable of taking usenet feeds are down in the $ range now, unix-capable boxes are going for under $ , and there are at least two unix lookalikes in the $ price range. no matter what, appealing to "usenet" won't help. even if those who read such an appeal regarding system administration are sympathetic to your cause, they will almost certainly have even less influence at your site than you do. by the same token, if you don't like what some user at another site is doing, only the administrator and/or owner of that site have any authority to do anything about it. persuade them that the user in question is a problem for them, and they might do something (if they feel like it). if the user in question is the administrator or owner of the site from which he or she posts, forget it; you can't win. arrange for your newsreading software to ignore articles from him or her if you can, and chalk one up to experience. the history of usenet (the abcs) in the beginning, there were conversations, and they were good. then came usenet in , shortly after the release of v unix with uucp; and it was better. two duke university grad students in north carolina, tom truscott and jim ellis, thought of hooking computers together to exchange information with the unix community. steve bellovin, a grad student at the university of north carolina, put together the first version of the news software using shell scripts and installed it on the first two sites: unc and duke. at the beginning of the network consisted of those two sites and phs (another machine at duke), and was described at the january usenix conference in boulder, co. {the usenix conferences are semi-annual meetings where members of the usenix association, a group of unix enthusiasts, meet and trade notes.} steve bellovin later rewrote the scripts into c programs, but they were never released beyond unc and duke. shortly thereafter, steve daniel did another implementation in the c programming language for public distribution. tom truscott made further modifications, and this became the "a" news release. in at the university of california at berkeley, grad student mark horton and high school student matt glickman rewrote the news software to add functionality and to cope with the ever increasing volume of news---"a" news was intended for only a few articles per group per day. this rewrite was the "b" news version. the first public release was version . in ; all versions before . were considered in beta test. as the net grew, the news software was expanded and modified. the last version maintained and released primarily by mark was . . . rick adams, then at the center for seismic studies, took over coordination of the maintenance and enhancement of the news software with the . . release in . by this time, the increasing volume of news was becoming a concern, and the mechanism for moderated groups was added to the software at . . . moderated groups were inspired by arpa mailing lists and experience with other bulletin board systems. in late , version . of news was released, including a number of changes to support a new naming structure for newsgroups, enhanced batching and compression, enhanced ihave/sendme control messages, and other features. the current release of news is . , patchlevel . a new version of news, becoming known as "c" news, has been developed at the university of toronto by geoff collyer and henry spencer. this version is a rewrite of the lowest levels of news to increase article processing speed, decrease article expiration processing and improve the reliability of the news system through better locking, etc. the package was released to the net in the autumn of . for more information, see the paper news need not be slow, published in the winter usenix technical conference proceedings. usenet software has also been ported to a number of platforms, from the amiga and ibm pcs all the way to minicomputers and mainframes. hierarchies newsgroups are organized according to their specific areas of concentration. since the groups are in a tree structure, the various areas are called hierarchies. there are seven major categories: comp topics of interest to both computer professionals and hobbyists, including topics in computer science, software sources, and information on hardware and software systems. misc group addressing themes not easily classified into any of the other headings or which incorporate themes from multiple categories. subjects include fitness, job-hunting, law, and investments. sci discussions marked by special knowledge relating to research in or application of the established sciences. soc groups primarily addressing social issues and socializing. included are discussions related to many different world cultures. talk groups largely debate-oriented and tending to feature long discussions without resolution and without appreciable amounts of generally useful information. news groups concerned with the news network, group maintenance, and software. rec groups oriented towards hobbies and recreational activities these "world" newsgroups are (usually) circulated around the entire usenet---this implies world-wide distribution. not all groups actually enjoy such wide distribution, however. the european usenet and eunet sites take only a selected subset of the more "technical" groups, and controversial "noise" groups are often not carried by many sites in the u.s. and canada (these groups are primarily under the talk and soc classifications). many sites do not carry some or all of the comp.binaries groups because of the typically large size of the posts in them (being actual executable programs). also available are a number of "alternative" hierarchies: alt true anarchy; anything and everything can and does appear; subjects include sex, the simpsons, and privacy. gnu groups concentrating on interests and software with the gnu project of the free software foundation. for further info on what the fsf is, fsf. biz business-related groups. moderated vs unmoderated some newsgroups insist that the discussion remain focused and on-target; to serve this need, moderated groups came to be. all articles posted to a moderated group get mailed to the group's moderator. he or she periodically (hopefully sooner than later) reviews the posts, and then either posts them individually to usenet, or posts a composite digest of the articles for the past day or two. this is how many mailing list gateways work (for example, the risks digest). news.groups & news.announce.newgroups being a good net.citizen includes being involved in the continuing growth and evolution of the usenet system. one part of this involvement includes following the discussion in the groups news.groups and the notes in news.announce.newgroups. it is there that discussion goes on about the creation of new groups and destruction of inactive ones. every person on usenet is allowed and encouraged to vote on the creation of a newsgroup. how usenet works the transmission of usenet news is entirely cooperative. feeds are generally provided out of good will and the desire to distribute news everywhere. there are places which provide feeds for a fee (e.g. uunet), but for the large part no exchange of money is involved. there are two major transport methods, uucp and nntp. the first is mainly modem-based and involves the normal charges for telephone calls. the second, nntp, is the primary method for distributing news over the internet. with uucp, news is stored in batches on a site until the neighbor calls to receive the articles, or the feed site happens to call. a list of groups which the neighbor wishes to receive is maintained on the feed site. the cnews system compresses its batches, which can dramatically reduce the transmission time necessary for a relatively heavy newsfeed. nntp, on the other hand, offers a little more latitude with how news is sent. the traditional store-and-forward method is, of course, available. given the "real-time" nature of the internet, though, other methods have been devised. programs now keep constant connections with their news neighbors, sending news nearly instantaneously, and can handle dozens of simultaneous feeds, both incoming and outgoing. the transmission of a usenet article is centered around the unique message-id: header. when an nntp site offers an article to a neighbor, it says it has that specific message id. if the neighbor finds it hasn't received the article yet, it tells the feed to send it through; this is repeated for each and every article that's waiting for the neighbor. using unique ids helps prevent a system from receiving five copies of an article from each of its five news neighbors, for example. further information on how usenet works with relation to the various transports is available in the documentation for the cnews and nntp packages, as well as in rfc- , the standard for interchange of usenet messages and rfc- , network news transfer protocol: a proposed standard for the stream-based transmission of news. the rfcs do tend to be rather dry reading, particularly to the new user. mail gateways a natural progression is for usenet news and electronic mailing lists to somehow become merged---which they have, in the form of news gateways. many mailing lists are set up to "reflect" messages not only to the readership of the list, but also into a newsgroup. likewise, posts to a newsgroup can be sent to the moderator of the mailing list, or to the entire mailing list. some examples of this in action are comp.risks (the risks digest) and comp.dcom.telecom (the telecom digest). this method of propagating mailing list traffic has helped solve the problem of a single message being delivered to a number of people at the same site---instead, anyone can just subscribe to the group. also, mailing list maintenance is lowered substantially, since the moderators don't have to be constantly removing and adding users to and from the list. instead, the people can read and not read the newsgroup at their leisure. from "dear emily postnews" by brad templeton usenet "netiquette" there are many traditions with usenet, not the least of which is dubbed netiquette---being polite and considerate of others. if you follow a few basic guidelines, you, and everyone that reads your posts, will be much happier in the long run. signatures at the end of most articles is a small blurb called a person's signature. in unix this file is named .signature in the person's login directory---it will vary for other operating systems. it exists to provide information about how to get in touch with the person posting the article, including their email address, phone number, address, or where they're located. even so, signatures have become the graffiti of computers. people put song lyrics, pictures, philosophical quotes, even advertisements in their ".sigs". (note, however, that advertising in your signature will more often than not get you flamed until you take it out.) four lines will suffice---more is just extra garbage for usenet sites to carry along with your article, which is supposed to be the intended focus of the reader. netiquette dictates limiting oneself to this "quota" of four---some people make signatures that are ten lines or even more, including elaborate ascii drawings of their hand-written signature or faces or even the space shuttle. this is not cute, and will bother people to no end. similarly, it's not necessary to include your signature---if you forget to append it to an article, don't worry about it. the article's just as good as it ever would be, and contains everything you should want to say. don't re-post the article just to include the signature. posting personal messages if mail to a person doesn't make it through, avoid posting the message to a newsgroup. even if the likelihood of that person reading the group is very high, all of the other people reading the articles don't give a whit what you have to say to jim morrison. simply wait for the person to post again and double-check the address, or get in touch with your system administrator and see if it's a problem with local email delivery. it may also turn out that their site is down or is having problems, in which case it's just necessary to wait until things return to normal before contacting jim. posting mail in the interests of privacy, it's considered extremely bad taste to post any email that someone may have sent, unless they explicitly give you permission to redistribute it. while the legal issues can be heavily debated, most everyone agrees that email should be treated as anything one would receive via normal snailmail, {the slang for the normal land and air postal service.} , with all of the assumed rights that are carried with it. test messages many people, particularly new users, want to try out posting before actually taking part in discussions. often the mechanics of getting messages out is the most difficult part of usenet. to this end, many, many users find it necessary to post their tests to "normal" groups (for example, news.admin or comp.mail.misc). this is considered a major netiquette faux pas in the usenet world. there are a number of groups available, called test groups, that exist solely for the purpose of trying out a news system, reader, or even new signature. they include alt.test gnu.gnusenet.test misc.test some of which will generate auto-magic replies to your posts to let you know they made it through. there are certain denizens of usenet that frequent the test groups to help new users out. they respond to the posts, often including the article so the poster can see how it got to the person's site. also, many regional hierarchies have test groups, like phl.test in philadelphia. by all means, experiment and test---just do it in its proper place. famous people appearing every once in a while, someone says that a celebrity is accessible through "the net"; or, even more entertaining, an article is forged to appear to be coming from that celebrity. one example is stephen spielberg---the rec.arts.movies readership was in an uproar for two weeks following a couple of posts supposedly made by mr. spielberg. (some detective work revealed it to be a hoax.) there are a few well-known people that are acquainted with usenet and computers in general---but the overwhelming majority are just normal people. one should act with skepticism whenever a notable personality is "seen" in a newsgroup. summaries authors of articles occasionally say that readers should reply by mail and they'll summarize. accordingly, readers should do just that---reply via mail. responding with a followup article to such an article defeats the intention of the author. she, in a few days, will post one article containing the highlights of the responses she received. by following up to the whole group, the author may not read what you have to say. when creating a summary of the replies to a post, try to make it as reader-friendly as possible. avoid just putting all of the messages received into one big file. rather, take some time and edit the messages into a form that contains the essential information that other readers would be interested in. also, sometimes people will respond but request to remain anonymous (one example is the employees of a corporation that feel the information's not proprietary, but at the same time want to protect themselves from political backlash). summaries should honor this request accordingly by listing the from: address as anonymous or (address withheld by request). quoting when following up to an article, many newsreaders provide the facility to quote the original article with each line prefixed by > , as in in article < @foo.bar.com>, sharon@foo.bar.com wrote: > i agree, i think that basketweaving's really catching on, > particularly in pennsylvania. here's a list of every person > in pa that currently engages in it publicly: line ... etc ... this is a severe example (potentially a horribly long article), but proves a point. when you quote another person, edit out whatever isn't directly applicable to your reply. {but not changing their words, of course. } this gives the reader of the new article a better idea of what points you were addressing. by including the entire article, you'll only annoy those reading it. also, signatures in the original aren't necessary; the readers already know who wrote it (by the attribution). avoid being tedious with responses---rather than pick apart an article, address it in parts or as a whole. addressing practically each and every word in an article only proves that the person responding has absolutely nothing better to do with his time. if a "war" starts (insults and personal comments get thrown back and forth), take it into email---exchange email with the person you're arguing with. no one enjoys watching people bicker incessantly. crossposting the newsgroups: line isn't limited to just one group---an article can be posted in a list of groups. for instance, the line newsgroups: sci.space,comp.simulation posts the article to both the groups sci.space and comp.simulation. it's usually safe to crosspost to up to three or four groups. to list more than that is considered "excessive noise." it's also suggested that if an article is crossposted a followup-to: header be included. it should name the group to which all additional discussion should be directed to. for the above example a possible followup-to: would be followup-to: sci.space which would make all followups automatically be posted to just sci.space, rather than both sci.space and comp.simulation. if every response made with a newsreader's "followup" command should go to the person posting the article no matter what, there's also a mechanism worked in to accommodate. the followup-to: header should contain the single word poster: followup-to: poster certain newsreaders will use this to sense that a reply should never be posted back onto the net. this is often used with questions that will yield a summary of information later, a vote, or an advertisement. recent news one should avoid posting "recent" events---sports scores, a plane crash, or whatever people will see on the evening news or read in the morning paper. by the time the article has propagated across all of usenet, the "news" value of the article will have become stale. (this is one case for the argument that usenet news is a misnomer. {note that the clarinet news service (clarinet) offers news items in a usenet format as a precise alternative to the morning paper, et. al.) quality of postings how you write and present yourself in your articles is important. if you have terrible spelling, keep a dictionary near by. if you have trouble with grammar and punctuation, try to get a book on english grammar and composition (found in many bookstores and at garage sales). by all means pay attention to what you say---it makes you who you are on the net. likewise, try to be clear in what you ask. ambiguous or vague questions often lead to no response at all, leaving the poster discouraged. give as much essential information as you feel is necessary to let people help you, but keep it within limits. for instance, you should probably include the operating system of your computer in the post if it's needed, but don't tell everybody what peripherals you have hanging off of it. useful subjects the subject: line of an article is what will first attract people to read it---if it's vague or doesn't describe what's contained within, no one will read the article. at the same time, subject: lines that're too wordy tend to be irritating. for example: good subject: building emacs on a sun sparc under . good subject: tryin' to find waldo in nj. bad subject: i can't get emacs to work !!! bad subject: i'm desperately in search of the honorable mr. waldo in the state of... simply put, try to think of what will best help the reader when he or she encounters your article in a newsreading session. tone of voice since common computers can't portray the inflection or tone in a person's voice, how articles are worded can directly affect the response to them. if you say anybody using a vic- should go buy themselves a life. you'll definitely get some responses---telling you to take a leap. rather than be inflammatory, phrase your articles in a way that rationally expresses your opinion, like what're the practical uses of a vic- these days? which presents yourself as a much more level-headed individual. also, what case (upper or lower) you use can indicate how you're trying to speak---netiquette dictates that if you use all capital letters, people will think you're "shouting." write as you would in a normal letter to a friend, following traditional rules of english (or whatever language you happen to speak). computer religion no matter what kind of computer a person is using, theirs is always the best and most efficient of them all. posting articles asking questions like what computer should i buy? an atari st or an amiga? will lead only to fervent arguments over the merits and drawbacks of each brand. don't even ask the net---go to a local user group, or do some research of your own like reading some magazine reviews. trying to say one computer is somehow better than another is a moot point. the anatomy of an article frequently asked questions a number of groups include frequently asked question (faq) lists, which give the answers to questions or points that have been raised time and time again in a newsgroup. they're intended to help cut down on the redundant traffic in a group. for example, in the newsgroup alt.tv.simpsons, one recurring question is did you notice that there's a different blackboard opening at the beginning of every simpsons episode? as a result, it's part of the faq for that group. usually, faq lists are posted at the beginning of each month, and are set to expire one month later (when, supposedly, the next faq will be published). nearly every faq is also crossposted to news.answers, which is used as a usenet repository for them. the pit-manager archive mit, with jonathan kamens, has graciously dedicated a machine to the archiving and storage of the various periodic postings that are peppered throughout the various usenet groups. to access them, ftp to the system pit-manager.mit.edu and look in the directory /pub/usenet. "be it true or false, so it be news." ben jonson, news from the new world ----- telnet telnet is the main internet protocol for creating a connection with a remote machine. it gives the user the opportunity to be on one computer system and do work on another, which may be across the street or thousands of miles away. where modems are limited, in the majority, by the quality of telephone lines and a single connection, telnet provides a connection that's error-free and nearly always faster than the latest conventional modems. using telnet as with ftp (anonymous ftp), the actual command for negotiating a telnet connection varies from system to system. the most common is telnet itself, though. it takes the form of: telnet somewhere.domain to be safe, we'll use your local system as a working example. by now, you hopefully know your site's domain name. if not, ask or try to figure it out. you'll not get by without it. to open the connection, type telnet your.system.name if the system were wubba.cs.widener.edu, for example, the command would look like telnet wubba.cs.widener.edu the system will respond with something similar to trying . . . ... connected to wubba.cs.widener.edu. escape character is '^]'. the escape character, in this example ^] (control-]), is the character that will let you go back to the local system to close the connection, suspend it, etc. to close this connection, the user would type ^], and respond to the telnet> prompt with the command close. local documentation should be checked for information on specific commands, functions, and escape character that can be used. telnet ports many telnet clients also include a third option, the port on which the connection should take place. normally, port is the default telnet port; the user never has to think about it. but sometimes it's desirable to telnet to a different port on a system, where there may be a service available, or to aid in debugging a problem. using telnet somewhere.domain port will connect the user to the given port on the system somewhere.domain. many libraries use this port method to offer their facilities to the general internet community; other services are also available. for instance, one would type telnet martini.eecs.umich.edu to connect to the geographic server at the university of michigan (geographic server). other such port connections follow the same usage. publicly accessible libraries over the last several years, most university libraries have switched from a manual (card) catalog system to computerized library catalogs. the automated systems provide users with easily accessible and up-to-date information about the books available in these libraries. this has been further improved upon with the advent of local area networks, dialup modems, and wide area networks. now many of us can check on our local library's holdings or that of a library halfway around the world! many, many institutions of higher learning have made their library catalogs available for searching by anyone on the internet. they include boston university, the colorado alliance of research libraries (carl), and london university king's college. to include a listing of some of the existing sites would not only be far too long for this document, it would soon be out of date. instead, several lists are being maintained and are available either by mail or via ftp. also, the internet resource guide (irg) also describes a few libraries that are accessible---irg for further information. art st. george and ron larsen are maintaining a list of internet-accessible libraries and databases often referred to as "the st. george directory." it began with only library catalogs but has expanded to include sections on campus-wide information systems, and even bulletin board systems that are not on the internet. the library catalog sections are divided into those that are free, those that charge, and international (i.e. non-u.s.) catalogs; they are arranged by state, province, or country within each section. there is also a section giving dialup information for some of the library catalogs. it's available for ftp (anonymous ftp) on nic.cerf.net in the directory cerfnet/cerfnet_info/library_catalog. the file internet-catalogs has a date suffix; check for the most current date. the information is updated periodically. billy barron, systems manager at the university of north texas, produces a directory as an aid to his user community. it complements the st. george guide by providing a standard format for all systems which lists the internet address, login instructions, the system vendor, and logoff information. the arrangement is alphabetic by organization name. it's available for ftp on vaxb.acs.unt.edu in the subdirectory library as the file libraries.txt. for announcements of new libraries being available and discussion on related topics, consult the usenet newsgroup comp.internet.library (usenet news to learn how to read news). bulletin board systems the cleveland freenet freenets are open-access, free, community computer systems. one such system is the cleveland freenet, sponsored by cwru (case western reserve university). anyone and everyone is welcome to join and take part in the exciting project---that of a national telecomputing public network, where everyone benefits. there's no charge for the registration process and no charge to use the system. to register, telnet to any one of freenet-in-a.cwru.edu freenet-in-b.cwru.edu freenet-in-c.cwru.edu after you're connected, choose the entry on the menu that signifies you're a guest user. another menu will follow; select apply for an account, and you'll be well on your way to being a freenet member. you will need to fill out a form and send it to them through the postal service---your login id and password will be created in a few days. at that point you're free to use the system as you wish. they provide multi-user chat, email, usenet news, and a variety of other things to keep you occupied for hours on end. directories there are a few systems that are maintained to provide the internet community with access to lists of information---users, organizations, etc. they range from fully dedicated computers with access to papers and research results, to a system to find out about the faculty members of a university. knowbot knowbot is a "master directory" that contains email address information from the nic whois database (whois), the psi white pages pilot project, the nysernet x. database and mci mail. most of these services are email registries themselves, but knowbot provides a very comfortable way to access all of them in one place. telnet to nri.reston.va.us on port . white pages psi maintains a directory of information on individuals. it will list the person's name, organization, and email address if it is given. telnet to wp.psi.net and log in as fred. the white pages project also includes an interface to use xwindows remotely. faculty and staff listings many universities offer access to information on current faculty and staff. included are: cornell telnet to cuinfo.cornell.edu on port . nc state telnet to ccvax .cc.ncsu.edu and log in as info. rutgers telnet to hangout.rutgers.edu on port . u of maryland telnet to umail.umd.edu and log in as lookup. unc chapel hill telnet to info.acs.unc.edu and log in as info. yale telnet to yalevm.ycc.yale.edu on port . databases for information on database services, commercial databases. not all databases on the internet require payment for use, though. there do exist some, largely research-driven databases, which are publicly accessible. new ones spring up regularly. to find out more about the databases in this section, contact the people directly responsible for them. their areas of concentration and the software used to implement them are widely disparate, and are probably beyond the author's expertise. also, don't forget to check with your local library---the reference librarian there can provide information on conventional resources, and possibly even those available over the internet (they are becoming more common). colorado alliance of research libraries (carl) the colorado alliance of research libraries (carl), in association with carl systems inc., operates a public access catalog of services. offered are a number of library databases, including searches for government periodicals, book reviews, indices for current articles, and access to to other library databases around the country. other services are available to carl members including an online encyclopedia. telnet to pac.carl.org, or write to help@carl.org for more details. penpages penpages is an agriculturally-oriented database administered by pennsylvania state university. information entered into penpages is provided by numerous sources including the pennsylvania dept. of agriculture, rutgers university, and penn state. easy-to-use menus guide users to information ranging from cattle and agricultural prices to current weather information, from health information to agricultural news from around the nation. a keyword search option also allows users to search the database for related information and articles. the database is updated daily, and a listing of most recent additions is displayed after login. telnet to psupen.psu.edu and log in as the user pnotpa. clemson univ. forestry & agricultural network clemson maintains a database similar to penpages in content, but the information provided tends to be localized to the southeastern united states. a menu-driven database offers queries involving the weather, food, family, and human resources. telnet to eureka.clemson.edu and log in as public. you need to be on a good vt emulator (or a real vt terminal). university of maryland info database the computer science department of the university of maryland maintains a repository of information on a wide variety of topics. they wish to give a working example of how network technology can (and should) provide as much information as possible to those who use it. telnet to info.umd.edu and log in as info. the information contained in the database is accessible through a screen-oriented interface, and everything therein is available via anonymous ftp. there is a mailing list used to discuss the umd info database, welcoming suggestions for new information, comments on the interface the system provides, and other related topics. send mail to listserv@umdd.umd.edu with a body of subscribe info-l your full name listservs for more information on using the listserv system. university of michigan weather underground the university of michigan's department of atmospheric, oceanic, & space sciences maintains a database of weather and related information for the united states and canada. available are current weather conditions and forecasts for cities in the u.s., a national weather summary, ski conditions, earthquake and hurricane updates, and a listing of severe weather conditions. telnet to madlab.sprl.umich.edu on port to use the system. geographic name server a geographic database listing information for cities in the united states and some international locations is maintained by merit, inc. the database is searchable by city name, zip code, etc. it will respond with a lot of information: the area code, elevation, time zone, and longitude and latitude are included. for example, a query of yields chester delaware pa pennsylvania us united states f populated place l n w p e z z z z .. to use the server, telnet to martini.eecs.umich.edu on port . the command help will yield further instructions, along with an explanation for each of the fields in a reponse. fedix---minority scholarship information fedix is an on-line information service that links the higher education community and the federal government to facilitate research, education, and services. the system provides accurate and timely federal agency information to colleges, universities, and other research organizations. there are no registration fees and no access charges for fedix whatsoever. fedix offers the minority on-line information service (molis), a database listing current information about black and hispanic colleges and universities. daily information updates are made on federal education and research programs, scholarships, fellowships, and grants, available used research equipment, and general information about fedix itself. to access the database, telnet to fedix.fie.com and log in as fedix. science & technology information system the stis is maintained by the national science foundation (nsf), and provides access to many nsf publications. the full text of publications can be searched online and copied from the system, which can accommodate up to ten users at one time. telnet to stis.nsf.gov and log in as public. everything on the system is also available via anonymous ftp. for further information, contact: stis, office of information systems, room national science foundation g. street, n.w. washington, d.c. stis-request@nsf.gov ( ) - ( ) - (fax) ocean network information center the university of delaware college of marine studies offers access to an interactive database of research information covering all aspects of marine studies, nicknamed oceanic. this includes the world oceanic circulation experiment (woce) information and program information, research ship schedules and information, and a who's who of email and mailing addresses for oceanic studies. data from a variety of academic institutions based on research studies is also available. telnet to delocn.udel.edu and log in as info. nasa/ipac extragalactic database (ned) the nasa/ipac extragalactic database (ned) is an ongoing project, funded by nasa, to make data and literature on extragalactic objects available over computer networks. ned is an object-oriented database which contains extensive information for nearly , extragalactic objects taken from about major catalogs of galaxies, quasars, infrared and radio sources. ned provides positions, names, and other basic data (e.g. magnitude types, sizes and redshifts as well as bibliographic references and abstracts). searches can be done by name, around a name, and on an astronomical position. ned contains a tutorial which guides the user through the retrieval process. telnet to ipac.caltech.edu and log in as ned. u.s. naval observatory automated data service operated by the u.s. naval observatory in washington, d.c., this automated data service provides database access to information ranging from current navigational satellite positioning, astronomical data, and software utilities. a wide variety of databases can be searched and instructions for file transfer are given. telnet to tycho.usno.navy.mil and log in as ads. "my consciousness suddenly switched locations, for the first time in my life, from the vicinity of my head and body to a point about twenty feet away from where i normally see the world." howard rheingold, virtual reality p ----------------- various tools new and interesting ways to use the internet are being dreamed up every day. as they gain wide-spread use, some methods become near-standard (or actual written standard) tools for internet users to take advantage of. a few are detailed here; there are undoubtedly others, and new ideas spring up all the time. an active user of the internet will discover most of the more common ones in time. usually, these services are free. commercial services for applications that are commercially available over the internet. usenet is often used to announce a new service or capability on the internet. in particular, the groups comp.archives and comp.protocols.tcp-ip are good places to look. information will drift into other areas as word spreads. usenet news for information on reading news. finger on many systems there exists the finger command, which yield information about each user that's currently logged in. this command also has extensions for use over the internet, as well. under normal circumstances, the command is simply finger for a summary of who's logged into the local system, or finger username for specific information about a user. it's also possible to go one step further and go onto the network. the general usage is finger @hostname to see who's currently logged in at widener university, for instance, use % finger @cs.widener.edu [cs.widener.edu] login name tty idle when where brendan brendan kehoe p fri : tattoo.cs.widene sven sven heinicke p fri : xyplex .cs.widen to find out about a certain user, they can be fingered specifically (and need not be logged in): % finger bart@cs.widener.edu [cs.widener.edu] login name: bart in real life: bart simpson directory: /home/springfield/bart shell: /bin/underachiever affiliation: brother of lisa home system: channel .fox.org last login thu may : (edt) on ttyp from channel .fox.org. no unread mail project: to become a "fluff" cartoon character. plan: don't have a cow, man. please realize that some sites are very security conscious, and need to restrict the information about their systems and users available to the outside world. to that end, they often block finger requests from outside sites---so don't be surprised if fingering a computer or a user returns with connection refused. internet relay chat the lamont view server system on lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu in pub/gb.tar.z. ping the ping command allows the user to check if another system is currently "up" and running. the general form of the command is ping system. {the usage will, again, vary.} for example, ping cs.widener.edu will tell you if the main machine in widener university's computer science lab is currently online (we certainly hope so!). many implementations of ping also include an option to let you see how fast a link is running (to give you some idea of the load on the network). for example: % ping -s cs.swarthmore.edu ping cs.swarthmore.edu: data bytes bytes from . . . : icmp_seq= ttl= time= ms bytes from . . . : icmp_seq= ttl= time= ms bytes from . . . : icmp_seq= ttl= time= ms ^c --- cs.swarthmore.edu ping statistics --- packets transmitted, packets received, % packet loss round-trip min/avg/max = / / ms this case tells us that for cs.swarthmore.edu it takes about milliseconds for a packet to go from widener to swarthmore college and back again. it also gives the average and worst-case speeds, and any packet loss that may have occurred (e.g. because of network congestion). while ping generally doesn't hurt network performance, you shouldn't use it too often---usually once or twice will leave you relatively sure of the other system's state. talk sometimes email is clumsy and difficult to manage when one really needs to have an interactive conversation. the internet provides for that as well, in the form of talk. two users can literally see each other type across thousands of miles. to talk with bart simpson at widener, one would type talk bart@@cs.widener.edu which would cause a message similar to the following to be displayed on bart's terminal: message from talk_daemon@cs.widener.edu at : ... talk: connection requested by joe@ee.someplace.edu talk: respond with: talk joe@ee.someplace.edu bart would, presumably, respond by typing talk joe@ee.someplace.edu. they could then chat about whatever they wished, with instantaneous response time, rather than the write-and-wait style of email. to leave talk, on many systems one would type ctrl-c (hold down the control key and press c). check local documentation to be sure. there are two different versions of talk in common use today. the first, dubbed "old talk," is supported by a set of unix systems (most notably, those currently sold by sun). the second, ntalk (aka "new talk"), is more of the standard. if, when attempting to talk with another user, it responds with an error about protocol families, odds are the incompatibilities between versions of talk is the culprit. it's up to the system administrators of sites which use the old talk to install ntalk for their users. wide area information servers (wais) the whois database the main whois database is run at the network information center (nic). the whois command will let you search a database of every registered domain (e.g. mit.edu) and of registered users. it's primarily used by system postmasters or listowners to find the points of contact for a site, to let them know of a problem or contact them for one reason or another. you can also find out their postal address. for example: % whois mit.edu massachusetts institute of technology (mit) mit.edu . . . massachusetts institute of technology (mit-dom) mit.edu note that there are two entries for mit.edu; we'll go for the second. % whois mit-dom massachusetts institute of technology (mit-dom) cambridge, ma domain name: mit.edu administrative contact, technical contact, zone contact: schiller, jeffrey i. (jis) jis@mit.edu ( ) - record last updated on -jun- . domain servers in listed order: strawb.mit.edu . . . w ns.mit.edu . . . bitsy.mit.edu . . . lithium.lcs.mit.edu . . . to see this host record with registered users, repeat the command with a star ('*') before the name; or, use '%' to show just the registered users. much better! now this information (sought, possibly, by a system administrator) can be used to find out how to notify mit of a security issue or problem with connectivity. queries can be made for individuals as well; the following would yield an entry for the author: % whois brendan kehoe, brendan (bk ) brendan@cs.widener.edu widener university department of computer science kirkbride p.o. box widener university chester, pa ( )/ - record last updated on -may- . included is the author's name, his handle (a unique sequence of letters and numbers), information on how to contact him, and the last time the record was modified in any way. anyone can register with the whois database. people who are administrative or technical contacts for domains are registered automatically when their domain applications are processed. for normal users, one must simply fill out a form from the nic. ftp to nic.ddn.mil and get the file netinfo/user-template.txt. the completed form should be mailed to registrar@nic.ddn.mil. other uses of whois also, many educational sites run whois servers of their own, to offer information about people who may be currently on the staff or attending the institution. to specify a whois server, many implementations include some sort of option or qualifier---in vms under multinet, it's /host, in unix -h. to receive information about using the stanford server, one might use the command whois -h stanford.edu help a large list of systems offering whois services is being maintained by matt power of mit (mhpower@stan.mit.edu). it is available via anonymous ftp from sipb.mit.edu, in the directory pub/whois. the file is named whois-servers.list. the systems available include, but are certainly not limited to, syracuse university (syr.edu), new york university (acfcluster.nyu.edu), the university of california at san diego (ucsd.edu), and stanford university (stanford.edu). "fingers were made before forks." jonathan swift, polite conversation ------- commercial services many services can be accessed through the internet. as time progresses and more outlets for commercial activity appear, once-restricted traffic (by the nsfnet acceptable use policy) may now flow freely. now that there are other networks for that information to travel on, businesses are making their move. internet service providers providers (alternet, psi, etc)... supercomputers the internet resource guide (irg) contains a chapter on computer time that's available for a fee. rather than reproduce it here, which would fast become out-of-date as well as triple the size of this guide, it's suggested that the reader consult the irg if such services are of interest. electronic journals the association of research libraries (arl) publishes a hard-copy directory of electronic journals, newsletters, and scholarly discussion lists. it is a compilation of entries for hundreds of sts, dozens of journals and newsletters, and a many "other" titles, including newsletter-digests, into one reference source. each entry includes instructions on how to access the referenced publication or list. the documents are available electronically by sending the commands get ejournl directry get ejournl directry to the server at listserv@ottawa.bitnet. listservs for further instructions on using a listserv. the directory, along with a compilation by diane kovacs called directories of academic e-mail conferences, is available in print and on diskette (dos wordperfect and macword) from: office of scientific & academic publishing association of research libraries new hampshire avenue, nw washington, dc arlhq@umdc.bitnet ( ) -- ( ) -- (fax) the arl is a not-for-profit organization representing over one hundred research libraries in the united states and canada. the publication is available to arl members for $ and to non-members for $ (add $ postage per directory for foreign addresses). orders of six or more copies will receive a % discount; all orders must be prepaid and sent to the arl. commercial databases the american institute of physics maintains the physics information network. it contains the bibliographic spin and general physics advanced abstracts databases. also available is access to bulletin boards and several searchable lists (job notices, announcements, etc). telnet to pinet.aip.org; new users must log in as new and give registration information. some of the databases accessible through wais (wais) are available for a fee. clarinet news clarinet's an electronic publishing network service that provides professional news and information, including live upi wireservice news, in the usenet file format. clarinet lets you read an "electronic newspaper" right on the local system; you can get timely industry news, technology related wirestories, syndicated columns and features, financial information, stock quotes and more. clarinet's provided by using the usenet message interchange format, and is available via uucp and other delivery protocols, including nntp. the main feature is clarinews, an "electronic newspaper," gathered live from the wire services of united press international (upi). clarinews articles are distributed in newsgroups based on their subject matter, and are keyworded for additional topics and the geographical location of the story. clarinews includes headlines, industry news, box scores, network tv schedules, and more. the main products of clarinews are: clarinews general, the general news"paper" with news, sports, and features, averaging about stories per day. techwire, special groups for stories on science, technology, and industry stories around them. clarinews-biz, business and financial stories. newsbytes, a daily computer industry newsmagazine. syndicated columns, including dave barry (humor) and mike royko (opinion). full information on clarinet, including subscription information, is available from clarinet communications corp. king st. north waterloo, ontario n j x info@@clarinet.com ( ) use-nets or with anonymous ftp in the directory /clarinet on ftp.uu.net (anonymous ftp). "needless to say, aristotle did not envisage modern finance." frederick copleston, s.j. a history of philosophy: vol greece & rome part ii, p --------- things you'll hear about there are certain things that you'll hear about shortly after you start actively using the internet. most people assume that everyone's familiar with them, and they require no additional explanation. if only that were true! this section addresses a few topics that are commonly encountered and asked about as a new user explores cyberspace. some of them are directly related to how the networks are run today; other points are simply interesting to read about. the internet worm from a letter by severo m. ornstein, in acm june vol no and the appeal notice on november , , robert morris, jr., a graduate student in computer science at cornell, wrote an experimental, self-replicating, self-propagating program called a worm and injected it into the internet. he chose to release it from mit, to disguise the fact that the worm came from cornell. morris soon discovered that the program was replicating and reinfecting machines at a much faster rate than he had anticipated---there was a bug. ultimately, many machines at locations around the country either crashed or became "catatonic." when morris realized what was happening, he contacted a friend at harvard to discuss a solution. eventually, they sent an anonymous message from harvard over the network, instructing programmers how to kill the worm and prevent reinfection. however, because the network route was clogged, this message did not get through until it was too late. computers were affected at many sites, including universities, military sites, and medical research facilities. the estimated cost of dealing with the worm at each installation ranged from $ to more than $ , . {derived in part from a letter by severo m. ornstein, in the communications of the acm, vol no , june .} the program took advantage of a hole in the debug mode of the unix sendmail program, which runs on a system and waits for other systems to connect to it and give it email, and a hole in the finger daemon fingerd, which serves finger requests (finger). people at the university of california at berkeley and mit had copies of the program and were actively disassembling it (returning the program back into its source form) to try to figure out how it worked. teams of programmers worked non-stop to come up with at least a temporary fix, to prevent the continued spread of the worm. after about twelve hours, the team at berkeley came up with steps that would help retard the spread of the virus. another method was also discovered at purdue and widely published. the information didn't get out as quickly as it could have, however, since so many sites had completely disconnected themselves from the network. after a few days, things slowly began to return to normalcy and everyone wanted to know who had done it all. morris was later named in the new york times as the author (though this hadn't yet been officially proven, there was a substantial body of evidence pointing to morris). robert t. morris was convicted of violating the computer fraud and abuse act (title ), and sentenced to three years of probation, hours of community service, a fine of $ , , and the costs of his supervision. his appeal, filed in december, , was rejected the following march. the cuckoo's egg first in an article entitled "stalking the wily hacker," and later in the book the cuckoo's egg, clifford stoll detailed his experiences trying to track down someone breaking into a system at lawrence berkeley laboratory in california. {see the bibliography for full citations.} a -cent discrepancy in the lab's accounting records led stoll on a chase through california, virginia, and europe to end up in a small apartment in hannover, west germany. stoll dealt with many levels of bureaucracy and red tape, and worked with the fbi, the cia, and the german bundespost trying to track his hacker down. the experiences of stoll, and particularly his message in speaking engagements, have all pointed out the dire need for communication between parties on a network of networks. the only way everyone can peacefully co-exist in cyberspace is by ensuring rapid recognition of any existing problems. organizations the indomitable need for humans to congregate and share their common interests is also present in the computing world. user groups exist around the world, where people share ideas and experiences. similarly, there are organizations which are one step "above" user groups; that is to say, they exist to encourage or promote an idea or set of ideas, rather than support a specific computer or application of computers. the association for computing machinery the association for computing machinery (the acm) was founded in , immediately after eckert and mauchly unveiled one of the first electronic computers, the eniac, in . since then, the acm has grown by leaps and bounds, becoming one of the leading educational and scientific societies in the computer industry. the acm's stated purposes are: to advance the sciences and arts of information processing; to promote the free interchange of information about the sciences and arts of information processing both among specialists and among the public; to develop and maintain the integrity and competence of individuals engaged in the practices of the sciences and arts of information processing. membership in the acm has grown from seventy-eight in september, , to over , today. there are local chapters around the world, and many colleges and universities endorse student chapters. lecturers frequent these meetings, which tend to be one step above the normal "user group" gathering. a large variety of published material is also available at discounted prices for members of the association. the acm has a number of special interest groups (sigs) that concentrate on a certain area of computing, ranging from graphics to the ada programming language to security. each of the sigs also publishes its own newsletter. there is a usenet group, comp.org.acm, for the discussion of acm topics. usenet news for more information on reading news. for more information and a membership application, write to: assocation for computing machinery broadway new york city, ny acmhelp@acmvm.bitnet ( ) - computer professionals for social responsibility from their letter to prospective members the cpsr is an alliance of computer professionals concentrating on certain areas of the impact of computer technology on society. it traces its history to the fall of , when several researchers in palo alto, california, organized a lunch meeting to discuss their shared concerns about the connection between computing and the nuclear arms race. out of that meeting and the discussions which followed, cpsr was born, and has been active ever since. {this section is part of the cpsr's letter to prospective members.} the national cpsr program focuses on the following project areas: reliability and risk this area reflects on the concern that overreliance on computing technology can lead to unacceptable risks to society. it includes, but isn't limited to, work in analyzing military systems such as sdi. civil liberties and privacy this project is concerned with such topics as the fbi national crime information center, the growing use of databases by both government and private industry, the right of access to public information, extension of first amendment rights to electronic communication, and establishing legal protections for privacy of computerized information. computers in the workplace the cpsr workplace project has concentrated its attention on the design of software for the workplace, and particularly on the philosophy of "participatory design," in which software designers work together with users to ensure that systems meet the actual needs of that workplace. the st century project this is a coalition with other professional organizations working towards redirecting national research priorities from concentrating on military issues to anticipating and dealing with future problems as science and technology enter the next century. for more information on the cpsr, contact them at: computer professionals for social responsibility p.o. box palo alto, ca cpsr@csli.stanford.edu ( ) -- ( ) -- (fax) the electronic frontier foundation the electronic frontier foundation (eff) was established to help civilize the "electronic frontier"---the cyberspacial medium becoming ever-present in today's society; to make it truly useful and beneficial not just to a technical elite, but to everyone; and to do this in a way which is in keeping with the society's highest traditions of the free and open flow of information and communication. {this section was derived from eff.about, available along with other material via anonymous ftp from ftp.eff.org} the mission of the eff is to engage in and support educational activities which increase popular understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by developments in computing and telecommunications; to develop among policy-makers a better understanding of the issues underlying free and open telecommunications, and support the creation of legal and structural approaches which will ease the assimilation of these new technologies by society; to raise public awareness about civil liberties issues arising from the rapid advancement in the area of new computer-based communications media and, where necessary, support litigation in the public interest to preserve, protect, and extend first amendment rights within the realm of computing and telecommunications technology; to encourage and support the development of new tools which will endow non-technical users with full and easy access to computer-based telecommunications; the usenet newsgroups comp.org.eff.talk and comp.org.eff.news are dedicated to discussion concerning the eff. they also have mailing list counterparts for those that don't have access to usenet, eff-talk-request@eff.org and eff-news-request@eff.org. the first is an informal arena (aka a normal newsgroup) where anyone may voice his or her opinions. the second, comp.org.eff.news, is a moderated area for regular postings from the eff in the form of effector online. to submit a posting for the effector online, or to get general information about the eff, write to eff@eff.org. there is also a wealth of information available via anonymous ftp on ftp.eff.org. the eff can be contacted at the electronic frontier foundation, inc. second st. # cambridge, ma eff@eff.org ( ) - ( ) - (fax) the free software foundation the free software foundation was started by richard stallman (creator of the popular gnu emacs editor). it is dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistributing, and modifying software. the word "free" in their name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. first, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you. second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you. the foundation works to provide these freedoms by developing free compatible replacements for proprietary software. specifically, they are putting together a complete, integrated software system called "gnu" that is upward-compatible with unix. {as an aside, the editor of the gnu project, emacs, contains a built-in lisp interpreter and a large part of its functionality is written in lisp. the name gnu is itself recursive (the mainstay of the lisp language); it stands for "gnu's not unix."} when it is released, everyone will be permitted to copy it and distribute it to others. in addition, it will be distributed with source code, so you will be able to learn about operating systems by reading it, to port it to your own machine, and to exchange the changes with others. for more information on the free software foundation and the status of the gnu project, or for a list of the current tasks that still need to be done, write to gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu. the ieee need ieee... the league for programming freedom the league for programming freedom is a grass-roots organization of professors, students, businessmen, programmers and users dedicated to "bringing back" the freedom to write programs, which they contend has been lost over the past number years. the league is not opposed to the legal system that congress intended--copyright on individual programs. their aim is to reverse the recent changes made by judges in response to special interests, often explicitly rejecting the public interest principles of the constitution. the league works to abolish the new monopolies by publishing articles, talking with public officials, boycotting egregious offenders, and in the future may intervene in court cases. on may , , the league picketed lotus headquarters because of their lawsuits, and then again on august , . these marches stimulated widespread media coverage for the issue. they welcome suggestions for other activities, as well as help in carrying them out. for information on the league and how to join, write to league for programming freedom kendall square # p.o. box cambridge, ma league@prep.ai.mit.edu networking initiatives research and development are two buzz words often heard when discussing the networking field---everything needs to go faster, over longer distances, for a lower cost. to "keep current," one should read the various trade magazines and newspapers, or frequent the networking-oriented newsgroups of usenet. if possible, attend trade shows and symposia like usenix, interop, et. al. isdn nren the national research and education network (nren) is a five-year project approved by congress in the fall of . it's intended to create a national electronic "super-highway." the nren will be times faster than the fastest available networks (at the time of this writing). proponents of the nren claim it will be possible to transfer the equivalent of the entire text of the encyclopedia britannica in one second. further information, including the original text of the bill presented by senator al gore (d--tn), is available through anonymous ftp to nis.nsf.net, in the directory nsfnet. in addition, vint cerf wrote on the then-proposed nren in rfc- , thoughts on the national research and education network. rfcs for information on obtaining rfcs. a mailing list, nren-discuss@uu.psi.com, is available for discussion of the nren; write to nren-discuss-request@uu.psi.com to be added. "to talk in publick, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire, and to answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar." samuel johnson chapter viii the history of rasselas, prince of abissinia ----- finding out more internet resource guide the nsf network service center (nnsc) compiles and makes available an internet resource guide (irg). the goal of the guide is to increase the visibility of various internet resources that may help users do their work better. while not yet an exhaustive list, the guide is a useful compendium of many resources and can be a helpful reference for a new user. resources listed are grouped by types into sections. current sections include descriptions of online library catalogs, data archives, online white pages directory services, networks, network information centers, and computational resources, such as supercomputers. each entry describes the resource, identifies who can use the resource, explains how to reach the local network via the internet, and lists contacts for more information. the list is distributed electronically by the nnsc. to receive a guide, or to get on a mailing list that alerts you to when it is updated, send a message to resource-guide-request@nnsc.nsf.net. the current edition of the irg is available via anonymous ftp from nnsc.nsf.net, in the directory /resource-guide. requests for comments the internal workings of the internet are defined by a set of documents called rfcs (request for comments). the general process for creating an rfc is for someone wanting something formalized to write a document describing the issue and mailing it to jon postel (postel@isi.edu). he acts as a referee for the proposal. it is then commented upon by all those wishing to take part in the discussion (electronically, of course). it may go through multiple revisions. should it be generally accepted as a good idea, it will be assigned a number and filed with the rfcs. the rfcs can be divided into five groups: required, suggested, directional, informational and obsolete. required rfcs (e.g., rfc- , the internet protocol) must be implemented on any host connected to the internet. suggested rfcs are generally implemented by network hosts. lack of them does not preclude access to the internet, but may impact its usability. rfc- , transmission control protocol, is a must for those implementing tcp. directional rfcs were discussed and agreed to, but their application has never come into wide use. this may be due to the lack of wide need for the specific application (rfc- , the post office protocol) or that, although technically superior, ran against other pervasive approaches (rfc- , hello). it is suggested that, should the facility be required by a particular site, an implementation be done in accordance with the rfc. this ensures that, should the idea be one whose time has come, the implementation will be in accordance with some standard and will be generally usable. informational rfcs contain factual information about the internet and its operation (rfc- , assigned numbers). there is also a subset of rfcs called fyis (for your information). they are written in a language much more informal than that used in the other, standard rfcs. topics range from answers to common questions for new and experienced users to a suggested bibliography. finally, as the internet has grown and technology has changed, some rfcs become unnecessary. these obsolete rfcs cannot be ignored, however. frequently when a change is made to some rfc that causes a new one to obsolete others, the new rfc only contains explanations and motivations for the change. understanding the model on which the whole facility is based may involve reading the original and subsequent rfcs on the topic. rfcs and fyis are available via ftp from many sources, including: the nic.ddn.mil archive, as /rfc/rfc-xxxx.txt, where xxxx is the number of the rfc. from ftp.uu.net, in the directory /rfc. they're also available through mail by writing to service@nic.ddn.mil, with a subject: line of send rfc-xxxx.txt, again with xxxx being the rfc number. "knowledge is of two kinds. we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it." samuel johnson letter to lord chesterfield february, a book of quotes said april , .. the book of johnson's works said it's ; i'll go with the latter. ------- conclusion this guide is far from complete---the internet changes on a daily (if not hourly) basis. however, this booklet should provide enough information to make the incredible breadth and complexity of the internet a mite less imposing. coupled with some exploration and experimentation, every user has the potential to be a competent net citizen, using the facilities that are available to their fullest. you, the reader, are strongly encouraged to suggest improvements to any part of this booklet. if something was unclear, left you with doubts, or wasn't addressed, it should be fixed. if you find any problems, inaccuracies, spelling errors, etc., please report them to: brendan kehoe department of computer science widener university chester, pa internet: guide-bugs@cs.widener.edu uucp: ...!widener!guide-bugs if you are interested in future updates to this guide (aside from normal new editions), discussion about information to be included or removed, etc., write to guide-request@cs.widener.edu to be placed on a mailing list for such things. @dots is actually `. . . .' "i've seed de first an de last @dots i seed de beginnin, en now i sees de endin." william faulkner the sound & the fury april , -------- getting to other networks inter-connectivity has been and always will be one of the biggest goals in computer networking. the ultimate desire is to make it so one person can contact anyone else no matter where they are. a number of "gateways" between networks have been set up. they include: applelink quantum services sells access to applelink, which is similar to quantumlink for commodore computers and pclink for ibm pcs and compatibles. it also provides email access through the address user@applelink.apple.com. attmail at&t sells a commercial email service called attmail. its users can be reached by writing to user@attmail.com. bix users on bix (the byte information exchange) can be reached through the das gateway at user@cibix.das.net. compuserve (ci$) to reach a user on the commercial service compuserve, you must address the mail as xxxxx.xxx@compuserve.com, with xxxxx.xxx being their compuserve user id. normally compuserve ids are represented as being separated by a comma (like , ); since most mailers don't react well to having commas in addresses, it was changed to a period. for the above address, mail would be sent to . @compuserve.com. easynet digital sells a service called easynet; users that subscribe to it can be reached with the addresses user@host.enet.dec.com or user%host.enet@decwrl.dec.com. fidonet the fidonet computer network can be reached by using a special addressing method. if john smith is on the node : / . on fidonet, his or her email address would be john.smith@p .f .n .z .fidonet.org (notice how the numbers fall in place?). mci mail mci also sells email accounts (similar to attmail). users can be reached with user@mcimail.com. peacenet users on the peacenet network can be reached by writing to user@igc.org. the well users on the service the well can be reached by writing to user@well.sf.ca.us. the well is directly connected to the internet. this table is far from complete. in addition to sites not being listed, some services are not (nor do they plan to be) accessible from the "outside" (like prodigy); others, like genie, are actively investigating the possibility of creating a gateway into their system. for the latest information, consult a list called the inter-network mail guide. it's available from a number of ftp sites, including uunet; anonymous ftp, for more information on getting a copy of it using anonymous ftp. retrieving files via email for those who have a connection to the internet, but cannot ftp, there do exist a few alternatives to get those files you so desperately need. when requesting files, it's imperative that you keep in mind the size of your request---odds are the other people who may be using your link won't be too receptive to sudden bursts of really heavy traffic on their normally sedate connection. archive servers an alternative to the currently well over-used ftpmail system is taking advantage of the many archive servers that are presently being maintained. these are programs that receive email messages that contain commands, and act on them. for example, sending an archive server the command help will usually yield, in the form of a piece of email, information on how to use the various commands that the server has available. one such archive server is service@nic.ddn.mil. maintained by the network information center (nic) in chantilly, va, the server is set up to make all of the information at the nic available for people who don't have access to ftp. this also includes the whois service (whois). some sample subject: lines for queries to the nic server are: subject: help describes available commands. subject: rfc sends a copy of rfc- . subject: rfc index sends an index of the available rfcs. subject: netinfo domain-template.txt sends a domain application. subject: whois widener sends whois information on `widener'. more information on using their archive server can be obtained by writing to their server address service@nic.ddn.mil with a subject: of help. there are different "brands" of archive server, each with its own set of commands and services. among them there often exists a common set of commands and services (e.g. index, help, etc). be that as it may, one should always consult the individual help for a specific server before assuming the syntax--- k surprises can be hard on a system. ftp-by-mail servers some systems offer people the ability to receive files through a mock-ftp interface via email. anonymous ftp for a general overview of how to ftp. the effects of providing such a service varies, although a rule of thumb is that it will probably use a substantial amount of the available resources on a system. the "original" ftp-by-mail service, bitftp, is available to bitnet users from the princeton node pucc. it was once accessible to anyone, but had to be closed out to non-bitnet users because of the heavy load on the system. in response to this closure, paul vixie designed and installed a system called ftpmail on one of digital's gateway computers, decwrl.dec.com. write to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com with help in the body of the letter for instructions on its use. the software is undergoing constant development; once it reaches a stable state, other sites will be encouraged to adopt it and provide the service also. newsgroup creation everyone has the opportunity to make a call for votes on the usenet and attempt to create a newsgroup that he/she feels would be of benefit to the general readership. the rules governing newsgroup creation have evolved over the years into a generally accepted method. they only govern the "world" groups; they aren't applicable to regional or other alternative hierarchies. discussion a discussion must first take place to address issues like the naming of the group, where in the group tree it should go (e.g. rec.sports.koosh vs rec.games.koosh?), and whether or not it should be created in the first place. the formal request for discussion (rfd) should be posted to news.announce.newgroups, along with any other groups or mailing lists at all related to the proposed topic. news.announce.newgroups is moderated. you should place it first in the newsgroups: header, so that it will get mailed to the moderator only. the article won't be immediately posted to the other newsgroups listed; rather, it will give you the opportunity to have the moderator correct any inconsistencies or mistakes in your rfd. he or she will take care of posting it to the newsgroups you indicated. also the followup-to: header will be set so that the actual discussion takes place only in news.groups. if a user has difficulty posting to a moderated group, he or she may mail submissions intended for news.announce.newgroups to the address announce-newgroups@rpi.edu. the final name and charter of the group, and whether it will be moderated or unmoderated, will be determined during the discussion period. if it's to be moderated, the discussion will also decide who the moderator will be. if there's no general agreement on these points among those in favor of a new group at the end of days, the discussion will be taken into mail rather than continued posting to news.groups; that way, the proponents of the group can iron out their differences and come back with a proper proposal, and make a new request for discussion. voting after the discussion period (which is mandatory), if it's been determined that a new group really is desired, a name and charter are agreed upon, and it's been determined whether the group will be moderated (and by whom), a call for votes (cfv) should be posted to news.announce.newgroups, along with any other groups that the original request for discussion was posted to. the cfv should be posted (or mailed to the news.announce.newgroups moderator) as soon as possible after the discussion ends (to keep it fresh in everyone's mind). the call for votes should include clear instructions on how to cast a vote. it's important that it be clearly explained how to both vote for and against a group (and be of equivalent difficulty or ease). if it's easier for you or your administrator, two separate addresses can be used to mail yes and no votes to, providing that they're on the same machine. regardless of the method, everyone must have a very specific idea of how to get his/her vote counted. the voting period can last between and days, no matter what the preliminary results of the vote are. a vote can't be called off simply because "no" votes have come in and only two "yes" votes. the call for votes should include the exact date that the voting period will end---only those votes arriving on the vote-taker's machine before this date can be counted. to keep awareness high, the cfv can be repeated during the vote, provided that it gives the same clear, unbiased instructions for casting a vote as the original; it also has to be the same proposal as was first posted. the charter can't change in mid-vote. also, votes that're posted don't count---only those that were mailed to the vote-taker can be tallied. partial results should never be included; only a statement of the specific proposal, that a vote is in progress on it, and how to cast a vote. a mass acknowledgement ("mass ack" or "vote ack") is permitted; however, it must be presented in a way that gives no indication of which way a person voted. one way to avoid this is to create one large list of everyone who's voted, and sort it in alphabetical order. it should not be two sorted lists (of the yes and no votes, respectively). every vote is autonomous. the votes for or against one group can't be transferred to another, similar proposal. a vote can only count for the exact proposal that it was a response to. in particular, a vote for or against a newsgroup under one name can't be counted as a vote for or against another group with a different name or charter, a different moderated/unmoderated status, or, if it's moderated, a different moderator or set of moderators. whew! finally, the vote has to be explicit; they should be of the form i vote for the group foo.bar as proposed or i vote against the group foo.bar as proposed. the wording doesn't have to be exact, your intention just has to be clear. the result of a vote at the end of the voting period, the vote-taker has to post (to news.announce.newgroups) the tally and email addresses of the votes received. again, it can also be posted to any of the groups listed in the original cfv. the tally should make clear which way a person voted, so the results can be verified if it proves necessary to do so. after the vote result is posted to news.announce.newgroups, there is a mandatory five-day waiting period. this affords everyone the opportunity to correct any errors or inconsistencies in the voter list or the voting procedure. creation of the group if, after the waiting period, there are no serious objections that might invalidate the vote, the vote is put to the "water test." if there were more valid yes/create votes than no/don't create votes, and at least two-thirds of the total number of votes are in favor of creation, then a newgroup control message can be sent out (often by the moderator of news.announce.newgroups). if the -vote margin or the two-thirds percentage isn't met, the group has failed and can't be created. if the proposal failed, all is not lost---after a six-month waiting period (a "cooling down"), a new request for discussion can be posted to news.groups, and the whole process can start over again. if after a couple of tries it becomes obvious that the group is not wanted or needed, the vote-taker should humbly step back and accept the opinion of the majority. (as life goes, so goes usenet.) -------- glossary this glossary is only a tiny subset of all of the various terms and other things that people regularly use on the net. for a more complete (and very entertaining) reference, it's suggested you get a copy of the new hacker's dictionary, which is based on a very large text file called the jargon file. edited by eric raymond (eric@snark.thyrsus.com), it is available from the mit press, cambridge, massachusetts, ; its isbn number is - - - . also see rfc- , a glossary of networking terms. :-) this odd symbol is one of the ways a person can portray "mood" in the very flat medium of computers---by using "smilies." this is `metacommunication', and there are literally hundreds of them, from the obvious to the obscure. this particular example expresses "happiness." don't see it? tilt your head to the left degrees. smilies are also used to denote sarcasm. network addresses are usually of two types: the physical or hardware address of a network interface card; for ethernet this -bit address might be . c . . the hardware address is used to forward packets within a physical network. fortunately, network users do not have to be concerned about hardware addresses since they are automatically handled by the networking software. the logical or internet address is used to facilitate moving data between physical networks. the -bit internet address is made up of a network number, a subnetwork number, and a host number. each host computer on the internet, has a unique address. for example, all internet addresses at colorado state have a network number of . , a subnet number in the range of - , and a host number in the range of - . all internet hosts have a numeric address and an english-style name. for example, the internet address for ucc's cyber is . . . ; its internet name is csugreen.ucc.colostate.edu. address resolution conversion of an internet address to the corresponding physical address. on an ethernet, resolution requires broadcasting on the local area network. administrivia administrative tasks, most often related to the maintenance of mailing lists, digests, news gateways, etc. anonymous ftp also known as "anon ftp"; a service provided to make files available to the general internet community---anonymous ftp. ansi the american national standards institute disseminates basic standards like ascii, and acts as the united states' delegate to the iso. standards can be ordered from ansi by writing to the ansi sales department, broadway, new york, ny , or by telephoning ( ) - . archie a service which provides lookups for packages in a database of the offerings of countless of anonymous ftp sites. archie for a full description. archive server an email-based file transfer facility offered by some systems. arpa (advanced research projects agency) former name of darpa, the government agency that funded arpanet and later the darpa internet. arpanet a pioneering long haul network funded by arpa. it served as the basis for early networking research as well as a central backbone during the development of the internet. the arpanet consisted of individual packet switching computers interconnected by leased lines. the arpanet no longer exists as a singular entity. asynchronous transmission by individual bytes, not related to specific timing on the transmitting end. auto-magic something which happens pseudo-automatically, and is usually too complex to go into any further than to say it happens "auto-magically." backbone a high-speed connection within a network that connects shorter, usually slower circuits. also used in reference to a system that acts as a "hub" for activity (although those are becoming much less prevalent now than they were ten years ago). bandwidth the capacity of a medium to transmit a signal. more informally, the mythical "size" of the net, and its ability to carry the files and messages of those that use it. some view certain kinds of traffic (ftping hundreds of graphics images, for example) as a "waste of bandwidth" and look down upon them. bitnet (because it's time network) an nje-based international educational network. bounce the return of a piece of mail because of an error in its delivery. btw an abbreviation for "by the way." cfv (call for votes) initiates the voting period for a usenet newsgroup. at least one (occasionally two or more) email address is customarily included as a repository for the votes. see newsgroup creation for a full description of the usenet voting process. clarinews the fee-based usenet newsfeed available from clarinet communications. client the user of a network service; also used to describe a computer that relies upon another for some or all of its resources. cyberspace a term coined by william gibson in his fantasy novel neuromancer to describe the "world" of computers, and the society that gathers around them. datagram the basic unit of information passed across the internet. it contains a source and destination address along with data. large messages are broken down into a sequence of ip datagrams. disassembling converting a binary program into human-readable machine language code. dns (domain name system) the method used to convert internet names to their corresponding internet numbers. domain a part of the naming hierarchy. syntactically, a domain name consists of a sequence of names or other words separated by dots. dotted quad a set of four numbers connected with periods that make up an internet address; for example, . . . . email the vernacular abbreviation for electronic mail. email address the uucp or domain-based address that a user is referred to with. for example, the author's address is brendan@cs.widener.edu. ethernet a -million bit per second networking scheme originally developed by xerox corporation. ethernet is widely used for lans because it can network a wide variety of computers, it is not proprietary, and components are widely available from many commercial sources. fddi (fiber distributed data interface) an emerging standard for network technology based on fiber optics that has been established by ansi. fddi specifies a -million bit per second data rate. the access control mechanism uses token ring technology. flame a piece of mail or a usenet posting which is violently argumentative. fqdn (fully qualified domain name) the fqdn is the full site name of a system, rather than just its hostname. for example, the system lisa at widener university has a fqdn of lisa.cs.widener.edu. ftp (file transfer protocol) the internet standard high-level protocol for transferring files from one computer to another. fyi an abbreviation for the phrase "for your information." there is also a series of rfcs put out by the network information center called fyis; they address common questions of new users and many other useful things. rfcs for instructions on retrieving fyis. gateway a special-purpose dedicated computer that attaches to two or more networks and routes packets from one network to the other. in particular, an internet gateway routes ip datagrams among the networks it connects. gateways route packets to other gateways until they can be delivered to the final destination directly across one physical network. header the portion of a packet, preceding the actual data, containing source and destination addresses and error-checking fields. also part of a message or news article. hostname the name given to a machine. (see also fqdn.) imho (in my humble opinion) this usually accompanies a statement that may bring about personal offense or strong disagreement. internet a concatenation of many individual tcp/ip campus, state, regional, and national networks (such as nsfnet, arpanet, and milnet) into one single logical network all sharing a common addressing scheme. internet number the dotted-quad address used to specify a certain system. the internet number for the site cs.widener.edu is . . . . a resolver is used to translate between hostnames and internet addresses. interoperate the ability of multi-vendor computers to work together using a common set of protocols. with interoperability, pcs, macs, suns, dec vaxen, cdc cybers, etc, all work together allowing one host computer to communicate with and take advantage of the resources of another. iso (international organization for standardization) coordinator of the main networking standards that are put into use today. kernel the level of an operating system or networking system that contains the system-level commands or all of the functions hidden from the user. in a unix system, the kernel is a program that contains the device drivers, the memory management routines, the scheduler, and system calls. this program is always running while the system is operating. lan (local area network) any physical network technology that operates at high speed over short distances (up to a few thousand meters). mail gateway a machine that connects to two or more electronic mail systems (especially dissimilar mail systems on two different networks) and transfers mail messages among them. mailing list a possibly moderated discussion group, distributed via email from a central computer maintaining the list of people involved in the discussion. mail path a series of machine names used to direct electronic mail from one user to another. medium the material used to support the transmission of data. this can be copper wire, coaxial cable, optical fiber, or electromagnetic wave (as in microwave). multiplex the division of a single transmission medium into multiple logical channels supporting many simultaneous sessions. for example, one network may have simultaneous ftp, telnet, rlogin, and smtp connections, all going at the same time. net.citizen an inhabitant of cyberspace. one usually tries to be a good net.citizen, lest one be flamed. netiquette a pun on "etiquette"; proper behavior on the net. usenet netiquette. network a group of machines connected together so they can transmit information to one another. there are two kinds of networks: local networks and remote networks. nfs (network file system) a method developed by sun microsystems to allow computers to share files across a network in a way that makes them appear as if they're "local" to the system. nic the network information center. node a computer that is attached to a network; also called a host. nsfnet the national backbone network, funded by the national science foundation and operated by the merit corporation, used to interconnect regional (mid-level) networks such as westnet to one another. packet the unit of data sent across a packet switching network. the term is used loosely. while some internet literature uses it to refer specifically to data sent across a physical network, other literature views the internet as a packet switching network and describes ip datagrams as packets. polling connecting to another system to check for things like mail or news. postmaster the person responsible for taking care of mail problems, answering queries about users, and other related work at a site. protocols a formal description of message formats and the rules two computers must follow to exchange those messages. protocols can describe low-level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g., the order in which bits and bytes are sent across a wire) or high-level exchanges between allocation programs (e.g., the way in which two programs transfer a file across the internet). recursion the facility of a programming language to be able to call functions from within themselves. resolve translate an internet name into its equivalent ip address or other dns information. rfd (request for discussion) usually a two- to three-week period in which the particulars of newsgroup creation are battled out. route the path that network traffic takes from its source to its destination. router a dedicated computer (or other device) that sends packets from one place to another, paying attention to the current state of the network. rtfm (read the fantastic manual). this anacronym is often used when someone asks a simple or common question. the word `fantastic' is usually replaced with one much more vulgar. smtp (simple mail transfer protocol) the internet standard protocol for transferring electronic mail messages from one computer to another. smtp specifies how two mail systems interact and the format of control messages they exchange to transfer mail. server a computer that shares its resources, such as printers and files, with other computers on the network. an example of this is a network file system (nfs) server which shares its disk space with other computers. signal-to-noise ratio when used in reference to usenet activity, signal-to-noise ratio describes the relation between amount of actual information in a discussion, compared to their quantity. more often than not, there's substantial activity in a newsgroup, but a very small number of those articles actually contain anything useful. signature the small, usually four-line message at the bottom of a piece of email or a usenet article. in unix, it's added by creating a file ..signature in the user's home directory. large signatures are a no-no. summarize to encapsulate a number of responses into one coherent, usable message. often done on controlled mailing lists or active newsgroups, to help reduce bandwidth. synchronous data communications in which transmissions are sent at a fixed rate, with the sending and receiving devices synchronized. tcp/ip (transmission control protocol/internet protocol) a set of protocols, resulting from arpa efforts, used by the internet to support services such as remote login (telnet), file transfer (ftp) and mail (smtp). telnet the internet standard protocol for remote terminal connection service. telnet allows a user at one site to interact with a remote timesharing system at another site as if the user's terminal were connected directly to the remote computer. terminal server a small, specialized, networked computer that connects many terminals to a lan through one network connection. any user on the network can then connect to various network hosts. tex a free typesetting system by donald knuth. twisted pair cable made up of a pair of insulated copper wires wrapped around each other to cancel the effects of electrical noise. uucp (unix to unix copy program) a store-and-forward system, primarily for unix systems but currently supported on other platforms (e.g. vms and personal computers). wan (wide-area network) a network spanning hundreds or thousands of miles. workstation a networked personal computing device with more power than a standard ibm pc or macintosh. typically, a workstation has an operating system such as unix that is capable of running several tasks at the same time. it has several megabytes of memory and a large, high-resolution display. examples are sun workstations and digital decstations. worm a computer program which replicates itself. the internet worm (the internet worm) was perhaps the most famous; it successfully (and accidentally) duplicated itself on systems across the internet. wrt with respect to. "i hate definitions." benjamin disraeli vivian grey, bk i chap ii ------ bibliography what follows is a compendium of sources that have information that will be of use to anyone reading this guide. most of them were used in the writing of the booklet, while others are simply noted because they are a must for any good net.citizen's bookshelf. books comer, douglas e. internetworking with tcp/ip, nd ed., v prentice hall englewood cliffs, nj davidson, john an introduction to tcp/ip springer-verlag berlin frey, donnalyn, and adams, rick !@%:: a directory of electronic mail addressing and networks o'reilly and associates newton, ma gibson, william neuromancer ace new york, ny laquey, tracy users' directory of computer networks digital press bedford, ma levy, stephen hackers: heroes of the computer revolution anchor press/doubleday garden city, ny partridge, craig innovations in internetworking artech house norwood, ma quarterman, john s. the matrix: computer networks and conferencing systems worldwide digital press bedford, ma raymond, eric (ed) the new hacker's dictionary mit press cambridge, ma stoll, clifford the cuckoo's egg doubleday new york tanenbaum, andrew s. computer networks, d ed prentice-hall englewood cliffs, nj todinao, grace using uucp and usenet: a nutshell handbook o'reilly and associates newton, ma the waite group unix communications, nd ed. howard w. sams & company indianapolis periodicals & papers magazine: barlow, j coming into the country communications of the acm : march addresses "cyberspace"---john barlow was a co-founder of the eff. proceedings: collyer, g., and spencer, h news need not be slow proceedings of the winter usenix conference -- usenix association, berkeley, ca january magazine: denning, p the internet worm american scientist -- march--april magazine: the science of computing: computer networks american scientist -- march--april magazine: frey, d., and adams, r usenet: death by success? unix review -- august magazine: gifford, w. s isdn user-network interfaces ieee journal on selected areas in communications -- may magazine: ginsberg, k getting from here to there unix review january magazine: hiltz, s. r the human element in computerized conferencing systems computer networks -- december proceedings: horton, m what is a domain? proceedings of the summer usenix conference -- usenix association, berkeley, ca june magazine: jacobsen, ole j information on tcp/ip connexions---the interoperability report -- july magazine: jennings, d., et al computer networking for scientists science -- february paper: markoff, j "author of computer `virus' is son of u.s. electronic security expert." new york times nov. , a paper: "computer snarl: a `back door' ajar." new york times nov. , b magazine: mcquillan, j. m., and walden, d. c the arpa network design decisions computer networks -- magazine: ornstein, s. m a letter concerning the internet worm communications of the acm : june proceedings: partridge, c mail routing using domain names: an informal tour proceedings of the summer usenix conference -- usenix association, berkeley, ca june magazine: quarterman, j etiquette and ethics connexions---the interoperability report -- march magazine: notable computer networks communications of the acm : october this was the predecessor to the matrix. magazine: raeder, a. w., and andrews, k. l searching library catalogs on the internet: a survey database searcher -- september proceedings: seeley, d a tour of the worm proceedings of the winter usenix conference -- usenix association, berkeley, ca february magazine: shulman, g legal research on usenet liability issues ;login: the usenix association newsletter -- december magazine: smith, k e-mail to anywhere pc world -- march magazine: stoll, c stalking the wily hacker communications of the acm : may this article grew into the book the cuckoo's egg. proceedings: taylor, d the postman always rings twice: electronic mail in a highly distributed environment proceedings of the winter usenix conference -- usenix association, berkeley, ca december magazine: u.s.gen'l accounting ofc computer security: virus highlights need for improved internet management gao/imtec- - , addresses the internet worm. "and all else is literature." paul verlaine the sun, new york while he was city editor in -- . -- bill walther, carleton university, ottawa, canada the hitchhikers guide to the internet august ed krol krol@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu this document was produced through funding of the national science foundation. copyright (c) , by the board of trustees of the university of illinois. permission to duplicate this document, in whole or part, is granted provided reference is made to the source and this copyright is included in whole copies. this document assumes that one is familiar with the workings of a non-connected simple ip network (e.g. a few . bsd systems on an ethernet not connected to anywhere else). appendix a contains remedial information to get one to this point. its purpose is to get that person, familiar with a simple net, versed in the "oral tradition" of the internet to the point that that net can be connected to the internet with little danger to either. it is not a tutorial, it consists of pointers to other places, literature, and hints which are not normally documented. since the internet is a dynamic environment, changes to this document will be made regularly. the author welcomes comments and suggestions. this is especially true of terms for the glossary (definitions are not necessary). in the beginning there was the arpanet, a wide area experimental network connecting hosts and terminal servers together. procedures were set up to regulate the allocation of addresses and to create voluntary standards for the network. as local area networks became more pervasive, many hosts became gateways to local networks. a network layer to allow the interoperation of these networks was developed and called ip (internet protocol). over time other groups created long haul ip based networks (nasa, nsf, states...). these nets, too, interoperate because of ip. the collection of all of these interoperating networks is the internet. two groups do much of the research and information work of the internet (isi and sri). isi (the informational sciences institute) does much of the research, standardization, and allocation work of the internet. sri international provides information services for the internet. in fact, after you are connected to the internet most of the information in this document can be retrieved from the network information center (nic) run by sri. operating the internet each network, be it the arpanet, nsfnet or a regional network, has its own operations center. the arpanet is run by bbn, inc. under contract from darpa. their facility is called the network operations center or noc. cornell university temporarily operates nsfnet (called the network information service center, nisc). it goes on to the - - regionals having similar facilities to monitor and keep watch over the goings on of their portion of the internet. in addition, they all should have some knowledge of what is happening to the internet in total. if a problem comes up, it is suggested that a campus network liaison should contact the network operator to which he is directly connected. that is, if you are connected to a regional network (which is gatewayed to the nsfnet, which is connected to the arpanet...) and have a problem, you should contact your regional network operations center. rfcs the internal workings of the internet are defined by a set of documents called rfcs (request for comments). the general process for creating an rfc is for someone wanting something formalized to write a document describing the issue and mailing it to jon postel (postel@isi.edu). he acts as a referee for the proposal. it is then commented upon by all those wishing to take part in the discussion (electronically of course). it may go through multiple revisions. should it be generally accepted as a good idea, it will be assigned a number and filed with the rfcs. the rfcs can be divided into five groups: required, suggested, directional, informational and obsolete. required rfc's (e.g. rfc- , the internet protocol) must be implemented on any host connected to the internet. suggested rfcs are generally implemented by network hosts. lack of them does not preclude access to the internet, but may impact its usability. rfc- (transmission control protocol) is a suggested rfc. directional rfcs were discussed and agreed to, but their application has never come into wide use. this may be due to the lack of wide need for the specific application (rfc- the post office protocol) or that, although technically superior, ran against other pervasive approaches (rfc- hello). it is suggested that should the facility be required by a particular site, animplementation be done in accordance with the rfc. this insures that, should the idea be one whose time has come, the implementation will be in accordance with some standard and will be generally usable. informational rfcs contain factual information about the internet and its operation (rfc- , assigned numbers). finally, as the internet and technology have grown, some rfcs have become unnecessary. these obsolete rfcs cannot be ignored, however. frequently when a change is made to some rfc that causes a new one to be issued obsoleting others, the new rfc only contains explanations and motivations for the change. understanding the model on which the whole facility is based may involve reading the original and subsequent rfcs on the topic. - - (appendix b contains a list of what are considered to be the major rfcs necessary for understanding the internet). the network information center the nic is a facility available to all internet users which provides information to the community. there are three means of nic contact: network, telephone, and mail. the network accesses are the most prevalent. interactive access is frequently used to do queries of nic service overviews, look up user and host names, and scan lists of nic documents. it is available by using %telnet sri-nic.arpa on a bsd system and following the directions provided by a user friendly prompter. from poking around in the databases provided one might decide that a document named netinfo:nug.doc (the users guide to the arpanet) would be worth having. it could be retrieved via an anonymous ftp. an anonymous ftp would proceed something like the following. (the dialogue may vary slightly depending on the implementation of ftp you are using). %ftp sri-nic.arpa connected to sri-nic.arpa. sri_nic.arpa ftp server process z( )- at wed -jun- : pdt name (sri-nic.arpa:myname): anonymous anonymous user ok, send real ident as password. password: myname user anonymous logged in at wed -jun- : pdt, job . ftp> get netinfo:nug.doc port . at host . . . accepted. ascii retrieve of <netinfo>nug.doc. started. transfer completed ( ) bytes transferred local: netinfo:nug.doc remote:netinfo:nug.doc bytes in . e+ seconds ( . kbytes/s) ftp> quit quit command received. goodbye. (another good initial document to fetch is netinfo:what-the-nic-does.txt)! questions of the nic or problems with services can be asked of or reported to using electronic mail. the following addresses can be used: nic@sri-nic.arpa general user assistance, document requests registrar@sri-nic.arpa user registration and whois updates hostmaster@sri-nic.arpa hostname and domain changes and updates action@sri-nic.arpa sri-nic computer operations suggestions@sri-nic.arpa comments on nic publications and services - - for people without network access, or if the number of documents is large, many of the nic documents are available in printed form for a small charge. one frequently ordered document for starting sites is a compendium of major rfcs. telephone access is used primarily for questions or problems with network access. (see appendix b for mail/telephone contact numbers). the nsfnet network service center the nsfnet network service center (nnsc) is funded by nsf to provide a first level of aid to users of nsfnet should they have questions or encounter problems traversing the network. it is run by bbn inc. karen roubicek (roubicek@nnsc.nsf.net) is the nnsc user liaison. the nnsc, which currently has information and documents online and in printed form, plans to distribute news through network mailing lists, bulletins, newsletters, and online reports. the nnsc also maintains a database of contact points and sources of additional information about nsfnet component networks and supercomputer centers. prospective or current users who do not know whom to call concerning questions about nsfnet use, should contact the nnsc. the nnsc will answer general questions, and, for detailed information relating to specific components of the internet, will help users find the appropriate contact for further assistance. (appendix b) mail reflectors the way most people keep up to date on network news is through subscription to a number of mail reflectors. mail reflectors are special electronic mailboxes which, when they receive a message, resend it to a list of other mailboxes. this in effect creates a discussion group on a particular topic. each subscriber sees all the mail forwarded by the reflector, and if one wants to put his "two cents" in sends a message with the comments to the reflector.... the general format to subscribe to a mail list is to find the address reflector and append the string -request to the mailbox name (not the host name). for example, if you wanted to take part in the mailing list for nsfnet reflected by nsfnet@nnsc.nsf.net, one sends a request to - - nsfnet-request@nnsc.nsf.net. this may be a wonderful scheme, but the problem is that you must know the list exists in the first place. it is suggested that, if you are interested, you read the mail from one list (like nsfnet) and you will probably become familiar with the existence of others. a registration service for mail reflectors is provided by the nic in the files netinfo:interest-groups- .txt, netinfo:interest-groups- .txt, and netinfo:interest-groups- .txt. the nsfnet mail reflector is targeted at those people who have a day to day interest in the news of the nsfnet (the backbone, regional network, and internet inter-connection site workers). the messages are reflected by a central location and are sent as separate messages to each subscriber. this creates hundreds of messages on the wide area networks where bandwidth is the scarcest. there are two ways in which a campus could spread the news and not cause these messages to inundate the wide area networks. one is to re-reflect the message on the campus. that is, set up a reflector on a local machine which forwards the message to a campus distribution list. the other is to create an alias on a campus machine which places the messages into a notesfile on the topic. campus users who want the information could access the notesfile and see the messages that have been sent since their last access. one might also elect to have the campus wide area network liaison screen the messages in either case and only forward those which are considered of merit. either of these schemes allows one message to be sent to the campus, while allowing wide distribution within. address allocation before a local network can be connected to the internet it must be allocated a unique ip address. these addresses are allocated by isi. the allocation process consists of getting an application form received from isi. (send a message to hostmaster@sri-nic.arpa and ask for the template for a connected address). this template is filled out and mailed back to hostmaster. an address is allocated and e-mailed back to you. this can also be done by postal mail (appendix b). ip addresses are bits long. it is usually written as four decimal numbers separated by periods (e.g., . . . ). each number is the value of an octet of the bits. it was seen from the beginning that some networks might choose to organize themselves as very flat (one net with a lot of nodes) and some might organize hierarchically - - (many interconnected nets with fewer nodes each and a backbone). to provide for these cases, addresses were differentiated into class a, b, and c networks. this classification had to with the interpretation of the octets. class a networks have the first octet as a network address and the remaining three as a host address on that network. class c addresses have three octets of network address and one of host. class b is split two and two. therefore, there is an address space for a few large nets, a reasonable number of medium nets and a large number of small nets. the top two bits in the first octet are coded to tell the address format. all of the class a nets have been allocated. so one has to choose between class b and class c when placing an order. (there are also class d (multicast) and e (experimental) formats. multicast addresses will likely come into greater use in the near future, but are not frequently used now). in the past sites requiring multiple network addresses requested multiple discrete addresses (usually class c). this was done because much of the software available (not ably . bsd) could not deal with subnetted addresses. information on how to reach a particular network (routing information) must be stored in internet gateways and packet switches. some of these nodes have a limited capability to store and exchange routing information (limited to about networks). therefore, it is suggested that any campus announce (make known to the internet) no more than two discrete network numbers. if a campus expects to be constrained by this, it should consider subnetting. subnetting (rfc- ) allows one to announce one address to the internet and use a set of addresses on the campus. basically, one defines a mask which allows the network to differentiate between the network portion and host portion of the address. by using a different mask on the internet and the campus, the address can be interpreted in multiple ways. for example, if a campus requires two networks internally and has the , addresses beginning . .x.x (a class b address) allocated to it, the campus could allocate . . .x to one part of campus and . . .x to another. by advertising . to the internet with a subnet mask of ff.ff. . , the internet would treat these two addresses as one. within the campus a mask of ff.ff.ff. would be used, allowing the campus to treat the addresses as separate entities. (in reality you don't pass the subnet mask of ff.ff. . to the internet, the octet meaning is implicit in its being a class b address). a word of warning is necessary. not all systems know how to do subnetting. some . bsd systems require additional software. . bsd systems subnet as released. other devices - - and operating systems vary in the problems they have dealing with subnets. frequently these machines can be used as a leaf on a network but not as a gateway within the subnetted portion of the network. as time passes and more systems become . bsd based, these problems should disappear. there has been some confusion in the past over the format of an ip broadcast address. some machines used an address of all zeros to mean broadcast and some all ones. this was confusing when machines of both type were connected to the same network. the broadcast address of all ones has been adopted to end the grief. some systems (e.g. . bsd) allow one to choose the format of the broadcast address. if a system does allow this choice, care should be taken that the all ones format is chosen. (this is explained in rfc- and rfc- ). internet problems there are a number of problems with the internet. solutions to the problems range from software changes to long term research projects. some of the major ones are detailed below: number of networks when the internet was designed it was to have about connected networks. with the explosion of networking, the number is now approaching . the software in a group of critical gateways (called the core gateways of the arpanet) are not able to pass or store much more than that number. in the short term, core reallocation and recoding has raised the number slightly. by the summer of ' the current pdp- core gateways will be replaced with bbn butterfly gateways which will solve the problem. routing issues along with sheer mass of the data necessary to route packets to a large number of networks, there are many problems with the updating, stability, and optimality of the routing algorithms. much research is being done in the area, but the optimal solution to these routing problems is still years away. in most cases the the routing we have today works, but sub-optimally and sometimes unpredictably. - - trust issues gateways exchange network routing information. currently, most gateways accept on faith that the information provided about the state of the network is correct. in the past this was not a big problem since most of the gateways belonged to a single administrative entity (darpa). now with multiple wide area networks under different administrations, a rogue gateway somewhere in the net could cripple the internet. there is design work going on to solve both the problem of a gateway doing unreasonable things and providing enough information to reasonably route data between multiply connected networks (multi-homed networks). capacity & congestion many portions of the arpanet are very congested during the busy part of the day. additional links are planned to alleviate this congestion, but the implementation will take a few months. these problems and the future direction of the internet are determined by the internet architect (dave clark of mit) being advised by the internet activities board (iab). this board is composed of chairmen of a number of committees with responsibility for various specialized areas of the internet. the committees composing the iab and their chairmen are: committee chair autonomous networks deborah estrin end-to-end services bob braden internet architecture dave mills internet engineering phil gross egp mike petry name domain planning doug kingston gateway monitoring craig partridge internic jake feinler performance & congestion controlrobert stine nsf routing chuck hedrick misc. milsup issues mike st. johns privacy steve kent irinet requirements vint cerf robustness & survivability jim mathis scientific requirements barry leiner note that under internet engineering, there are a set of task forces and chairs to look at short term concerns. the chairs of these task forces are not part of the iab. - - routing routing is the algorithm by which a network directs a packet from its source to its destination. to appreciate the problem, watch a small child trying to find a table in a restaurant. from the adult point of view the structure of the dining room is seen and an optimal route easily chosen. the child, however, is presented with a set of paths between tables where a good path, let alone the optimal one to the goal is not discernible.*** a little more background might be appropriate. ip gateways (more correctly routers) are boxes which have connections to multiple networks and pass traffic between these nets. they decide how the packet is to be sent based on the information in the ip header of the packet and the state of the network. each interface on a router has an unique address appropriate to the network to which it is connected. the information in the ip header which is used is primarily the destination address. other information (e.g. type of service) is largely ignored at this time. the state of the network is determined by the routers passing information among themselves. the distribution of the database (what each node knows), the form of the updates, and metrics used to measure the value of a connection, are the parameters which determine the characteristics of a routing protocol. under some algorithms each node in the network has complete knowledge of the state of the network (the adult algorithm). this implies the nodes must have larger amounts of local storage and enough cpu to search the large tables in a short enough time (remember this must be done for each packet). also, routing updates usually contain only changes to the existing information (or you spend a large amount of the network capacity passing around megabyte routing updates). this type of algorithm has several problems. since the only way the routing information can be passed around is across the network and the propagation time is non-trivial, the view of the network at each node is a correct historical view of the network at varying times in the past. (the adult algorithm, but rather than looking directly at the dining area, looking at a photograph of the dining room. one is likely to pick the optimal route and find a bus-cart has moved in to block the path after the photo was taken). these inconsistencies can cause circular routes (called routing loops) where once a packet enters it is routed in a closed path until its time to live (ttl) field expires and it is discarded. other algorithms may know about only a subset of the network. to prevent loops in these protocols, they are usually used in a hierarchical network. they know completely about their own area, but to leave that area they go to one particular place (the default gateway). typically these are used in smaller networks (campus, regional...). - - routing protocols in current use: static (no protocol-table/default routing) don't laugh. it is probably the most reliable, easiest to implement, and least likely to get one into trouble for a small network or a leaf on the internet. this is, also, the only method available on some cpu-operating system combinations. if a host is connected to an ethernet which has only one gateway off of it, one should make that the default gateway for the host and do no other routing. (of course that gateway may pass the reachablity information somehow on the other side of itself). one word of warning, it is only with extreme caution that one should use static routes in the middle of a network which is also using dynamic routing. the routers passing dynamic information are sometimes confused by conflicting dynamic and static routes. if your host is on an ethernet with multiple routers to other networks on it and the routers are doing dynamic routing among themselves, it is usually better to take part in the dynamic routing than to use static routes. rip rip is a routing protocol based on xns (xerox network system) adapted for ip networks. it is used by many routers (proteon, cisco, ub...) and many bsd unix systems bsd systems typically run a program called "routed" to exchange information with other systems running rip. rip works best for nets of small diameter where the links are of equal speed. the reason for this is that the metric used to determine which path is best is the hop-count. a hop is a traversal across a gateway. so, all machines on the same ethernet are zero hops away. if a router connects connects two net- works directly, a machine on the other side of the router is one hop away.... as the routing information is passed through a gateway, the gateway adds one to the hop counts to keep them consistent across the net- work. the diameter of a network is defined as the largest hop-count possible within a network. unfor- tunately, a hop count of is defined as infinity in rip meaning the link is down. therefore, rip will not allow hosts separated by more than gateways in the rip space to communicate. the other problem with hop-count metrics is that if links have different speeds, that difference is not - - reflected in the hop-count. so a one hop satellite link (with a . sec delay) at kb would be used instead of a two hop t connection. congestion can be viewed as a decrease in the efficacy of a link. so, as a link gets more congested, rip will still know it is the best hop-count route and congest it even more by throwing more packets on the queue for that link. the protocol is not well documented. a group of people are working on producing an rfc to both define the current rip and to do some extensions to it to allow it to better cope with larger networks. currently, the best documentation for rip appears to be the code to bsd "routed". routed the routed program, which does rip for . bsd systems, has many options. one of the most frequently used is: "routed -q" (quiet mode) which means listen to rip infor- mation but never broadcast it. this would be used by a machine on a network with multiple rip speaking gate- ways. it allows the host to determine which gateway is best (hopwise) to use to reach a distant network. (of course you might want to have a default gateway to prevent having to pass all the addresses known to the internet around with rip). there are two ways to insert static routes into "routed", the "/etc/gateways" file and the "route add" command. static routes are useful if you know how to reach a distant network, but you are not receiving that route using rip. for the most part the "route add" command is preferable to use. the reason for this is that the command adds the route to that machine's routing table but does not export it through rip. the "/etc/gateways" file takes precedence over any routing information received through a rip update. it is also broadcast as fact in rip updates produced by the host without question, so if a mistake is made in the "/etc/gateways" file, that mistake will soon permeate the rip space and may bring the network to its knees. one of the problems with "routed" is that you have very little control over what gets broadcast and what doesn't. many times in larger networks where various parts of the network are under different administrative controls, you would like to pass on through rip only nets which you receive from rip and you know are reasonable. this prevents people from adding ip addresses to the network which may be illegal and you being responsible for passing them on to the internet. this - - type of reasonability checks are not available with "routed" and leave it usable, but inadequate for large networks. hello (rfc- ) hello is a routing protocol which was designed and implemented in a experimental software router called a "fuzzball" which runs on a pdp- . it does not have wide usage, but is the routing protocol currently used on the nsfnet backbone. the data transferred between nodes is similar to rip (a list of networks and their metrics). the metric, however, is milliseconds of delay. this allows hello to be used over nets of various link speeds and performs better in congestive situations. one of the most interesting side effects of hello based networks is their great timekeeping ability. if you consider the problem of measuring delay on a link for the metric, you find that it is not an easy thing to do. you cannot measure round trip time since the return link may be more congested, of a different speed, or even not there. it is not really feasible for each node on the network to have a builtin wwv (nationwide radio time standard) receiver. so, you must design an algorithm to pass around time between nodes over the network links where the delay in transmission can only be approximated. hello routers do this and in a nationwide network maintain synchronized time within milliseconds. exterior gateway protocol (egp rfc- ) egp is not strictly a routing protocol, it is a reacha- bility protocol. it tells only if nets can be reached through a particular gateway, not how good the connec- tion is. it is the standard by which gateways to local nets inform the arpanet of the nets they can reach. there is a metric passed around by egp but its usage is not standardized formally. its typical value is value is to which are arbitrary goodness of link values understood by the internal ddn gateways. the smaller the value the better and a value of being unreach- able. a quirk of the protocol prevents distinguishing between and , and ..., so the usablity of this as a metric is as three values and unreachable. within nsfnet the values used are , , and unreachable. many routers talk egp so they can be used for arpanet gateways. - - gated so we have regional and campus networks talking rip among themselves, the nsfnet backbone talking hello, and the ddn speaking egp. how do they interoperate? in the beginning there was static routing, assembled into the fuzzball software configured for each site. the problem with doing static routing in the middle of the network is that it is broadcast to the internet whether it is usable or not. therefore, if a net becomes unreachable and you try to get there, dynamic routing will immediately issue a net unreachable to you. under static routing the routers would think the net could be reached and would continue trying until the application gave up (in or more minutes). mark fedor of cornell (fedor@devvax.tn.cornell.edu) attempted to solve these problems with a replacement for "routed" called "gated". "gated" talks rip to rip speaking hosts, egp to egp speakers, and hello to hello'ers. these speakers frequently all live on one ethernet, but luckily (or unluckily) cannot understand each others ruminations. in addition, under configuration file control it can filter the conversion. for example, one can produce a configuration saying announce rip nets via hello only if they are specified in a list and are reachable by way of a rip broadcast as well. this means that if a rogue network appears in your local site's rip space, it won't be passed through to the hello side of the world. there are also configuration options to do static routing and name trusted gateways. this may sound like the greatest thing since sliced bread, but there is a catch called metric conversion. you have rip measuring in hops, hello measuring in milliseconds, and egp using arbitrary small numbers. the big questions is how many hops to a millisecond, how many milliseconds in the egp number .... also, remember that infinity (unreachability) is to rip, or so to hello, and to the ddn with egp. getting all these metrics to work well together is no small feat. if done incorrectly and you translate an rip of into an egp of , everyone in the arpanet will still think your gateway can reach the unreachable and will send every packet in the world your way. for these reasons, mark requests that you consult closely with him when configuring and using "gated". - - "names" all routing across the network is done by means of the ip address associated with a packet. since humans find it difficult to remember addresses like . . . , a symbolic name register was set up at the nic where people would say "i would like my host to be named 'uiucuxc'". machines connected to the internet across the nation would connect to the nic in the middle of the night, check modification dates on the hosts file, and if modified move it to their local machine. with the advent of workstations and micros, changes to the host file would have to be made nightly. it would also be very labor intensive and consume a lot of network bandwidth. rfc- and a number of others describe domain name service, a distributed data base system for mapping names into addresses. we must look a little more closely into what's in a name. first, note that an address specifies a particular connec- tion on a specific network. if the machine moves, the address changes. second, a machine can have one or more names and one or more network addresses (connections) to different networks. names point to a something which does useful work (i.e. the machine) and ip addresses point to an interface on that provider. a name is a purely symbolic representation of a list of addresses on the network. if a machine moves to a different network, the addresses will change but the name could remain the same. domain names are tree structured names with the root of the tree at the right. for example: uxc.cso.uiuc.edu is a machine called 'uxc' (purely arbitrary), within the subdomains method of allocation of the u of i) and 'uiuc' (the university of illinois at urbana), registered with 'edu' (the set of educational institutions). a simplified model of how a name is resolved is that on the user's machine there is a resolver. the resolver knows how to contact across the network a root name server. root servers are the base of the tree structured data retrieval system. they know who is responsible for handling first level domains (e.g. 'edu'). what root servers to use is an installation parameter. from the root server the resolver finds out who provides 'edu' service. it contacts the 'edu' name server which supplies it with a list of addresses of servers for the subdomains (like 'uiuc'). this action is repeated with the subdomain servers until the final sub- domain returns a list of addresses of interfaces on the host in question. the user's machine then has its choice of which of these addresses to use for communication. - - a group may apply for its own domain name (like 'uiuc' above). this is done in a manner similar to the ip address allocation. the only requirements are that the requestor have two machines reachable from the internet, which will act as name servers for that domain. those servers could also act as servers for subdomains or other servers could be designated as such. note that the servers need not be located in any particular place, as long as they are reach- able for name resolution. (u of i could ask michigan state to act on its behalf and that would be fine). the biggest problem is that someone must do maintenance on the database. if the machine is not convenient, that might not be done in a timely fashion. the other thing to note is that once the domain is allocated to an administrative entity, that entity can freely allocate subdomains using what ever manner it sees fit. the berkeley internet name domain (bind) server implements the internet name server for unix systems. the name server is a distributed data base system that allows clients to name resources and to share that information with other net- work hosts. bind is integrated with . bsd and is used to lookup and store host names, addresses, mail agents, host information, and more. it replaces the "/etc/hosts" file for host name lookup. bind is still an evolving program. to keep up with reports on operational problems, future design decisions, etc, join the bind mailing list by sending a request to "bind-request@ucbarp.berkeley.edu". bind can also be obtained via anonymous ftp from ucbarpa.berkley.edu. there are several advantages in using bind. one of the most important is that it frees a host from relying on "/etc/hosts" being up to date and complete. within the .uiuc.edu domain, only a few hosts are included in the host table distributed by sri. the remainder are listed locally within the bind tables on uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (the server machine for most of the .uiuc.edu domain). all are equally reachable from any other internet host running bind. bind can also provide mail forwarding information for inte- rior hosts not directly reachable from the internet. these hosts can either be on non-advertised networks, or not con- nected to a network at all, as in the case of uucp-reachable hosts. more information on bind is available in the "name server operations guide for bind" in "unix system manager's manual", . bsd release. there are a few special domains on the network, like sri- nic.arpa. the 'arpa' domain is historical, referring to hosts registered in the old hosts database at the nic. there are others of the form nnsc.nsf.net. these special domains are used sparingly and require ample justification. they refer to servers under the administrative control of - - the network rather than any single organization. this allows for the actual server to be moved around the net while the user interface to that machine remains constant. that is, should bbn relinquish control of the nnsc, the new provider would be pointed to by that name. in actuality, the domain system is a much more general and complex system than has been described. resolvers and some servers cache information to allow steps in the resolution to be skipped. information provided by the servers can be arbitrary, not merely ip addresses. this allows the system to be used both by non-ip networks and for mail, where it may be necessary to give information on intermediate mail bridges. what's wrong with berkeley unix university of california at berkeley has been funded by darpa to modify the unix system in a number of ways. included in these modifications is support for the internet protocols. in earlier versions (e.g. bsd . ) there was good support for the basic internet protocols (tcp, ip, smtp, arp) which allowed it to perform nicely on ip ether- nets and smaller internets. there were deficiencies, how- ever, when it was connected to complicated networks. most of these problems have been resolved under the newest release (bsd . ). since it is the springboard from which many vendors have launched unix implementations (either by porting the existing code or by using it as a model), many implementations (e.g. ultrix) are still based on bsd . . therefore, many implementations still exist with the bsd . problems. as time goes on, when bsd . trickles through vendors as new release, many of the problems will be resolved. following is a list of some problem scenarios and their handling under each of these releases. icmp redirects under the internet model, all a system needs to know to get anywhere in the internet is its own address, the address of where it wants to go, and how to reach a gateway which knows about the internet. it doesn't have to be the best gateway. if the system is on a network with multiple gateways, and a host sends a packet for delivery to a gateway which feels another directly connected gateway is more appropriate, the gateway sends the sender a message. this message is an icmp redirect, which politely says "i'll deliver this message for you, but you really ought to use that gate- way over there to reach this host". bsd . ignores these messages. this creates more stress on the gate- ways and the local network, since for every packet - - sent, the gateway sends a packet to the originator. bsd . uses the redirect to update its routing tables, will use the route until it times out, then revert to the use of the route it thinks is should use. the whole process then repeats, but it is far better than one per packet. trailers an application (like ftp) sends a string of octets to tcp which breaks it into chunks, and adds a tcp header. tcp then sends blocks of data to ip which adds its own headers and ships the packets over the network. all this prepending of the data with headers causes memory moves in both the sending and the receiving machines. someone got the bright idea that if packets were long and they stuck the headers on the end (they became trailers), the receiving machine could put the packet on the beginning of a page boundary and if the trailer was ok merely delete it and transfer control of the page with no memory moves involved. the problem is that trailers were never standardized and most gateways don't know to look for the routing information at the end of the block. when trailers are used, the machine typically works fine on the local network (no gateways involved) and for short blocks through gateways (on which trailers aren't used). so telnet and ftp's of very short files work just fine and ftp's of long files seem to hang. on bsd . trailers are a boot option and one should make sure they are off when using the internet. bsd . negotiates trailers, so it uses them on its local net and doesn't use them when going across the network. retransmissions tcp fires off blocks to its partner at the far end of the connection. if it doesn't receive an acknowledge- ment in a reasonable amount of time it retransmits the blocks. the determination of what is reasonable is done by tcp's retransmission algorithm. there is no correct algorithm but some are better than others, where better is measured by the number of retransmis- sions done unnecessarily. bsd . had a retransmission algorithm which retransmitted quickly and often. this is exactly what you would want if you had a bunch of machines on an ethernet (a low delay network of large bandwidth). if you have a network of relatively longer delay and scarce bandwidth (e.g. kb lines), it tends to retransmit too aggressively. therefore, it makes the networks and gateways pass more traffic than is really necessary for a given conversation. retransmis- sion algorithms do adapt to the delay of the network - - after a few packets, but . 's adapts slowly in delay situations. bsd . does a lot better and tries to do the best for both worlds. it fires off a few retransmissions really quickly assuming it is on a low delay network, and then backs off very quickly. it also allows the delay to be about minutes before it gives up and declares the connection broken. - - appendix a references to remedial information quaterman and hoskins, "notable computer networks", communications of the acm, vol , # , pp. - (october, ). tannenbaum, andrew s., computer networks, prentice hall, . hedrick, chuck, introduction to the internet protocols, anonymous ftp from topaz.rutgers.edu, directory pub/tcp-ip-docs, file tcp-ip-intro.doc. - - appendix b list of major rfcs rfc- user datagram protocol (udp) rfc- internet protocol (ip) rfc- internet control message protocol (icmp) rfc- transmission control protocol (tcp) rfc- simple mail transfer protocol (smtp) rfc- standard for the format of arpa internet text messages rfc- telnet protocol rfc- * internet subnets rfc- * broadcasting internet datagrams rfc- * broadcasting internet datagrams in the presence of subnets rfc- * toward an internet standard scheme for subnetting rfc- * multi-network broadcasting within the internet rfc- * internet standard subnetting procedure rfc- file transfer protocol (ftp) rfc- * host groups: a multicast extension to the internet protocol rfc- * host extensions for ip multicasting rfc- * internet numbers rfc- * assigned numbers rfc- * official arpa-internet protocols rfc's marked with the asterisk (*) are not included in the ddn protocol handbook. note: this list is a portion of a list of rfc's by topic retrieved from the nic under netinfo:rfc-sets.txt (anonymous ftp of course). the following list is not necessary for connection to the internet, but is useful in understanding the domain system, mail system, and gateways: rfc- domain names - concepts and facilities rfc- domain names - implementation rfc- domain system changes and observations rfc- mail routing and the domain system rfc- requirements for internet gateways - - appendix c contact points for network information network information center (nic) ddn network information center sri international, room ej ravenswood avenue menlo park, ca ( ) - or ( ) - nic@sri-nic.arpa nsf network service center (nnsc) nnsc bbn laboratories inc. moulton st. cambridge, ma ( ) - nnsc@nnsc.nsf.net - - glossary core gateway the innermost gateways of the arpanet. these gateways have a total picture of the reacha- bility to all networks known to the arpanet with egp. they then redistribute reachabil- ity information to all those gateways speak- ing egp. it is from them your egp agent (there is one acting for you somewhere if you can reach the arpanet) finds out it can reach all the nets on the arpanet. which is then passed to you via hello, gated, rip.... count to infinity the symptom of a routing problem where routing information is passed in a circular manner through multiple gateways. each gate- way increments the metric appropriately and passes it on. as the metric is passed around the loop, it increments to ever increasing values til it reaches the maximum for the routing protocol being used, which typically denotes a link outage. hold down when a router discovers a path in the network has gone down announcing that that path is down for a minimum amount of time (usually at least two minutes). this allows for the pro- pagation of the routing information across the network and prevents the formation of routing loops. split horizon when a router (or group of routers working in consort) accept routing information from mul- tiple external networks, but do not pass on information learned from one external network to any others. this is an attempt to prevent bogus routes to a network from being propagated because of gossip or counting to infinity. - - institute for scientific information (isi). then we entered our search term: "liver and cyst/". the search word "cyst/" signified that "cyst" should match any words starting with these four characters. while searching, iquest gave the following progress report: scanning brs databases. accessing network...........completed. accessing database host.....completed. logging on..................completed. logging on (second step)....completed. selecting databases.........completed. each period equals one line of scanned data. this may take several minutes................................ it continued in the same way with a "scanning dialog databases." when the search results were presented, we glanced quickly at the article abstracts, ordered two articles to be sent us by mail and typed bye. compuserve reported "off at : est -nov- connect time = : ." the two articles arrived norway by mail a few weeks later. the whole trip, including visits in medical forums, took minutes. the cost, including local telephone and network charges, was us$ . of this total cost, the extra cost of searching through iquest amounted to us$ . . we all felt that the costs were well justified. | a note about the costs: the online tour was done manually, | | using full menus. we discussed our search strategy while | | connected, which is more expensive than logging off to plan | | the next moves. also, note that the extra cost of searching | | iquest ($ ) was not time dependent. | right now? i have promised to donate one kidney to my wife when the time comes. this has prompted me ( ) to join a mailing list for "organ transplant recipients and anyone else interested in the issues" (trnsplnt@wuvmd.bitnet). cancer ------ fidonet has the forum carcinoma (cancer survivors). bitnet has the discussion lists cancer-l@wvnvm and clan (cancer liaison and action network on clan@frmop ). compuserve has a cancer forum. newsnet offers the newsletter cancer researcher weekly. in september , the following message was posted on cancer- l by a member from brazil: "a close friend was just diagnosed with acute leukemia of a type called calapositive pre-b linphoplastic. it is supposedly an early diagnosis since he is not anemic. we are very shocked but he is reacting quite bravely and all he wants is to have access to literature on his condition. are there any new genetic engineering developments effectively clinically available? what is the present state of knowledge regarding this specific form of leukemia? he was diagnosed three hours ago, is yrs old, and will start chemotherapy tomorrow. he was informed that chemotherapy is quite effective in this type of leukemia. but we wonder if there isn't a possibility to use gene therapy. any help will be greatly appreciated. - dora." there were several helpful replies. this came from a member in the united states: "in response to the request for information on treatment for leukemia, i recommend that you access cancernet, the national cancer institute's mail server on the internet which provides current information on treatment for leukemia. to request the contents list and instructions, send a mail message to cancernet@icicb.nci.nih.gov (internet address) cancernet%icicb.nci.nih.gov@nihcu ( bitnet) leave the subject line blank, and in the body of the mail message, enter "help". when you receive the contents list, request the statement for adult acute lymphocytic leukemia (cn- ). there are also news and general information items, under the heading pdq database information in the contents list which provide information on centers which have access to physician data query, nci's database of cancer treatment information which includes clinical trials information for leukemia. - cheryl." cancernet is the u.s. national cancer institute's international information center. it is a quick and easy way to obtain, through electronic mail, recommended treatment guidelines from the national cancer institute's physician data query system. to access cancernet, send email to: cancernet@icicb.nci.nih.gov leave the subject line blank. in the body of the mail message, enter help to receive instructions and the current contents list. the national cancer center in tokyo japan has a gopher service at gopher.ncc.go.jp. the world health organization (who) has one at gopher.who.ch. disabilities ------------ bulletin boards and online conferences give equal access to all persons. everybody is treated the same way, regardless if they sit in a wheel chair, have a hearing impairment, stutter, cannot speak clearly, have difficulties in thinking or acting quickly, or just have a different looks. you need not worry about typing errors. those who read them will never know whether it's because you never learned how to write on a computer, or if it is because you have difficulties in controlling your movements. you alone decide if others are to know about your personal disability. if you want it to be a secret, then it will remain a secret. nobody can possibly know that you are mute and lame from the neck and down, that computer communication is your main gate into the outer world, and that you are writing messages with a stick attached to your forehead. therefore, the online world has changed the lives of many people with disabilities. computer communications have opened a new world for those who are forced to stay at home, or thinks that it is too difficult to travel. those who can easily drive their car to the library, often have difficulties in understanding the significance of this. usenet has alt.education.disabled and misc.handicap. it covers all areas of disabilities, technical, medical, educational, legal, etc. uucp has handicap. it is presented in the following words: contact: wtm@bunker.shel.isc-br.com purpose: the handicap digest provides an information/discussion exchange for issues dealing with the physically/mentally handicapped. topics include, but are not limited to: medical, education, legal, technological aids and the handicapped in society. compuserve's disabilities forum has the following sections: general interest, develop. disabilities, emotional disturbances, hearing impairments, learning disabilities, vision impairments, mobility impaired, rights/legislation, education/employment and family life/leisure. autism@sjuvm.bitnet is devoted to the developmentally disabled, their teachers, and those interested in this area. the list blind- l@uafsysb.bitnet focuses on "computer use by and for the blind." commdis@rpiecs.bitnet is a mailing list discussing "speech disorders." deaf-l@siucvmb.bitnet is the "deaf discussion list," and deafblnd@ukcc.uky.edu the "deaf-blind discussion list." stut-hlp (listserv@bgu.edu) is a support forum for people who stutter and their families. on l-hcap@ndsuvm .bitnet, the focus is on technology for the handicapped. backs-l@uvmvm.bitnet discusses research on low back pain disability. the handicap digest is an electronic mail only digest of articles relating to all types of issues affecting the handicapped. the articles are taken from the usenet newsgroup, the handicap news. (misc.handicap) and various fidonet conferences such as abled, blinktalk silenttalk, chronic pain, spinal injury, rare conditions, and several others. subscribe by email to wtm@bunker.shel.isc-br.com handicap.shel.isc-br.com ( . . . ) is the email address to an anonymous ftp site that has disability-related files and programs. the disk has some directories with or so files covering all types of disabilities. (this service can be used through ftpmail. see chapter about how to do this.) getting old ----------- bitnet has the "biosci ageing bulletin board" on ageing@irlearn . usenet has bionet.molbio.ageing, while compuserve's issues forum has a message section called "seniors." ageline on dialog is a database produced by the american association of retired persons. it does an excellent job covering research about older persons, particularly on consumer issues and health care, by summarizing journal articles and the contents of other published reports. while our "face-to-face" world sometimes makes it difficult for older people to participate in discussions between young people, this is not so in the online world. all people are treated the same way. it is impossible for others to know your age, unless someone tells them. holistic healing and health --------------------------- holistic on listserv@siucvmb.siu.edu is dedicated to "providing information and discussion on holistic concepts and methods of living which provide a natural way of dealing with the challenges of life." here are some topics dealt with in this forum: various dimensions of holistic healing and health states of consciousness meditation and the role it plays in spiritual/physical health the impact of a healthy diet - including herbs and vitamins bodywork - such as rolfing, trager bodywork, reichian, etc. acupuncture/pressure hypnosis and biofeedback visualizations and affirmations spiritual healing - psychic healing methods bioenergetics the holistic connection between mind and body honest discussion of topics relevant to personal/spiritual growth - and anything else within context for the betterment of the world. the following message is typical: from: helen subject: re: asthma and sinus problems to: multiple recipients of list holistic my condolences to fellow people allergic to cats. cats and strawberries are two of the most allergenic substances. behavorial changes have proven to be everything to me. the techniques i've employed have helped many others. first, try sleeping at a degree angle. this usually requires piling up pillows. the elevation of the head facilitates drainage from the sinuses. when the situation gets really bad, i've slept sitting up on a couch or arm chair propped up by numerous pillows and cushions. this technique can take some getting used to, but, it works like a charm and is kinder to your system than drug therapy. second, try "ephedra" tea. this is an herb found in chinese herb shops. ask the herbalist how to prepare it. i highly recommend the book "natural health, natural medicine" by andrew weil, m.d. of u of a med school in tucson. see pages - for more information on asthma. fourth, stay hydrated. this means not only drinking plenty of fluids, but humidifying the house (that is if you're not also allergic to molds). basic behavorial techniques are important....diet, exercise, etc. etc, ...but this is the holistic network...i'm preaching to the choir... finally, take heart! being allergic to cats is not well received by cat lovers...often we're cat lovers ourselves. depending on the breed of cat, there is a good chance you will eventually habituate to those you are around over the long term. good luck, the advice about sleeping with your head significantly elevated is the best i have ever given out to fellow sinus problem sufferers. it really works!! helen. homeonet, a service of the institute of global communications (igc), is for those interested in homeopathic medicine. list of health science resources -------------------------------- the bitnet/internet online list of health science resources is available by email from: listserv@templevm.bitnet . send the following command: get medical rscrs this will give a long list of bitnet, internet, and usenet forums, data archives, electronic newsletters and journals devoted to health science. here are some examples from the list that may be of interest to people not working in the health profession: * alcohol@lmuacad.bitnet - a discussion list for alcohol and drug studies, * behavior@asuacad.bitnet - behavioral and emotional disorders in children, * diabetic@pccvm.bitnet is the "open discussion forum for diabetic patient counseling," * diarrhoe@searn.bitnet (or diarrhoe@searn.sunet.se through the internet) is a forum for information exchange and discussions on all aspects related to diseases, disorders, and chemicals that cause diarrhoea in humans and animals, * diet@indycms.bitnet - support and discussion of weight loss * drugabus@umab.bitnet - drug abuse education information and research, * famcomm@rpiecs.bitnet - marital/family & relational communication. * fit-l@etsuadmn.bitnet - wellness, exercise, diet, for exchanging ideas, tips and any type of information about wellness, exercise, and diet. * granola@brownvm.bitnet - vegetarian discussion. * herb@trearn.bitnet - medicinal and aromatic plants discussion. * mslist-l@ncsuvm.bitnet - multiple sclerosis discussion and support. * rzamal-l@dkauni .bitnet - dental amalgam fillings and chronic mercury poisoning. * sportpsy@templevm.bitnet - exercise and sports psychology. * talk.abortion on usenet. these mailing lists usually let you search old messages for topics of interest. they are both living discussion forums and interesting searchable databases! mednews is a weekly electronic newsletter. its columns bring regular medical news summaries from usa today, center for disease control mmwr, weekly aids statistics from cdc, and more. send the following command to listserv@asuacad.bitnet to subscribe: sub mednews your-first-name your-last-name chapter : electronic mail, telex, and fax ========================================== electronic mail is one of the most popular online services. people living thousands of miles apart can exchange messages and documents very quickly. international resource development, inc., an american research organization, claimed ( ) that we can send electronic mail to more than million personal mailboxes. we believe the figure to be much higher. the matrix news (texas, u.s.a.) claims the number is over million (march ). the boardwatch magazine (u.s.a.) believes that new callers are coming online for their first time at a rate of close to , per day (january ). electronic mail & micro systems (new canaan, conn., u.s.a.) estimated an average of . million messages sent per month in . mail through the internet and grassroots services on free bulletin boards (like fidonet) is not included in their figure. the annual rate of increase in the number of messages is over % and increasing. if a given email service charges you us$ per hour, it will cost you a meager us$ . to send one typewritten letter (size a- , or around , characters). see chapter for a breakdown of this cost. if you live in norway, and send the letter by ordinary mail to a recipient in norway, postage alone is us$ . ( ). the cost is seven times higher than using email. to send the same letter from norway to the united states by ordinary mail will cost times more. this letter takes several days to reach the destination, while email messages arrive almost instantly. often, you can send email messages to several recipients in one operation - without paying extra for the pleasure. compare this to sending to several parties by fax! you do not have to buy envelopes and stamps, fold the sheet, put it into the envelope, and bring it to a mailbox. just let the computer call your favorite email service to send the letter. the recipient does not have to sit by the computer waiting for your mail. upon receipt, it will be automatically stored in his mailbox. he can read it when he has time. the recipient can print it locally, and it will be a perfect document, no different to one typed in locally. he can also make corrections or comments, and email onwards to a third party. in this way several people can work jointly on a report, and no time is it re-typed from scratch. when you receive several messages in the morning, you can very quickly create replies to them one at the time at your keyboard, and then send them in one go. no need to feed five different pieces of paper into a fax machine or envelopes for five different people. where you can find a telephone, you can also read mail. in most countries, communicating through email is easy and economical. by the way, the simple but miraculous thing about email is that you can quote easily and exactly the point to which you are replying. this is a revolution in communication, no? how to send email? ------------------- this is what it normally takes for a compuserve user to send me a message: type go mail to get to the "post office," and then type compose. "start writing," says compuserve. type your message manually, or send a file (text or binary). type /exit when done. "to whom?" asks compuserve. you enter: "odd de presno , ," or just my mailbox number ( , ). compuserve asks you to enter subject. you type: "hello, my friend!" your message has been sent. a few seconds later, the message will arrive in my mailbox. if i am online to compuserve at the moment, i will probably read it right away. if not, it will stay there until i get around to fetch it. above, we used the term "normally takes to send." please note that many users never ever type these commands! they use various types of automatic software to handle the mechanics of sending and receiving mail (see chapter ). other systems require different commands to send email. ulrik at the university of oslo (norway) is a unix system. so is the well in san francisco. on such systems, mail is normally sent using these commands: type "mail opresno@extern.uio.no". when the computer asks for "subject:," enter "hello, my friend!" type your message or send it. when done, enter a period (.) in the beginning of a line. ulrik will reply with "cc:" to allow you to 'carbon copy' the message to other people. if you don't want that, press enter and the message is on its way. while i wrote this book, i had to go to japan. a simple command allowed me to redirect all incoming mail to compuserve. as a result i could read and send mail by calling a local compuserve number in several japanese cities. though the commands for sending email differ between systems, the principle is the same. all systems will ask you for an address and the text of your message. on some, the address is a code, on others a name (like odd de presno). most systems will ask for a subject title. many will allow you to send copies of the message to other recipients (cc:). some services allow you to send binary files as email. binary files contain codes based on the binary numeration system. such codes are used in computer programs, graphics pictures, compressed spreadsheets and text files, and sound files. many online services let you send messages as fax (to over million fax machines), telex (to over . million telex machines), and as ordinary paper mail. we have tested this successfully on compuserve, mci mail and other services. on compuserve, replace "odd de presno , " with ">fax: ". my fax number is + . on mci mail type "create:". mci asks for "to:," and you type "odd de presno (fax)". mci asks for "country:". you enter "norway". by "recipient fax no" enter " " (the code for international calls). the country code for norway, , is added automatically. by "options?," press enter. when mci mail asks for more recipients, press enter. type your message and have it sent. to send a telex, you'll need the recipient's telex number, an answerback code, and the code of the recipient's country. if the message is meant for telex number , answerback zeto, and country russia (country code su), enter ">tlx: zeto su" when sending from compuserve. by entering ">postal", compuserve will send your mail to a business associate in california or brazil as a professional laser- printed letter. it will take you through the process of filling out the various address lines. the letter may well arrive faster than through ordinary mail. when the recipient is using another mailbox system -------------------------------------------------- when the recipient is using your mailbox service, writing addresses is simple. not so when your email has to be forwarded to mailboxes on other online services. the inter-system email address consists of a user name, a mailbox system code, and sometimes also routing information. the problem is that there is no universal addressing format. finding out how to write a given address may be surprisingly difficult. some services are not set up for exchange of email with other services. this is the case with my bulletin board, the saltrod horror show. to send mail to a user of this system, you'll have to call it directly and enter it there. this bulletin board is not connected to the outside world for exchange of mail. if your favorite system lets you send mail to other services, make a note about the following: * you need to know the exact address of your recipient, and whether he's using this mailbox regularly. many users have mailboxes that they use rarely or never. for example, don't try to send mail to my mailbox on dow jones/news retrieval. i only use this service sporadically. think of the easiest way for a recipient to respond before sending a message to him or her. * you need to know how to rewrite the recipient's address to fit your system. for example, you may have to use a domain address to send through internet, and a different form when sending through an x. network. (more about this later.) * the recipient's mailbox system may be connected to a network that does not have a mail exchange agreement with your system's network(s). sometimes, you can use a commercial mail relay service to get your message across (see chapter ). users of the internet can send messages to recipients on the dialcom network through the dasnet relay service. * sometimes, you need to know how to route a message through other systems to arrive at its destination. for example, a message sent from the ulrik computer in oslo must be routed through a center in london to get to dominique christian on the difer system in paris (france), internet -------- is the name of a computer network (here called "internet"), and a term used of a global web of systems and networks that can exchange mail with each other (here called "internet"). internet is a very large network that has grown out of arpanet, milnet, and other american networks for research and education. this core network has many gateways to other systems, and it's when we include these systems and their connections that we call it the internet. others call it worldnet or the matrix. internet users can exchange mail with users on networks like eunet, janet, uninett, bitnet, uucp, compuserve, mci mail, econet, peacenet, conflicnet, greennet, web, pegasus, applelink, alternex, nicarao, fredsnaetet, uunet, psi, usenet, fidonet and many others. we therefore say that these networks are also "on the internet." if you have access to the internet, you can send email to users of online services all over the world. you can send to people using bergen by byte and telemax in norway, twics in tokyo, and colnet in buenos aires. now is the time to take a closer look at the art of addressing mail through the internet. domain name addressing ---------------------- on the internet, the general form of a person's email address is: user-name@somewhere.domain my main, international internet mailbox address is: opresno@extern.uio.no you read the address from left to right. first, the local name of the mailbox (my name abbreviated). next, the name of the mailbox system or another identification code (in this case extern, to show that i have no affiliation with the university), the name of the institution or company (here uio or "universitetet i oslo"), and finally the country (no for norway). people have sent mail to my mailbox from new zealand, zimbabwe, guatemala, peru, india, china, greece, iceland, and armenia using this address. some users must send their messages through a gateway to the internet. in these cases, the address may have to be changed to reflect this: users of applelink use opresno@extern.uio.no@internet# . those on janet use opresno%extern.uio.no@eanrelay.ac.uk. on sprintmail, use ("rfc- ": <opresno(a)extern.uio.no>, site:internet) . compuserve subscribers use >internet:opresno@extern.uio.no . the core of these address formats is "opresno@extern.uio.no", in one way or the other. we call this basic addressing format a domain naming system. "extern.uio.no" is a domain. the domain may also contain reference to the name of a company or an organization, like in twics.co.jp, compuserve.com, or igc.org. the co, com, and org codes identify twics, compuserve and igc as companies/organizations. to send mail from the internet to my compuserve mailbox, use: . @compuserve.com normally (except on applelink), a domain address can only contain one @-character. when an address has to be extended with gateway routing information, replace all @-characters to the left in the address by %-characters. here is an example: bitnet uses a different addressing method (user@system). let's assume that you are subscribed to the club for lovers of japanese food (j-food-l@jpnknu .bitnet, see chapter ). you have a mailbox on internet, and want to send a recipe to the other members using the address j-food-l. on some internet systems, you can simply use the address: j-food-l@jpnknu .bitnet , and your mailbox system will take care of the routing for you. if this addressing method doesn't work, you can use different gateways into bitnet depending on where you live. the preferred method is to route through a gateway near to you. if living in north america, you may route cunyvm.cuny.edu using the following address: j-food-l%jpnknu .bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu the rightmost @ in this address is maintained. the one to the left has been replaced with a %. the term ".bitnet" tells the gateway machine where to forward the message. the following will happen: first, the message will be sent to system cunyvm at the education site cuny. cunyvm investigates the address, and discovers that the message is for bitnet. it cuts off all text to the right of "jpnknu ," and replaces the % with an @. the message is forwarded to the mailbox j-food-l on the bitnet system jpnknu at the kinki university in japan. bang addressing --------------- "bang" is american for "exclamation point" (!). the uucp network uses this variation of the domain addressing scheme. example: user jill small on econet in san francisco used to have the address pyramid!cdp!jsmall . read this address from right to left. the name of her mailbox is to the right. the name of the organization is in the middle. "pyramid" is the name of the network. some email systems can use bang addresses directly. (note that the ! character has a special function on unix computers. here, you may have to type the address as pyramid\!cdp\!jsmall to avoid unwanted error messages. the \ character tells unix to regard the next character as a character, and not as a system command. this character may also have to precede other special characters.) other systems do not accept bang addresses directly. here, the users must send such messages through a gateway. the american host uunet is a frequently used gateway. if routing through uunet, you may write the address like this: pyramid!cdp!jsmall@uunet.uu.net if your system absolutely refuses to accept exclamation points in addresses, try to turn the address into a typical internet address. write the address elements in the internet sequence (left to right). replace the exclamation points with %-s, like this: jsmall%cdp%pyramid@uunet.uu.net this method works most of the time. when it works, use this addressing form. bang paths may fail if an intermediate site in the path happens to be down. (there is a trend for uucp sites to register internet domain names. this helps alleviate the problem of path failures.) some messages must be routed through many gateways to reach their destination. this is the longest address that i have used, and it did work: hpda!hplabs!hpscdc!hp-lsd.cos.hp.com!oldcolo!dave@uunet.uu.net it used to be the internet address of a user in colorado, u.s.a.. today, he can be reached using a much shorter address. if you are on uucp/eunet, you may use the following address to send email to odd de presno: extern.uio.no!opresno. addressing international electronic mail sometimes looks like black magic. to learn more, read some of the books listed in appendix . we have found "the matrix" by john s. quarterman to be particularly useful. the conference infonets (general network forum) is another source. here, the internet postmasters discuss their addressing problems. activity is high, and you will learn a lot about the noble art of addressing. (this is not the place to ask for olav janssen's norwegian email address, though. this question should be sent to a norwegian postmaster.) you can subscribe to infonets by sending the following mail: to: listserv@ndsuvm .bitnet subject: (you can write anything here. it will be ignored.) text: sub infonets your-first-name your-last-name if your mailbox is on another network, alter the address to route your subscription correctly to this listserv. | hint: you can search the database of old infonets messages by | | email to listserv@dearn.bitnet. see "directories of services | | and subscribers" below for information about how to search | | listserv databases. | while the global matrix of networks grows rapidly, it is still behind in some lesser-developed nations and poorer parts of developed nations. if interested in these parts of the world, check out gnet, a library and a journal for documents about the efforts to bring the net to lesser-developed nations. archived documents are available by anonymous ftp from the directory global_net at dhvx .csudh.edu ( . . . ). chapter has information on how to use ftp if you only have mail access to the internet. to subscribe to a conference discussing these documents, send a request to gnet_request@dhvx .csudh.edu. cc:mail gateways ---------------- many local area networks have been connected to the global matrix of networks. compuserve offers a cc:mail gateway. lotus cc:mail is a pc lan based email system used in corporate, government and other organizations. when sending from compuserve mail to a cc:mail user through this gateway, a typical address may look like this: >mhs:pt-support@performa to send to this user from the internet through compuserve's mhs gateway, write the address like this: pt-support@performa.mhs.compuserve.com other vendors of lan gateways use other addressing methods. x. addressing ---------------- x. is a standard for electronic mail developed by ccitt. it is used on large networks like at&t mail, mci mail, sprintnet, ge information system, dialcom, and western union, and on other public and private networks throughout the world. edi (electronic data interchange) uses x. as a transport mechanism for coordination of electronic part ordering, stock control and payment. x. is used to connect edi systems between companies and suppliers. the x. addressing syntax is very different from domain addressing. to send a message from an x. mailbox to my address (opresno@extern.uio.no), you may have to write it like this: (c:no,admd:uninett,prmd:uninett,o:uio,ou:extern,s:opresno) alas, it's not so standard as the domain addressing schemes. on other x. networks, the address must be written in one of the following formats - or in yet other ways: (c:us,a:telemail,p:internet,"rfc- ":<opresno(a)extern.uio.no>) ("rfc- ": <opresno(a)extern.uio.no>, site:internet) '(c:usa,a:telemail,p:internet,"rfc- ":<opresno<a>extern.uio.no>) del' (site: internet,id: <opresno<a>extern.uio.no>) "rfc- =opresno(a)extern.uio.no @ gateway]internet/telemail/us" to send an internet message to a mailbox i once had on the x. host telemax in norway, i had to use the following address: /i=d/g=odd/s=presno/o=kud.datasekr/@pcmax.telemax.no to send from internet to telemail in the us, i have used this address: /pn=telemail.t.support/o=telenet.mail/admd=telemail/c=us/@sprint.com if you need to route your message through gateways, then complexity increases. one norwegian uucp user had to use the following address to get through: nuug!extern.uio.no!"pcmax.telemax.no!/i=d/g=odd/s=presno/o=kud.datasekr/" to send a message from an x. system to my compuserve mailbox, i have used the following address elements: country = us admd = compuserve prmd = csmail dda = . the addressing methods used on x. systems vary. another example: some use the code c:usa rather than the iso country code c:us. mci mail uses c:norway, c:usa, and c:sweden. here are some important x. codes: c the iso country code (on most services) admd domain code for public system (abbreviation a) prmd domain code for connected private system (abbreviation p) o organization name ou organization unit s surname (last name) g given name (first name) i initials (in the name) dda domain-defined attributes, keywords defined and used by the individual systems to specify mailboxes (user name, list, station, user code, etc.), direct delivery devices (attention name, telex addresses, facsimile, etc.) pn personal name (a) the character @ cannot be used when routing messages from x. to internet. try (a) instead. (p) the character % cannot be used when routing messages from x. to internet. try (p) instead. (b) the character ! (used in "bang" addresses). (q) the character " used in email addresses. rfc- this code tells x. that an internet domain address follows. does not work on all x. systems. returned mail ------------- when an email address is incorrect in some way (the system's name is wrong, the domain doesn't exist, whatever), the mail system will bounce the message back to the sender. the returned message will include the reason for the bounce. a common error is addressing mail to an account name that doesn't exist. let's make an error when sending to listserv@vm .nodak.edu. enter "pistserv@vm .nodak.edu" instead of "listserv@vm .nodak.edu". this address is wrong. below, we've printed the complete bounced message. it contains a lot of technical information. most lines have no interest. also, the message is much larger than the original message, which contained three lines only. when browsing the bounced message, note that it has three distinct parts: ( ) the mail header of the bounced message itself (here, the first lines), ( ) the text of the error report (from line until the line "original message follows:"), and ( ) the mailer header and text of your original message (as received by computer reporting the error): from mailer@vm .nodak.edu fri dec : : return-path: <mailer@vm .nodak.edu> received: from vm .nodak.edu by pat.uio.no with smtp (pp) id < - @pat.uio.no>; fri, dec : : + received: from ndsuvm .bitnet by vm .nodak.edu (ibm vm smtp v r ) with bsmtp id ; fri, dec : : cst received: from ndsuvm .bitnet by ndsuvm .bitnet (mailer r . ) with bsmtp id ; fri, dec : : cst date: fri, dec : : cst from: network mailer <mailer@vm .nodak.edu> to: opresno@extern.uio.no subject: mail delivery error status: r batch smtp transaction log follows: ndsuvm .bitnet columbia mailer r . bsmtp service ready. helo ndsuvm ndsuvm .bitnet hello ndsuvm mail from:<opresno@extern.uio.no> <opresno@extern.uio.no>... sender ok. rcpt to:<pistserv@ndsuvm > <pistserv@ndsuvm >... recipient ok. data start mail input. end with <crlf>.<crlf> -mail not delivered to some or all recipients: no such local user: pistserv quit ndsuvm .bitnet columbia mailer bsmtp service done. original message follows: received: from ndsuvm by ndsuvm .bitnet (mailer r . ) with bsmtp id ; fri, dec : : cst received: from pat.uio.no by vm .nodak.edu (ibm vm smtp v r ) with tcp; fri, dec : : cst received: from ulrik.uio.no by pat.uio.no with local-smtp (pp) id < - @pat.uio.no>; fri, dec : : + received: by ulrik.uio.no ; fri, dec : : + date: fri, dec : : + from: opresno@extern.uio.no message-id: < .aaulrik @ulrik.uio.no> to: pistserv@vm .nodak.edu subject: test index kidlink the first part of the bounced message is usually of no interest. hidden in the second part you'll find the following interesting line: no such local user: pistserv ah, a typo! if your original message was long, you're likely to be pleased by having the complete text returned in the third part of the bounced message. now, you may get away with a quick cut and paste, before resending it to the corrected address. the text and codes used in bounced messages vary depending on what type of mailbox system you're using, and the type of system that is bouncing your mail. above, mailer@vm .nodak.edu returned the full text of my bounced mail. some systems just send the beginning of your original text, while others (in particular some x. systems) send nothing but a note telling you the reason for the bounce. | note: when you fail to understand why a message is being | | bounced, contact your local postmaster for help. send him | | a copy of the complete text of the bounced message up to | | and including the line "subject:" at the bottom. | | you do not have to send him the text of your original | | message! | replying to an internet message ------------------------------- on the internet, electronic messages have a common structure that is common across the network. on some systems, you can reply by using a reply command. if this feature is not available, use the sender's address as given in the mail header. the bounced message contained two mail headers: the header of my original message (in part three), and the header of the bounced message (in part one). the 'good' reply address is laid out in the 'from:' header. thus, this message contains the following two 'good' addresses: from: network mailer <mailer@vm .nodak.edu> from: opresno@extern.uio.no the network mailer located the second address line above in my original message, and used this address when sending the bounced message. (note: there is no point in sending a message back to mailer@vm .nodak.edu since this is the address of an automatic mail handling program. write to postmaster@vm .nodak.edu to talk to a "real person" at this computer center.) the exact order of a message's header may vary from system to system, but it will always contain the vital 'from:' line. | note: exercise caution when replying to a message sent by | | a mailing list. if you wish to respond to the author only, | | make sure that the only address you're replying to is that | | person's. don't send it to the entire list! | directories of services and subscribers --------------------------------------- there is no complete global directory of available electronic addresses. on many systems, however, you can search lists of local users. | normally, you'd be better off by calling the recipient for | | his or her email address. | sometimes, the information given you by the recipient is not enough. maybe the address needs an extension for the message to be routed through gateways to the destination. another typical problem is that the syntax of the address is wrong. perhaps you made a mistake, when you wrote it down (kidcafe became kidscafe). the return address in the received messages' mailer headers may be wrong. it may use a syntax that is illegal on you email system, or it may suggest a routing that is unknown to your system. when trying to send mail to this address, the mailer-daemon complains: "this is a non-existent address." again, the first person to contact for help is your local postmaster. on most internet hosts this is simple. if you have a mailbox on the ulrik computer at the university of oslo, send a request for help to postmaster@ulrik.uio.no . if you are on colnet in buenos aires, send to postmaster@colnetr.edu.ar . postmaster is also the address to turn to on bitnet. users of fidonet or relaynet, should write to sysop. it may not be that simple to locate the postmaster on uucp. the postmaster id may exist on some systems, but often he's just a name or a user code. you can get the email address of known internet systems by sending a message to service@nic.ddn.mil . in the subject of the message, write the command whois host-machine-name. do not write anything in the text (will be ignored). you will get a report of the desired mailbox computer, and the address of the local postmaster. example: to: service@nic.ddn.mil subject: whois aero.org text: sometimes, you just don't know the name of a recipient's mailbox computer. when this is the case, start at the "top of the pyramid." say your desired recipient lives in germany. the iso country code for germany is de (see appendix ). send the message to: service@nic.ddn.mil subject: whois domain de text: this will give you the email addresses of the main postmasters for this country. most postmasters are willing to help, but please note that most of them are very busy people. it may take days before they get around to respond to your inquiry. there are over other "whois-servers" in more than countries. the systems whois.nic.ad.jp and whois.ripe.net cover japan and europe. the rest of them provide information about local users. (a list is available via anonymous ftp from sipb.mit.edu in the file /pub/whois/whois-servers.list . chapter has information about how to get this list by email). if your recipient is on uucp, try netdir@mcsun.eu.net . to locate the postmaster of the mailbox system "amanpt ", use the following format (write nothing in the text): to: netdir@mcsun.eu.net subject: amanpt text: bitnet provides information about connected systems through many sources. scandinavian users use listserv@finhutc.bitnet in finland. try a listserv on a host closer to where you live. for example, north american users may use listserv@ndsuvm .bitnet, which is a host in north dakota. japanese users should write to the host listserv@jpnknu .bitnet. when retrieving for bitnet host information mail, your search will have to be done in two steps. here, your commands are not to be entered on the subject line. enter all commands in the text field (text on the subject line will be ignored). example: you want information about the bitnet computer finhutc (called a "node in the network"). your first message should have the following text: // job echo=no database search dd=rules //rules dd * search * in bitearn where node = finhutc index listserv sends you the following report: > search * in bitearn where node = finhutc --> database bitearn, hit. > index ref# conn nodeid site name ---- ---- ------ --------- / finhutc helsinki university of technology, finland send a new search message to the listserv containing the same commands as above. add one line in which you ask for database record number (given in the column ref#). like this: // job echo=no database search dd=rules //rules dd * search * in bitearn where node = finhutc index print listserv will return a report with a lot of information. here is part of it: node: finhutc country: fi internet: finhutc.hut.fi net: earn nodedesc: helsinki university of technology, finland p_hsalmine: harri salminen;lk-hs@finhutc;+ p_pautio: petri autio;postmast@finhutc;+ p_vvoutila: vuokko voutilainen;opr@finhutc;+ routtab: rscs (netserv,postmast@finhutc) for more information about searching bitnet databases, send this message to your favorite listserv, or use the address below: to: listserv@finhutc.bitnet subject: nothing text: get listdb memo x. systems are developing an address directory according to ccitt standard x. . the plan is to connect several directories. the developers hope that routing of x. messages may eventually be done automatically without the user needing to know the identity of the recipient's mailbox computer. x. will certainly help x. users. the problem is that most email is still carried by other types of systems, and that x. has no concern for mail transported through "foreign systems." dialcom ------- is a commercial, global online service, which have many nodes in africa and latin america. to send mail from dialcom to the internet you must use commercial gateway-services like dasnet (see appendix ). to send mail from one dialcom system to another, use the syntax :ewp . this address points to mailbox ewp on system number . to send mail from internet to dialcom user ynp on system , use the following address when sending through dasnet: _ynp @dcdial.das.net note: only registered users with dasnet can use this method. fidonet ------- users of this global network can send and receive mail to/from the internet. for example, a fidonet user may use the following method to send to my internet address: send the message to user uucp at : / . the first line of the text of the message should contain: to: opresno@extern.uio.no add a blank line after the address before entering the text of your message. fidonet addresses are composed by three or four numbers; zone:net/node or zone:net/node.point the fidonet address : / has three elements. " :" tells that the recipient lives in zone number (north america). " / " refers to node number , which receives mail through net number . this node has an automatic gateway to the internet. another example: jan stozek is sysop of "home of pcq" in warsaw, poland. the node number of his bbs is . he receives mail through net number . poland is a country in europe, zone number . the address to his system is: : / . his user name is jan stozek. you can send an internet message to anyone in fidonet by using the following template: <firstname>.<lastname>@p<point>.f<node>.n<net>.z<zone>.fidonet.org where <firstname> is the person's first name <lastname> is the person's last name to send a message from the internet to jan, use this address: jan.stozek@f .n .z .fidonet.org one final example: ola garstad in oslo has the fidonet address : / . use the address ola.garstad@f .n .z .fidonet.org , when sending mail to him through the internet. an updated list of global fidonet nodes can be retrieved from most connected bbs systems. for more information -------------------- if you have access to bitnet or internet mail, get "the inter- network mail guide." it describes how to send mail between electronic mail systems like applelink, bitnet, bix, compuserve, connect-usa, easynet, envoy, fidonet, geonet, internet, mci, mfenet, nasamail, peacenet, sinet, span, sprintmail, and more. send a message to the bitnet address listserv@unmvm.bitnet. in the text of the message enter: get network guide this list is also posted monthly to the usenet newsgroups comp.mail.misc and news.newusers.questions. the document "faq: how to find people's e-mail addresses" is regularly posted to the usenet group news.answers. it is also available by email from mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu . to get a copy, put the command "send usenet/news.answers/finding-addresses" in the body of your message. chapter : free expert assistance ================================= this may sound too good to be true. many computer experts are ready to help you without asking a dollar in return. the same is the case with experts in other areas. you have an impossible decision to make. a lawyer has a dotted line that requires your signature, or a surgeon has a dotted line in mind for your upper abdomen. you're not comfortable with the fine print or the diagnosis and wonder if a second opinion is in order. just ask, and get help. if you have problems with your communications program, post a message on a bulletin board. do the same thing if you want to sell equipment. learn from other people's experiences with computers or software that you plan to buy. you will get a reply - if the subject or you attract interest. in the process, you'll get new friends, and be able to follow the development in a dynamic marketplace. the following message from compuserve is typical: -nov- : : sb: back & forth software fm: joan healy to: john nelson changed my mind about grandview: . learning curve like mt. everest. give me intuitive or give me death. . lack of patience with " ". . lack of time. . it may be unsuited for what i wanted (outlining a book). since becoming a born-again galaxian, i've started using that for the outline, and i'm happy. there's nothing like a decision and a permanent bonding and lifelong commitment to make a woman happy. remember that, you louts. :-) many users prefer open conference messages to private email for their technical discussions. this gives "the group" a chance to read, comment, provide additional facts, and return with new questions. the reactions to one simple question may be overwhelming, but most of the time the contributions are useful and educational. since the discussion is public, regard it as your personal online university. offer opinions when you have something to contribute, or keep silent. in most conferences, some members are critical to "lurkers." a "lurker" is someone who read without ever contributing. don't let them get to you. do not feel bad about being silent. most other members are there only to watch and learn as well. if you consider buying a newly released computer program, tune in to the section of your favorite online service that deals with products from this manufacturer. count messages with complaints of the new program before buying. when you have received your new program, return to read other users' experiences and to pick up practical advice. it will never hurt to offer your own two cents' worth in the process. | visit online services that have many users who know more than | | most. there, you will usually get faster and better replies to | | your questions. it is far cheaper to ask than to search. | start with bulletin boards. if you have never visited a bbs, call one in your neighborhood to get a feel for what this is. most of them can be accessed free. usually, their only requirement is that you answer some self-presentation questions before being granted full access to their system. most bulletin boards offer conferencing and archives filled with shareware and public domain software. many also have files or bulletins listing telephone numbers of other boards in your country or area. the trick is to find know-how. the larger the online service, the more skilled people are likely to "meet" there regularly. therefore, if local bulletin boards fail to satisfy your needs, visit the large commercial services. compuserve and exec-pc are two services in the top league. bix is another good source of information for professional computer specialists. one exception: when you need contact with one particular person, who knows your problem in detail, go where he uses to go. examples: if you need top advice about the communications program galink, call mike's bbs in oslo (at + - ). if you buy modems from semafor a/s, the best place for expert advice is semaforum bbs (tel. + - - ). if you have a novell local area network, visit the novell forums on compuserve. for users of ms-dos computers ----------------------------- i visit the following compuserve forums regularly: ibm communication - about communication software for ms-dos computers. ibm hardware - about new ibm compatibles, expansion cards, displays, hard disks, ibm ps/ , software for performance evaluation, printers, etc. ibm systems/utilities - about dos, utilities, shells, file utilities, and much more. a large software library. ibm applications - about all kind of applications. the forum has a large file library full of shareware and public domain software. many compuserve forums are operated or sponsored by software and hardware vendors, like: adobe systems inc., aldus corp., ashton-tate corp., autodesk inc., borland international, broderbund software inc., buttonware inc., cadkey inc., crosstalk communications, customs technologies, enable software, datastorm technologies inc., microsoft systems, nantucket corp., lotus development corp., novell inc., peter norton computing, quarterdeck office systems, quicksoft, sun microsystems (tops division), symantec corp., toshiba, turbopower software, and wordperfect corp. compuserve has hundreds of other forums with associated libraries of files and programs. fidonet has the pc_tech and pcug conferences, and a long list of product specific echos like quickbbs, pctools, zmodem, desqview and windows.sharew . bitnet has clipper (clipper@brufpb), i-ibmpc (i-ibmpc@uiucvmd), pc-l (pc-l@ufrj), and the abstract service info-ibmpc (ibmpc- l@bnandp ). on exec-pc, look under ms-dos systems. usenet has many offerings including the following: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc discussion about ibm personal computers. comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest the ibm pc, pc-xt, and pc-at. (moderated) comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware xt/at/eisa hardware, any vendor. comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt topics related to ibm's rt computer. comp.sys.ibm.ps .hardware microchannel hardware, any vendor. for help with lotus - - , there are two compuserve forums. there is a lotus conference on relaynet. wordperfect corp. has a support forum on compuserve. wordperf is the equivalent offering on relaynet. on ilink, visit wordperfect. for support about ami pro, visit compuserve's ldc word processing forum. for owners of amiga computers ----------------------------- fidonet has a long list of conferences for amiga users: amiga amiga international echo amigagames amiga gaming amiga_comms amiga communications software and hardware amiga_desktop amiga desktop publishing amiga_info amiga_info amiga_lc amiga lattice/sasc c echo amiga_net_dev amiga network developers. amiga_pdreview amiga pd reviews & requests amiga_perfect amiga word perfect & word processing amiga_prog amiga programmer's international conference amiga_sysop amiga sysop's discussion/ads echo amiga_ug amiga user's groups amiga_video amiga video and animation exec-pc has the amiga hardware and amiga software conferences, and a large library with shareware and public domain files. ilink has the amiga conference. usenet's com.sys.amiga hierarchy has entries like advocacy, announce applications, audio, datacomm, emulations, games, graphics, hardware, introduction, marketplace, multimedia, misc, programmer, reviews and more. abstracts of comp.sys.amiga conferences are available through several bitnet mailing lists, like amigahar@dearn, amiga-d@ndsuvm , and amiga-s@ndsuvm . most online services have "find this file" commands. the most powerful ones are often found on free bulletin boards. on compuserve, type go amiga to get to cbmnet and get the following welcome menu: amiga forums amiga arts forum amiga tech forum amiga user's forum amiga vendor forum amiga file finder commodore forums commodore arts and games commodore applications forum commodore service forum commodore newsletter a while ago, we visited cbmnet to find a communications program. from the menu above, selection five took us to the amiga file finder service, and this menu: file finder amiga about file finder instructions for searching how to locate keywords access file finder your comments about file finder choice four lets us search for files using keywords, file creation dates, forum names, file types, file name extension, file name or author. our choice was searching by keywords. the result was a long list of alternatives: enter search term: comm amiga file finder amigatech/c programming comsrc.arc amigatech/c programming pmdsrc.lzh amigatech/c programming pntsrc.lzh amigauser/communications bbsind.lzh amigauser/communications intouc.arc etc. by entering numbers, we asked for short descriptions of file number through . here is one of them: filename : intouc.arc forum: amigauser lib: communications lib #: submitter: [ , ] -mar- size: accesses: this is a modified comm . . it supports both vt and ansi. the vt emulation is based on dave wecker's vt program. there is automatic dialer, split screen that is configurable, phone book, and other nice features. this is what we were looking for. first, enter go amigauser to get to the forum. enter "dl " to get to downloading library number . intouch.arc was retrieved using the compuserve quick b transfer protocol. this protocol is usually the most efficient choice on this service. there are also active amiga forums on bix, genie, and cix (england). apple users ----------- fidonet has an apple conference. bitnet has apple -l (apple - l@brownvm). compuserve has apple ii programmers forum, apple ii users forum, apple ii vendor forum, mac community clubhouse forum, mac developers forum, mac fun/entertainment forum, mac hypertext forum, mac new users/help forum, mac system . forum, mac system software forum, macuser forum and macweek forum. similar services are found on many other online services. you will also find conferences devoted to support of popular commercial software for apple computers. other computers --------------- there are so many types of computers: atari computers, the trs- series and others from tandy, dec computers, mainframes from ibm, hewlett-packard computers, cp/m machines, users of ldos/trsdos or os , apricot, z , timex/sinclair, archimedes, psion, and armstrad. even so, there is a high probability that you can find online support for almost all of them. this is so even if the vendor is out of business long ago. compuserve is a good place to start. chapter : your electronic daily news ===================================== read national and global news before they are announced by the traditional media. get those interesting background facts. read special interest news stories that seldom appear in print. sure, you read newspapers, watch tv, and listen to radio. but did you know how limited their stories are? traditional news media just give you a small part of the news. their editors are not concerned about your particular interests. they serve a large group of readers, viewers or listeners with different interests in mind. go online to discover the difference. the online news has an enormous width and depth. besides "popular" news, you will find stories that few editors bother to print. this may give you better insight in current developments, and in as much details as you can take. most commercial online services offer news. most of their stories come from large news agencies and newspapers. you can also read and search articles from magazines, newsletters and other special publications. the online users' ability to search today and yesterday's news makes these offerings particularly useful. the cost of reading a given news item varies by online service. what will set you back cents on one service, will cost you two dollars on another. it may be many times more expensive (or cheap) to read the same article from the same news provider on another online service. so, professional online users compare prices. national news ------------- in norway, we have long been able to read local language news from print media like aftenposten, dagens naeringsliv, kapital, and news wires from ntb and other local sources. similarly, local language news is available online in most countries. the cost of reading local news on national online services tends to be more expensive than on major global online services. as competition among global news providers increases, however, this is bound to change. international news ------------------ "the global village" is an old idea in the online world. news from most parts of the world has long been globally available. a while ago, a well-known norwegian industrialist visited my office. i showed off online searching in newsnet newsletters and stumbled over a story about his company. "incredible!" he said. "we haven't even told our norwegian employees about this yet." often, american online services give news from other countries earlier you can get it on online services from these countries. besides, the stories will be in english. | in , the united states had percent of the world's online | | databases (source: the research company iq, september ). | sure, most norwegians prefer to read news in norwegian. the japanese want news in their language, and the french in french. if they can get the news earlier than their competitors, however, most are willing to read english. few master many languages. unless you live in a country where they talk arabic, chinese or french, chances are that you cannot read news in these languages. english, however, is a popular second choice in many countries, and it has become the unofficial language of the online world. another thing is that reading local language news is risky. translators often make mistakes. one reason is time pressure, another poor knowledge of the source language. the risk of inaccuracies increases when a story, for example initially translated from spanish into english, then are being translated into a third language. avoid news that has been translated more than once. if not, you may experience something like this: on september , , norwegian tv brought news from moscow. they told that russian president boris yeltsin had a heart attack. the online report from associated press, which arrived . hours earlier, talked about "a minor heart attack" with the following additional explanation: "in russian, the phrase 'heart attack' has a broader meaning than in english. it is commonly used to refer to a range of ailments from chest pains to actual heart failure." your "personal online daily newspaper" will often give you the news faster and more correctly than traditional print media. some news is only made available in electronic form. seven minutes in --------------------- on september , i called compuserve to read news and gather information about online news sources. according to my log, i connected through infonet in oslo (see chapter ). the total cost for seven minutes was us$ . , which included the cost of a long distance call to oslo. i read some stories, while they scrolled over the screen. all was captured to a file on my hard disk for later study. the size of this file grew to . characters, or almost single-spaced typewritten pages (a- size). if i had spent less time reviewing the lists of available stories, seven minutes would have given a larger file. when i had entered my user id and password, a menu of stories came up on my screen. the headline read "news from compuserve." the two first items caught my attention, and i requested the text. one had lines about an easier method of finding files in the forum libraries. the other had ten lines about how to write addresses for international fax messages. the command go apv brought me directly to associated press news wires. you'll find such tricks by reading the online services' user manuals. this command produced the following menu: ap online apv- latest news-updated hourly weather sports national washington world political entertainment business news wall street dow jones average feature news today in history i entered " " for business news, and got a new list of stories: ap online women, minority businesses lag child world accuses toys r us upi may cancel worker benefits drilling plan worries florida uk stocks dip, tokyo's higher dollar higher, gold up farm exports seen declining supermarket coupons big bucks cattlemen tout supply, prices tokyo stocks, dollar higher more ! the screen stopped scrolling by "more !". pressing enter gave a new list. none of them were of any interest. pressing m (for previous menu) returned me to the apv- menu (the videotext page number is given in the upper right corner of each menu display). i selected "world" for global news, which gave me this list: ap online two killed in nagorno karabakh yugoslavia fighting rages on storm kills five in japan afghan rebels going to moscow? killed in guatemala quakes more ! oh, a storm in japan! interesting. i was due to leave for japan in a couple of weeks, and entered at the more ! prompt to read. a screenful of text was transferred in a few seconds. "this is for later study," i said, pressed m to return to the menu, and then enter to get the next listing: ap online bomblets kill american troops? no movement on hostage release baker plans return to syria baker, king hussein to confer madame chiang leaving taiwan? baker leaves syria for jordan klaus barbie hospitalized iraq denounces u.s. threat yelstin said resting at home ss auschwitz guard found dead more ! here, i used another trick from the user manual. entering " , , " gave three stories in one batch with no pauses between them. five screens with text. if i had read the menu more carefully, i might probably also have selected story . it looked like an interesting item. "this is enough of the associated press," i thought, and typed g news. this gave me an overview of all available news sources ("g news" is an abbreviation for "go news," or "go to the main news menu"): news/weather/sports news executive news service ($) newsgrid associated press online weather sports the business wire newspaper library uk news/sports entertainment news/info online today daily edition soviet crisis first, a quick glance at . the service presented itself in these words: "throughout the day the business wire makes available press releases, news stories, and other information from the world of business. information on hundreds of different companies is transmitted daily to the business wire's subscribers." then # : "this database contains selected full-text stories from newspapers from across the united states. classified ads are not included in the full-text of each paper." the list of newspapers included boston globe, chicago tribune and san francisco chronicle (known for many interesting inside stories from silicon valley). choice gave news from england. there, i selected uk news clips, which gave the following options: u.k. news clips stories selected rtw / yugoslav air force hits croatian communications rtw / croatia battles continue as ec ponders peace force rtw / arab papers say moscow wants mideast parley delayed rtw / dollar stands still, shares drift lower in ... rtw / earnings gloom reverses london stocks' early gains rtw / soviets need . billion dollars food aid, ec says rtw / ira says it killed timber yard worker in belfast docks rtw / british conservative chief plays down talk of ... rtw / finance rates rtw / reuter world news schedule at gmt thursday ... the numbers in column four are the release times of the stories. they flow in from the wires in a continuous stream. next stop was the uk newspaper library. here, you can search in full-text stories from the daily and sunday telegraph, financial times, the guardian, uk news (with selected stories from the daily & sunday telegraph, financial times, the guardian, the times/sunday times, today, the independent, lloyd's list and the observer). searching the uk newspaper library costs us$ . for up to ten hits. you get a selection menu of the first ten stories found. a menu with an additional ten stories costs another $ . , etc. you pay us$ . to read the full text of selected stories. these rates are added to compuserve's normal access rates. the news service soviet crisis was my final destination. this was just a few weeks after the attempted coup in moscow, and i was eager for reports. i found the following interesting story from otc newsalert: otc / first english language sovdata dailine is launched this selection gave me three screens with information about a new online service. briefly, this is what it said: "the sovdata dialine service includes an on-line library of more than soviet newspapers, business and economic periodicals, profiles of more than , soviet firms and key executives that do business with the west, legislative reports and other information." it also said that part of the database was available through mead data central (nexis/lexis), and that it would be made available through like data-star, ft profile, reuters, westlaw, and gbi. undoubtedly, the name has changed by the time you read this. finally, a fresh story about the fate of kgb. i read another fifty lines, entered off (for "goodbye compuserve"), and received the following verdict: thank you for using compuserve! off at : edt -sep- connect time = : seven minutes. fifteen typed pages of text. us$ . . not bad! an overwhelming choice ---------------------- i am confident that your "daily online newspaper" will contain other stories. if you're into computers, you may want to start with online today, compuserve's daily newspaper. it brings short, informative news stories about the computer industry. newsbytes is another interesting source for computer news. it offers global headline news from its bureaus around the world. the articles are sorted in sections called apple, business, general, government, ibm, review, telecom, trends and unix. a favorite! newsnet is also available through genie, ziffnet on compuserve, newsnet, dialog, in the newsgroup clari.nb on usenet, and various bbs systems around the world. i read it through a norwegian bbs (euronet in haugesund). for general news, start with major newswires, like associated press, agence france-presse, xinhua, reuters, and the like. you will find them on many commercial services including newsnet, compuserve, and dialog. frognet - the french way ------------------------ if you know french, check out frognet. this french language service brings daily news from agence france press, and often has added excerpts from the french dailies. frog is distributed by the services of the french embassy in washington. it covers world affairs, european and french items, assembled, naturally, from a french point of view. the service is free. to subscribe, send a message through the internet to frog@guvax.georgetown.edu . it should contain your answers to the following electronic application form. replace the %s with your inputs (this is french, right?): nom: % prenom: % naissance:../../..% arrivee:../../..% depart:../../..% email: % ecole d'origine: % qualite: % adresse de recherche: % pays: % state: % universite: % recherche: % motscles: % domaine: % complicated? ok, here's some instructions in "french ascii": * pour les dates veuillez utiliser le format francais (dd/mm/yy). arrivee: c'est la date d'arrivee dans le pays ou vous etes actuellement. * qualite: etes vous vsn, phd, master, ingenieur, post-doc ...? * ecole d'origine: diplome obtenu en france * pays: us, australie .... * state: pour les us en lettres (ny, tx, ca) * universite: actuelle ou societe * recherche: soyez explicite ! * motscles: (ex: neuronaux, polymeres, tvhd...) * domaine: en lettres confere nomenclature ci-dessous nomenclature de la national science foundation. agr agriculture bio biological sciences hes health sciences eng engineering cis computer and information sc. mat mathematics phy physical sciences ast astronomy atm atmospheric & meteorological sciences che chemistry geo geological sciences phs physics oph other physical sciences psy psychology sos social sciences hum humanities his history let letters fll foreign languages & literature ohu other humanities edu education edg education general ted teacher education tef teaching fields prf professional fields bus business & management com communications pfo other professional fields oth other fields news is more than news ---------------------- after some time, your definition of the notion "news" may change. since so many conferences are interesting sources, they should also be a part of your news gathering strategy. check in regularly to read what members report about what they have seen, done, heard, or discovered. by the way, professional news hunters have also discovered this. online conferences are popular hunting grounds for reporters of the traditional press. fidonet has many conferences with specialized news contents: anews news of the us and world bbns bbs news service bionews environmental news el_salvador analysis and news about el salvador nicanet analysis and news about nicaragua pacific_news pacific news panama analysis and news about panama bitnet has mailing lists like: china-nn china-nn@asuacad china news digest (global news) currents currents@pccvm south asian news and culture india-l india-l@templevm the india news network pakistan pakistan@asuacad pakistan news service sedsnews sedsnews@tamvm news about space from seds tssnews tssnews@psuvm tunisian scientific society news rferl-l (on listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu) distributes the rfe/rl research institute daily report. it is a digest of the latest developments in the former soviet union and eastern europe. the report is published monday through friday by the rfe/rl research institute, a division of radio free europe/radio liberty inc. in germany. some mailing lists bring a steady flow of news from various sources. seasia-l@msu - the southeast asia discussion list - is one example. the list is "designed to facilitate communication between researchers, scholars, students, teachers, and others interested in southeast asian studies with an emphasis on current events." seasia-l defines southeast asia loosely as burma/myanmar across to hong kong and down through australia and new zealand. regularly, it brings full-text news stories from inter press service, regional news agencies, and newspapers/radio. some examples: on jul. , , a full-text story from ips: "philippines: ramos urges repeal of anti-communist law." on aug. , , full- text story from the new straits times (singapore): "schoolgirs involved in flesh trade, says farid." on aug. , "anti-vietnamese force turns up in cambodia" (reuter). seasia-l also brings "underground" reports like "the burma focus," a bimonthly newsletter published by the all burma students' democratic front. ecuador brings news from ecuador. daily news bulletins from "diario hoy" are posted to the list. send rone@skat.usc.edu your subscription request. many compuserve forums have news sections. if you're into hot news and rumors about amiga computers, read messages in section of the amiga tech forum. consumer electronics forum has the section "new products/news." the journalist forum has "fast breaking news!" the motor sports forum has "racing news/notes." the online today forum has "in the news." newsnet's list of newsletters that you can read or search online is long, and back issues are also available. for example: africa news, agence france-presse international news, applied genetics news, asian economic news, asian political news, business travel news, catholic news service, cd computing news, computer reseller news, electronic materials technology news, electronic trade & transport news, electronic world news, high tech ceramics news, inter press service international news, international businessman news report, news from france, northern ireland news service, online product news, sourcemex -- economic news on mexico, and xinhua english language news service (china). the inter press service's newsletter international news focuses on third world countries, and news from europe/north america of interest to these countries (also available through impress on nexis). usenet brings news from bangladesh, india and nepal in misc.news.southasia. the clarinet hierarchy gateways newsgroups from commercial news services and "other official" sources, like: biz.commodity commodity news and price reports. feature feature columns and products canada.briefs regular updates of canadian news in brief. biz.economy economic news and indicators biz.top top business news books books & publishing. briefs regular news summaries. bulletin major breaking stories of the week. consumer consumer news, car reviews etc. demonstration demonstrations around the world. disaster major problems, accidents & natural disasters. economy general economic news. entertain entertainment industry news & features. europe news related to europe. fighting clashes around the world. hot.east_europe news from eastern europe. hot.iraq the gulf crisis hot.panama panama and general noriega. news.top top us news stories. news.top.world top international news stories. news.trends surveys and trends. news.urgent major breaking stories of the day. a feed of clarinet news is available for a fee and execution of a license. (write info@clarinet.com for information.) uucp has which brings regular news bulletins from poland (contact: przemek@ndcvx.cc.nd.edu). behind the news --------------- in an effort to garner new subscribers and retain current readers, magazine publishers turn to online services to create an ancillary electronic version of their print product. their readers are being transformed from passive recipients of information into active participants in publishing. you can "talk" to byte's writers on bix, and with pc magazine's writers through ziffnet on compuserve. their forums function as expert sources. here, you will often learn about products and trends sometimes before the magazines hit the newsstand. infoworld, an american computer magazine, runs the infoworld online service on compuserve. enter go inf to get to the following menu: infoworld on-line infoworld welcome to infoworld about infoworld online read current week's news - / / read prior week's news - / / download current week's reviews, comparisons and test drives ($) download prior week's reviews, comparisons and test drives ($) searching help search review/comparisons/ impressions/test drives comments to infoworld infoworld highlights comprehensive computer product comparisons and reports. you can browse this or previous weeks' comparisons and reviews, or search the entire collection. you can search by company name, product, software and hardware category. britain's two best-selling pc magazines share the pc plus/pc answers online forum on compuserve (go pcplus). pc magazine, another american magazine, has several forums on compuserve. they also operate a bulletin board. people from ai expert magazine can be encountered in the ai expert forum. dr. dobb's journal is in the dr. dobb's journal forum. the entrepreneur's small business forum (compuserve) is managed by representatives from the magazine. live sound!, a magazine devoted to the midi sound field, occupies section and library of the midi b vendor forum. time magazine has a forum on america online. there, readers can discuss with magazine reporters and editors, and even read the text of entire issues of time electronically before it is available on newsstands. the online world shareware book, the one you're reading just now, also has a forum. for information about how to join, send email to listserv@vm .nodak.edu (or listserv@ndsuvm on bitnet). in the text of your message, write the command "get tow master". chapter : looking for a needle in a bottle of hay =================================================== experienced users regularly clip news from online services, and store selected parts of it on their personal computers' hard disks. they use powerful tools to search their data, and know how to use the information in other applications. regular clipping of news is highly recommended. it is often quicker and easier to search your own databases than to do it online. since your data is a subset of previous searches, your stories are likely to have a high degree of relevancy. there are many powerful programs for personal computers that let you search your personal data for information. read chapter for more on this. while secondary research can never replace primary information gathering, it often satisfies most information needs related to any task or project. besides, it points in the direction of primary sources from where more in-depth information may be elicited. when your personal database fails to deliver -------------------------------------------- regular "clipping" can indeed help you build a powerful personal database, but it will never satisfy all your information needs. occasionally, you must go online for additional facts. when this happens, you may feel like don quixote, as he was looking "for a needle in a bottle of hay." the large number of online offerings is bewildering. to be successful, you must have a sound search strategy. your first task is to locate useful sources of information. the next, to decide how best to find that specific piece of information online. you must plan your search. although one source of information, like an online database, is supposed to cover your area of interest, it may still be unable to give you what you want. let me explain with an example: you're tracking a company called ibm (international business machines). your first inclination is to visit forums and clubs concerned with products delivered by this company. there, you plan to search message bases and file libraries. what is likely to happen, is that the search term ibm gives so many hits that you almost drown. to find anything of interest in these forums, your search terms must be very specific. general news providers, like associated press, may be a better alternative. usually, they just publish one or two stories on ibm per week. don't expect to learn about details that are not of interest to the general public. ap's stories may be too general for you. maybe you'll be more content with industry insiders' expert views, as provided by the newsnet newsletters outlook on ibm, or the report on ibm. the level of details in a given story depends in part on the news providers' readers, and the nature of the source. the amount of "noise" (the level of irrelevancy) also varies. in most public forums, expect to wade through many uninteresting messages before finding things of interest. we suggest the following strategy: step : locate sources that provide relevant information, step : check if the information from these sources is at a satisfactory level of details, and that the volume is acceptable (not too much, neither too little). step : study the service's search commands and procedures, plan, and then search. start by asking others! ----------------------- step is not an easy one. start by asking other online people for advice. this may be the fastest way to interesting sources. if looking for information about agriculture and fisheries, visit conferences about related topics. ask members there what they are using. if you want information about computers or electronics, ask in such conferences. | when you don't know where to start your search, ask others! | | their know-how is usually the quickest way to the sources. | if this doesn't help, check out genie's home office/small business roundtable, a hangout of online searchers. visit compuserve's working from home forum, which has a section for information professionals (# ), and the section for new librarians in the journalism forum. patent searchers are a very specialized group. they discuss common problems on dialog's dialmail. their bulletin board is named piug. buy user manuals ---------------- some online services send free user information manuals to their users. others charge extra for them. if they do, buy! they're worth their weight in gold. the user manuals from dialog, dow jones news/retrieval and compuserve make good reading. the last two also publish monthly magazines full of search tips, information about new sources, user experiences, and more. dialog distributes the monthly newsletter chronolog. newsnet customers periodically receive a printed listing of available newsletters by subject area, and a presentation of their information providers. the newsnet action letter (monthly) is also distributed by mail. on some services, you can retrieve the help texts in electronic form. doing that is not a bad idea. it is often quicker to search a help file on your disk, than to browse through a book. monitor the offerings --------------------- professional information searchers monitor the activity in the online world. they search databases for information about new sources of information, and regularly read about new services. on most online services, you can search databases of available offerings, and a section with advertisements about their own 'superiorities'. keep an eye on what is being posted there. newsnet lets you read and search the following newsletters: worldwide videotex update, worldwide databases (#pb ), online newsletter, the online newsletter, and the online libraries and microcomputers. the last two are also available as a database from information intelligence, inc., (p.o. box , phoenix, az , u.s.a. tel.: + - - - ). you can read the text on newsnet about one week before it appears in print. these two newsletters can also be read and searched on dialog and data-star, as part of the information access pts newsletter database. information access is a full-text database with many specialized newsletters for business and industry. on compuserve, you can get to information access through the iquest gateway to newsnet. subscribing to the online newsletter costs us$ . per year ( issues) for companies, and us$ . for personal use ( ). for both newsletters, the price is us$ . . these newsletters are also available on cd-rom. the disk contains four databases: the online newsletter, online hotline, online libraries and microcomputers, major online vendors and *joblines* with more than eight thousand full-text articles from january until today. the cd-rom version is delivered with a menu-driven searching program. each word in every article and headline has been indexed and can be located in all databases. the price for subscriptions of the printed version is us$ . . price for nonsubscribers: us$ . . the september issue of the online newsletter had the following index (partial): ***************************** *new & forthcoming databases* ***************************** ) multimedia cia world fact book (cd-rom) [review] ) north american indians on cd-rom (cd-rom) [review] ) world ceramics abstracts (orbit) ) gene-tox (toxnet/nlm) ) uk trademarks (orbit) [renamed] ) brs adds databases to its offerings ) current patents (orbit) ) new england journal of medicine on cd-rom (cd-rom) ) aluminum standards database [aaasd] (stn ) plasnews (stn international) ) epic announces new databases ) disclit: american authors (cd-rom - oclc) ) cross-cultural: crime and social problems (cd-rom) ) international pharmaceutical abstracts (cd-rom) ) ringdoc (cd-rom - silverplatter) ) codus (esa-irs) ) moody's company data (cd-rom) ) federal news service (dialog) ) inpadoc database to be made available in japan (dialog) ) software cd: descriptions & reviews (cd-rom) ) monarch notes on cd-rom (cd-rom) an earlier issue of the newsletter reviewed the encyclopedia of information systems and services, a three-volume "bible" for online users and producers ( th edition): eiss covers more than , organizations, systems, services, more than five thousand databases, publications, software products, etc. their international listing covers , information organizations in countries, and has pages. topics: online host services, videotex/teletext information services, pc oriented services, data collection and analysis services, abstracting and indexing services, computerized searching services, software producers, magnetic tape/diskette providers, micrographic applications and services, library and information networks, library management systems, information on demand services, transactional services (new category), document delivery services, sdi/current awareness services, consultants, associations, research and research projects, and electronic mail applications. contact: gale research company, griswold, detroit, mi , u.s.a. tel.: + - - - . price per set: us$ . . the european common market -------------------------- many services bring news and information from the european common market. the common market's free database service, i'm-guide, is a good place to start. i'm-guide is available through echo in luxembourg by telnet to echo.lu . at the question "please enter your code," enter echo and press return. you can search i'm-guide for information sources, send email inquiries to echo, and more. searches can be done in english, french, german, italian, spanish, dutch, danish, and portuguese. if you have problems using i'm-guide, call the echo help desk in luxembourg at + - . more sources about sources -------------------------- the "internet-accessible library catalogs and databases" report is available by email from listserv@unmvm.bitnet. put the following command in the text of your message: get library package cuadra/elsevier (box , madison square station, new york, ny - , u.s.a. tel.: + ) sells a directory of online databases, which lists databases available around the world. the catalog can be searched on orbit and data-star. the online access publishing group inc. (chicago) sells "the online access guide." annual subscription for this printed manual costs us$ . (six issues - ). the link-up magazine is another interesting source. if living in north america, contact learned information inc., old mariton pike, medford, nj - , u.s.a.. if living elsewhere, contact learned information (europe) ltd., woodside, hinskey hill, oxford ox au, england, if you live outside north america. tel.: + . price: us$ . for six issues/year ( ). an online version is available through ziffnet's business database plus on compuserve. two monthly magazines, information world review (price: gbp /year) and fulltext sources online from bibliodata inc. in the united states, is also available through learned information. (bibliodata, p.o. box , needham heights, ma , u.s.a.) fulltext sources online publishes their listing of full-text databases twice per year. the price is gbp gbp per booklet or gbp per year. the newsletter scannet today (c/o helsinki university of techn. library, otnaesvaegen , sf- esbo, finland) presents news of scandinavian databases by country. subscription is free. computer readable databases from gale research is available both in print and online through dialog. write to gale research company, griswold, detroit, mi , u.s.a. many electronic journals and newsletters are available through the internet, covering fields from literature to molecular biology. for a complete list, send a message to listserv@acadvm .uottawa.ca with the following commands in the body of your text: get ejournl directry get ejournl directry practical hints about online searching -------------------------------------- we cannot give a simple, universal recipe valid for all online services. what is the best approach on one service, may be useless on others. most services offer full online documentation of their search commands. you can read the help text on screen while connected, or retrieve it for later study. make a note about the following general tricks: in conferences and forums: -------------------------- many services have commands for selective reading of messages. for example, on compuserve you can limit your search to given sections. you can also select messages to be read based on text strings in the subject titles. the command rs;s;cis access from japan; displays all messages with the text "cis access from japan" in their subject titles starting with message number . online searching often starts by selecting databases. the next step is to enter search words (or text strings), and a valid time frame (as in "between / / and / / "). the following sample search terms are used on newsnet: video* search for all words starting with video. "*" is a wild-card character referring to any ending of the word. video* matches words like videotext and videoconference. sony and video the word sony and the word video. both words must be present in the document to give a match. sony within/ video both words must be present in the text, but they must not be farther apart than ten words. (proximity operators) ibm or apple either one word or the other. many services let you reuse your search terms in new search commands. this can save you time and money, if there are too many hits. for example: if ibm or apple gives , hits, limit the search by adding "from january st.," or by adding the search word "notebook*". in file libraries ----------------- the commands used to find files are similar to those used in traditional databases. often, you can limit the search by library, date, file name, or file extension. you can search for text strings in the description of the contents of a file, or use key words. example: you're visiting a bulletin board based on the bbs program rbbs-pc. you want a program that can show gif graphics picture files. such files are typically described like this: vuimg .exe - - gif*/tiff/pcx picture viewer/printer from left to right: file name, size in bytes, date available, and a character description. you can search the file descriptions for the string "gif". you do this by entering the term "s gif all". this will probably give you a list of files. some will have the letters gif in the file name. others will have them in the description field. using ands and ors ------------------ boolean searching may seem confusing at first, unless you already understand the logic. there are three boolean operators that searchers use to combine search terms: and, or, and not. use the boolean operator and to retrieve smaller amounts of information. use and when multiple words must be present in your search results (mercedes and volvo and citroen and prices). use or to express related concepts or synonyms for your search term (fruit or apples or pears or bananas or peaches). be careful when using the not operator. it gets rid of any record in a database that contains the word that you've "notted" out. for example, searching for "ibm not apple" drops records containing the sentence, "ibm and apple are computer giants." the record will be dropped, even if this is the only mention of apple in an article, and though it is solely about ibm. use not to drop sets of hits that you have already seen. use not to exclude records with multiple meanings, like "chips not potato" (if you are looking for chips rather than snack foods). often, it pays to start with a "quick-and-dirty" search by throwing in words you think will do the trick. then look at the first five or records, but look only at the headline and the indexing. this will show you what terms are used by indexers to describe your idea and the potential for confusion with other ideas. use proximity operators to search multiword terms. if searching for "market share," you want the two words within so many words of another. the order of the words, however, doesn't matter. you can accept both "market share" and "share of the market." searching by email ------------------ mci mail and mci fax have a program called information advantage, under which online services and newsletters can deliver search results and other information over the online services. dialog, dun & bradstreet, newsnet, and individual inc. have signed up for the program. you can request a search by direct email to say dialog. the search results will be returned to you via mci mail or mci fax. with dun and bradstreet, you call them for a credit report and they send it to you. with history associates, you send them a message via mci mail, and they report to you. using bitnet discussion lists through internet ---------------------------------------------- to get a directory of internet/bitnet mailing lists, send the following email message: to: listserv@vm .nodak.edu subject: (keep this blank) text: list global you will receive a long list of available sources of information. a recent copy had over two thousand lines of text. each mailing list is described with one line. all these mailing lists can be used by email through the internet. here is a random selection: network-wide id full address list title --------------- ------------ ---------- aesrg-l aesrg-l@umcvmb applied expert systems research group list agric-l agric-l@uga agriculture discussion aidsnews aidsnews@eb ub aids/hiv news anime-l anime-l@vtvm japanese animedia and other animation news. banyan banyan-l@akronvm banyan networks discussion list bridge bridge@ndsuvm bridge communication products chem-l chem-l@uoguelph chemistry discussion ejcrec ejcrec@rpiecs electronic journal of communication famcomm famcomm@rpicicge marital/family & relational communication sovnet-l sovnet-l@indycms ussr electronic communication list the column "network-wide id" contains the names of the mailing lists. "full address" contains their bitnet email addresses. "list title" is a short textual description of each conference. keep the list on your hard disk. this makes it easier to find sources of information, when you need them. subscribing to mailing lists ---------------------------- each line in the list above refers to a mailing list, also often called 'discussion list'. they work like online conferences or message sections on bulletin boards, but technically they are different. (read about kidlink in chapter for background information.) all bitnet mailing lists are controlled by a program called listserv on the host computer given in column two above (for example @umcvmb). they offer "conferencing" with the following important functions: * all "discussion items" (i.e., electronic messages sent to the lists' email address) are distributed to all subscribers. * all messages are automatically stored in notebook archives. you can search these log files, and you can have them sent to you as electronic mail. * files can be stored in the lists' associated file libraries for distribution to subscribers on demand. where to send a subscription request, depends on where you are communicating from relative to the host running the listserv. if this host is your nearest bitnet listserv, then send the request to the address in column two by replacing the list name by listserv. example: aesrg-l@umcvmb is administered by listserv@umcvmb. subscribe (or signoff) by email to listserv@umcvmb.bitnet . if there is a listserv closer to where you live, then you should subscribe to the nearby system rather than to the remote. this helps keep the total costs of the international network down. example: you live in norway. the nearest listserv is at finhutc. to subscribe to aesrg-l@umcvmb, send to listserv@finhutc.bitnet . use the addresses in column two when sending messages to the other members of the discussion lists, but do not send your subscription requests to this address!! if you do, it will be forwarded to all members of the mailing list. chances are that nothing will happen, and everybody will see how sloppy you are. so, you subscribe by sending a command to a listserv. the method is similar to what we did when subscribing to infonets in chapter . if your name is jens jensen, and you want to subscribe to sovnet-l, send this message through the internet (assuming that ndsum is your nearest listserv host): to: listserv@ndsuvm .bitnet subject: (you can write anything here. will be ignored.) text: sub sovnet-l jens jensen when your subscription has been registered, you will receive a confirmation. from this date, all messages sent to the list will be forwarded to your mailbox. (send "signoff sovnet-l" to this address, when you have had enough.) some lists will forward each message to you upon receipt. others will send a periodic digest (weekly, monthly, etc.). to send a message to sovnet-l, send to the bitnet address in column two above. send to sovnet-l@indycms.bitnet review the following example. most bitnet lists will accept these commands. example: subscription to the china list --------------------------------------- china-nn is listed like this in the list of lists: china-nn china-nn@asuacad china news digest (global news) scandinavians may subscribe to china-nn by internet mail to listserv@finhutc.bitnet . north american users may send their mail to listserv@ndsuvm .bitnet . if your name is winston hansen, write the following command in the text of the message sub china-nn winston hansen when you want to leave china-nn, send a cancellation message like this: to: listserv@ndsuvm .bitnet subject: (nothing here) signoff china-nn note: send the cancellation command to the address you used, when subscribing! if you subscribed through listserv@finhutc, sending the signoff command to listserv@ndsuvm will get you nowhere. send to listserv@finhutc. never send the signoff command to the discussion list itself! always send to the listserv. monitoring the action --------------------- thinknet is an online magazine forum dedicated to "thoughtfulness in the cybertime environment." it brings reviews of significant and thought-provoking exchanges within our new electronic nation. this electronic publication is free. if you're interested in philosophy, subscribe by sending a message through internet to thinknet@world.std.com . write the following in the text of the message: send thinknet to your-full-name at userid@your-internet-email-address example: if your email address is opresno@extern.uio.no and your name odd de presno, use the following command: send thinknet to odd de presno at opresno@extern.uio.no thinknet is also available through the philosophy conference on the well, and on genie in the philosophy category under the religion and ethics bulletin board. (hard copy versions can be bought through thinknet, po box , orange ca - , u.s.a.). if you're on the well, read the topic "news from around well conferences" to learn about new developments. these are some mailing lists that may help you locate sources of interest: netscout (netscout@vmtecmex) the bitnet/internet scouts. subscribe by email to listserv@vmtecmex.bitnet with the following in the text of your message sub netscout yourfirstname yourlastname this is where you can discuss and exchange information about servers, ftp sites, filelists, lists, tools, and any related aspects. help-net (help-net@templevm) bitnet/cren/internet help resource. send email to listserv@templevm.bitnet with the text sub help-net yourfirstname yourlastname the list's main purpose is to help solve user problems with utilities and software related to the internet and bitnet networks. the library contains several good help files for novice networkers. a great place for new internet users! other sources available through the internet -------------------------------------------- the interest groups list of lists is available by electronic mail from mail-server@nisc.sri.com . send a message with the following text in the message body: send netinfo/interest-groups note that as of april , the file was over , , bytes in size. it will be returned to you in moderately sized pieces. you can search the list of lists by email. say you're looking for a mailing list related to robotics. to find out, send a message to listserv@vm .nodak.edu containing the following commands: //listsrch job echo=no database search dd=rules //rules dd * search robotics in lists index search robotics in intgroup index search robotics in new-list index replace the search word 'robotics' with whatever else you may be looking for. the usenet list of news groups and mailing lists is available on hosts that run usenet news or netnews servers and/or clients in the newsgroups news.announce.newusers and news.lists. the members of news.newusers.questions, alt.internet.help, alt.internet.access.wanted, and alt.internet.new-users readily accept your help requests. alt.internet.services focuses on information about services available on the internet. it is for people with internet accounts who want to explore beyond their local computers, to take advantage of the wealth of information and services on the net. services for discussion include: * things you can telnet to (weather, library catalogs, databases, and more), * things you can ftp (like pictures, sounds, programs, data) * clients/servers (like muds, irc, archie) every second week, a list of internet services called the "special internet connections list" is posted to this newsgroup. it includes everything from where to ftp pictures from space, how to find agricultural information, public unix, online directories and books, you name it. dartmouth maintains a merged list of the listserv lists on bitnet and the interest group lists on the internet. each mailing list is represented by one line. to obtain this list, send a message to listserv@dartcms .bitnet . enter the following command in the text of the message: index siglists internic information service maintains an announcement-only service at listserv@is.internic.net called net-happenings. it distributes announcements about tools, conferences, calls for papers, news items, new mailing lists, electronic newsletters like edupage, and more. to subscribe, send a message to the listserv containing this command: subscribe net-happenings your name internic's automated mail service is at mailserv@rs.internic.net. it allows access to documents and files via email. to use it, send email to the mailserv with the word "help" in the subject field of your mail. how to get more out of your magazine subscriptions -------------------------------------------------- pc magazine (u.s.a.) is one of those magazines that arrives here by mail. we butcher them, whenever we find something of interest. the "corpses" are dumped in a high pile on the floor. to retrieve a story in this pile is difficult and time consuming, unless the title is printed on the cover. luckily, there are shortcuts. logon to pc magnet on compuserve. type go pcmag to get the following menu: pc magnet download a pc magazine utility pc magazine utilities/tips forum pc magazine editorial forum pc magazine programming forum pc magazine after hours forum pc magazine product reviews index free! - take a survey submissions to pc magazine letters to the editor subscribe to pc magazine choice six lets you search for stories. once you have a list with page/issue references, turning the pages gets much easier. pc magazine is owned by the media giant ziff-davis. pc magnet is a part of ziffnet on compuserve. so is computer database plus, which lets you search through more than , articles from over popular newspapers and magazines. the oldest articles are from early . the database is also available on cd-rom, but the discs cover only one year at a time. cdp contains full-text from around magazines, like personal computing, electronic news, macweek and electronic business. stories from the other magazines are available in abstracted form only. to search the database, cdp, you pay an extra us$ . per hour. in addition, you pay us$ . per abstract and us$ . per full-text article ( ). these fees are added to your normal compuserve access rates. ziffnet also offers magazine database plus, a database with stories from over magazines covering science, business, sport, people, personal finance, family, art and handicraft, cooking, education, environment, travel, politics, consumer opinions, and reviews of books and films. the magazines include: administrative management, aging, changing times, the atlantic, canadian business, datamation, cosmopolitan, dun's business month, the economist, the futurist, high technology business, journal of small business management, management today, the nation, the new republic, online, playboy, inc., popular science, research & development, sales & marketing management, scientific american, technology review, un chronicle, unesco courier and u.s. news & world report. in the next chapter, we will present another ziffnet magazine database: the business database plus. magazine index (mi), from information access company (u.s.a.), is another source worth looking at. it covers over consumer and general-interest periodicals as diverse as special libraries and sky & telescope, motor trend and modern maturity, reader's digest and rolling stone. many titles go as far back as . although most of the database consists of brief citations, mi also contains the complete text of selected stories from a long list of periodicals. it is available through dialog, compuserve, brs, data-star, dow jones news/retrieval, nexis, and others. say you so often get references to a given magazine that you want a paper subscription. try the electronic newsstand, which is available by gopher or telnet to gopher.netsys.com. if these internet commands are unavailable, try mail to staff@enews.com. finding that book ----------------- over libraries around the world are accessible by the internet telnet command. some of them can also be accessed by internet mail. this is the case with bibsys, a database operated by the norwegian universities' libraries. i am into transcendental meditation. i'm therefore constantly looking for books on narrow topics like "mantra". to search bibsys for titles of interest, i sent mail to genserv@pollux.bibsys.no . the search word was entered in the subject title of the message. by return email, i got the following report: date: fri, jul : : nor from: genserv@pollux.bibsys.no subject: searching bibsys search request : mantra database-id : bibsys search result : hits. the following is one of the references. i have forwarded it to my local library for processing: forfatter : gonda, j. tittel : mantra interpretation in the satapatha-brahmana / by j. gonda. trykt : leiden : e.j. brill, . sidetall : x, s. i serie : (orientalia rheno-traiectina ; ) isbn : - - - - uhf ka - uhf/indo rh iii b gon the danish library database rex may be accessed through most international packet switching networks. its network user address (nua) is . when connected, enter rc and press return. press esc once. the system will respond with att. enter kb rex, and you're ready to search dansk bogfortegnelse since , dansk musikfortegnelse since , and isds denmark. barton is the library system of massachusetts institute of technology. its database contains everything received since except magazine articles, brochures, and technical reports from sources outside m.i.t. phone: + - - - ( bps). press enter a couple of times to access the system. on compuserve, there is a section for book collectors in the coin/stamp/collectibles forum, and a weekly book chat section in the sciencefiction & fantasy forum. in the electronic mall, you can buy books directly from ballantine books, penguin books, small computer book club, the mcgraw-hill book company, time-life books and walden computer books. on the internet, roswell computer books ltd. (canada) has an online bookstore with a database of over , titles ( ). gopher to nstn.ns.ca, select "other gophers in nova scotia", and then "roswell electronic computer bookstore". failing access to gopher, send your email requests to roswell@fox.nstn.ns.ca . the book review digest (go bookreview) is compuserve's database of bibliographical references and abstracts of reviews (since ). you can search by title, author, and keywords found in the text of book reviews. compuserve also offers book reviews through magazine database plus. "books in print" is a north american bibliographic reference database. it is available on brs and compuserve. south african bibliographic and information network has a gopher service at info .sabinet.co.za. fidonet has comics (the comic book echo), bitnet the list rare book and special collections catalogers (notrbcat@indycms). newsnet has the computer book review newsletter and on the well you'll find the "computer books" conference. oclc's worldcat is a reference database covering books and materials in libraries worldwide. bookworms may appreciate the bitnet discussion list dorothyl (listserv@kentvm.kent.edu), and especially if they like agatha christie, josephine tey and dorothy l. sayers. on usenet, you will find alt.books.reviews, k .library, alt.books.technical, rec.arts.books, and misc. books.technical, and more. on the internet, there are a rapidly growing number of library online public-access catalogs (opacs) from all over the world. some provide users with access to additional resources, such as periodical indexes of specialized databases. more than library catalogs are now online ( ). an up-to-date directory of libraries that are interactively accessible through internet can be had by anonymous ftp from ftp.unt.edu (then: cd library). file name: libraries.txt. check out the end of chapter for how to get the file by email (ftpmail). you will also find full electronic versions of books. this book is one example. many texts are courtesy of project gutenberg, an organization whose goal is to develop a library of , public domain electronic texts by the year . since books are often quite large, they are somewhat bulky for email transfer. if you have direct internet access, use anonymous ftp instead. many books are available through the /pub/almanac/etext directory at oes.orst.edu. for more about how to use the almanac information server, send almanac@oes.orst.edu the following email command: send guide for a list of books, add the line send gutenberg catalog among the offerings, you'll find the complete sherlock holmes mysteries, the unabridged works of shakespeare, aesop's fables, alice's adventures in wonderland, the holy bible, the love teachings of kama sutra, the holy koran, the oedipus trilogy (sophocles), peter pan, roget's thesaurus ( ), and the world fact book ( - cia). if quite impossible to locate a given book, try the rare books and special collections forum at exlibris@rutvm .bitnet. non-chinese speaking people will probably classify chinese poems as 'rare'. many of them are impossible to read, unless your computer can handle the special characters, and you know their meaning. still interested? if yes, subscribe to chpoem-l@ubvm.bitnet . be prepared to use your big and guobiao utilities. chapter : getting an edge over your competitor ================================================ we must be willing to risk change to keep apace with rapid change. the key is moderation and balance, supported by sufficient information to allow meaningful feedback. it requires adaption by management and staff in developing the necessary skills and vision. this chapter starts with how to use the networks to manage projects. next, it treats how to monitor competitors, prospects, suppliers, markets, technologies, and trends. it winds down with marketing and sales by modem. project coordination -------------------- so far we have mainly been looking at sources of information. let us start this chapter with some words about 'online conference rooms' for project coordination. several services offer rental of private conference areas to businesses. corporations have discovered them to be an efficient way of coordinating a group of people, who are far apart from each other geographically. they are also useful when team members are constantly on the move and hard to gather face to face. many international companies use such services regularly. the applications are different. they range from tight coordination with suppliers and subcontractors, to development of company strategies and new organizational structures. renting an online conference room has advantages over doing it in-house. the company does not have to buy software, hardware, expensive equipment for communications, and hire people for to run and maintain a conferencing system. the more international the business, the better. for ideas about how to set up and operate a coordination conference. study how volunteer organizations do it. one place to check out is kidplan, one of several coordination conferences used by kidlink (see chapter and ). kidplan is usually most active during april and may each year. this is when their annual projects are being closed down, and new projects are started. read the dialog between coordinators to get an idea of how the medium is being used. old conference messages are stored in notebook files. you can therefore have the full coordination dialogs sent you by email. send all requests for notebook files to listserv@vm .nodak.edu getting notebook files is a two-step process. in your first message to the listserv, ask for a list of available files. do this by using the following command in your email: index kidplan the listserv will return a list of files. the following part is of particular interest: / / kidplan log b all own v / / : : started on wed, may : : cdt / / kidplan log c all own v / / : : started on wed, may : : cdt / / kidplan log d all own v / / : : started on wed, may : : + don't bother about the details. you just want file names, and dates. the file log b contains all messages from may until may. if you want all these three files, send another message to listserv with the following lines: get kidplan log b get kidplan log c get kidplan log d the files will be forwarded to your mailbox. note: some mailbox services have restrictions on the size of incoming mail. this may prevent you from receiving large notebook files. if this happens, contact your local postmaster for help. some email systems are unable to forward your return-address correctly to listserv. if you suspect that this is the reason for lack of success, try the following commands: give kidplan log b to your-correct-return-address give kidplan log c to your-correct-return-address give kidplan log d to your-correct-return-address making it work -------------- making online conferences and task force meetings work, can be a challenge. most of the dialog is based on the written word. the flow of information can be substantial thus causing an information overload for some participants. to overcome this, many companies appoint moderator-organizers for their online conferences. this person: adds value by setting agendas; summarizing points; getting the discussion(s) back on track; moving on to the next point; mediating debate; maintaining address and member lists; acting as general sparkplug/motivator to keep things flowing by making sure that contributions are acknowledged, relevant points are noted, new members are welcomed, silent "read-only members" are encouraged to participate, and the general atmosphere is kept appropriate to the goals of the conference/task force meeting. great online conferences don't just happen. hard work is required. a few people must be responsible for getting the meetings fired up and keep the discussion rolling. the meeting's organization may depend on the number of participants, where they come from, the exclusivity of the forum, and the purpose of the "meeting." in large meetings, with free access for outsiders, the best strategy may be to appoint a moderator-editor. this person filters contributions, gathers new information, summarizes scattered contributions, does background research. filtering may be needed in conferences that are open to customers and media. the main purpose, however, is to help participants cope with the absolute flow of information. a conference can have an educational purpose. if so, you may bring in someone who can add value by bringing experience and expertise to the group. you will also need someone to do all the dirty jobs everyone expects to be done - but never notices until they are not done. this person must keep the show running by serving as a benevolent tyrant, sheriff, judge, mediator, general scapegoat, and by playing a role in setting the general policy and atmosphere of the meeting. now, back to the 'normal' applications of the online resource. monitoring what others do ------------------------- the best business opportunities are outside your company, in the external world. we need to monitor customers and markets, find technologies to help develop and build products, research new business actions, find new subcontractors and suppliers, people to hire, and persons to influence to boost sales. in this marketing age, where sales calls cost hundreds of dollars and business-to-business marketers use the telephone or the mails to reach prospects, complete and accurate market lists are most valuable commodities. there are many other questions: what are our most important customers and their key people doing? what new products are they promoting? who are their joint-venture partners? what else may influence their willingness to buy from us? what prices are our major suppliers offering other buyers? should we get other sources for supplies? what major contracts have they received recently? will these influence their ability to serve our needs? what new technologies are available now and how are they being used by others? threats are the reverse side of opportunities. what are our competitors doing? what products and services have they launched recently? are they successful? what are our competitors' weaknesses and strengths? what relationships do they maintain with our most important customers? how is their customer support functioning, and what methods are they using in their quality assurance? each company has its own priorities when it comes to watching the external environment. the information needs are different from company to company, depending on what products and services that are offered, the technological level of the company, the markets that they address, and more. needs and priorities also differ by department and person, for example depending on whether a user is the president, a marketing manager, product manager, sales man, or has a position in finance or production. remember your priorities when going online to search. you cannot possibly capture and digest all information that is there. your basic problem remains to find the right information in the right form at the right time. build your own, local 'database' -------------------------------- it does not take much effort to check one hundred different topics from multiple online sources on a daily basis. the computer will do it for you. also, you do not have to read all stories as carefully as you would with printed material. most experienced users just read what is important now, and save selected parts of the retrieved texts on their hard disks for later reference. we handle printed material differently. most of us make notes in the margins, underline, use colors, cut out pages and put into folders. these tricks are important, since it is so hard to find information in a pile of papers. not so with electronic information. with the right tools, you can locate information on your computer's hard disk in seconds. in seven seconds, i just searched the equivalent of pages of printed text for all occurrences of the combined search words 'sony' and 'cd-rom'! my tool was the shareware program lookfor (see chapter ). it searched through . megabyte on my -based notebook computer. if you use an indexing program, the search may be completed even faster. i guess you can see it coming. my personal databases usually give more direct value during my working day, than what i have on paper, and have available online. my hard disks contain megabytes of texts retrieved from various online services, but only what i have decided to keep. this private database therefore contains more relevant information per kilobyte than the online databases i'm using. searching the data often gives enough good hits to keep me from going online for more. | i repeat: you will often get better results when searching your | | own subset of selected online databases, than by going online | | to get information. it is usually easier and faster. | on the other hand, your in-house database will never be fully up- to-date. too many things happen all the time. also, the search terms used for your daily intake of news will never cover all future needs. occasionally, you must go online to get additional information for a project, a report, a plan. updating your database means going online often to find new supplementary information. | regular monitoring gives the highest returns, and is required | | if you want to have an edge over your competitors. | for beginners, the best strategy will often be to start with the general, and gradually dig deeper into industry specific details. let us now review some good hunting grounds for information, and how to use them. clipping the news ----------------- several online services offer 'clipping services'. they select the news that you want - hours a day - from a continuous stream of stories from newspapers, magazines, news agencies and newsletters. several services make news immediately available, when they have been received by satellite. the delay previously used to protect the interests of print media is disappearing quickly. online services usually deliver news sooner than in print media, radio or tv. you select stories by giving the online service a set of search terms. the hits are then sent to your electronic mailbox, for you to retrieve at will. 'clipping' gives an enormous advantage. few important details escape your attention, even when you cannot go online daily. the stories will stay in your mailbox until you have read them. 'clipping' on compuserve ------------------------ compuserve's executive news service (ens) monitor more than , stories daily. they use sources like deutsche press-agentur, kyodo news service, tass, xinhua news agency, the washington post, otc news-alert, reuters financial news wire, associated press, upi and reuters world report, idg pr service, inter press service (ips), middle east news network and european community report. one of them, reuters, has , journalists in bureaus all over the world. they write company news reports about revenue, profit, dividend, purchases of other companies, changes in management, and other important items for judging a company's results. they write regular opinions about industry, governments, economics, leading indicators, and commerce. reuters also offers full-text stories from financial times and other leading european newspapers. its textline is a database with news from some , publications in over countries. it includes reuters' own news services, and has translated abstracts of stories from some languages. the database reaches back years and is updated at around one million articles per year. (textline is also available on nexis, data-star, and dialog.) another one, the idg pr service, sends out high-tech related news gathered by the staffs of idg's magazines. interpress service covers third world countries. middle east news network integrates the contents of information sources covering this region of the world. the executive news service lets you define up to three 'clipping folders'. supply up to seven 'key phrases' that define your interests. these key phrases will be used when searching stories as they are sent. hits will be 'clipped' and held in a folder for you to review at your convenience. each folder can hold stories. when creating a clipping folder, you set an expiration date and specify how many days a clipped story is to be held (maximum days). to browse the contents of a folder, select it from the menu. stories can be listed by headlines or leads. select those you want to read, forward to others as email, or copy to another folder. delete those that you do not need. defining key phrases is simple. the important thing is not to get too much nor too little. general phrases will give you many unwanted stories while too narrow phrases will cause you to miss pertinent stories. let me illustrate with an example: the phrase apple computers will only clip stories that have the words apple and computers next to each other. this may be too narrow. specifying just apple or just computers would be too broad. entering apple + computers is a better phrase since the words can appear anywhere in the story, and not necessarily next to each other. ens carries an hourly surcharge of us$ /hour over base connect rates. clipping on newsnet ------------------- newsnet greets users with this opening screen: ----------------- - n e w s n e t - ----------------- w o r k i n g k n o w l e d g e ***new--electromagnetic field litigation reporter (ey ) tracks developments in every important legal action involving electromagnetic radiation from power lines, cellular phones, vtds, and radar and microwave equipment. ***the title of hh has been changed to cancer researcher weekly. this service was formerly entitled cancer weekly. ***important work in the blood field throughout the world is covered by blood week (hh ), including research, literature, and upcoming events. ***tb weekly (hh ) is an internationally-focused newsletter that concentrates on tuberculosis-related news and research, including business developments. new services on newsnet: tb weekly (hh ) blood weekly (hh ) electromagnetic field litigation reporter (ey ) chapter update (fi ) tobacco industry litigation reporter (hh ) trade and development opportunities (gt ) for details on new services, enter read pb # or help followed by the service code. newsnet's clipping service, newsflash, will automatically search all new editions of newsletters selected for monitoring. the hits will be sent to your mailbox, and be retained there for up to ten weeks besides the current week. your selection of newsletters can be extended to include news stories from united press international (upi), reuters news reports, associated press, business wire, pr newswire, and others. for some time, i clipped newsletters in the telecommunications group using the keywords 'victoria' (an american communication project) and 'kdd' (the japanese telecom giant). when i called newsflash to check, it typically reported: newsflash notification **************************************************************** total newsflash hits. use stop to stop and delete all. new hits = saved items = te / / == victoria == headline # cooke sells cable holdings to -member group for nearly $ . billion jack cooke's cable systems will be sold to -member consortium te / / == victoria == headline # bocs' progress toward intelligent network architecture intertwined with difficult internetworking negotiations, pending decree court ec / / == kdd == headline # kdd opens ny/london offices tokyo, japan, jul (nb) -- kokusai denshin denwa (kdd), ec / / == kdd == headline # foreigners can buy into kdd tokyo, japan, aug -- the japanese government is planning enter headline numbers or all to read, more, again, save, stop, or help --> newsnet's databases grow by more than stories per day. your search profiles may contain an almost unlimited number of subjects. delivery of hits is concurrent. twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. sprintmail's clipping service (u.s.a.) scans stories from more than international newswires. ft profile's e-mail alert searches daily on that particular day's issue of the financial times. dow jones news/retrieval has newsscan (//clip). it can deliver by fax or email to a mailbox on another online service. on genie, use quiknews express, a personalized news clipping service that is integrated with the quik-comm system email service. clarinet, a commercial news service available through usenet, also has a clipping program. when clipping is impossible --------------------------- many services do not offer clipping. here, your alternative is various methods of regular selective reading. many conferencing systems let you select messages by keywords. bix has keyword indexer. it let you search public conferences after a key word or phrase and report hits. then it offers you to review (or retrieve) messages of interest. compuserve's forums have efficient 'read selective' and 'quick scan' commands. another trick is to limit your reading to specific message sections. the high forum message volume is a special problem on this service. old messages are regularly deleted to make room for new ones. (often called "scroll rate.") some popular forums do not keep messages for more than a couple of days before letting them go. you must visit often to get all new information. many bulletin boards can be told to store unread messages about given topics in a compressed transportation file. this file can then be retrieved at high speed. special communication programs (often called offline readers) and commands are available to automate this completely. powerful scripts (see chapter ) can do automatic selection of news stories based on the occurrence of keywords (e.g., a company name) in headlines. i have developed such a system for selecting news from the online today magazine on compuserve. subscription services --------------------- it is useful to dig, dig, and dig for occurrences of the same search words, but digging is not enough. unless you periodically scan "the horizon," you risk missing new trends, viewpoints and other important information. it can be difficult to find good sources of information that suits your needs. one trick is to watch the reports from your clipping services. over time, you may discover that some sources bring more interesting stories than others. take a closer look at these. consider browsing their full index of stories regularly. if your company plans exportation to countries in asia, check out market: asia pacific on newsnet. the newsletter is published monthly by w-two publications, ltd., the commons, suite , ithaca, ny , u.s.a. (phone: + - - - ). annual print subscription rate: us$ . the index itself may be a barometer of what goes on. here is an example. note the number of words/lines. do these numbers tell a story? july , head # headline words /lines ------ ---------------------------------------------------- ------------ ) the philippines is at a turg point / ) china and korea will lead regional economic boom / ) asian compensation is still low, but rising quickly / ) consumer goods won't be all the chinese buy / ) women bear the brunt of cambodia's troubles / ) taiwan makes a move toward the cashless society / ) tips on managing cultural harmony in asia / ) taiwanese become more discerning, harder to reach / ) direct marketing headed for growth in singapore / ) tourism in malaysia will grow / ) chongqing: future powerhouse / it is a good idea to visit newsnet to gather intelligence. review indexes of potentially interesting newsletters. save them on your hard disk for future references. you never know when they may be of use. the newsletters within computers and electronics bring forecasts of market trends, evaluation of hardware and software, prices, information about ibm and other leading companies. you will find stories about technological developments of modems, robots, lasers, video players, graphics, and communications software. the management section contains experts' evaluation of the economical climate with forecasts, information about foreign producers for importers, tips and experiences on personal efficiency, management of smaller companies, and office automation. other sections are advertising and marketing, aerospace and aviation, automotive, biotechnology, building and construction, chemical, corporate communications, defense, entertainment and leisure, education, environment, energy, finance and accounting, food and beverage, general business, insurance, investment, health and hospitals, law, management, manufacturing, medicine, office, publishing and broadcasting, real estate, research and development, social sciences, telecommunications, travel and tourism, transport and shipping. several newsletters focus on specific geographical areas: * marketing research review (analyzes and evaluates commercially available marketing research and technology assessment reports. publisher: high-tech publishing co., u.s.a.) * german business scope and the week in germany * news from france * country risk guide: europe * eastern europe finance, and eastern european energy report * european community: business forecast * investext/european region * prs forecasts: eastern europe, and western europe * africa news on-line * prs-forecasts: mid-east & north africa * prs-forecasts: sub-saharan africa * the exporter (published by trade data reports. monthly reports on the business of exporting. functionally divided into operations, markets, training resources, and world trade information.) * mid-east business digest * latin america opportunity report * country risk guide: sub-saharan africa * country risk guide: asia & the pacific * prs forecasts: asia & the pacific * prs's political risk letter * sales prospector (monthly prospect research reports for sales representatives and other business people interested in commercial, and institutional expansion and relocation activity. separate services grouped by geographic area in the united states and canada.) many newsletters are focusing on technology intelligence: sensor technology ----------------- provides updates on research being conducted in this rapidly evolving technology. besides analyzing advances in the field, it offers ideas on how this technology can improve products and services. advanced manufacturing technology --------------------------------- reports on desktop manufacturing, computer graphics, flexible automation, computer-integrated manufacturing, and other technological advances that help increase productivity. high tech materials alert ------------------------- reports on significant developments in high-performance materials, including alloys, metallic whiskers, ceramic and graphite fibers, and more. concentrates on their fabrication, industrial applications, and potential markets. futuretech ---------- provides briefings on focused, strategic technologies that have been judged capable of making an impact on broad industrial fronts. includes forecasts of marketable products and services resulting from the uncovered technology and its potential impact on industry segments. advanced coating & surface technology, electronic materials technology news, flame retardancy news, high tech ceramics news, innovator's digest, technology access report, inside r&d, japan science scan, new technology week, optical materials & engineering news, performance materials, surface modification technology news, genetic technology news, battery & ev technology, and much more. newsletters on compuserve ------------------------- many newsletters are being made available through forums' file libraries on compuserve. consequently, they are a little harder to locate. some examples ( ): abacus online - quarterly newsletter on executive computing. (in the lotus spreadsheet forum, library .) anime stuff - news and reviews of japanese animation software. (comics/animation forum, library .) communique - the quarterly newsletter of the international association of business communicators u.k. chapter. (pr and marketing forum, library .) distance education newsletter - analyzes the impact of elec- tronic communication on academic research. (telecommunications forum, library .) hint: to find newsletters in the ibm pc oriented forums, enter go ibmff to search. select "keyword" as search criteria, and enter "newsletter". add further keywords to narrow the search to your areas of interest. compuserve also has other file find services. databases with an international orientation ------------------------------------------- information access provides reference databases to businesses. you can search databases with full-text stories, abstracts, and indexes from international magazines. prompt (overview of markets and technology) is the largest of them. it provides international coverage of companies, markets and technologies in all industries. the other databases cover areas like aerospace and defense, advertising and marketing, new product announcements, industry forecasts and time series. the information access' databases are available through online services like dialog, data star, financial times profile (england), nikkei in japan and on the thomson financial networks. they are regularly published on cd-rom. ziffnet offers the business database plus through compuserve. here, you can search in full-text stories from around north american and international publications for industry and commerce ( ). the articles are about sales and marketing ideas, product news, industry trends and analysis, and provide company profiles in areas such as agriculture, manufacturing, retailing, telecommunications, and trade. this is a partial list of the database's magazines: agra europe, agribusiness worldwide, air cargo world, belgium: economic and commercial information, beverage world, beverage world periscope edition, british plastics & rubber, british telecom world, business perspectives, cci-canmaking & canning international, cd-rom librarian, chain store age - general merchandise trends, coal & synfuels technology, communication world, communications daily, communications international, consultant, cosmetic world news, dairy industries international, direct marketing, the economist, erdol und kohle, erdgas, petrochemie: hydrocarbon technology, eurobusiness, euromoney, europe , european cosmetic markets, european rubber journal, financial market trends, financial world, finnish trade review, food engineering international, forest industries, gas world, graphic arts monthly, the printing industry, high technology business, idc japan report, inc., international trade forum, investment international, israel business, japan economic newswire, journal of international business studies, journal of marketing research, kyodo, market research europe, medical world news, meed middle east economic digest, middle east agribusiness, oecd economic outlook, the oil and gas journal, oilweek, petroleum economist, plastics world, purchasing world, report on the austrian economy, restaurant-hotel design international, royal bank of scotland review, seafood international, soviet aerospace & technology, supermarket business magazine, swissbusiness, training: the magazine of human resources development, world economic outlook, world oil. dialog's asia-pacific database covers business and economics in asia and the pacific. it contains over , references from newspapers, magazines and other sources in north america and international. the asia-pasific dun's market identifiers on dialog is a directory listing of about , business establishments in asian and pacific rim countries. the middle east news network publishes daily news, analysis and comments from countries in the middle east produced by arabic, hebrew, turkish and persian press. you can read these news through reuters (e.g., on newsgrid/compuserve), down jones news/retrieval, and information access. the jerusalem institute for western defence provides a monthly newsletter with research of the arab press. it has unedited quotes from around the arab world. write listserv@jerusalem .datasrv.co.il to subscribe (command: sub arab-press firstname lastname). the international reports financial newsletter may be read and searched on newsnet, information access, and mead data central. newsnet also has brazil service, mexico service, country risk guides and weekly international market alert. use compuserve's consumer report to spot trends in the consumer markets for appliances, automobiles, electronics/cameras, home. eventline (iquest, compuserve) monitors international conferences, exhibitions, and congresses. the boomer report concentrates on the habits of the "the baby-boom generation." affaersdata in sweden offers the swedish-language service "export-nytt," which brings short news stories about export/import from all over the world. information providers are the swedish export council, the norwegian export council, and the suomen ulkomaankauppaliitto in finland. orbit has an english language database of japanese technology. it contains abstracts of articles, patents and standards from more than japanese magazines. dow jones news/retrieval brings full-text stories from the japan economic newswire. the business dateline contains news from more than regional business publications in the united states and canada. the abi/inform business database (umi/data courier) contains abstracts and full-text articles from business magazines and trade journals. the sources include the asia pacific journal of management, business korea, and the world bank research observer. market research reports from frost & sullivan are available through data-star. it produces over market reports each year, in industrial sectors. these reports cover results of face-to- face interviews with manufacturers, buyers and trade association executives, supplemented by a search and summary of secondary sources. glasnost in the former soviet union produced a long list of new online information sources, including: the soviet press digest (stories from over newspapers), the bizekon reports (financial news from business and financial magazines), sovlegisline (law), bizedon directory (detailed information about over , companies, who want to do business with foreign companies), who's who in the soviet union and the soviet public association directory. some of these may have changed their names now. contact mead data central (nexis/lexis), data-star, ft profile and reuters for more information. djnr also offers full text from the paris-based international herald tribune, publications like the guardian and others from the united kingdom, and from sources in the former soviet union (like soviet press digest, bizekon news, moscow news, and others.) e-europe is an electronic communications network for doing business in eastern europe countries, including cis. its purpose is to help these countries in their transition to market economies. it links business persons in western europe-asia-north america with those in eastern europe. subscription is free and for anyone. to subscribe to e-europe, send email listserv@pucc.princeton.edu (or a listserv closer to you) with the body the message containing this line sub e-europe yourfirstname yourlastname e-europe also offers international marketing insights (imi) for several countries in this region, including russia, hungary, czech, germany, estonia, poland, bulgaria, and lithuania. the imi reports important developments that have implications for traders and investors. typically brief and to-the-point, they are prepared by american embassies and consulates. the reports cover a wide range of subjects, such as new laws, policies and procedures, new trade regulations, changing dynamics in the marketplace, recent statements by influential parties and emerging trade opportunities. for a list of e-europe imi offerings, send the following commands to listserv@pucc.princeton.edu: get e-europe imi imi update notices are not posted to e-europe, but you can subscribe to updates to these files. the english-language newsletter "st. petersburg business news" is published in russia by the committee for foreign economic affairs of lecc. for information and subscription, send email to aag@cfea.ecc.spb.su . the financial izvestia weekly, the joint publication of london financial times and moscow-based izvestia, is available by email. the complete feed includes the full text of all articles published in the russian language newspaper, and financial and statistical tables on the commodities and financial markets. write legpromsyrie at root@sollo.soleg.msk.su for information. several russian newspapers, including commersant daily, nega, and press services like postfactum and interfax, have digests or complete editions available for relcom network subscribers, usually for a nominal fee. interested in the european common market? ----------------------------------------- pergamon financial data services, newsnet, and others, offer dun & bradstreet european marketing online. it contains company profiles of around two million european companies. pergamon's icc u.k. company databases contains data on over , british companies with up to ten years' financial history, addresses, key people, mother firms/subsidiaries, stock quotes. its comptex news service brings daily business news from the european arena. the uk company library on compuserve has financial information about more than . million british companies from sources like extel cards, icc british co. directory and kompass uk. data-star offers tenders electronic daily, a database of european community contract offers. investext offers a series of bulletins authored by europe information service (eis): european report (biweekly), tech report (monthly), transport europe (monthly), europe environment (bimonthly), european energy (bimonthly), european social policy (monthly), and multinational service (monthly). investext is available through data-star, lexis/nexis, dow jones news/retrieval, dialog, newsnet, and others. the german company library (on compuserve) offers information about some , german companies from databases like credit reform and hoppenstedt's directory of german companies. its european company library contains information about over two million companies in the area. nexis (mead data central international) brings news and background information about companies and the different countries in europe. their worldwide companies database contains company profiles, balance sheets, income statements, and other financial data on the largest companies in countries. nexis also has hoppenstedt german trade associations directory, four more newsletters from the europe information service: europe energy, europe environment, transport europe and european insight, a weekly brief on european community-related happenings, and notisur, a biweekly news and analysis report on south american and caribbean political affairs. lexis (also mead) has databases with information about english and french law, and other law material from australia, new zealand, ireland, scotland and north america. their martindale-hubbell law directory has information on over , lawyers and law firms worldwide. the directory can be used for referrals, selection of associate counsel, and evaluation of competitive counsel. check out kompass europe when planning exports to the eec. its database contains details about companies in sweden, denmark, germany, united kingdom, holland, belgium, france, spain, italy, sweden and norway. (on dialog) ilink has the eec-i conference (discussion about the european common marked). profile offers full-text searches (and a clipping service) in stories from financial times. the database is being updated daily at : . those exporting to the eec need to master german, french, italian, and spanish besides having a common knowledge of english. conversation is the easy part. the problem is writing, and especially when the task is to translate technical expressions to the languages used within the common market. for help, check out the eurodicautom online dictionary through echo (and others.) start by selecting a source language (like english), and up to seven languages for simultaneous translation. the translation is word-for-word, but may be put in the correct context if required. echo also offers the european commission's cordis database (community research and development information service) containing information about research results within scientific and technical fields. keywords: race, esprit, delta, aim, fast, brite, comett, climat, eclair and tedis. concise (cosine network's central information service for europe) is a pan-european information service to the cosine scientific and industrial research community. cosine (cooperation for open systems interconnection networking in europe) is part of the european common market's eureka project. concise brings information about the cosine project, networks, conferences, networking products, special interest groups, projects databases, directories, email services and other networked services in europe. it is intended for researchers in all fields, from astronomers through linguists and market researchers to zoologists. concise is accessible by email through the internet, by ftp, and interactively (telnet) over the european academic and research networks, over public data networks and over telephone links. (see echo in appendix for more information.) the mailing list ec@indycms.bitnet is dedicated to discussion of the european community, and is open to all interested persons. subscribe by email to a listserv close to where you live, or to listserv@indycms.bitnet. scandinavia ----------- most countries have several local language news services. in norway, statens datasentral lets you search stories from the ntb news agency. aftenposten, a major newspaper, offers full-text stories from their a-tekst database, from dagens naeringsliv (dnx), and the kapital magazine. before meeting with people from norsk hydro, go online to get recent news about these companies. it will only take a couple of minutes. what you find may be important for the success of your meeting. if you know the names of your most important competitors, use their names as keywords for information about recent contracts, joint venture agreements, products (and their features), and other important information. kompass online offers information about over , companies and , products in scandinavia, finland, germany, switzerland, and great britain. the information is presented in the local language of the different countries. kompass is used by easy menus. you can search by * company name * product or service (optionally using an industry classification code for companies or products) * number of employees, type of business, postal number, telephone area code, export area, year of incorporation, bank affiliation. the database is available through affaersdata (sweden). new users pay a one time fee of around us$ . searching costs around us$ . per minute. the tyr database on the finnish service viexpo (tel.: + ) offers information about , companies in the vaasa and oulu regions with addresses, phone numbers, contact persons, main products, revenues, and sic industry classification codes. we can go on like this. the list of available services is long in many countries. how to monitor your competitors ------------------------------- sales managers need to know what competitors are doing. lacking this knowledge, it is risky to maneuver in the market. start by making a strategy for online market intelligence. here are some practical hints: ( ) select online services that offer clipping of stories and information based on your search words or phrases. examples: newsflash on newsnet, //track on dow jones news/retrieval, the executive news service on compuserve. use these services for automatic monitoring of stock quotes and business news. ( ) read what investment analysts and advisors write about your competitors. most markets are well covered by databases and other sources of information. ( ) read what competitors write about themselves. their press releases are available from online databases in several countries. ( ) compare your competitors with your own company and industry. items: stock prices, profits, revenue, etc. ( ) regularly monitor companies and their particular products. ( ) watch trend reports about your industry. search for patterns and possible niches. ( ) save what you find on your hard disk for future references. can you get everything through the online medium? of course not! don't expect to find production data, production formulas, detailed outlines of a company's pension plan, or the number of personal computers in a company. such information rarely finds its way to public databases. intelligence by fax ------------------- financial times' profile has fax alert. predefine your interests using search words. stories will be cut and sent to your personal fax number whenever they appear. price depends on the number of characters transmitted. other online services offer similar services. the bulletin board as a sales tool ---------------------------------- many companies - large and small - use bulletin board systems as a marketing instrument. here is an example: the san francisco-based compact disk exchange (tel.: + - - - ) offers a database of used cd records. members can call in to buy at very low prices. they can sell old cds through the board or buy from other members. ( ) marketing and sales by modem ---------------------------- the americans have a gift for this. you meet them in online forums all over the world, in person or through agents, and especially in computer oriented conferences and clubs. their main strategy is reference selling. make key customers happy, and make sure they tell others. in chapter , i told you what happened when a member wrote about his upgrade to a megabytes hard disk in compuserve's toshiba forum. it made me place my order with his preferred seller. one common sales strategy is to be constantly present in relevant conferences, and spend a generous amount of time helping others. this takes time. by proving competence and willingness to help, you build a positive personal profile. this profile is the key to business, information about competitors and other benefits. to drop quickly into a conference to post an "advertisement," is a waste of time. the message may be read by some, but chances are that you will be criticized (in public) for having 'polluted their environment' with a commercial message. besides, the volume of information in the best conferences for your marketing effort is probably too high to make traditional advertisements worth the while. electronic mail --------------- here is a list of other useful applications of electronic mail: * to distribute quickly lists of important prospects to your sales force, * to avoid lengthy telephone conversations, * to receive order information faster and more efficiently than by traditional mail or fax, * to distribute quickly reports and memos to key people all over the world, * to send new prices and product announcements to customers, * to exchange spread sheets and analyses between users of personal computers. if this isn't enough, ask for information from the international business network at . @compuserve.com (or, at , on compuserve). chapter : practical tips ========================== - quick transfers with a minimum of errors - rescuing lost files - copyright and other legal matters - unwritten laws about personal conduct - privacy - fax services weigh less than your printer - file transfers through the internet speed and safety ---------------- read about mnp, ccitt v. , and v. bis in appendix . these are popular methods for automatic error correction and compression of data. compression gives faster transfers of data. to use them, your modem must have these features built-in. they must also be enabled in the modem of the service that you are calling. compression is particularly helpful when sending or receiving text, for example news stories and messages in conferences. they ensure faster transfers. they are not of much help when transferring precompressed texts and programs. they may even make file transfers with protocols like zmodem, kermit, and xmodem impossible. if this happens, temporarily turn off the mnp and v. /v bis settings in your modem (more about this in appendix ). some online services let users retrieve conference messages using a special get or grab function. this function often comes in two versions: * grab to display: new messages and conference items are received in an uninterrupted stream without stops between items. retrieval of text can happen at maximum speed. * grab to compressed file: new messages and conference items are selected, automatically compressed and stored in a file. this file is then transferred using zmodem or similar protocols. some services offer unattended online work with a variation of the "get compressed file" method. read about 'offline readers' in chapter for more about this. the more advanced your software is, the more time it will take to learn how to use it. the rewards are lower telephone costs, faster transfers, and less time spent doing technical online work. recommended. different needs, different solutions ------------------------------------ frank burns of the american online service metanet is spokesperson for the strategy scan - focus - act. on your first visits to a new online service, you scan. the goal is to get an overview of what is being offered and find out how to use it most efficiently. notes are made of interesting bulletins, databases, conferences, messages, news services, public domain and shareware programs, games, and more. capture all of it to disk. don't study it until disconnected from the service. evaluate the material to prepare for your next moves: focus and act. as you learn about offerings, users and applications, your use of the service changes. what was interesting on your first visits, lose out to new discoveries. some applications may stay as 'regular online functions', like when you decide to read a given news report on monday mornings. here are some other hints: * find out what you do not have to know and have enough self- confidence immediately to discard irrelevant material. walk quickly through the information. select what you need now, store other interesting items on your hard disk, clip references, and drop the remainder of your capture file. * learn when and how to use people, computers, libraries and other resources. prepare well before going online. note that the online resource may not necessarily be the quickest way to the goal. if you want the name of michael jackson's latest album, you may get a faster answer by calling a local music shop. . . . * make an outline of how to search the service before going online. if required, start by going online to collect help menus and lists of search commands (unless you already have the printed user information manual). study the instructions carefully, plan your visit, and then call back. often, it may be useful to do trial searches in online data, which you have previously captured to your hard disk. do this to check if your use of search words is sensible. who knows, you may even have what you are searching for right there. besides, it is imperative that you use the correct search terms to find what you're looking for. write your search strategy on a piece of paper. if you know how to write macros for your communications program, consider writing some for your planned search commands. - few people can type characters per second. using macros may save you time, frustration and money. * it may be wise to do your search in two steps. on your first visit: get a list of selected headlines or references, and then log off the service. study your finds, and plan the next step. then call back to get full-text of the most promising stories. this strategy is often better than just 'hanging online' while thinking. when you feel the pressure of the taximeter, it is easy to make costly mistakes. * novices should always go the easiest way. don't be shy. ask sos assistance services for help, if available. invest in special communication programs with built in automatic online searching features. they are designed to make your work easier. * limit your search and avoid general and broad search terms. it is often wise to start with a search word that is so 'narrow' that it is unlikely to find articles outside your area of interest. your goal is not to find many stories. you want the right ones. when everything fails --------------------- data communications is simple - when you master it. occasionally, however, you will lose data. you may even experience the worst of all: losing unread private email on your hard disk. a while ago, this happened to a friend. she logged on to her mailbox service using the communications program procomm. after capturing all her mail, she tried to send a message. for some reason, the computer just froze. it was impossible to close the capture file. she had to switch the power off/on to continue. all retrieved mail was obviously lost. the other day, i had a similar experience. after having written a long and difficult letter, something went wrong. the outfile was inexplicably closed. the resulting file size was bytes. both problems were solved by the ms-dos program chkdsk run with the /f option. if you ever get this problem, and have an ms-dos computer, try it. it may save your day. copyright notices and legal stuff --------------------------------- most commercial online services protect their offerings with copyright notices. this is especially so for database information and news. some vendors make you accept in writing not to store captured data on a local media (like diskettes or hard disks). others (like prodigy in the u.s.) force clients to use communication software that makes it impossible to store incoming data to disk. the reason is simple. information providers want to protect their income. in most countries, you can quote from what others have written. you can cut pieces out of a whole and use in your own writing. what you cannot do, however, is copy news raw to resell to others. if an online service discovers you doing that, expect a law suit. read copyright notices to learn about the limitations on your usage of data that you receive. unwritten laws about personal conduct ------------------------------------- some services let their users be anonymous. this is the case on many chat services. if you want to pose as donald duck or jack the ripper, just do that. many free bbs systems let you register for full access to the service during your first visit. it is possible to use any name. don't do that. use your true name, unless asked to do otherwise. it's impolite and unrespectful of the other members to participate in online discussions using a false identity. being helpful is an important aspect of the online world. the people you meet 'there' use of their time to help you and others. often free. the atmosphere is one of gratitude, and a positive attitude toward all members. if you use rude words in public, expect your mailbox to fill with angry messages from others. those who respond carefully to personal attacks, will never regret it. don't say things online that you would not have said in person. remember: words written in a moment of anger or frustration can be stored on at least one hard disk. your 'sins' may stay there for a long time - to resurface when you least want it to. here are some guidelines (often called 'online netiquette'): * if mail to a person doesn't make it through, avoid posting the message to a conference. keep private messages private. * it is considered extremely bad taste to post private mail from someone else on public conferences, unless they give you explicit permission to redistribute it. * many users end their messages with some lines about how to get in touch with them (their email address, phone number, address, etc.). limit your personal "signature" to maximum four lines. * do not send test messages to a public conference, unless they are set up to serve this purpose. * if someone requests that readers reply by private email, do that. do not send to the conference, where the request appeared. * when replying to a message in a public conference, many users 'quote' the original message prefixed by '>' or another special character, as in you wrote: >i strongly believe it was wrong to attack >fidel castro in this way! when you quote another person, edit out whatever isn't directly applicable to your reply. by including the entire message, you'll only annoy those reading it. * note that if you use all capital letters, people will think you're shouting. finally, smile with me about the following story: according to time magazine ( / / , p. ), three women who corresponded with mr. x over the network discovered his duplicity and went public on the network. the incident sparked a lively debate over electronic etiquette (and ruined mr. casanova's chances for further romance). fax services weigh less than your computer's printer ---------------------------------------------------- many online services let you send electronic mail as fax messages. this is an interesting feature when in that far away place without a printer. send the draft contract or other texts to your hotel's fax machine or to your client's office to get a printout on paper. privacy ------- the level of online privacy differs by network, service, and application. whatever these services may claim, always expect that someone, somewhere, is able to watch, even record. all mailbox services have at least one person authorized to access your personal mail box in case of an emergency. most of the time they not have a right to read it without your permission, but they can. in some countries, mailbox services may let outsiders (like the police) routinely read your private email to check for 'illegal' contents. in this respect, email is not safer than ordinary mail. the good news is that most 'inspectors' and 'sysops' are good, honest people. on the other hand, it is useful to know your situation. it is not safe to send sensitive information (like credit card details) by private electronic mail. true, the probability that an outsider should get hold of and take advantage of such information is small, but it definitely is not percent safe. encrypt your email to protect sensitive information. always assume that someone is recording all that is being said in online conferences, chats, and other interactive social gatherings. in chats, anyone using a personal computer as a terminal can log the conversation, or use screen dump just to capture 'interesting parts'. many pc users can scroll back the screen. they can wait and decide whether to save the conversation in a file until after the conversation has taken place. with these capabilities widely available, users of chats and talk should always assume that their conversations are being recorded. do not say indiscreet things in small, informal discussions. it may be recorded and reposted under embarrassing circumstances. the program pgp has become the defacto international internet standard for public key encryption. for more on privacy, check out ethics-l@marist.bitnet. the files rfc through are about 'privacy enhancements for internet electronic mail' (see appendix for how to get them). usenet has alt.privacy (privacy issues in cyberspace), and comp.society.privacy (effects of technology on privacy). file transfers through the internet ----------------------------------- the internet is a term used of a network interconnecting hundreds of thousands of computer centers around the world. these centers use different types of hardware and software, and different methods of file transfer. what method to use for file transfers depends on the source host and the type of mailbox computer that you are using. the transfer usually takes place in two steps: . transferring files from a remote data center to your local mailbox host. . transfer from your local mailbox host to your personal computer. transfer to your local mailbox host ----------------------------------- we will explain the most commonly used method for those who only have access to file transfer by email. this method can be used by everybody. transferring plain text files is easy. files with imbedded word processor control codes will often have to be treated as binary files. more about this later. to transfer a text to another user, just send it as an ordinary electronic message. getting text files from a library on a remote computer is a special case. often, they can be had by sending a retrieval command (like get) by email to the remote center. after a while, the file will be sent to your mailbox by email. you can read it like you read other mail. example: the file binstart can be retrieved from the kidart directory on a computer center in north dakota, u.s.a. it explains how to retrieve binary art files from the kidlink project's file libraries. to get the file, send a message to the center's mail forwarding 'agent' at listserv@vm .nodak.edu. use the following command syntax in your text: get <directory name> <file name> to get the binstart file, write the following command in the text of your message: get kidart binstart note that the command has to be put in the body of the mail and not in the subject field. the file will arrive in your mailbox after a while. also, note that lists of available files are usually available by using an "index <directory name>" command. to get a list of files in the kidart directory, add the command "index kidart" in your message above. non-listserv libraries may use other retrieval commands. often, you can get information of what commands to use by sending the word help to a mailing service (in the subject area or in the body of the text). transferring binary files ------------------------- users with a direct connection to the internet usually have access to the ftp command (file transfer protocol). if they do, they often prefer ftp for transfers of binary files like computer programs, pictures, sound, and compressed text files. the bad news is that the ftp command is not available to all users of internet mail. these will have to use "ftp by mail," or other tricks to transfer such files. more about this in a moment. the ftp command gives access to a special file transfer service. it works in the following way: . logon to your local email host and enter 'ftp remote- center-code'. example: 'ftp . . . '. this command will connect you to the center in north dakota mentioned above. here, you will be prompted for user name and password. enter 'anonymous' as user name, and use your real name or email address as password. this way of logging on to retrieve files is called "transfers by anonymous ftp." you can use this method on many hosts on the internet. . when connected to the remote center, you can request transfer of the desired file to your mailbox. before doing that, you may have to navigate to a given file catalog (cd directory), and tell the host that the transfer is to be binary (bin). finally, initiate the transfer by entering a "get file name" command. . the file will be transferred to your local mailbox computer at high speed. when the transfer is done, you logoff from the remote center to "get back" to your mailbox computer's prompt line. now, you can transfer the file to your personal computer using communications protocols like kermit, xmodem, zmodem or whatever else is available. binary files transferred as text codes -------------------------------------- if you do not have access to ftp, you must use ordinary email for your binary transfers. usually, email through the internet can only contain legal character codes (ascii characters between number - ). most systems cannot transfer graphics or program files directly, since these files normally contain binary codes (which are outside this ascii character range). the solution is to convert binary files to text codes using a utility program called uuencode. the encoded file can be sent by ordinary email, as in this example: from trickle@vm .nodak.edu fri aug : : date: fri, aug : : cdt to: opresno@extern.uio.no subject: part / simtel .inf pd:<msdos.starter> the file pd:<msdos.starter>simtel .inf has been uuencoded before being sent. after combining the parts with the mail headers removed, you must run the file through a decode program. ------------ part of ------------ begin simtel .inf m t i;& z(%-) % #(p+de. b`@("`@("`@("`@("`@("`@("!, -t(')e m=fes z($iu;f @,c@l(#$y. %=# h-"b`@(%m.;w e.b!$= @=&\@ &es m: p-"ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah: m&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah: &ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&ah:&@(z ` end -------- end of part of --------- when you receive a message with uuencoded text, download it to your personal computer's hard disk. use an editor to cut out the codes and paste them to an empty work file. using the example above, the first line in your work file should contain: begin simtel .inf and the last line should contain end now, use a utility program called uudecode to convert the file back to its binary form (or whatever). more information about uuencoding and uudecoding is given in the binstart file mentioned above (for ms-dos computers). it has a detailed explanation, basic source code for making the program uudecode.com, and a debug script for those preferring that. versions of uudecode are also available for other types of computers. transfer of pictures -------------------- denis pchelkin in protvino (russia) is years old, has two cats and one dog, and has contributed beautiful computer graphics art to the kidlink project ( ). the file art in the kidart catalog of the north dakota center contains one of his creations. it is a uuencoded picture in gif graphics format. you can retrieve denis' creation by sending a get command to listserv@vm .nodak.edu . put the following command in the text of your message: get kidart art the listserver will return a message filled with strange uu-codes. we assume that you have already retrieved the binstart file, and that you have a version of the conversion program. your next step is uudecoding: read the message into an editor or a viewing program. cut and paste the codes to a work file. keep the original as backup. use the uudecode.com program to convert art into a gif formatted file. now, view the picture with your favorite graphics program. (or use shareware gif-viewers like picem, vuimg, and vpic for ms-dos computers. these programs are available from compuserve's ibm forums and other services.) sending binary files in uuencoded form has weaknesses. one is the lack of automatic error correction when sending/receiving e- mail. noise on the line can easily distort the picture. file size is another problem. uuencodeing typically increases file sizes by almost one third. some mailbox systems restrict the length of individual messages that you can receive, and the file may just be too big. if the uuencoded file gets too big, some services can (or will by default) split it up in parts and then sent separately. tons of uuencoded public domain and shareware programs are available for retrieval by ordinary email. ftp by email ------------- while some services accept commands like get kidart art by email, this is not so with the many so-called ftp libraries. many of them can only be accessed by ftp. services exist that will do ftp transfers by email for those not having access to the ftp command. the most popular is at dec corporate research in the u.s. for more information, write a message to one of the following addresses: ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com ftpmail@cs.uow.edu.au in the text of your message, put the word "help". ftpmail lets you uuencode binary files for transfers. it can split large files up into several messages, thus helping you around local restrictions on the size of each incoming mail message. chapter : cheaper and better communication ============================================ packet data services and data transportation services like tymnet outdial, infonet, internet, and pc pursuit may help keep costs down. about reducing the cost of using mailing lists. many users access online services by calling them directly. a lot pay extra for long distance calls to other cities and countries, even when this means inferior transmission quality (like when noise characters degrade the data). others investigate other routings for their data. one option is the packet data networks. most countries have public data networks (pdns) operated by local telecommunications authorities. these services are often cheaper than direct calls for some applications, but more expensive for others. before using a packet data network, you'll need to establish a "network user identification" (nui) with the pdn carrier. you must also know the network user address (nua) of the hosts that you want to access. in scandinavia, the local pdns are called datapak. they can be accessed by direct local calls or through leased lines. to personal users, direct calls are least expensive. a leased line may be cost efficient when the daily volume is high, like in a company. when you communicate with online services through a pdn, the latter will split your data and bundle it in standard envelopes or 'packets'. each packet is marked with a code and sent out into the data stream. based on this code, the packet is routed from computer center to computer center until it reaches its final destination. there, the information will be reassembled into its original form before being handed over to a user or online service. it is almost like traveling by train. the price per packet or traveler is lower than what it costs to rent the whole train for your trip. national telecommunications monopolies were the first to offer packet data services. their rates were moderately lower than for long distance calls, but it was hard to find the relationship between real costs and prices. this is still the situation in many countries. throughout the world, efforts to privatize nationwide phone networks continue. in many countries, this has given us some interesting competitors offering attractive rates for similar services. their rates differ considerably from country to country, as does the quality of transmissions. the advantage of using packet data also varies considerably, by application and by country. the best routing for retrieval of online news may be impossibly expensive for chats or complex online jobs. we can offer no hard rules of thumb, except this: compare rates regularly! what is cheapest? ----------------- some networks charge by the hour, while others charge by volume (number of characters transferred per minute). when volume is low, your best bet is to use network services with a low price per minute and high prices for volume. when volume is high, you may be better off using those charging by the minute. to estimate costs reliably, you'll need statistics. since your usage probably differs from what others do, start accumulating experience data now. like this: on services only charging for connect time ------------------------------------------ capture trip information to a log file. register the following information: * number of minutes connected * modem speed * number of characters transmitted. some communication programs can do this automatically for you. on services charging for time and volume ---------------------------------------- log the following information: * number of minutes connected * modem speed * number of segments or packets (measurements of volume) you need this to estimate the average volume of data transferred by minute. here are some general experiences and hints: long streams of data without stops are cheaper through services that only charge by the minute. retrieving software is a typical high volume application. trips that include navigation from conference to conference, with a little bit of up- and downloading here and there, make the average transfer speed fall dramatically. it's like driving through a big city at kilometers per hour. red lights will reduce the average speed considerably. the actual transferred volume of text per minute will differ from place to place (geographically), and often also from call to call. it depends on factors like: * how fast you can enter commands and how much time you spend staring at the display before pressing keys, * how long it takes for an online service to react to your commands. for example, the response time on compuserve at : gmt on a friday morning (it is evening in the u.s.) is much worse than at : gmt on a sunday morning. then, most users are asleep. * the load on your packet data network while you use the service (or the amount of noise and retransmission, when calling direct), * the type of modem you are using (speed, level of mnp), * the number of commands you (or your scripts) have to enter during your online visit. an increase in the number of commands, reduces the average transfer speed. * the amount of transfer overhead for color and screen handling (like, vt- codes) that is transferred with your text. * your use of menus and help texts while online, or whether you come as "expert" with a minimum of prompts. it's impossible to calculate the practical effects of these items. you will just have to bear them in mind when estimating typical jobs, measuring speeds, calculating costs, and comparing networks. finding the optimal network for our needs, will take time, but is well worth the effort. i think the figures may surprise you. the network services in this chapter will often give you better quality transfers than a direct call. on the other hand, calling direct may give more characters transferred per minute. the average speed tends to drop dramatically when using a packet data service. using national packet data services ----------------------------------- most commercial online services can be reached through national pdns, but you may have problems finding the correct nua (network user address) to get there. few pdns have a directory of available "electronic telephone numbers" for you to consult. the norwegian pdn, datapak, used to be my only alternative for access to foreign online services, and i thought that the cost was acceptable. not so anymore. my applications require that data be pumped back and forth at maximum speed. on network services charging by a combination of volume and time, percent of my costs are typically for volume, while percent is for connect time. when i log out after a successful visit to compuserve through datapak, the two services give me similar reports: thank you for using compuserve! off at : est -nov- connect time = : clr pad ( ) : : : the last line comes from datapak. it tells that i have received segments and sent . the "segment" is datapak's volume measure. a segment contains up to sixty-four characters and/or carriage returns. the price is calculated accordingly. at today's prices, datapak is still my cheapest alternative calling compuserve for chats. i use datapak when connecting to twics in tokyo, as the only alternative today is direct calls at a prohibitive cost. once i-com (see below) starts offering outdial to japan, i expect this service to be substantially cheaper. the slower your modem speed, the more attractive is datapak compared with direct calls. to get access to a national pdn, you must have a user identification and a password. (getting temporary access to pdn services while traveling abroad is often hard and expensive.) | note: if you have access to a national pdn, but need | | information about pdns in other countries, try hostess, the | | global network service's information service from british | | telecom in england. the nua is ( is | | the data network identifier code section of the address.) | | username or password is not required to use this service. | outdial through pc pursuit -------------------------- sprintnet (formerly gte telenet) lets american users call bulletin boards in north america at lower rates through their pc pursuit service. they pay a modest subscription to call a local number for access to pc pursuit. once connected, they can enter an electronic phone-number to connect to a so-called 'outdial modem' in another city. once connected to the outdial modem, they can give it dialing commands and have it call any local number. this way, they can use pc pursuit to call an online service in the area, or the private modem of a friend. we call pc pursuit an outdial service. such services normally offer lower rates for access to remote bulletin boards than what it costs to call by long distance. besides, they reduce the chances for noise on the line. outdial through i-com --------------------- i-com offers outdial to north american online services by reselling capacity from tymnet's network (owned by british telecommunications plc). in the united states, galaxy telecomm corp. offers a similar service under the name starlink. outdial to numbers in japan and europe is planned. i-com markets its services to users in europe and japan, and have local access in brussels, paris, lyon, milano, the hague, eindhoven, zurich, geneva, london, belfast, birmingham, bristol, cambridge, edinburgh, leeds, frankfurt, cologne, munich, madrid, stockholm, copenhagen, and more. the basic fee for access to the service is us$ . per hour ( ). you don't pay volume charges. the monthly subscription fee is us$ . . you can pay using visa or mastercard/eurocard. in norway, i have used i-com to connect to the well in san francisco, metanet in virginia, exec-pc in wisconsin, and scilink in toronto, canada. at the time, i-com was cheaper than direct calls and datapak for access to these services. while an id on your local pdn is only valid in your area or country, your i-com id can be used all over the world including several cities in north america. once your plane has landed in milano, you can dial the local i-com node to connect to your favorite service. i-com also has a bulletin board (us$ . /hour). these are some of its services: * search a database to find bbs numbers in a given area of interest, or to locate outdial numbers in a given city or area code. * conferences about how to use north american bulletin boards. * retrieval of shareware and public domain software. * online shopping of american goods at american prices. cheaper access to compuserve ---------------------------- wherever compuserve has local access points, you'll be better off using these. you do not have to sign any special agreements. your compuserve id is all you need. payment for using these services will appear on your compuserve bill. compuserve has special deals with a list of network services, like infonet europe (formerly computer sciences corp.), istel, falnet, fenics, compupass, lata networks, tymnet/sprintnet. enter the command go log on compuserve to get access information, and go rates for rates. i have been using compupass from japan, compuserve's own network in the united states, istel, infonet, and pdn services in europe. when at home, i usually use compuserve's bps node in stockholm, sweden. it is even cheaper than calling oslo for a bps node for most of my jobs. there is no surcharge when accessing at non-prime time, and us$ . per hour during prime time (weekdays : to : local time). in addition, i pay long distance rates to call the node. compuserve has no extra charges for volume. | whenever compuserve opens a new node in your vicinity, or | | upgrades the modem speed on one of their nodes, look at the | | effects on your total costs. | | | | use software for automatic access and navigation (like tapcis,| | ozcis, or ato). they give higher volume per minute and make | | your accesses even more cost efficient. | before leaving for a business trip, visit compuserve to find local access numbers in your destination cities. the list of countries includes australia, belgium, canada, denmark, finland, france, germany, hong kong, italy, japan, mexico, holland, south africa, spain, sweden, switzerland, and england. you can also access compuserve through i-com and other outdial services. compuserve has exchange of electronic mail with internet. you can also access the service by telnet to hermes.merit.edu (binary transfers are impossible, though). ixi - a european alternative to pdn ----------------------------------- ixi is an x. data network for european academic, industrial and governmental research centers. it is sponsored by the eec under the esrin project, and is operated by the dutch ptt. ixi interconnects national research networks, many national public data networks and several specialized international networks. it works like a national pdn service, but uses its own network user addresses. echo, stn, dimdi, data-star and other database vendors can be accessed through ixi. the service is not available to most users having email access through the internet. using dasnet to cross network boundaries ---------------------------------------- da systems forwards electronic mail and files (also binary files) across mailbox system boundaries for customers. they can send your mail to several large in-house systems, information networks, and over commercial mailbox systems in countries. these are some systems on their list: aba/net, alternex (brazil), att mail, bix, bitnet, cesac (italy), cignet, comnet (switzerland), connect, dialcom, deutsche mailbox, dialcom, envoy , eies, easylink, euromail (germany), fredsnaetet (sweden), galaxy, geonet (hosts in germany, england, u.s.a.), greennet, inet, infotap (luxembourg), mailbox benelux, mci mail, mercanmail (asia), mbk mediabox (germany), metanet, nicarao (nicaragua), nwi, otc peacenet/econet, pegasus (australia), pinet, portal, psychnet, san francisco/moscow teleport, telexphone (france), telerede (portugal), telehaus nordhorn (germany), telemail, textel (the caribbean), twics (japan), unison, uucp, web (canada), the well, internet. this list may suggest lack of connectivity between networks that do indeed have connections. for example, internet email may easily be sent to att mail, alternex, bix, bitnet, fredsnaetet, geonet, greennet, and many others on this list. connectivity changes constantly. check to see if you really need it, as this service is far from free. dasnet also lets you send email as telex, fax and by ordinary mail. they charge you by the number of characters transferred, and the destination address. (contact anna b. lange, da systems, inc., u.s.a. tel.: + - - - , or write her at annab@ .das.net). fidonet - grassroots playground ------------------------------- fidonet is an amateur network consisting of tens of thousands of bulletin boards all over the world. the network is "loosely coupled," meaning that most of the participating boards are not always connected. they call each others at regular intervals to exchange mail, often in the middle of the night when the rates are low. most fidonet boards have conferences, and allow you to send mail to users of other systems. netmail is a term often used for private fidonet email. echomail is used about its international conferences. the selection of echomail conferences on a given fidonet board can be as unique as the rest of the system. relaynet -------- is another global network of bulletin boards. it offers exchange of email between systems. messages and conference items entered on one system will automatically be copied to other participating boards. your costs for "talking" with others in other parts of the world are very small. other grassroots networks ------------------------- it doesn't take much to set up a bulletin board service, and it is as easy to connect bbs systems to each other in a dial-up network for regular exchanges of email, files and conferences. all over the world, grassroots networks keep popping up with names like ilink, amnet, suedd mb-verbund, starmail, magicnet, a- net, mausnet, zerberus-netz, smbx-net, basa-netz, you name it. many boards offer access to more than one grassroots network, as well as to the internet. thus, the ability to send global email is extended to new users every day. other services -------------- the pdn connect-usa competes with starlink in north america. (connect-usa communications, inc., pennsylvania ne suite , albuquerque, new mexico. - - (voice), - - (fax), - - (bbs). ) global access is a similar service reselling time on the sprintnet network in north america. reducing the cost of using mailing lists ---------------------------------------- the problem of subscribing to mailing lists is that all discussion items come to you in individual messages. each message comes with its own mailer header, and this information is generally completely useless. (read "returned mail" in chapter for details.) newer versions of the bitnet listserv software provide commands that solve this problem: set <list name> digest ---------------------- this command is sent to a listserv to make all daily messages come to you in one, single message. example: say you've joined kidcafe@vm .nodak.edu, which usually has a large number of messages each day. send the following command to the listserv: set kidcafe digest it will typically reduce the number of lines received from this mailing list by around percent. set <list name> index --------------------- this command is sent to a listserv to get a daily list of messages, like in this example from kidcafe: index date size poster and subject ----- ---- ---- ------------------ / from: david chalmers <david.chalmers@p .f .n .z .fidonet.org> subject: conor dublin ireland based on this list, you can use the listserv's search commands to retrieve individual messages of interest. these commands are similar to those used for searching in chapter . for more about searching mailing lists' message bases, send a message to listserv@vm .nodak.edu with the following command in the text of your mail: get kidlink tips some listservs offers simplified search commands and macros to make retrieval of individual messages simpler. chapter : keep what you find ============================== little is gained by being skillful at locating and accumulating information, and then becoming drowned in an avalanche of data that one cannot manage - or use. this chapter starts with how to build a personal data base on your own hard disk. we continue by investigating strategies for finding interesting information on your disk, before winding down with some words about what separates good information from bad. search and throw away --------------------- to novices, everything is difficult. during the first online trips, they may feel as if moving to the other side of the globe to start over: they need new newspapers, magazines, information sources, and services. trial and error are required to find online gold mines. as you get more experience, focus tends to shift from getting information to digesting. getting the data gets 'into your fingers', and doesn't bother much anymore. the number of retrieved lines increases. the only bad news is that your reading speed remains at the same old level. in our time, people tend to talk more than they listen, and you usually find more information than knowledge. therefore, say no to irrelevant information. it is seldom worth keeping. there is generally no good reason to learn things that you really don't need to know. practice "selective ignorance." regularly evaluate your online sources critically, and discard those costing you more than they are worth. concentrate on those giving the best returns. adjust the frequency with which you visit selected services to match their usefulness. what used to be daily visits, may have to be downgraded to once per week or month. consider replacing daily news monitoring by clipping services. plan 'overview' and 'details' with different frequencies. 'overview' refers to online trips to get an impression of what generally goes on. an example: my script system is set for automatic visits to the compuserve toshiba forum. whenever i visit, it 'digs out' unread messages based on key words on the item's subject line. during , it searched for these strings: ' ', t ', and ' '. once, this gave the following message to read: #: s /hi-power notebooks -oct- : : sb: #t sx recharger fm: steve kitahata , to: all i tried to order the battery recharger for my t sx from jade computer last weekend. the sales rep said it would take about a week, so i called today to check up on it. he told me that i could only buy the recharger with the car adapter as a bundled set for $ . they had both advertised in their flyer as separate items, which they should be. has anyone heard of this? does anyone know of any sources that have the battery recharger available? any help would be appreciated. thanx. -- steve my script found the search word "t " in the subject line's text (sb: #t sx recharger), and subsequently selected the message. once per month, the same system "scans the horizon" to give me an idea of what is going on. this is done by requesting a list of subjects being discussed. here is part of one such list: : dos upgrade replies : tdos upgrade questions replies : toshiba dos . ships! reply : dos . upgrade solution : toshibados=bad business replies : dos / stacker reply reading the list, allows me to see if new and interesting topics are up for discussion. if i use stacker and want contact with other users, i can request message number and the subsequent reply ( reply). that should give me some email addresses. | several advanced communication programs and offline readers | | have built-in quick scan features. for example, tapcis does | | this just fine in compuserve forums. | | | | when retrieving conference messages from bulletin boards using | | streader at high speed, like bps or above, then the cost | | of downloading all new items may be insignificant. therefore, | | you might just as well do it. | | | | later, when reading the captured mail, streader lets you | | select messages to read from a list of subjects. you can save | | what you want to keep, and delete the rest. | by regular scanning subject headers you reduce the risk of missing important trends, for example because authors were using other terms on the subject line than expected. scanning also lets us discover if the discussion is heading off in other, interesting directions. after a while, you'll have a set of sources, persons, and tools that will provide you with what you need. this is your personal infrastructure of electronic information. now, you must maintain and cultivate it. store incoming information -------------------------- chances are that you will retrieve more information than you can read. sometimes it takes weeks for me to get up to date with my own readings. if you visit several online services, consider storing the data in files with different names. use part of the file name to show the source of this information. if visiting a service regularly, consider using the date as part of the file names. this will make it easier to select, read and search them in a useful sequence. | example: say you're regularly visiting twics in tokyo. what you | | download on november , you may store in a file named | | | | tw .tmp | | | | my scripts do this automatically. on some services, they also | | split retrieved data into urgent and may be read later files. | | private mail from twics is stored in nb .tmp. by storing | | private mail separately, it is easier to see if somebody wants | | a quick reply. | all file names in this example have the extension .tmp (temporary). this signifies that these files are unread. when i read them, and select parts for permanent storage on my hard disk, i use different names. often, i use the year, or a month/year code in the file name extension. for example, the file dialog. contains information from dialog collected during . postprocessing the data ------------------------ the data capture is completed, and the retrieved data is stored on the hard disk in more or several files. your next task is to * read the received texts, * cut and paste selected parts to archive or work files, * prepare responses to your electronic mail. this may include quoting part of the incoming messages in your replies. * finally, delete all temporary files. many advanced programs have these features built in. if not, you may use your favorite word processor, or something else. there are many alternatives. list is my favorite ms-dos shareware file viewer program. it can be downloaded from most bulletin boards. using list, it is difficult to destroy your precious retrieved data while reading, cutting and pasting. | more about list: | | assume that all input data is stored in the disk catalog c:\in | | and that you're using the file name convention suggested above. | | type list and press enter. a list of file names will appear on | | your screen. press s to sort the list, and then d to have them | | sorted by creation date. the newest files are at the bottom of | | the list. | | move the cursor (using the arrow keys) to the input file | | that you want to read and press enter. scroll up and down in the| | file by pressing the pgup/pgdn or the arrow keys. | | let's assume that you are reading tw .tmp right now. | | on your screen is a piece of information that you want to | | keep for future reference. mark the text with alt-m commands | | (keep the alt key pressed down, while pressing m), and then | | alt-d. list will ask you for a file name. you enter twics. , | | and the text is appended to what is already there. | | this method allows you quickly to mark and append parts | | of your input file to various archive files. press esc to | | return to the file list when through, then press d. list asks | | if you really want to delete the file. press y, and tw .tmp | | is gone. | | list lets you find information stored in your archives | | (string search). what you find can be marked and copied to a | | work file. it can also be set to invoke an editor or a word | | processor for the selected file. | reuse of data on your hard disk ------------------------------- over time your personal archives will grow in size. you begin to experience the benefits of having all this information on your hard disk. yesterday's news is today's history, and may be used in many interesting ways. one business executive regularly monitors key technologies, customers, competitors, and suppliers. he does it by tapping sources like kompass, associated press, and reuters. interesting bits of information are regularly stored on his disk. tomorrow, there is an important meeting with a major customer. first, a quick search through the personal customer database to be reminded of important events since the last meeting. an unfamiliar person is also going to be present. maybe there is some background information, for example about a recent promotion. then, a quick check on major competitors. maybe they are up to something that he needs to know about. with efficient tools for searching your hard disk, finding information takes only a few seconds. if you are still left with open questions, go online to complement. on ms-dos computers, you can search the files with wordperfect, list, the dos utility find, and a long list of other programs. i prefer programs that let me search for more than one word at the time, like in hydro and petrochemical and contract, or exxon or mobil. | my favorite: my favorite search utility is lookfor. it can | | be downloaded from many bulletin boards. the ms-dos program | | is small, fast, and is superior for searches in dos text files.| | store your finds in work files, or print them out on paper. | | lookfor is not an indexing program. it is ready to search | | anywhere, anytime. | discipline and organization is required to get the most out of your file archives. you must decide what to do with each piece of information: should it be printed out and be read in front of the fireplace this evening, or should it be circulated? should it be stored on your hard disk, or be refined before storage? use standard file names that are easy to remember. if you don't, risk having to view files to find out what they contain. it may take longer to find a piece of information in a casual file on a large disk, than look up a piece of information on paper in your inbox. therefore, finish handling your capture file while you read it on your screen: send the pieces to their final destination. make immediate transfers to your to-do files. give the original file a name that makes it easier to move later. have a procedure that prevents duplication of effort. desinformation, deception and errors ------------------------------------ always use several sources of information. some people write to lead you astray. the online world exposed some interesting incidents that came out of the former soviet union before the attempted coup in . desinformation hurts everybody and comes from all sides. even professional news agencies, like associated press, reuters and agence france-presse, regularly stumble. most news is written by journalists reporting what they have seen, read or heard. their interpretation of the situation may be wrong. supplement online news with what knowledgeable people say (by email or in conferences), when knowing the facts is important. another point: errors will occasionally be discovered and reported by the news sources, but always after the fact. always store these reports in your archives, and make it a rule to search to the end when looking for something. otherwise, you may never discover these corrections. chapter : you pay little for a lot! ===================================== calculating costs ----------------- those living in norway may read up to twenty-six pages of news from associated press in the united states and financial times (england) for us$ . , or less. the trick is to dial long distance to a bps node in sweden when the telephone company and compuserve's non-prime time rates are in effect. at bps, you may transfer text at up to characters per second. one page of text (size a- ) holds around characters. a typical news story is one to two pages of text. | users watching the 'taximeter' can use online services at a | | very low cost. for many, global communication is almost free.| reading exactly the same news through another network or service, may cost you percent more. through yet another online service, the cost may double again. a full issue of the newsbytes newsletter is around , characters, or pages of text. retrieving it from a local bbs typically costs me around cents. retrieving the full text from compuserve would cost me over percent more. using newsnet for the job, at bps through datapak, would increase my current cost by more than us$ . . the time of day may be important. some services have different rates for access during the day, the evening, and the weekend. use your calculator often. when you pay by the minute -------------------------- when using bulletin boards, phone charges are often the only cost items. some boards require a subscription fee for full access to the system. still, it is easy to calculate the costs of your calls. divide the subscription fee by an estimated number of calls, and add to the cost of using the phone. the same applies to users of compuserve. their total cost is simply the sum of all connect charges, any network charges (to compuserve and others), part of the basic subscription fee, and local phone rates (for direct dialing to the service, or to reach the network's node). where a service uses a monthly subscription rate, add part of this to the time charges. distribute the rate using an estimated number of online hours per month. example: you pay us$ /hour to access a service during prime time. your modem speed is cps. theoretically, if the data flows without pauses at system prompts, you can transfer pages of text in one hour. even when you deduct some characters due to stops in the transfer, the resulting transferred volume remains respectable. to transfer one page of text takes around nine seconds ( characters divided by the speed, which is bps, or about characters per second). the cost is nine cents. a given binary file (a program) is bytes large. using the xmodem protocol, you can transfer it in about four minutes and thirteen seconds. the cost is us$ . . to find the cost when paying by the minute is simple. just calculate the cost per minute or second, and multiply by the estimated connect time. on many services, it will take a minute or two before you can start to receive text or files. disconnecting also takes a few seconds. add this to the connect time when calculating costs. pauses and delays in the transfer can be caused by you or others, and may have a dramatic impact. it is particularly important to take this into account when comparing alternatives using different networks. example: transfers to twics via datapak at bps rarely gave me higher effective speeds than cps. the reason was that the connection between the japanese telcom network and twics went through a bps gateway. a high speed connection to your data transporter's network does not guarantee a high speed connection to the remote computer. i used to go through datapak at bps to a computer center in oslo. there, i was connected through a local area network to the host computer. the effective speed was rarely higher than bps. calling direct gave twice the speed. try to measure the effective transfer speed before selecting a routing for your data. transfer the same amount of text through various networks. if future transfers are likely to take place at a given time of day, test at that time. if your planned application is retrieval of programs, retrieve programs. if you want to read news, then read news from the services that you want to compare. when a network service charging for volume (like datapak) will also be part of a comparison, measuring volume is particularly important. do not assume that you know the answer in advance. | note: always calculate the cost based on a fixed volume, like | | for the transfer of characters. this is particularly | | important when you need to use different transfer speeds to | | access competing services. | network load varies considerably throughout the day depending on the number of simultaneous users, and their applications. this also applies to online services. the load is normally lowest, when the bulk of the users are asleep, and during weekends. when the load is low, you get more done per minute. planning and self-discipline pays off ------------------------------------- the actual cost of using a given set of services depends a lot on your self-discipline, the tools you use, and on how well prepared you are: * if accessing manually, use "quick" commands rather than menus to move at maximum speed to desired sources of information. * do not set your services to be used with colors, sound, or special methods for displaying graphics, unless you have no choice, or are willing to pay the extra cost. they increase the volume of transferred text, and lower effective speed. * get the information and disconnect. it is expensive - and usually unnecessary - to read captured text while online. log off to read. call back for more to read, disconnect, and then call back again. * learn how to write your mail offline, and send the letters "in a batch" to your mailbox. your messages will often have fewer typing errors, be better thought out, and the cost will be considerably lower. * consider automating your communication (see chapter ). i use bergen by byte this way. a while ago, it gave me the following progress report: "time on: hrs min, today hrs min, total times." in average, i spend around . minutes per call. yesterday, i was connected for : minutes. the result was kilobytes' worth of conference mail. modem speed and cost -------------------- bps is a sensible modem speed for some applications, and used to be a good starting point for new onliners. the benefits of using a faster modem may be marginal under the following conditions: * when navigating the online service considerably reduces the effective speed, and you access the service manually. * when you pay considerably more for access at higher speed. (compuserve charges extra for bps access, but not much.) * when your networks do not offer higher speeds. * when the relative price of a faster modem in your country is prohibitive. on the other hand, a modem doing bps or more, does give you considerably faster communication. if doing things faster is more important than keeping costs down, then it is a wise investment. this is the case for me. besides, often it is definitely cheaper. your applications have a considerable impact on your costs. if you mainly use your modem for retrieval of programs and large data files from bulletin boards - and don't have to pay extra for volume - then higher modem speeds will immediately give reduced costs. a slower speed modem may also stop you from getting what you want. for example, there are several shareware programs on my board that users of bps modems are unable to download within their allotted minutes per day. when you pay for volume ----------------------- some network services, like datapak in norway, have high rates for volume, and very low rates for connect time. when using such services, automatic communication becomes less useful. rather than connecting, getting a piece of information, disconnecting, and then going back for more, you may find it cost efficient to review menus and results while online. when paying for volume, the online service's menus become luxury items. using quick commands for navigating is cheaper. your comparisons will never be accurate when comparing with services charging for connect time. it is particularly difficult when the measure of volume is 'packets' rather than 'number of characters transferred'. datapak and many other pdn services reports your sessions like this: clr pad ( ) : : : these numbers say that you have been connected to a service for minutes and seconds, that data 'packets' have been received, and that have been sent. use these figures to calculate the cost of the call. | one data 'packet' or segment contains up to characters. | | think of it as a measure of the number of lines. each line can | | have a maximum of characters. if you send the character a | | and a carriage return, then this also counts as a segment. | | | | consequently, it is hard to use the datapak record to estimate | | the real number of characters transferred. all we know is that | | + segments were transferred, and that segments may | | contain up to , characters. | when calculating the cost of a direct call, just the number of minutes counts. use the time reported by the online service, and not your stop watch. compuserve gives this type of report: thank you for using compuserve! off at : est -nov- connect time = : if the size of your log file was kb after the first test, and kb after the second, then just adjust the latter to compare (actual cost/ * ). it is easy to compare services that only charge by the minute. more practical hints -------------------- it is more expensive to call a service daily "to check the news," than to call it once per week to retrieve the same stories. navigating by menus is more expensive than going directly to a source, or going there by stacking commands (i.e., combining quick commands into one). many services let you read selective items in conferences by entering a search string. on my bbs, the following command r extended + c lets you read all messages containing the search string 'extended' in the text starting with message number . if you forget the "c" parameter, the flow will stop after each message. this will reduce the average effective speed. always use "nonstop" commands when reading stories, conference items, and other texts. now, read the next chapter. chapter : automatic communication =================================== automatic data communication as a development strategy. to get a lead on your competitors. to avoid duplication of effort. to reduce costs. to reduce boring and repetitive work. to avoid having to remember technical details. automatic communication is both for professionals and amateurs. first, because it keeps the costs down. second, because it lets you do the job faster and safer. we all have different needs --------------------------- automation will never be the same for everybody. our needs are too different. some get excited when a program can dial a bulletin board, retrieve a program, and then disconnect without them having to touch the keyboard. some want an "answering machine" that can respond to and forward email when he or she is away from the office. others want a communications system that can tap selected news sources, search databases, and do postprocessing on the retrieved material. for most professionals, doing things manually takes too much time. time is better spent reading, digesting, and using, rather than on stupid technical retrieval work. computers can do that. to others again, automation is a question of being able to use the online resource at all. if it takes seconds to get a piece of information, it may be possible to get before running for the next meeting. if it takes minutes, however, there may not be enough time. if you also need to read a help text to find out how to do it, you may not even consider it. the mind is full of other things right now. | when using a system for automatic communication, you do not | | have to learn and remember online commands. the system will | | do it for you. | the minimum solution -------------------- automatic data communication in its simplest form entails the following: * one keypress to get the communications program to dial a number, and send user name/password when the online service requests this information. * macro commands (like in a word processor) for navigating through an online service, searching, and to send complex commands by pressing one key. most communication programs have a macro language or a script language. you will probably never regret time spent on learning how to use these features. at a minimum, you should be able to have your system log on to a service automatically. autologon spares you the task of remembering your user name and password. besides, most people are only able to use the keyboard at a low speed. they easily get frustrated by having to correct typing errors. auto-logon with procomm ----------------------- procomm is one of the most popular communications program in use today (see appendix ). a procomm script file is a text file, which can contain a list of commands for dialing and navigating on an online service. when writing a procomm script for auto-logon, your first step is to list the commands that you believe required. enter them in a text file (as dos or ascii text). in such scripts, you can test for the occurrence of a small piece of information that the online service is supposed to send at a given time (like the question "password?"). when this information is found, procomm can be set to send the proper response or command (here, your secret password). scripts can be tied to your favorite online services through procomm's dialing directory. press a key to start the appropriate script file for access to a service. the following is a simple procomm script file. it can be used to access my bulletin board in norway. it assumes that your name is jens mikkelsen, and that the secret password is foxcrook . you'll have to change this before testing. ; ;script file for auto-logon to shs with procomm and procomm plus ; waitfor "our first name? " pause transmit "jens^m" waitfor "our last name? " pause transmit "mikkelsen^m" waitfor "ots will echo)? " pause transmit "foxcrook ^m" waitfor "^jmore (y),n,ns? " pause transmit "n^m" waitfor "^jmore (y),n,ns? " pause transmit "n^m" waitfor "r] to continue? " pause transmit "^m" it is not difficult. you probably understand a lot already. here is the explanation: * the ";" character at the beginning of a line identifies it as a comment line. procomm is to ignore it. we use such lines for notes. * waitfor "our first name? " has procomm wait for the text string "our first name?" from my bbs. it is a part of the question "what is your first name?". * pause halts the execution of the script file for one second. * transmit "jens^m" sends the name "jens" followed by a return (the code ^m in procomm). * waitfor "our last name? " makes procomm wait for the question "what is your last name?" the script continues like this. in waitfor commands, we use part of the text that is displayed on our screen once the scrolling stops. make sure that the search term is unique. it must not appear elsewhere in the text coming from the host computer. if it does, your name and password may be sent too early. you can call the script horror.cmd, and attach it to the entry for my board in your procomm phone directory. when you call it the next time, procomm will execute the commands in the file and "turn the keyboard over to you" when done. macros in procomm ----------------- above, we used a script to log on automatically to a service. when procomm gives us access to the keyboard again, we must continue manually. what we want to do online varies. sometimes, we want to read new messages in conferences. in other cases, the purpose is to check new programs in the file library. if we find programs of interest, we may want to download them. shorthand macros can help you do this faster and safer. for example, one macro can take you quickly to a conference for new messages. you can make procomm start this macro whenever you press alt- (keep the alt key down, then press ). you can have the macro key alt- send other commands when in the file archives. when i started using ms-dos computers for data communications, pc-talk became my favorite program. it has many of the same macro capabilities that procomm has. with pc-talk, i did autologon to newsnet. macro number one sent commands that gave me the contents of various newsletters. macro # picked up the contents in another group. macro # picked up stories from my mailbox, and macro # logged me off the service. my mission was completed by pressing four or five keys. automating the full task ------------------------ it's a long way from automated logon scripts and the use of macros to automating the whole task. the major difference is that with full automation, you do not have to look at the screen while the script is working. you can do other things. sometimes, you may not even be present when the job is being done. on a typical morning, i go directly from bed to my office to switch my communications computer on. while i visit the bathroom, my communications program calls three online services, retrieve and send information. when the script has disconnected from the first service, which is my bulletin board, it analyzes the received data. i want an alphabetic list of visitors since my last visit, a sorted list of downloaded programs, and names of those calling in at bps or higher. sometimes, the unexpected happen. there may be noise on the line, or a sudden disconnect. usually, my script can solve this without manual intervention. it is therefore allowed to work unattended most of the time. when i get to my office after breakfast, it is all done. my communications program is set for reading and responding to today's email. i can sit down, and immediately get to work. after having written all my replies, i say "send" to my system. for me, it's time for another cup of coffee. i am not needed by the keyboard while my mail is being sent. this is what an automatic communications system can do. my scripts also help plan and prepare online visits, and ease my work by postprocessing results. | when your communication is fully automated, you need not | | read incoming data while it scrolls over your screen, and | | then again after logging off the service. you do it only | | once. | how to get it? here are some alternatives: alternative : write your own system ------------------------------------ you can write procedures for powerful script-driven programs like proyam (from omen technology) and crosstalk mk iv. i started writing scripts for proyam over seven years ago. the system is constantly expanded to include new services, refined to include more functions, and enhanced to become more robust. the scripts make my system work like an autopilot. it calls online services, navigates, retrieves and sends data. postprocessing includes automatic reformatting of retrieved data, transfers to various internal databases, statistics, usage logs, and calculation of transfer costs. such scripts can do quite complex operations online. for example, it can - buy and sell stock when today's quotes are over/under given limits, - select news stories and other types of information based on information found in menus or titles. script writing is not for everybody. it is complicated, and takes a lot of time. therefore, it is only for the specially interested. on the other hand, those going for it seldom regret. tailor- made communication scripts give a wonderful flexibility. the software does not cost much, but again, it takes a lot of time! | do not use large and complex script files before you know the | | online service well. the scripts let you do things quicker and | | safer, but there is always a possibility for unexpected | | problems. | | | | test your scripts for a long time to make them robust by | | "training" them to handle the unexpected. leave them to work | | unattended when you are reasonably certain that they can do | | the job. - it may take months to get to that point. | | | | build a timeout feature into your scripts, so that they don't | | just hang there waiting for you after an encounter with fate. | alternative : use scripts made by others ----------------------------------------- some script authors generously let others use their creations. earle robinson of compuserve's ibm europe forum, share his proyam scripts for automatic usage of compuserve with others. they are available from the ibm communication forum library. enter go xtalk on compuserve to find advanced script files for crosstalk mk. . zcomm and proyam scripts for visiting my board automatically can be freely downloaded there. they split access up into these three phases: phase : menu driven offline preparation. phase : automatic logon, navigation through the system, and automatic disconnection. phase : automatic offline postprocessing. you will find scripts for other programs on many online services. alternative : special software ------------------------------- several online services sell communication programs with built-in functions that provides you with automation. they can have offline functions for reading and responding to mail. the degree of automation varies. there are also many programs written by third parties. most programs assume that you use 'expert' as your default operating mode on the online service. tapcis, autosig (ato), ozcis, cisop, compuserve navigator (for macintosh), autopilot (for amiga), arctic (for acorn archimedes), and quickcis (for atari) are popular choices on compuserve. tapcis is my personal favorite. (cim does not offer much automation!) aladdin is for genie. it automates your use of roundtables (conferences), file areas, and mail. dialog users turn to dialog- link. nexis news plus (for nexis, us$ ) has pull-down menus and detailed selection of commands. this ms-dos program helps users set up detailed search commands before logging on to the mead data central. your search results will be downloaded automatically. personal bibliographics software, inc. (ann arbor, mich, u.s.a. tel.: + - - - ) sells pro-search to dialog and brs users (for macintosh and ms-dos). pro-search will lead you through menus to find information on both services. it translates your plain english search commands into the cryptic search language used by the services. it logs on automatically, connects to these services, finds your information, and shows you the hits. alternative : offline readers ------------------------------ the alternatives above have one important weakness. noise on the line can prevent the "robot" from doing the job. all it takes is for noise to give a prompt another content than is expected by your program or script (as in "en@er a number:" instead of "enter a number:"). you can avoid noise problems by using get commands (see chapter ), and by making the online service use its minimum prompts ('expert mode') . still, this does not give full protection. the best is to let the online service do the navigation. think of it as logging on to run a batch file on the remote computer. combine this with automatic transfers of your commands, transmitted in of one stream of data with automatic error correction (in the software and in the modem), and you have a very robust system. the program logs on to the service. then the service takes over. it registers your user identity, checks your user profile for personal interests, retrieves and packs all messages, news and files into one compressed file, and sends it to you at high speed. your outgoing messages, search commands, commands to join or leave conferences, and more, are transferred to the remote computer in a similar packet (compressed file). when received by the remote computer, it unpacks the transfer file and distributes messages and commands to various services following your instructions. your "physical" contact with the service is when your modem is disconnected. the help menus that you read belong to your program, and not the online service. you read and respond to mail in a reading module (ref. the term "offline reader"). some offline readers give the caller access to more tools than is available on the online service itself. they may have spelling checkers, multimedia support, let you use your favorite editor or word processor, and offer various storage, search, and printing options. using offline readers is probably the easiest, cheapest, and safest way of using online services. these "readers" are popular among bulletin board users, and some commercial services are also starting to accommodate them. there are many offline reader programs. the most advanced take over completely upon logon, and manage transfers of commands and compressed information files to and from the host. (example: binkley term on fidonet) global link is an offline reader for econet. bergen by byte offers the bbs/cs mail grabber/reader, a script system used with the communications program telix and the service's "auto-get" function. the most popular systems on the pcboard based thunderball cave bbs are offline express, megareader, session manager, rose reader and ezreader. these are used with scripts written for various communication programs. some of them have built in communications (and script) modules. ezreader from thumper technologies (p.o. box , tulsa, ok - , u.s.a.) lets users retrieve mail from several online systems using transfer formats such as qwk, pcboard capture files, prodoor zipm files, xrs, mci mail, and others. cost: us$ ( ). streader from sparkware (post office box , hendersonville, tennessee , u.s.a.) is my personal favorite for accessing qmail based online systems. | note: some offline readers contain all the features required | | for fully automated communications. some bulletin boards allow | | up- and downloading to start right after connect. | | off-line xpress, an offline mail reader for qwk (qwikmail) | | packets, does not contain a communications module. it just does | | pre- and postprocessing of mail packets. | | you can use the off-line xpress as one element in a larger | | automated system. for example, a system for access to pcboard | | bulletin boards may consist of off-line xpress software, pkzip | | and pkunzip (popular shareware programs to compress/decompress | | mail packets), the qmodem communications program, and a script | | to navigate to/from the qwk packet send and receive area on the | | bbs. | | streader (version . ) contains a powerful script based | | communications module. it lets you compose replies, set search | | commands, subscriptions to services, add and drop conferences, | | and enter download commands offline. | automatic automation -------------------- we have explained how to write scripts with procomm. however, there are simpler and quicker ways. many communication programs can make scripts automatically using a learning function. it goes like this: start the learning function before calling the online service. then log on, navigate to the desired services, do what you want to automate, and disconnect. the learning feature analyzes the received data and builds a script file for automatic communication. if you call again with the new script, it will "drive the same route one more time." zcomm and proyam have a learning feature. this is how i made a script for accessing semaforum bbs using zcomm: zcomm asked for a phone number. i entered + - - . it asked for speed, and i entered bps. next, i had to choose one of the following: ( ) system uses ibm pc (ansi) line drawing ( ) bits even parity ( ) bits no parity my choice was . zcomm dialed the number. when the connection was established, i entered my name and password, navigated to the message section, read new messages, browsed new files in the library, and entered g for goodbye. this was the "tour" that i wanted to automate. when disconnected, i pressed the f key. this prompted the learning process based on a record of the online tour. the log described everything that had happened in detail, including my pauses to think. now i was prompted by the following question: 'newscr.t' exists. append/replace/quit? i selected append. then: do you want this script file as a new entry in your telephone directory (y/n)? i entered "y," and named it "semaforum." after a few seconds, my new script was ready: your new script is in the file 'newscr.t' !! you can append the file to your current script file (for example phodir.t) or have the commands executed by entering: call semaforum.newscr.t it was time to test the new wonder. i entered call semaforum.newscr.t at the zcomm command line, hit the enter key, and off it went. zcomm called the bbs and repeated everything - at far higher speed than i had done it manually. it went on-hook as planned when done. limitations ----------- auto-learn programs can create a script file that let you "drive the same route." for some applications this is enough. for others, it's just part of the way. you have to refine the script manually to get what you want. example: if you call my bulletin board with an auto-learned script made yesterday, chances are that everything works well. if you call twice on the same day, however, you're in for a surprise. the board greets you differently on your second visit. you will not get the menu of available bulletins. it will take you directly to the system's main menu. your script must take this into account. on most online services, many things can happen at each "junction of your road." at one point in one of my scripts, up to twenty things may happen. each event needs its own "routing." twenty possible events are an extreme, but three to four possibilities at each system prompt is not unusual. all of them need to be handled by your script, if you want it to visit online services unattended while asleep. it is quicker and simpler to use other people's scripts and programs, although this might force you to use a different program for each service. personally, i prefer offline readers on services where such are able to do the job. on other services, i usually depend on my own tailor-made scripts. chapter : gazing into the future ================================== thoughts about things to come. newspaper of the future --------------------------- some years ago, nicholas negroponte of massachusetts institute of technology, said that today's newspapers are old-fashioned and soon to be replaced by electronic "ultra personal" newspapers. "if the purpose is to sell news," he said, then it must be completely wrong to sell newspapers. personally, i think that it is a dreadful way of receiving the news." mit's media laboratory had developed a new type of electronic newspaper. daily, it delivered personalized news to each researcher. the newspaper was "written" by a computer that searched through the news services' cables and other news sources according to each person's interest profile. the system could present the stories on paper or on screen. it could convert them to speech, so that the "reader" could listen to the news in the car or the shower. in a tailor-made electronic newspaper, personal news makes big headlines. if you are off for san francisco tomorrow, the weather forecasts for this city is front page news. email from your son will also get a prominent place. "what counts in my newspaper is what i consider newsworthy," said negroponte. he claimed that the personal newspaper is a way of getting a grip on the information explosion. "we cannot do it the old way anymore. we need other agents that can do prereading for us. in this case, the computer happens to be our agent." the technology is already here. anyone can design similar papers using powerful communication programs with extensive script features. i have tried. my test edition of the saltrod daily news did not convert news to sound. it did not look like a newspaper page on my screen. not because it was impossible. i simply did not feel these 'extras' worth the effort. my personal interest profile was taken care of by my scripts. if i wanted news, the "news processor" went to work and "printed" a new edition. on tuesdays, thursdays, and saturdays, i got an "extended edition." this is a section from my first edition: "front page," thursday, november . under the headline news from tokyo, the following items: toshiba to market inexpensive portable word processor tohoku university constructing semiconductor research lab meitec, u.s. firm to jointly market computer printer info toshiba to supply office equipment to olivetti nissan develops paint inspection robot made-to-order pocket computer from casio these articles were captured from kyoto news service through down jones/news retrieval. the column with news from the united states had stories from newsbytes newsletters: * day one comdex. * ibm's pre announcement of "clamshell" * at&t to jump in sooner with laptop computer * commodore third consecutive quarterly loss * zenith unveils touch-screen * hp's earnings drop hot news from england came from several sources, including financial times, and reuters (in compuserve's uk news). headlines read: * the christmas selling war * big macs going cheap to university students "page " was dedicated to technology intelligence. "page " had stories about telecommunications, mainly collected from newsnet's newsletters. "page " had stories about personal computer applications. as the cost of communicating and using online services continues to decrease, many people will be able to do the same. this is where we are heading. some people say it is too difficult to read news on a computer screen. maybe so, but pay attention to what is happening in notebook computers. this paragraph was written on a small pc by the fireplace in my living room. the computer is hardly any larger or heavier than a book. (sources for monitoring notebook trends: newsbytes' ibm and apple reports, compuserve's online today, and ibm hardware forum.) electronic news by radio ------------------------ if costs were of no concern, then your applications of the online world would probably change considerably. pay attention, as we are moving fast in that direction. radio is one of the supporting technologies. it is used to deliver usenet newsgroup to bulletin boards (example: pagesat inc. of palo alto, u.s.a.) also, consider this: businesses need a constant flow of news to remain competitive. desktop data inc. (tel. + - - - ) markets a real-time news service called newsedge in the united states and europe. they call it "live news processing." annual subscriptions start at us$ , for ten users ( ). newsedge continuously collects news from more than news wires, including sources like pr newswire, knight ridder/tribune business news, dow jones news service, dow jones professional investor report and reuters financial news. the stories are "packaged" and immediately feed to customers' personal computers and workstations by fm, satellite, or x. broadcast: * all news stories are integrated in a live news stream all day long, * the newsedge software manages the simultaneous receipt of news from multiple services, and alerts users to stories that match their individual interest profiles. it also maintains a full-text database of the most recent , stories on the user's server for quick searching. packet radio ------------ a global amateur radio network allows users to modem around the world, and even in outer space. its users never get a telephone bill. there are over packet radio based bulletin boards (pbbs). they are interconnected by short wave radio, vhf, uhf, and satellite links. technology aside, they look and feel just like standard bulletin boards. once you have the equipment, can afford the electricity to power it up, and the time it takes to get a radio amateur license, communication itself is free. packet radio equipment sells in the united states for less than us$ . this will give you a radio (vhr tranceiver), antenna, cable for connecting the antenna to the radio, and a controller (tnc - terminal node controller). most pbbs systems are connected to a network of packet radio based boards. many amateurs use bps, but speeds of up to , bps are being used on higher frequencies (the - mhz band in the united states). hams are working on real-time digitized voice communications, still-frame (and even moving) graphics, and live multiplayer games. in some countries, there are also gateways available to terrestrial public and commercial networks, such as compuserve, and usenet. packet radio is demonstrated as a feasible technology for wireless extension of the internet. radio and satellites are being used to help countries in the third world. volunteers in technical assistance (vita), a private, nonprofit organization, is one of those concerned with technology transfers in humanitarian assistance to these countries. vita's portable packet radio system was used for global email after a volcanic eruption in the philippines in . today, the emphasis is on africa. vita's "space mailbox" passes over each single point of the earth twice every hours at an altitude of kilometers. when the satellite is over a ground station, the station sends files and messages for storage in the satellite's computer memory and receives incoming mail. the cost of ground station operation is based on solar energy batteries, and therefore relatively cheap. to learn more about vita's projects, subscribe to their mailing list by email to listserv@auvm.bitnet. use the command sub devel-l <first-name last-name>. for more general information about packet radio, check out hamnet on compuserve, and especially its library . retrieve the file 'packet_radio' (packet radio in earth and space environments for relief and development) from gnet's archive (see chapter ). ilink has an hamradio conference. there is a packet radio mailing list at packet-radio@wsmr-simtel .army.mil (write packet- radio-request@@wsmr-simtel .army.mil to subscribe). usenet has rec.radio.amateur.packet (discussion about packet radio setups), and various other rec.radio conferences. there is ham_tech on fidonet, and ham radio under science on exec-pc. the american radio relay league (aarl) operates an internet information service called the arrl information server. to learn how to use it, send email to info@arrl.org with the word help in the body of the text. cable tv -------- expect cable tv networks to grow in importance as electronic high- ways, to offer gateways into the internet and others, and to get interconnected not unlike the internet itself. example: continental cablevision inc. (u.s.a.) lets customers plug pcs and a special modem directly into its cable lines to link up with the internet. the cable link bypasses local phone hookups and provide the capability to download whole books and other information at speeds up to million bits per second. electronic mail on the move --------------------------- for some time, we have been witnessing a battle between giants. on one side, the national telephone companies have been pushing x. backed by ccitt, and software companies like lotus, novell, and microsoft. on the other side, compuserve, dialcom, mci mail, geisco, sprint, and others have been fighting their wars. nobody really thought much about the internet, until suddenly, it was there for everybody. the incident has changed the global email scene fundamentally. one thing seems reasonably certain: that the internet will grow. in late , the president of the internet society (reston, va., u.s.a.) made the following prediction: ".. by the year the internet will consist of some million hosts, million networks, and billion users (close to the current population of the people's republic of china). much of this growth will certainly come from commercial traffic." we, the users, are the winners. most online services now understand that global exchange of email is a requirement, and that they must connect to the internet. meanwhile, wild things are taking place in the grassroots arena: * thousands of new bulletin boards are being connected to grassroots networks like fidonet (which in turn is connected to the internet for exchange of mail). * thousands of bulletin boards are being hooked directly into the internet (and usenet) offering such access to users at stunning rates. * the bbses are bringing email up to a new level by letting us use offline readers, and other types of powerful mail handling software. email will never be the same. cheaper and better communications --------------------------------- during christmas , a guru said that once the bps v. modems fell below the us$ , level, they would create a new standard. today, such modems can be bought at prices lower than us$ . in many countries, , bits/s modems are already the preferred choice. wild dreams get real -------------------- in the future, we will be able to do several things simultaneously on the same telephone line. this is what the promised land of isdn (integrated service digital networks) is supposed to give us. some users already have this capability. they write and talk on the same line using pictures, music, video, fax, voice and data. isdn is supposed to let us use services that are not generally available today. here are some key words: * chats, with the option of having pictures of the people we are talking to up on our local screen (for example in a window, each time he or she is saying something). eventually, we may get the pictures in -d. * database searches in text and pictures, with displays of both. * electronic transfers of video/movies over a telephone line (fractal image compression technology may give us another online revolution). imagine dances filmed by ethnologists at the smithsonian institution in washington, d.c., or an educational film about the laps in northern norway from an information provider called the norwegian broadcasting corp. the "internet talk radio" is already delivering programs by anonymous ftp (e.g., through ftp.nau.edu in the directory /talk-radio). * online amusement parks with group plays, creative offerings (drawing, painting, building of -d electronic sculptures), shopping (with "live" people presenting merchandise and good pictures of the offerings, test drives, etc.), casino (with real prizes), theater with live performance, online "dressing rooms" (submit a -d picture of yourself, and play with your looks), online car driving schools (drive a car through tokyo or new york, or go on safari). the sierra network has been playing around with these ideas for quite some time. * your favorite books, old as new, available for on-screen reading or searching in full text. remember, many libraries have no room to store all the new books that they receive. also, wear and tear tend to destroy books after some time. many books are already available online, including this one. * instant access to hundreds of thousands of 'data cottages'. these are computers in private homes of people around the world set up for remote access. with the technical advances in the art of transferring pictures, some of these may grow to become tiny online "television stations." these wild ideas are already here, but it will take time before they are generally available. new networks need to be in place. new and more powerful communications equipment has to be provided. farther down the road, we can see the contours of speech-based electronic conferences with automatic translation to and from the participants' languages. entries will be stored as text in a form that allows for advanced online searching. we may have a choice between the following: * to use voice when entering messages, rather than entering them through the keyboard. the ability to mix speech, text, sound and pictures (single frames or live pictures). * messages are delivered to you by voice, as text or as a combination of these (like in a lecture with visual aids). * text and voice can be converted to a basic text, which then may be converted to other languages, and forwarded to its destination as text or voice. one world --------- within the internet, the idea of "the network as one, large computer" has already given birth to many special services, like gopher and wais. potentially, we will be able to find and retrieve information from anywhere on the global grid of connected systems. bulletin boards have commenced to offer grassroots features modeled after telnet and ftp. these alternatives may even end up being better and more productive than the interactive commands offered "inside" the internet. the global integration of online services will continue at full speed, and in different ways. rates ----- there is a trend away from charging by the minute or hour. many services convert to subscription prices, a fixed price by the month, quarter or year. other services, among them some major database services, move toward a scheme where users only pay for what they get (no cure, no pay). mci mail was one of the first. there, you only pay when you send or read mail. on compuserve's iquest, you pay a fixed price for a fixed set of search results. cheaper transfers of data ------------------------- privatization of the national telephone monopolies has given us more alternatives. this will continue. possible scenarios: * major companies selling extra capacity from their own internal networks, * telecommunications companies exporting their services at extra low prices, * other pricing schemes (like a fixed amount per month with unlimited usage), * new technology (direct transmitting satellites, fm, etc.) so far, data transporters have been receiving a disproportionate share of the total costs. for example, the rate for accessing compuserve from norway through infonet is us$ . , while using the service itself costs us$ . at bps. increased global competition in data transportation is quickly changing this picture, supported by general access to the internet. prices will most likely continue their dramatic way toward zero. powerful new search tools ------------------------- as the sheer quantity of information expands, the development of adequate finding tools is gaining momentum. our major problem is how to use what we have access to. this is especially true on the internet. expect future personal information agents, called "knowbots," which will scan databases all over the online world for specific information at a user's bidding. this will make personal knowledge of where you need to go redundant. artificial intelligence will increase the value of searches, as they can be based on your personal searching history since your first day as a user. your personal information agents will make automatic decisions about what is important and what is not in a query. when you get information back, it will not just be in the normal chronological order. it will be ranked by what seems to be closest to the query. sources for future studies -------------------------- it seems appropriate to end this chapter with some online services focusing on the future: newsbytes has a section called trends. the topic is computers and communications. echo has the free database trend, the online edition of the trend monitor magazine. it contains short stories about the development within electronics and computers (log on to echo using the password trend). usenet has the newsgroup clari.news.trends (surveys and trends). why not complement what you find here by monitoring trends in associated areas (like music), to follow the development from different perspectives? the music forum rocknet on compuserve has a section called trends. compuserve's education forum has the section future talk. what educators think about the future of online services (and education) is always interesting. the well, based just outside silicon valley in the united states, has the future conference. uucp has info-futures. its purpose is "to provide a speculative forum for analyzing current and likely events in technology as they will affect our near future in computing and related areas." (contact: info-futures-request@cs.bu.edu for subscription.) usenet has comp.society.futures about "events in technology affecting future computing." it is tempting to add a list of conferences dedicated to science fiction, but i'll leave that pleasure to you. have a nice trip! appendix : list of selected online services ============================================ to make a list of online services is difficult. services come and go. addresses and access numbers are constantly changed. only one thing is certain. some of the details below will be outdated, when you read this. affaersdata i stockholm ab ------------------------- p.o. box , s- stockholm, sweden. tel.: + . america online -------------- has the cnn newsroom (turner educational services), the washington post, the national geographic magazine, pc world and macworld. aol has tailor-made graphical user interfaces for apple, macintosh, and pc compatible computers, and about . users (in june ). sending and receiving internet mail is possible. contact: america online, westwood center dr., vienna, va - , usa. phone: + - - - . apc --- the association for progressive communications (apc) is a worldwide partnership of member networks for peace and environmental users with host computers in several countries: alternex (brazil). email: support@ax.apc.org chasque (uruguay). email: apoyo@chasque.apc.org comlink e.v (germany). email: support@oln.comlink.apc.org ecuanex (ecuador). email: intercom@ecuanex.apc.org glasnet (russia). email: support@glas.apc.org greennet (england). email: support@gn.apc.org institute for global communications (u.s.a.), includes econet, peacenet, conflictnet, labornet. email: support@igc.apc.org nicarao - cries (nicaragua). email: ayuda@nicarao.apc.org nordnet (sweden). email: support@pns.apc.org pegasus (australia). email: support@peg.apc.org web (canada). email: support@web.apc.org while all these services are fee based, they bring a wealth of information on environmental preservation, peace (incl. greenpeace press releases), human rights, grant-making foundations, third world resources, united nations information service, pesticide information service, and more. for information about apc, write to apcadmin@igc.apc.org , or apc international secretariat, rua vincente de souza, , - rio de janeiro, brasil. fax: + - - - . for information about the peacenet world news service, which delivers news digests directly to your email box, send a request to pwn@igc.apc.org. bergen by byte -------------- norwegian online service with conferences and many files. modem tel.: + . pdn (datapak) address: . telnet: oscar.bbb.no ( . . . ). english-language interface available. annual subscription rates. you can register online. limited free usage. bibsys ------ book database operated by the norwegian universities' libraries. send internet mail to genserv@pollux.bibsys.no with your search word in the subject title of the message. big sky telegraph ----------------- is an online community for educators, business people etc. living in rural areas in north america. address: south atlantic, dillon, montana , u.s.a. bitnet ------ "because it's time network" started in as a small network for ibm computers in new york, u.s.a. today, bitnet encompasses , host computers by academic and research institutions all over the world. it has around , users (source: matrix news ) all connected hosts form a worldwide network using the nje (network job entry) protocols and with a single list of nodes. there is no single worldwide bitnet administration. several national or regional bodies administer the network. the european part of bitnet is called earn (european academic research network), while the canadian is called netnorth. in japan the name is asianet. bitnet also has connections to south america. other parts of the network have names like caren, ansp, scarnet, cearn, gulfnet, harnet, ecuanet, and runcol. normally, a bitnet email address looks like this: notrbcat@indycms the part to the left of the @-character is the users' mailbox code. the part to the right is the code of the mailbox computer. it is common for internet users to refer to bitnet addresses like this: notrbcat@indycms.bitnet . to send email from the internet to bitnet, it has to be sent through special gateway computers. on many systems, this is taken care of automatically. you type notrbcat@indycms.bitnet, and your mailbox system does the rest. on some systems, the user must give routing information in the bitnet address. for example, north american mail to bitnet can be sent through the gateway center cunyvm.cuny.edu . to make mail to notrbcat go through this gateway, its mail address must be changed as follows: notrbcat%indycms.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu explanation: the @ in the initial address is replaced with % . then add the gateway routing: ".bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu". if you must use a gateway in your address, always select one close to where you live. ask your local postmaster for the correct addressing in your case. bitnet has many conferences. we call them discussion lists or mailing lists. the lists are usually administered by a computer program called listserv. the dialog is based on redistribution of ordinary email by mailing lists. consequently, it is simple for users of other networks to participate in bitnet conferences. a list of discussion lists (at present around , one-line descriptions) is available by email from listserv@ndsuvm .bitnet. write the following command in the text of your message: list global new-list@ndsuvm .bitnet and netmonth (from bitlib@yalevm.bitnet) distribute regular notices about new discussion lists. subscribe to new-list by email to listserv@ndsuvm .bitnet. use the following command: sub new-list your-first-name your-last-name this is how we usually subscribe to discussion lists. send your subscription commands to a listserv close to where you live. the command "sendme bitnet overview" tells listserv to send more information about the services. bix --- is operated as a joint venture between general videotex corp. and the north american computer magazine byte (mcgraw-hill). to some extent, it mirrors what you can read on paper. bix offers global internet email, telnet and ftp, multiple conferences. in , the service had about , members. the nua address is . on internet, telnet x .bix.com . at the username: prompt, enter bix as a user name. at the second username: prompt, enter new if you don't already have an account on the service. you can sign up for the service, and play during your first visit to the service. read byte for more information, or write to general videotex corporation, massachusetts ave., cambridge, ma , usa. phone: + - - - . brs --- bibliographic retrieval services is owned by infopro technologies (see below). brs/after dark is a service for pc users. it can be accessed during evenings and weekends at attractive rates. infopro offers connection through their own network in europe, and through the internet. brs contains about databases within research, business, news, and science. the service's strengths are medicine and health. membership in brs costs us$ per year, plus hourly database usage charges. it is also available through compuserve (at a different price). contact in europe: brs information technologies, achilles house, western avenue, london w oua, england. tel. + . in north america: infopro technologies. tel.: + - - - . telnet: brs.com (us$ /hr). canada remote systems --------------------- is north america's largest bulletin board system ( ). it has a software library of more than , programs and files, and over , public forums and discussion areas. canada remote provides several news and information services, including the united press international and reuters news wires, north american stock exchange results, the twice-weekly edition of newsbytes, and other publications. tel.: + - - - (in the u.s.) and + - - - (canada). canada remote systems, crestlawn drive, unit d, mississauga, ontario, canada l w p . cgnet ----- is a network interconnecting a group of international research organizations. besides email, cgnet provides news clipping services, airline reservation information, and database search. (see dialcom) contact: cgnet services international, hamilton court, menlo park, california , usa. telephone: + - - - . fax: - - - telex: (cgn ui) . cix (england) ------------- british online-service available by telnet, through pdn services and by direct dial. telnet cix.compulink.co.uk. compulink information exchange ltd. claims to be europe's largest conferencing system. sign-up fee ( ): gbp . . monthly minimum: gbp . . off-peak connect rate gbp . . peak rate is . per hour. the service has full internet access, and email exchange with compuserve and dialcom. cix has many conferences, isdn access, usenet news, telnet and ftp. contact: the compulink information exchange ltd., the sanctuary oakhill grove, surbiton, surrey kt du, england. tel.: + - - - . fax: + - - - . nua: . data: + - - - /+ - - - . email: cixadmin@cix.compulink.co.uk . cix (usa) --------- the commercial internet exchange is a north american association of commercial internet providers in which they agree to carry each others' packets of mail, and more. clarinet -------- a commercial network publishing service providing information and news in over newsgroups by subject matter on usenet. read chapter for more information. single-user (individual) prices available. clarinet communications corp., king st. north, waterloo, ontario n j x , canada. email: info@clarinet.com . commercial mail relay service (cmr) ----------------------------------- this service is not available anymore. they used to be available on this address: intermail-request@intermail.isi.edu compuserve ---------- has about . million users (august ) all over the world, over , databases, forums, newspapers, online shopping from more than shops and entertainment. it's like a large electronic supermarket. you can access the service though local access numbers in over countries, through packet switching services, and outdial services. the international nua address is . a list of available forums can be retrieved from the ibm communication forum. participation in forums is normally free (no extra charge). the iquest database service gives access to more than publications, databases, and indexes within business, public affairs, research, news, etc. bibliographic and full-text searches. some iquest databases are physically residing on other online services, like newsnet, dialog, brs, and vu/text (u.s.a.), data- star (switzerland), datasolve (england. it has tass in the world reporter database), and questel (france). sometimes, it is cheaper to use these services on compuserve, than by a call to these services directly. the connect charge for compuserve's alternative pricing plan is us$ . /hour at and bps. bps costs us$ . /hour. monthly subscription us$ . . using the executive news service (clipping service) costs an extra us$ /hour. an optional flat-rate pricing plan (the standard pricing plan) is available for us$ . per month. it gives unlimited access to over basic services, including compuserve mail, the electronic mall, news, weather and sports, member support services, reference and travel services. hourly rates for standard pricing plan members using extended services go from us$ /hour for bits/s to us$ /hour for bits/s access. (feb. ) in addition, there are network charges. these differ a lot by country. for example, access through european compuserve nodes has no communication surcharges during non-prime time ( : - : local time). compuserve can be accessed by telnet to hermes.merit.edu, or . . . . host: compuserve. compuserve information services inc., pob , arlington centre blvd., columbus, ohio , u.s.a. in europe, call voice: + - - - , fax: + - - - or write to compuserve, jahnstrasse , d- unterhaching b., munich, germany. to contact compuserve africa, call ( ) - in south africa, or (+ )( ) - for everywhere else. cosine ------ cosine (cooperation for open systems interconnection networking in europe) is a european common market "eureka" project. it works to establish a communications network infrastructure for scientific and industrial research institutes all over europe. ixi is the international packet data network on which the cosine project is based. it is available europe-wide providing links of up to kbit/s, carries non commercial traffic for the research communities, and provides links to several public data networks. the concise online information service is a focal point for information of interest to european researchers. it has lists of sources of information. internet users can access concise through telnet. connect either to concise.ixi.ch ( . . . ) or concise.funet.fi ( . . . ). login: concise, password: concise. for help, send email to helpdesk@concise.level- .co.uk with the following command in the body of the text: start help cug-email this will give you the `concise user guide - email access'. dasnet ------ forwards mail between systems that do not have any email exchange agreements. see description in chapter . contact: da systems, inc., e. campbell ave., campbell, ca , u.s.a. dataarkiv --------- major scandinavian online service based in sweden. contact: dataarkiv, box , solna, sweden. fax: + . tel.: + . data-star --------- formerly owned by radio-suisse in switzerland, data-star is now owned by knight-ridder (u.s.a.). it offers over databases within business, science and medicine. scisearch is a database with references to over nine million stories from newspapers and magazines. other databases: current patents fast alert, flightline (with stories about air transport), the turing institute database on artificial intelligence, information access (international market data), parts of sovdata, who owns whom, etc.. access through internet: telnet to rserve.rs.ch [ . . . ] and login as rserve , and follow standard login procedure. contact in north america: d-s marketing, inc., suite , devon park drive, wayne, pa , tel.: + - - - . contact in scandinavia: data-star marketing ab, maessans gt. , box , s- gothenburg, sweden. tel.: + . delphi ------ has full access to internet. write to: general videotex corp., massachusetts ave., cambridge, ma , usa. dialcom ------- is owned by british telecom and is a network of data centers in many countries. dialcom is selling its services through many agents (like esistreet for the music industry, and cgnet for agricultural research). some selected services: the official airline guide, news (financial times profile, newsbytes, ap, upi, and reuters), mail (dialcom ), fax services and several conference type offerings (like campus for the education market). today, most dialcom users are unable to exchange mail with the internet (dasnet is a commercial alternative), but mail can be sent to users of sprintmail, ibm mail, at&ts easylink, mci mail, compania telefonica nacional de espana, and other x. systems. contact: dialcom, executive blvd., rockville, md , u.s.a. the british service telecom-gold is a subsidiary of dialcom uk. in north america, contact bt north america at tel.: + - - - . in europe, contact british telecom. cgnet can be reached through the internet. send a message to postmaster@cgnet.com for more information. dialog information services --------------------------- is owned by knight ridder and has more than databases online. they offer a long list of newspapers including the san francisco chronicle in full-text, newsbytes, information access, the japan technology database, most major global news wires, trademarkscan, usa today, teikoku databank from japan. knowledge index offers evening and weekend reduced-rate access to more than popular full-text and bibliographic databases and , journals ( ). dialog has gateways to other services, like compuserve and inet, making the databases available to a larger market. many databases are also available on cd-rom. in europe, contact dialog europe, p o box , oxford ox ax, england. you can telnet to dialog.com ( . . . , us$ /hour in ). down jones news/retrieval ------------------------- focuses on news for finance and business. djn/r is the sole online distributor of the wall street journal (with articles from the international editions), barron's, dow jones and telerate's newswires in full-text. further, it has pr newswire, many other newspapers in full- text, clipping service, online charting for investors, and gateways to other services like info globe (globe and mail in canada). address: p.o. box , princeton, n.j. - . djn/r is also accessible through a gateway from mci mail. you can telnet to djnr.dowjones.com . at the what service please prompt, enter djnr and press enter. an enter password prompt will appear. here, enter your normal djns account password. echo ---- european commission host organization is accessible via concise. telnet either to concise.ixi.ch ( . . . ) or concise.funet.fi ( . . . ). login: concise, password: concise. the nua address is . you can also telnet to echo.lu . login as echotest or echo. echo's i'm guide is a free database providing information about online services within the european common market. it includes cd- roms, databases and databanks, database producers, gateways, host organizations, ptt contact points, and information brokers in europe. echo's other databases are classified under the headings research and development, language industry, industry and economy. for information contact: echo customer service, bp , l- luxembourg. tel.: + . fax: + . exec-pc network bbs ------------------- is based in milwaukee (wisconsin, u.s.a.). in august , it had incoming phone lines, gigabytes of disk capacity, more than new programs/day, , programs available for downloading (including the complete selection from pc-sig california) and more than , active messages in its conferences. more than , persons called exec-pc each day. the service focuses on owners of ibm compatible computers (ms/pc-dos, windows, os/ , windows, unix), apple macintosh, amiga and atari st through over conferences. you can access exec-pc through i-com's outdial service, global access, pc-pursuit, connect-usa, and by direct dialing. annual subscription costs us$ . . you can sign on while online. unregistered users get thirty minutes per day free. fidonet ------- was founded in for automatic transfers of files from one place to the other at night, when the telephone rates are low. fidonet is one of the most widespread networks in the world. it consists mainly of personal computers (ibm/amiga/macintosh...). fidonet systems exchange documents by using a modem and calling another fidonet system. communication can be either direct to the destination system (calling long distance) or by routing a message to a local system. each computer connected to fidonet is called a node. there are nodes in around countries. in june , the net had , nodes throughout the world (source: fidonet nodelist). the number of nodes is growing at about percent per year. most nodes are operated by volunteers, and access is free. fidonet is believed to have over . million users ( ). conferences (called echos or echomail) are exchanged between interested nodes, and may thus have thousands of readers. a typical fidonet echomail conference gets to messages each day. any connected bbs may carry , , or more echomail conferences. net mail is the term for storing and delivering mail. fidonet users can send and receive mail through the internet. the list of member bulletin boards is called the nodelist. it can be retrieved from most boards. each node has one line on this list, like in this example: , ,home_of_pcq,warszawa,jan_stozek, - - , ,v ,mnp,xa the commas are field separators. the first field (empty in this example) starts a zone, region, local net, host, or denotes a private space (with the keyword pvt). the second field ( ) is the node number, and the third field (home_of_pcq) is the name for the node. the fourth field (warszawa) is a geographical notation, and the fifth field (jan_stozek) is the name of the owner. the sixth field is a telephone contact number, and the other fields contain various technical information used in making connections. fidonet has six major geographical zones: ( ) north america, ( ) europe, etc., ( ) oceania, ( ) america latina, ( ) africa, ( ) asia. for information, contact the international fidonet association (ifna), p.o. box , st. louis, mo , u.s.a. you can also write to postmaster@fidonet.fidonet.org . the fido subdirectory in the msdos directory on simtel (on the internet) contains extensive information, including explanation of fidonet, guide for its nodes, gateways between fidonet and internet, and various programs and utilities. (see trickle in chapter for more about how to get these files.) fog city online information service ----------------------------------- is the world's largest bulletin board with aids information. based in san francisco (u.s.a.) it offers free and anonymous access for everybody. call + - - - . enter "aids" by the question "first name?" and "info" by the question "last name?". ft profile ---------- has full-text articles from financial times in london, from several european databases (like the hoppenstedt database with more than , german companies), and the japanese database nikkei. profile is available through telecom-gold, and can also be accessed through other online services. clipping service. cd-rom. contact ft information services at tel.: + - - - . genie ----- general electric network for information exchange is ge's consumer information service. genie gives access to many databases and other information services. it has around , users ( ). the basic rate is us$ . /month plus connect charges. the surcharge is us$ /hour between : and : , and us$ . /hour for some services, like email, downloading of software, "chat," conferences, and multi-user games. access to internet email is available as a surcharged add-on service. (addressing format: userid@genie.geis.com) for information call + - - - . ge information services, n. washington st., rockville, md , u.s.a. ge information service co. (geis) --------------------------------- online service operated by general electric. available in over countries. geis' quik-comm service integrates multinational business communications for public and private mail systems. its services include telex access; and quik-comm to fax, which allows users to send messages from their workstations to fax machines throughout the world. contact: tel. + - - - genios ------ german online service (tel.: + ). offers information from novosti (moscow), data about companies in the former ddr, the hoppenstedt business directories, and more. glasnet ------- is an international computer network that provides lowcost telecommunications to nonprofit, nongovernment organizations throughout the countries of the former soviet union. email, fax, telex, public conferences. for nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations, basic glasnet service fees are rubles/month after a one-time registration fee of rubles. this does not include faxes or telexes. ( ) write to: glasnet, ulitsa yaroslavskaya , korpus room , moscow, russia. phone: ( ) - (voice). email: fick@glas.apc.org . global access ------------- is a north american outdial service (see chapter ) owned by g-a technologies, inc. it has an information bbs at + - - - . iasnet ------ the institute for automated systems network was the first public switched network in the xussr. its main goal is to provide a wide range of network services to the scientific community in the xussr, including access to online databases, a catalog of foreign databases, and conferencing (adonis). ibm information network ----------------------- the ibm information network, based in tampa, florida, is ibm's commercial value-added data network offering the ability to send email and data worldwide. it is one of the largest networks in the world, with operator-owned nodes in over countries. to send mail from the internet to a user of advantis ibmmail (also called imx or mail exchange), address to their userid at ibmmail.com. you need to know their userid (iea in ibmmail terminology) in advance. an ibmmail user can find how to address to internet by sending mail to inform at ibmmail with /get inet in the body of the text. i-com ----- offers outdial services to north america (ref. chapter ). contact: i-com, rue de geneve b , brussels, belgium. tel.: + . fax: + . modem: + . ilink (interlink) ----------------- is a network for exchange of conferences between bulletin boards in u.s.a., canada, scotland, england, norway, france, australia, new zealand, sweden, and other countries. infonet ------- is a privately owned vendor of packet data services with local operations in over countries, and access from more than countries. contact: infonet services corp., east grand ave., el segundo, ca , u.s.a. internet -------- started as arpanet, but is now a large group of more than , interconnected networks all over the world supporting mail, news, remote login, file transfer, and many other services. all participating hosts are using the protocol tcp/ip. there are around . million host computers with ip addresses (march . ref. rfc and rfc ). the number of users is estimated to more than ten million people. some one million people are said to exchange email messages daily. in addition, private enterprise networks have an estimated , , hosts using tcp/ip (source: matrix news august .) these offer mail exchange with the internet, but not services such as telnet or ftp to most parts of the internet, and are estimated to have some . million users. some claim that these figures are low. they believe it is possible to reach around million mailboxes by email through the internet. several commercial companies offer full internet services. among these are alternet (operated by uunet) and pci (operated by performance systems, inc.). the uk internet consortium offers similar services in great britain. internet gives users access to the ftp and telnet commands. ftp gives them interactive access to remote computers for transferring files. telnet gives access to a remote service for interactive dialog. the interest groups list of lists is a directory of conferences available by ftp from ftp.nisc.sri.com ( . . . ). log in to this host as user "anonymous." do a 'cd' (change directory) to the "netinfo" directory, then enter the command "get interest-groups." the list is more than kb characters long. you can also get it by email from mail-server@nisc.sri.com . write the following command in the text of the message: send netinfo/interest-groups you can telnet several bulletin boards through internet. here is a sample: name login as description ---- ---------- ----------- conrad.appstate.edu info world news collected by monitoring short wave broadcasts from bbs and other global sources. isca.icaen.uiowa.edu iscabbs a large amount of public domain programs atl.calstate.edu lewisnts electronic newspapers and the art world. tolsun.oulu.fi box finnish service. english available as an option. "internet services frequently asked questions and answers" can be retrieved by email from mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu . write send usenet/news.answers/internet-services/faq in the body of your message. internet -------- is a term used on something many call "worldnet" or "the matrix." it includes the networks in internet, and a long list of networks that can send electronic mail to each other (though they may not be based on the tcp/ip protocol). the internet includes internet, bitnet, decnet, usenet, uucp, peacenet, igc, earn, uninett, fidonet, compuserve, alternex (brazil), att mail, fredsnaetet (sweden), applelink, geonet (hosts in germany, england, u.s.a.), greennet, mci mail, metanet, nicarao (nicaragua), otc peacenet/econet, pegasus (australia), bix, portal, psychnet, telemail, twics (japan), web (canada), the well, carinet, dasnet, janet (england) "answers to commonly asked new internet user' questions" is available by email from service@nic.ddn.mil . send email with the following command in the message's subject heading: rfc one important feature of the internet is that no one is in charge. the internet is essentially a voluntary association. another thing is that there are rarely any additional charges for sending and receiving electronic mail (even when sending to other networks), retrieving files, or reading usenet newsgroups.. intermail --------- see commercial mail relay service. istel ----- a privately owned vendor of packet data services, who has operator- owned nodes in belgium, canada, france, germany, italy, japan, holland, spain, sweden, england. contact: at&t istel. tel.: - (in england). kompass online and kompass europe -------------------------------- these databases are available through many services, including affaersdata in sweden and dialog. contact: (voice) + . infopro technologies -------------------- previously maxwell online. infopro's services include brs online and orbit online. brs owns brs online, brs colleague, brs after dark, and brs morning search, which focus on medical information. orbit focuses on patent and patent-related searches. orbit carries an annual membership fee of us$ ( ), and hourly fees that differ according to database. contact: infopro technologies, westpark drive, mclean, va , u.s.a. tel.: + - - - . maxwell online -------------- see infopro technologies. mci mail -------- mci mail, box , m st. nw, washington, dc , u.s.a. mead data central ----------------- operates the nexis and lexis services. contact: mead data central international, international house, , st. katharine's way, london e un, england. telnet lexis.meaddata.com or . . . or . . . . terminal type = vt a. note: if characters do not echo back, set your terminal to "local" echo. metanet ------- contact: metasystems design group, north th street, suite , arlington, va , u.s.a. tel.: + - - - . mix --- a scandinavian bulletin board network exchanging conferences. for information, call mike's bbs in norway at the following numbers: + - - , + - - and + - - . minitel ------- french videotex service, which is being marketed all over the world. it is based on a special graphics display format (teletel), has over , services, and appears like a large french online hypermarche with more than seven million users ( ). access to the french minitel network is available via the infonet international packet data network on a host-paid and chargeable account basis. mnematics --------- mnematics, main street sparkill, ny - , u.s.a. tel.: + - - - . nec pc-van ---------- japan's largest online service measured both in number of users and geographical presence. your communications system must be able to display japanese characters to use the service. netnews ------- see usenet. newsnet ------- the world's leading vendor of full-text business and professional newsletters online. offers access to over newsletters and news services within industry classification groups ( ). includes the major international news wires. you can read individual newsletter issues, and search back issues or individual newsletters or publications within an industry classification. newsnet's clipping service is called newsflash. enter prices at the main command prompt for an alphabetic listing of all available services. contact: newsnet, haverford rd., bryn mawr, pa , u.s.a. nifty-serve ----------- is japan's number online service. it had , subscribers in january . access is possible via a gateway from compuserve. your communications system must be able to display japanese characters to use the service. nifty-serve is jointly operated by fujitsu and nissho iwai trading in a licensing agreement with compuserve. nwi --- networking and world information, inc. one time subscription fee: us$ (us$ is given to charity. us$ is returned to the user as free time). non-prime time access costs us$ . /hour at to bps. otherwise, the rate is us$ . . the service is available through pdn and outdial services. ( ) contact: nwi, east river drive, commerce center one, east hartford, ct , u.s.a. tel.: + - - - . compuserve users can access nwi's participate conferences through a gateway. oclc ---- is a nonprofit computer library service and research organization whose computer network and products link more than , libraries in countries and territories. it serves all types of libraries, including public, academic, special, corporate, law, and medical libraries. contact: oclc, fratz rd., dublin, oh, u.s.a. tel.: + - - - . orbit ----- is owned by infopro technologies (formerly maxwell online and pergamon orbit infoline inc.). it offers more than science, technical and patent research, and company information databases. contact in north america: infopro technologies, west park drive, mcclean, va , u.s.a. tel.: + - - - . in europe: orbit search service, achilles house, western avenue, london w ua, england. tel.: + , fax. + . telnet orbit.com (us$ /hr in ). pergamon financial data services -------------------------------- see orbit. polarnet -------- is a scandinavian distributed conferencing system available through many boards, including mike's bbs (see above). prestel ------- is owned by british telecom. it is a videotex service based on a special graphics display format. the service is also available as "tty teletype." nua address: . prodigy ------- is a north american videotex service owned by ibm and sears. you must have a special communications program to use the service, which claimed . million subscribers in early . (analysts estimated only , paying users). rates: us$ . per family per month for up to six family members and up to email messages. annual subscription: us$ . . the packet sent new users contains a communication program and a hayes-compatible bps modem. price: us$ . (early ) contact: prodigy services co., hamilton ave., white plains, ny , u.s.a. tel.: + - - - . email (through internet): postmaster@inetgate.prodigy.com . relaynet -------- also called pcrelay-net. an international network for exchange of email and conferences between more than , bulletin boards. the relaynet international message exchange (rime) consists of some , systems ( ). relcom ------ means 'russian electronic communications.' this company provides email, other network services, a gateway to internet, and access to usenet. in early , relcom had regional nodes in cities of the xussr connecting over , organizations or , users. relcom has a gateway to iasnet. saltrod horror show ------------------- odd de presno's bbs system. tel.: + . the sierra network ------------------ is one of the best things out there for online games. the service claimed more than , subscribers in . contact: the sierra network, p.o. box , coarsegold, ca , u.s.a. signet ------ global bbs network with over nodes around the world ( ). simtel software archives -------------------------- is a system maintained by the us army information system command. it contains public domain software, shareware, documentation and mail archives under the following top-level headings: hz , info- ibmpc, msdos, pc-blue, ada, archives, cpm, cpmug, pcnet, sigm, stars, unix-c, vhdl, zsys, macintosh, misc, and tops . all files are accessible by anonymous ftp. for information, send a message to the address listserv@rpiecs.bitnet with the command 'help' in the first line of your text. sprintmail ---------- is a large, commercial vendor of email services. it has local nodes serving customers in countries through its sprintnet network ( ). internet mail to the sprintmail user identity 't.germain' can be sent to t.germain@sprint.sprint.com . for information, contact sprintmail, sunrise valley dr., reston, va , u.s.a. supernet -------- is an international network for exchange of conferences and mail between superbbs bulletin board systems. contact: supernet world host through fidonet at : / (+ - - ) lennart odeberg. tcn --- is a dialcom network. internet email to tcn is only possible if either the sender or recipient has registered with dasnet. the email address would be: tcnxxx@das.net (where xxx is the tcn number). thunderball cave ---------------- norwegian bulletin board connected to relaynet. call + - - or + - - . offers usenet news and internet mail. tocolo bbs ---------- bulletin board for people with disabilities in japan, or with "shintaishougaisha," which is the japanese term. call: + - - - . bps, ,n, . your communications system must be able to display japanese characters to use the service. tri-p ----- international outdial service. contact: intec america, inc., avenue of the americas, suite , new york, ny , u.s.a. in japan, contact intec at - - sarugaku-cho, chiyoda-ku, tokyo . fax: + - - - . twics beeline ------------- english-language japanese online service with participate, caucus and usenet netnews. half the users are japanese. others connect from u.s.a., england, canada, germany, france, south africa, and scandinavia. the nua address is: . direct call to + ( , kb/s), or + - - - ( bps). at connect, press enter a few times. wait about a second between keystrokes to get to the registration prompt. new users can sign on as guest for information. you can also write postmaster@twics.co.jp, or send mail to twics/iec, - yotsuya, shinjuku-ku, tokyo , japan. foreign users have free access ( ). umi/data courier ---------------- south street, louisville, ky , u.s.a. uninett ------- delivers networking services to norwegian research and educational services. unison ------ north american conferencing service using participate software. nua address: . password: us$ . . monthly subscription: us$ . . non-prime time access: us$ . /hour. prime time access: us$ . /hour. enter signup when online the first time and follow the prompts. ( ) uucp ---- uucp (unix to unix copy) is a protocol, a set of files and a set of commands to copy files from one unix computer to another. this copying procedure is the core of the uucp network, a loose association of systems all communicating with the uucp protocol. unix computers can participate in the uucp network (using leased line or dial-up) through any other unix host. the network now also has many ms-dos and other hosts, and consisted of , hosts in january (source: uucp map) serving more than , users. the uucp network is based on two systems connecting to each other at specific intervals, and executing any work scheduled for either of them. for example, the system oregano calls the system basil once every two hours. if there's mail waiting for oregano, basil will send it at that time. likewise, oregano will at that time send any mail waiting for basil. there are databases with connectivity information (uucp maps), and programs (pathalias) that will help you decide the correct routing of messages. however, many uucp hosts are not registered in the uucp map. eunet is a uucp based network in europe. junet is an equivalent network in japan. there are many gateway machines that exchange mail between uucp and the internet. among these, uunet.uu.net is among the most frequently used. usenet ------ usenet, netnews, or just "news" are common terms for a large many-to-many conferencing (only) system distributed through uucp, internet, fidonet, and bitnet. this grassroots driven "network" has grown out of the global university and research domains. it is a service rather than a real network. it is not an organization, and has no central authority. usenet's newsgroups are carried by over , host computers in five continents, and has over , , users (source: brian reid, ). many of these hosts have access to the internet. the european portion of usenet is called eunet (european unix net). the local administrator of each individual node in the network decides what newsgroups to receive and make available to its users. few systems offer access to all of them. netnews is organized in groups of 'conferences'. each of these classifications is organized into groups and subgroups according to topic. as of june , , there were newsgroups and regional newsgroups. several sites are carrying over topics. the groups distributed worldwide are divided into seven broad classifications: "comp" topics of interest to both computer professionals and hobbyists, including topics in computer science, software source, and information on hardware and software systems. "sci" discussions marked by special and usually practical knowledge, relating to research in or application of the established sciences. "misc" groups addressing themes not easily classified under any of the other headings or which incorporate themes from multiple categories. "soc" groups primarily addressing social issues and socializing. "talk" groups largely debate-oriented and tending to feature long discussions without resolution and without appreciable amounts of generally useful information. "news" groups concerned with the news network and software themselves. "rec" groups oriented towards hobbies and recreational activities. also available are many "alternative" hierarchies, like: "alt" true anarchy; anything and everything can and does appear. subjects include sex, and privacy. "biz" business-related groups "clari" newsgroups gatewayed from commercial news services and other 'official' sources. (requires payment of a fee and execution of a licence. more information by email to info@clarinet.com). most netnews hosts offer both global and local conferences. many newsgroups can be read through bulletin boards, commercial online services, or through gateways from connected hosts (like from some bitnet hosts). a full list of available groups and conferences are normally available from hosts offering netnews, and on netnews servers. all users should subscribe to news.announce.important . vu/text ------- chestnut st., suite , philadelphia, pa , u.s.a. the well -------- the whole earth lectronic link is a commercial online service based in sausalito (u.s.a.). it has its own conferencing culture and is an interesting starting point for those wanting to "study" what makes the area around silicon valley so dynamic. the well has several hundred conferences, public and private, about , members, and is available in a variety of ways. the service has full internet access, and can be reached by telnet to well.sf.ca.us (or . . . ). modem tel.: + - - - at bps or + - - - at bps. you can subscribe online. rates: us$ /month plus us$ /hour (invoiced by the minute online - ). ziffnet ------- markets its services through compuserve (ziffnet and ziffnet/mac), prodigy, and its own online service in the u.s.a. their offerings include the ziff buyer's market, the ziffnet/mac buyer's guide, computer database plus, magazine database plus, newsbytes, and the cobb group online. contact: ziff communications company, first street, cambridge, ma , u.s.a. tel.: + - - - . appendix : short takes about how to get started ==================================== * a computer * modem and a communications program you must have a computer ------------------------ it is not important what kind of computer you have, though you may find out that it is an advantage to have a popular one. the most common type of microcomputer today is called ms-dos computers (or ibm pc compatibles or ibm clones). your computer should have enough memory for communication. this is seldom a problem. an ms-dos computer with kb ram is enough when using popular programs like procomm. your computer does not have to be very powerful and super fast, unless you want ultra fast transfers, use a slow communications program, or a complex system of script files. if this is the case, you'll know to appreciate speed and power. you do not need a hard disk. many do without. not having one, however, means more work, and less room for storage of all the nice things that you may want to retrieve by modem. personally, i want as much hard disk space as i can possibly get. when you have read the book, i guess you'll understand why. others may want to delay the purchase of a hard disk until they can spare the money. if you can afford it, however, do it! it is a decision that you'll never regret. you must have a modem --------------------- some computers are always connected to a network. if this is your situation, then you probably have what you need already. the rest of us need a modem. a modem is a small piece of equipment that is translating the internal, electrical signals of the computer to sound codes. these codes can be sent over an ordinary telephone line. you may think of it as a type of morse alphabet. the recipient of data also needs a modem. in his case, the sound codes will have to be translated back into their original form as digital codes. when this is done, he can view text and pictures on the screen, and use the received data in other applications. you can buy modems on an expansion card for installation in your computer, or in a separate box. often, a modem has already been built into the computer, when you buy it. whether to buy an internal or an external modem is a question of needs: a portable computer with an internal modem is easier to bring on travels than an external modem with a modem cable and a power adapter. an external modem can serve several computers. some of them are so compact that they fit besides your toothbrush in the toilet bag. an internal modem blocks one of your serial ports. external modems --------------- the options are many. the modems differ on speed, features, prices - and whether they are approved for usage in your country. some of them are connected to the phone line by cable. others are connected to the handset (to the talk and listen part) by two rubber cups. we call such modems acoustic modems (or acoustic couplers). acoustic modems are useful where connecting other modems to the telephone is difficult. the bad news is that you'll get more noise on the line. acoustic modems can therefore not be recommended for use in other cases. asynchronous or synchronous modems? ----------------------------------- formerly, data communication was done by sending job commands to a mainframe computer, and having the result returned in one batch. the modems were called synchronous. such modems (and computers) are still in use in some large corporations. most of today's online services are based on an interactive dialog between the user and the remote computer. the user enters a command, for example a letter or a number in a menu, and the result is returned almost immediately. the modems used for such work are called asynchronous (see "explanation of some words and terms" in appendix ). unless you know that you must have a synchronous modem, buy an asynchronous one. choice of speed --------------- speed is measured in many ways. one method is to use baud. another is to use characters per second (cps) or bits per second (bps). bps is a measure of how many data bits that can be transferred over a data channel in one second. (each byte is split up into bits before transfer during serial communication.) the relationship between baud and bits per second is complex, and often misused. bits per second is unambiguous. in this book, we will use it as bps. we can estimate the number of characters per second by dividing the number of bps by ten. for example. bps is roughly cps. in , , and bps asynchronous modems were the standard in many countries. around , the growth in bps modems and modem with faster speeds gained momentum. modem user manuals often give transfer speed by referring to some international classification codes. here are some ccitt codes with explanation: v. - bps still used by a small group. cannot full duplex communicate with the american bell standard. v. bps partly compatible with the american full duplex bell a standard. sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. v. bis bps used all over the world. very full duplex common. v. & rare protocol. used mainly in europe. bps w/ half duplex. bps return ch. v. ter bps used mainly in france full duplex v. ter / bps used in group iii fax half duplex v. , and used in gr. iii fax and in some (ame- bps rican) modems. do not buy v. if you half duplex want a bps modem. v. / bps current standard for bps modems full duplex v. bis / / , full duplex with faster interrogation. / bps v. bps a proposed high speed protocol that never made it. v. error correction protocol (an appendix yields compatibility w/mnp gr. , and (see mnp below). for v. , v. bis, v. ter and v. . v. bis data compression for v. modems. meant to replace mnp and lap. text can be transferred three times faster than with mnp, i.e., in up to bps using a bps modem. very common. v.fast upcoming standard. if approved by also called ccitt, it will support speeds to v. terbo , bps for uncompressed data transmission rates over regular dial- up, voice-grade lines. using v. bis data compression, up to , bps may be achievable. when you consider buying a modem with higher speed, remember that going from bps to is a percent increase, while going from to bps gives percent! on the other hand, if you currently have bits/s, going to . will only give you percent. mnp error correction and compression ------------------------------------ the microcom networking protocol (mnp) is a u.s. industry standard for modem-to-modem communication with automatic error correction and compression. automatic error correction is useful when there is noise on the telephone line. mnp splits the stream of data up into blocks before transmission. they are checked by the other modem upon receipt. if the contents are correct, an acknowledge message is sent back to the sending modem. if there has been an error in the transmission, the sending modem is asked to retransmit. when using compression, files are being preprocessed before transmission to decrease their size. the result is that the modem has to send fewer bytes, and the effect is higher speed. mnp level and up send data between two modems synchronously rather than asynchronously. since sending a start and stop bit with each transferred byte is no longer required, the effect is higher speed. mnp- or higher have automatic adjustment of block length when there is noise on the line. if the line is good, longer blocks are sent. the block size is decreased if the line is bad causing many retransmissions. mnp- has data compression. this gives a further increase in transfer speed by from to percent depending on the type of data sent. mnp- is capable of a three-to-one compression ratio. both users must have their modems set for mnp to use it. the speed of the computer's comm port ------------------------------------- installing a super fast modem does not guarantee an increase in the effective transfer speed. the serial port of your computer may be a limiting factor. owners of older ms-dos computers often have uarts (serial port processors) in the intel or national series. with these in the computer, it is difficult to achieve speeds above bps without losing data. take this into account when investing in a modem. mnp and efficiency ------------------ i call my bulletin board daily. my personal computer is set to communicate with a v. modem at , bps. the modem sends data to the telephone line at bps, which is this modem's maximum line speed. data is received by the remote computer's v. modem at bps, and forwarded to bulletin board at bps. why these differences in speed? mnp level compresses data in the modem before transfer, and gives error-free transfer to and from the bulletin board at higher speed than by using bps all the way through. the compression effectiveness differs by the type of data. when sending text, the effective transfer speed may double. speed will increase further if the text contains long sequences of similar characters. text is typically compressed by up to percent. this means that a bps modem using mnp- may obtain an effective speed of around the double when transferring such data. file transfers using mnp ------------------------ files are often compressed and stored in libraries before transfer. online services do this because compressed files take less space on their hard disks. also, it is easier for users to keep track of files sent in a library file. you rarely get speed advantages when transferring precompressed files using mnp or v. bis. with some modems, you must turn mnp and v. bis compression off before retrieval of compressed files. dumb or intelligent modem? -------------------------- some modems are operated with switches or buttons on a panel. they do not react to commands from your computer. we call them dumb. you must dial numbers manually, and press a key on the modem, when you hear the tone from a remote modem. only when the modem is connected to the remote modem, can you ask your communications program to take over. we call those modems 'intelligent' that can react to commands from your computer. most of them react to commands according to the hayes standard. buy intelligent, hayes-compatible modems - even when other standards may seem better. most of today's communication programs are designed to be used by such modems. note: buy modems that use the hayes extended command set. when a popular communications program, like procomm and crosstalk, tells the modem to "dial a number" or "go on hook," then the hayes- compatible modem will do just that. when you press alt-h in procomm, the modem will disconnect from the remote modem. if you press alt-d followed by the number " ," procomm will locate the number to an online service in your telephone directory, and dial that number. when the connection with the remote modem has been established, your modem will report back to you with a message like connect . this tells that a connection has been set up at bps. if i select "k" from a menu provided by my communications program's command scripts, then my system will retrieve today's business news from tokyo and put them up on my screen. in the process, my system tells the modem to do several things, including "call a number," "speed bps," "redial if busy," "go on-hook when done." the only thing that i have to do, is press "k". the communications program and the modem will do the rest. automatic communication is impossible without an intelligent modem. the hayes standard ------------------ the u.s. company hayes microcomputer products, inc. pioneered command-driven modems. their smartmodem became a success, and "hayes compatibility" a standard for intelligent modems. today, it is as unimportant to buy a hayes modem to get access to hayes commands, as to buy an ibm pc to run pc software. automatic dialing (autodial) was one of smartmodem's important features. the modem could call a number and prepare for data communication, once a connection had been set up. if the line was busy, it could wait a while and then redial. the operator could work with other things while waiting for the equipment to be ready for communication. the modem had automatic answer (autoanswer), i.e., when someone called in, the modem could take the phone off hook and set up a connection with a remote modem. the modem enabled a connected pc to act as an electronic answering machine. hayes-compatible modems can report call progress to the local screen using short numeric codes or words like connect, connect , connect , no carrier, no dialtone, busy, no answer, ring etc. there can be small differences between such modems. the message dialtone on one modem may be dial tone on another. most of the main progress messages, however, are the same across brands. the old smartmodem had switches used to configure the modem. most modern hayes-compatible modems come without switches and have more commands than their ancestor. today's hayes-compatible modems have a core of common commands, the "real" hayes-commands, and several unstandardized additional commands. here is an example: a standard on the move ---------------------- on the quattro sb modem, bps speed without automatic speed detection is set by the command "at&i ." the equivalent command on semafor's unimod is "at+c ". automatic detection of speed is a feature that lets the modem discover the speed of the remote modem to set its own speed at the same level. (other modems may use different commands to set this.) when i want procomm to call a bulletin board, it first sends a sequence of hayes commands to the semafor modem. the purpose is to "configure" the modem before calling. it sends the following: at s = +c s = s = &d the cryptic codes have the following meaning: at "attention modem. commands following.." s = no automatic answer +c no automatic speed detection (fixed speed) s = wait seconds for an answer tone from the remote modem. s = wait / seconds for detection of carrier &d go on-hook if the dtr signal is being changed. if this command is sent to the quattro modem, it will reply with "error". the code "+c " must be replaced with an "&i ". the rest of the commands are the same. (note: when a modem responds with "error," it has usually rejected all commands sent to it!) this setup is held in the modem's memory when procomm sends its dialing command: atdt . at stands for attention, as above. dt stands for dial tone. here, it is used to dial the number using tone signaling (rather than pulse dialing). the modem cable --------------- if you have an external modem, you must connect your computer to the modem with a cable. some modems are sold without a cable. this cable may be called a serial cable, a modem cable, a rs c cable, or something else. make sure that you buy the correct cable for your system. make sure that the connectors at each end of the cable are correct. if a male connector (with pins) is required in one end and a female (with holes) in the other, do not buy a cable with two male connectors. some connectors have pins/holes, while others have or - pin round plugs (apple computers). use a shielded cable to ensure minimal interference with radio and television reception. at this point, some discover that there is no place on the pc to attach the cable. look for a serial port at the rear of your machine, labeled modem, communications, serial, or with a phone symbol. if you find no suitable connector, you may have to install an asynchronous communication port in the box. connecting your equipment to earth ---------------------------------- secure your computer and modem against thunderstorms and other electrical problems. securing the electric outlet in the wall is not enough. problems can also enter through the telephone line. thunderstorms have sent electrical pulses through the telephone line destroying four modems, three pc-fax cards, one mother board, and at least one asynchronous communication port. to prevent this from happening to you, disconnect electrical and telephone cables from your equipment during thunderstorms. the communications program -------------------------- a powerful communications program is half the job. in my case it's the whole job. most of my work is done automatically. the communications program will help you with the mechanical transportation of data in both directions. it lets you store incoming information for later use and reduces the risks of errors. here are some items to consider when shopping communications program: * seriously consider buying automatic programs ('robots') for access to individual online services, even if that means having to use several programs for different applications. (read chapter for more details.) * menus and help texts are important for novices, and in environments with "less motivated personnel." advanced users may find it boring. * ability to transfer data without errors. the program should have transfer protocols like xmodem, kermit, xmodem/crc, ymodem and zmodem. the xmodem protocol is the most commonly used. you need these protocols if you want to transfer compiled computer programs (e.g., .com and .exe files). they are also used when transferring compressed files, graphics and music files. * does it let you tailor it to your taste/needs? some programs let you attach batches of commands to function keys and keypress combinations. for example, by having your computer call your favorite online service by pressing the f key. * does it let you "scroll back" information having disappeared out of your screen? this may be useful when you want to respond while online to an electronic mail message. the sender's address and name, which you need to respond, have scrolled off the screen. if you cannot review the "lost" information, you may have to disconnect and call back later to send your mail. connecting to the online service -------------------------------- the first couple of times, most people think that it is very difficult. soon it becomes a simple routine. on some computers, you just press a key, and that's it. on others, you have to call and press, and watch, while things are happening. cheap is often a synonym for more work. if you have a dumb modem connected to your personal computer, these are the typical steps that you must take: ( ) start your communications program and set it up, e.g., with bps, bits word length, stop bit, no parity. (this is the most common setup.) then set the program to "online." ( ) call the number (e.g., + ) ( ) when you hear the tone from the remote modem in the phone, press data to get the modems to connect to each other (i.e., to start to "handshake"). ( ) a front panel indicator may tell you when the connection has been set up. you can start transferring data. with an ms-dos computer, an automatic modem and a powerful program preset for the job, the steps may be as follows: ( ) start the program and display the telephone directory. select a service from the list by pressing a number. ( ) the modem will call automatically to the service. when connect has been established, your user identification and password are sent at the prompts for such information. when this is done, you are free to take control. with an ms-dos computer, tapcis, and an intelligent modem, you start by selecting forums and services to access on compuserve. enter 'o' to upload and download programs, or 'n' to have it fetch new message headers and messages. tapcis will dial the number, do the job, and tell you when it's done. meanwhile, you can go out to look at the moon, or sing a song. getting started with procomm ---------------------------- procomm is cheap and probably the most commonly used communications program for ms-dos computers. it's been like this for many years, though there are many better and cheaper alternatives. an older version of the program (version . . ) is still being distributed through bulletin boards all over the world. you may give copies of this version to anyone. the requirement is that you pay a contribution of us$ to the vendor if you like it and start to use it. procomm is simple for novices, can automate the work for advanced users and be run on almost any ms-dos computer. here is some of the features: press alt-f for a pull-down window text listing features and commands. press alt+d to call a number, update the telephone directory, or select a script file for autologon to a service. procomm can emulate (pretend to be) different terminal types, like ibm and dec vt- /vt- . most services covered in this book may be well served with the setting ansi.bbs. it let you use both dumb and intelligent hayes-compatible modems. if you have the latter, select numbers from the telephone directory for autologon. if the number is busy, procomm can call back until you can get through. you can define macros to automate your work. you can have one keystroke send your user identification, another for your password, and a third key to send a sequence of commands. macros make your communication faster and safer. you can write script files to automate the online work further. you can transfer text files and binary files using automatic error detection/correction protocols, like xmodem, ymodem, telink and kermit, at speeds from to bps. adding external protocols like zmodem is relatively simple. appendix : online with the world ===================== - practical data communication - your first trip online - typical pitfalls and simple solutions - receiving (downloading) letters, text and programs - sending (uploading) letters, text and programs practical data communication ---------------------------- the first thing novices want to know is how to set up the modem and computer for communication. this may take more time than expected and often seems complex for the uninitiated. you can save yourself much sweat and frustration by asking others for help. to set up your equipment for communication is a one time job. once done, you can almost forget what you did and why. there are so many different modems, computers and programs out there. we just cannot give practical advice on the use of all of them in one short appendix. instead, we will use one example. your job is to "translate" the text into a terminology that fits your tools. once your system is set up for communication, your first job will be to find what keys to press to get the job done. how you use your communications program may vary considerably from our example. in general, however, it will be the same for most people doing manual communication. once online, the environment is the same for all users. if you plan to use automatic communications as explained in chapter , this chapter may not be that important. your program will do the job for you. still, take a few minutes and browse through the text. it may enable you to handle unexpected problems better. our example assumes that you have an ms-dos computer. not because this is the best microcomputer in the world, but because there are more of them than anything else. we assume that you have an external, intelligent hayes-compatible modem and the communications program procomm (version . . ). in this example, your modem is tested by calling my bulletin board at + . not because this is the best board in the world, but because i have full control over how it looks and feels for those using it. assembling the equipment ------------------------ you have the modem, the cable (to connect your modem with the computer), a phone cable (to connect your modem with the phone or the wall jack), and a communications program. check that the modem's power switch is off. place the modem by the computer, and plug the power supply cord (or the power adapter cord) into the ac wall socket. switch on the modem. do not use -volt equipment in -volt sockets! connect modem and computer using the modem cable. there may be several optional sockets on the computer. these are usually marked rs- , comms, modem, or just nothing. the connector may be of a flat -pins, pins, or a round -pins type. use communication port number , , or whatever else is available for this purpose. if you have several options, and the socket for communication port number seems free, use this. if not, try one of the others. next, connect the modem to the telephone line. if in luck, the modem came with a phone cable that works with your setup. if so, it is simple: . disconnect the phone cable from the telephone. insert the modular plug into the right jack on the modem. this jack is often marked with the word line, with a drawing of a modular wall jack, or another understandable icon. . you may be able to connect the phone to the modem using the phone cord that came with the modem. this may allow you to use the phone for voice, when the line is not busy with communication. (you may have to make changes in this cord to make it work with the connected phone.) this concludes the technical assembly of your equipment. next step is to install the communications program. when this is done, we will check it out. installing the program ---------------------- let us assume that you have received procomm on a diskette, and that it is set up with its default configuration. procomm.exe is the program. the other files have no importance here. enter procomm and press enter. our first task is to prepare it for communication: if you are using a monochrome display, use the command procomm /b the program will greet you by a welcome text. at the bottom of the screen, the message "creating system files" may appear (if these have not been created yet), followed by a message from the creators of the program. press enter when you have read the text. the screen will be blanked, and a text line will appear at the bottom. now is the time to test if the technical installation has been successful. the dial tone ------------- lift the receiver from the phone and check if you can hear the dial tone. if you can, turn the pages to "does the computer have contact with the modem?" if you hear nothing, there are several possible causes: * the phone is not working. this is easily checked. disconnect it from the modem, and connect it to the wall (using the original cable!). if you get a dial tone now, then the phone is in order. * the cable between the modem and the wall jack may be broken, or wrongly configured. to check this, we must first check the connection between the modem and the computer. once we know that the connection between the modem and the computer is in order, we can use the modem to check our phone cable. * the cable between the modem and the phone may be in disorder. for example, the modular phone connector may have a cabling that differs from what is assumed in your country. if there is no dial tone, then the cable between the modem and the telephone must be repaired, or replaced. does your computer have contact with the modem? ----------------------------------------------- when you first use procomm, it is preset for communication at bps, use of port and ansi-bbs. (the control line at the bottom of your screen should read: alt-f help, ansi-bbs, hdx, n , log closed, prt off, cr and cr.) * if your modem is unable to communicate at bps, you must change the setup. press alt-p (keep the alt key down while pressing p) to get the menu line settings. choice gives bps with bits word length, no parity and one stop bit. this is a common setting. select "save changes" to make the setting permanent. * if you know that your modem is not connected to the computer's port number , then change this from the same menu. choice gives com , and choice gives com . if you don't know what communication port the modem has been connected to, you have to find out by testing. do this by entering (i.e., sending to the modem) the characters at. now, the modem is supposed to respond with an ok (or with the number " ," if the modem is set to reply with numeric codes). if you get an "ok" or a " " on your display, continue reading from "does the modem have contact with the phone line?" if you can see "at" on your screen while you enter it, you have contact with the modem. this is true even if it does not send any confirmation. the modem may have been instructed not to confirm. if you see the at characters, read from "does the modem have contact with the phone line?" if there is no contact between the modem and the computer, the screen will remain blank at all times. your problem may be the cable, your choice of modem port, or the modem setup. first, check if the modem is switched on (the power switch), and that the plugs are firmly in the jacks. then let's check the modem. it may have been set not to respond to your commands. let's try to change that. enter the following command, and press enter: atq e v this should make your modem: give result codes on your screen (q ), show the characters that you enter (e ), and use ok instead of the numerical result code (v ). if you still get no ok, the reason may still be in the modem. i have seen modems get "indigestion problems" when too many commands are given to them. try give a command to return it to its factory setting. this command is not the same on all hayes-compatible modems. on most of them, you can use one of the following: at&f, atf or atz (on some modems atz is used to reset to the stored configuration). locate the correct command to use in the modem's user manual. then, try atq e v again. if you are still without success, check your choice of modem port. if there are several communication connectors at the back of your computer, test these. if this doesn't help, connect the modem cable to the most probable jack. now, test the communication port for a response from the modem using another communications program setting. press alt-p, select another port (choice - ), press esc and try "at" again (or atq e v ). if there is still no reaction, test the computer's other communications connectors. if you have a mouse connected to your computers, make sure that it is not using the same port as your communications program. problems with the communications port are often caused by other equipment. remove all extra equipment (like a pc-fax card or a mouse), and all associated software (often represented by a line starting with "driver=" in config.sys, or a resident program driving a mouse). remove all resident programs from memory before testing. if you are still at the same unfortunate stage, chances are that the problem is either in the cable or the modem. if you know others who are into data communication, visit them for help. bring your cable and your modem to have them tested in an environment where things work. it is easier to isolate a problem by testing your units in sequence on your helper's system. first, the cable. connect it between his computer and his modem. test the connection to his modem with your cable as the only foreign element. if the test is successful, your cable is ok. next, the modem. if the test is successful, your modem is in order. the most probable cause of your problems is your computer's communications port. in communications, many parts have to work together. you may have problems with more than one of them at the same time. the rule is to test step by step to eliminate possible problems. if you get no reply from your modem, when it is connected to your friend's computer, chances are that it needs to be repaired. call the seller for help. a last refuge is to buy an extra communications card for your computer . . . does your modem have contact with the phone line? ------------------------------------------------- you have contact between your computer and modem. the modem answers "ok" as assumed. we now have to test if there is contact with the phone line. that is easy. enter the following command and press enter: atq e v when the modem answers ok, enter the dialing command: atdt the modem will try to call , the number to my bbs. (you may have to prefix the number with an international code, and the country code for norway. if international calls require the prefix , enter atdt - - ). your modem will wait for connect a preset number of seconds (rarely longer than seconds). if your modem does not detect the dial tone (within the preset waiting time), it will give you the following error message no dialtone all other messages (except error) declare that the modem did detect the dial tone. if it did, continue reading from "configuring your program." no dialtone ----------- the most probable causes of no dialtone are that your phone cable is not connected, that it has been damaged, or that it is the wrong cable for the job. the latter cause is common in many countries. for example, a cable made for a telephone network in the united states, may not work in norway. a cable made for connection to a switchboard, may not work when connected to a domestic phone line. a standard, domestic american phone cable contains four lines. two of these (line number and ) carry sounds. the others are not being used. a standard norwegian domestic cable is set up in the same way, but here line number and carry sound. changing the configuration of such cables is often simple. just cut the cable in two, and put the lines together correctly. this is typically required when your modem assumes that you use it in north america, while you are in a country with different cabling. configuring your program ------------------------ the modem answers. the dial tone is being detected. procomm is installed on your hard disk. now, check if the program has been correctly configured. press alt-s to get the setup menu. select , modem setup, from this menu. choice , modem init string, is a general setup command. this command will be sent to the modem each time you start procomm. you are free to make is as long and powerful as you want. our purpose now, however, is to check if it works. most modems do not react if one element in your setup command is wrong. they respond with error (or the numeric code), and disregard the rest. procomm's standard modem init string has the following commands: ate s = s = v x s = ! these work well with most modems, provided the speed is legal. go back to the blank screen (using esc). test the init command by entering it manually. (do not enter the "!" character. this is procomm's code for enter.) if the modem reacts with error, check with the modem manual to find out what is wrong. (check if the values s = and s = are not too high.) if you have to change the init command, go back to the modem init string menu choice. enter the correct commands. remember to add the "!" at the end. press esc to get to the main configuration menu and select , terminal setup. check if terminal emulation is ansi-bbs. change choice , duplex, to full. the other factory settings are none, cr, cr, dest, bs, off, on, , off. return to the setup menu (press esc). press "s" to save the setup to disk. your setting has now been stored, and procomm is ready to be used. dialing ------- now, test your setup by calling your favorite online service. we will show how to log on to my bulletin board. you can call manually by entering atdt followed by the phone number. the most practical method, however, is to use the built-in phone directory. press alt-d to get to the phone directory. press "r" to revise the list, and enter saltrod horror show somewhere on the list. i have it as number . answer the questions like this: name: saltrod horror show number: - - - baud: parity: n databits: stop bits: echo on? n command file: (press enter, meaning that you don't want to use a script file at this point) baud can be anything from bps to bps. it's up to you, and depends on your modem's capabilities. when done, enter " " and press enter. the modem will dial the number (that you have as item on the list), and try to connect. if the number is busy, you will get a warning. you can now leave procomm (alt+x), or set it for redialing (alt+r). when set for redialing, procomm will call back until a connection has been made. when connect is received from your modem, procomm announces the fact with a beep in the computer's loudspeaker. text will start scrolling over your screen. first, a short welcome text pops up. your interactive dialog with the bulletin board can start. the first question is "what is your first name?" enter your first name. then, "what is your last name?" enter your last name. your dialog with the remote computer will continue like this. the board will ask you questions, and you will enter your answers. what may go wrong? ------------------ a setting that works beautifully when calling one bulletin board, may be a disaster when calling another service. here are some typical problems: when dialing through a switchboard (pbx). ----------------------------------------- remember to add or for a city line, when dialing out from a pbx. if you forget, you'll get nowhere. use the following command (assuming that you must enter to get a city line, and use tone signaling): atdt w if you must use for a city line and pulse dialing, use the following command atdp w register your standard dialing command in procomm's modem setup. enter alt+s and then select , modem setup. choice , dialing command. the default entry is atdt. replace this with atdt w, atdp w or whatever makes dialing work for you. no answer from the remote computer ---------------------------------- your computer has to "talk the same language" as the remote host. if the parameters of your communications program have been set incorrectly, it may be impossible to set up a connection with the service. sometimes, you get connect, but your screen only gives you strange, unintelligible 'noise' characters. the reason may be connect at an incompatible speed, a service's use of special codes for displaying text (including special language characters), or that the service requires use of a special communications program or method (as when a service starts by interrogating for the use of an offline reader). many online services require that you use certain settings. most services, however, may be reached when using the following: speed: bps bits word length, no parity, one stop bit some services (notably some unix hosts) demand bits, even parity, one stop bit. sorry, no luck! --------------- try again, just in case. the remote computer may have had a temporary problem, when you called. the ptt may have given you a particularly noisy telephone line on this attempt. if this doesn't help, recheck each point in the communications process. it is so easy to do something wrong. if nothing helps, read the service's user information manuals. only rarely will you be able to blame the communications program (unless you have made it yourself), or the equipment. most errors are caused by finger trouble and misunderstandings. testing the saltrod horror show ------------------------------- first time visitors often experience problems, and in particular if this is their first time online using a hayes-compatible modem. here are some typical problems with suggested solutions: * disable guard tones from the modem when dialing. if it has this feature, you can often turn it off. put the required command in your modem init string. * don't press enter to "wake" my system. the software will automatically detect your speed and adjust accordingly. the same applies for many services. on some, you're just asking for problems by not waiting patiently (often the case when the remote software starts by checking if you use an offline reader). * my bbs accepts from to bps asynchronous, full duplex communication. you may not succeed with bps half duplex, bell bps or bps. * start with your communications program set for bits word length, no parity and one stop bit. try bits, even parity if there is too much noise on the line (you cannot retrieve programs using this setting, though). * when your modem is set at a low transfer speed, it may not wait long enough for carrier from my modem. most modems let you set this waiting time longer by giving a value to a s-register. (read in your modem's manual about how to do this). partial success --------------- some bulletin boards offer colors and music. if your equipment is set up correctly, you can receive the welcome text in full color graphics accompanied by a melody in your computer's speaker. if it is not, chances are that you will get many strange codes on your screen, and an ugly feeling that something is wrong. there are two ways out of this problem: . ask the bulletin board to send text only (select u for utilities, and then g for graphics to change setting), . set your computer for colors and graphics. this feature is only available for callers with an ms-dos computers. you may need to add the line device=ansi.sys in your config.sys. finally, you must have a communications program that allows you to display colors on your screen. procomm set with ansi-bbs does that. downloading programs -------------------- we call the transfer of programs and files from a remote computer for downloading. it means "transfer of data to your computer and storage of the data (down) on your local disk." you are downloading, when you call my board to retrieve a program. when you, overwhelmed by gratitude, send one of your favorite programs to my bulletin board, then we call it uploading. data can be many things. it may be news from washington post, a digital picture, an executable program, a pile of invoices, a piece of music, a voice file, an animated sequence of pictures and music, or compressed library files. downloading "plain text" (also called "plain ascii" or "dos text" on ms-dos machines) is relatively easy. such text usually only contains characters between number (space character) and (the ~ character) in the ascii table. characters with lower numbers have special functions (like the control characters escape and ctrl+c). these may not even be displayed on your screen. characters with higher numbers are used for graphics, special national characters, and other applications. special transfer methods are often required, when your data contains text with characters outside ascii number through . read under "protocol transfers" below for more information about how to do this. downloading text ---------------- most communication programs require that you begin by opening a file. they ask you to enter a file name. from this point and onwards all incoming text will be stored in this file until you say stop. communication programs do this in different ways. some let incoming data flow through a temporary storage area using the principle first in, first out. when you open a file, it starts storing data from the beginning of the temporary storage area, though this text may have scrolled off your screen some time ago. most communication programs start storing data from now. procomm works this way. you start downloading of text by pressing the pgdn key. a window will appear on your screen giving you a choice between various methods. select ascii. in another window, you are asked to enter a file name. when done, storage of incoming data starts. you stop the process by pressing the esc key. procomm has another method called "file logging." you start this by pressing alt-f . procomm requests the file name, and the storage process starts. (read under "strip" about the difference between these methods.) if you forget to tell procomm to store incoming data, then you will most probably lose this data for ever. do not waste time and money by forgetting to store what you receive! the term "append" ----------------- when downloading text - or anything - it is important to know whether you are appending information to an existing file, or overwriting it (i.e., destroying the old text). most communication programs complain with an audible signal, when you try to overwrite an existing file. they will ask you if you really want to delete it, or append the current data. the term "strip" ---------------- the purpose of 'strip' is to remove something from incoming data or to change it on the fly. when you use ascii downloading with procomm, all incoming data are being stored. this includes so-called escape sequences. if you use file logging, all control characters (except the line feed and new page characters) are being removed (filtered). if you download text from a computer that uses other ascii characters for linefeed and return, save time by having the communications program convert them on the fly to their correct form for your computer. you define strip procedures through procomm's setup menu (alt- s). you can also request automatic conversion of characters to graphics values, or local language variants. national characters ------------------- special national characters cause problems in many countries. one reason is that they are represented by different internal codes on various hardware platforms, and that some networks are unable to transmit -bits data. some systems represent these special characters by a -bit code, others by an -bit code. some depend on the computer having an internal national language rom, or that it uses a special (resident) conversion program. what gives good results on an ms-dos computer, may give rubbish on a macintosh, amiga, atari, or a pc using ms windows. many communication programs have features that can help you solve at least some these problems. they let you make translation tables for automatic conversion of special incoming and outgoing characters. if you call a scandinavian online service using bits even parity, many transfer the national special characters using the ascii code equivalents of number , , , , , and . similar, more or less formal standards are in place in other countries. protocol transfers ------------------ if your purpose is to transfer digitized pictures, a computer program, a batch of invoices, a piece of music or an animated sequence of pictures, it's important that each character (bit) arrives correctly. we achieve this by using protocol transfers. these files often contain control or binary characters. you cannot transfer binary files without the use of special methods. it is easy to understand why we need protocol transfers when retrieving plain text as tables of numbers, statistics, and financial reports. transfer errors may have fatal consequences. protocol transfers are also required when transferring word processor text files having imbedded control codes (like text made with wordperfect), and compressed files. here is an example: downloading public domain software ---------------------------------- first, you need the names and features of the programs that can be downloaded from a service. on most bulletin boards, you must enter a command to navigate to the file library. here, they normally greet you with a menu listing available commands. try h (for help!) or ? when you are stuck. public domain and shareware programs are stored in subdirectories on my bulletin board. the directories have numerical names. utility programs for ms-dos computers are stored in directory . games are stored in directory . enter l for a list of available directories (other bulletin boards may use different commands). enter "l " to list the files in directory . this will give file names, lengths in characters (to help you estimate download time), creation dates, and a short description of each file. you can search for files of interest. when looking for programs that can help you get more out of a printer, you may search using keywords like "printer." some programs are made available in text form. this is the case with older basic programs. (the file name extensions .bas, .asc or .txt suggest that the files contain plain text.) you can download these files using ascii. most programs are stored in their executable form, or as one executable file among several in a compressed transfer file (a library of files). on my board, most of these files have the file name extension .exe or .com. what transfer protocol to use, depends on what is available in your communications program. the protocol transfer method explained -------------------------------------- the protocol transfer algorithms use methods to check the transfer with automatic error correction. in principle, they work like this: the sending program calculates a check sum based on the contents of the file. the receiving program does the same calculation and compares the result with the senders' check sum. if the figures match, the transfer was successful. if not, all or part of the file will be retransmitted. these are some popular protocols: xmodem ------ has automatic error detection and correction. most modern programs have this feature. xmodem exists in programs for ms-dos computers, cp/m computers, apple, trs- model , etc. it is the most commonly used transfer protocol. xmodem assumes -bit settings in your communications program. the file to be sent is split up into bit sized blocks (or "packets") before transfer. the sender calculates the check sum and adds a check sum bit at the end of each packet. (packing, sending and checking is done automatically by the software.) the receiving program calculates its own check sum and compares with the sender's. if an error is detected, xmodem will request retransmission of the last block. xmodem is reasonably good when there is little noise on the telephone line is low. when the line is bad, however, there is always a chance that the transfer will stop. you cannot use xmodem on computer networks that use ascii flow control or escape codes. the transfer commands must be given to both computers. you can only transfer one file per command. xmodem's "packet size" (block length) is short. this has an impact on transfer speed, and especially when downloading from timesharing systems, packet switched networks, via satellites, and when using buffered (error correcting) modems. the control method ( -bit check sum) and unprotected transactions give a low level of safety against errors in the transmission. the transferred file may contain bytes with noise characters (at the end). the creation date of the file is lost in the transfer. these weaknesses have given us better methods. here are some of them: xmodem/crc ---------- crc is an abbreviation for cyclical redundancy check. the method guarantees . percent free transfer. it still has the other weaknesses of ordinary xmodem transfers. ymodem batch ------------ is faster than xmodem and gives a high level of safety in the transfers. when used with some programs, ymodem can transfer the files' creation time/date. you can transfer updated documents. this will replace documents with an older creation date. only one party must enter the file name. ymodem takes care of the rest. kermit ------ is used on many computer platforms, and especially where they use a terminal emulation mode (like vt- ) which makes the use of xmodem impossible. kermit is one of the few asynchronous error correction protocols that functions well when exchanging files having half duplex ibm front-end machines. kermit can transfer more than one file at the time. super-kermit ------------ is also called kermit with sliding windows. it can transfer many packets before stopping to check the transfer. the protocol is much faster than xmodem. zmodem ------ is currently the fastest transfer protocol for many applications. all transactions are protected with a -bit or -bit crc. zmodem is immune against most error conditions that prevent traditional protocols to achieve correct transfer. zmodem transfers the creation date of the file and its exact contents. the file name is read once, and all transfer commands may be given by the sending program. decompression of files ---------------------- if a file has name extensions like zip, lzh, arc, pak, lqr, lbr, zoo, arj, or qqq, you are facing a compressed file. we use such files to achieve faster transfers. files having the extension .exe or .com may be compressed files that have been converted into a self-extract format. to retrieve the files from a self-extract compressed file, just enter the file's name. to decompress files that have not been made self-extract, you need a utility program. these programs have many names and are available through most bulletin boards. transfer problems ----------------- most transfer problems are caused by the communication programs and their (lack of) features. some procomm users have problems with the kermit protocol. tip: use bit world length and no parity in your program setup. bits and even parity does not always work (on version . . ). uploading --------- the transfer of data "the other way," i.e., from your disk to a remote computer, requires that you start by making some decisions. is the file to be sent as plain ascii? should i compress it in a distribution file to reduce transfer time, and make it easier to handle for the recipient? if you are transferring a text file containing special national characters, then these may have to be converted to another format. if your text contains blank lines (like blank lines between paragraphs), you may have to insert a space character at the start of all such lines. some systems interpret a blank line as a signal telling that transmission is done. the invisible space character prevents this. some hosts have limitations on line length. they may require that lines be shorter than characters. if you send lines that are too long, the result may be fatal. sending electronic mail ----------------------- if you send your mail too fast, some online services tend to get digestion problems. you must be very accurate with the format of your message. it has to agree with the host machine's rules about line length, and maximum number of lines per message. let's assume that you want to send the following message to an electronic mailbox: to: datatid cc: anne-tove vestfossen sj: merry christmas! text: thanks for the box with herring. the taste was formidable. etc .. etc... etc... greetings, odd if this is all you have to say, doing it manually may be as fast as doing it automatically. however, if the line containing "etc .. etc .." is two full pages of text, you may feel differently. then, the best may be to upload a prewritten letter. many procomm users prefer to split the job in two. they enter the first four lines manually, and upload the body of the text (when the remote computer is ready to receive). press pgup to get a menu of various uploading protocols. select ascii for transfer of plain text. procomm will ask for the name of the file, which contains your letter. enter the name, and the file will be sent. slow down with "pacing" ----------------------- sometimes, the pgup method is just what you need. on other days, strange things may stop you in the middle of your transfer. one typical reason is that procomm is sending it too fast for the recipient. "pacing" is a method used to slow the speed of the transfer to a level that the recipient can handle. procomm lets you set a tiny pause after each line sent. another technique is to ask the program to wait for a given character (a "go-character"), before allowing it to send the next line. for example: the character ":" is often used in the prompts for the next line on bulletin boards. protocol transfers may be easier -------------------------------- you may find it easier to use a transfer protocol. with procomm, press the pgup key, and the program will ask for a protocol. select kermit or something else. the program will ask for a file name, you enter it, and off it goes. you will have no problems with blank lines, or lines that are too long. at times, even this will fail. the most common reasons are: * the recipient requires that procomm be set for -bits word length, no parity, stop bit, when using this protocol, but you have it set differently. * you think that the recipient's version of ymodem is the same that you have. wrong! total failure. do the following to upload the file test.txt to my bulletin board using xmodem: . navigate to the file area. tell shs what you want by using the following command: u;test.txt;x . press pgup, select xmodem, enter a file name (test.txt), and the transfer will start. (if you're too slow, shs may be tired of waiting for your commands . . .) . when the transfer is completed, my board will ask for a short description of the file. enter it, and you're done. enter g (for goodbye), and disconnect. appendix : explanation of some frequently used terms ========================================= we have included some terms that are commonly used in the online world. for more information, get a copy of "fyi: internet user's glossary." to get this file, send email to service@nic.ddn.mil with the following command in the subject of your mail: rfc . address ------- the string of characters that you must give an electronic mail program to direct a message to a particular person. the term "internet address" often refers to an assigned number, which identifies a host on this network. anonymous ftp ------------- the procedure of connecting to a remote computer, as an anonymous or guest user, to transfer files back to your computer. see ftp for more information. anon-ftp -------- see anonymous ftp. ansi ---- ( ) ansi is an organization that sets standards. ( ) 'ansi graphics' (ref. the term ansi-bbs) is a set of cursor control codes that originated on the vt terminal. many online services use these codes to help improve the sending of characters to communication programs. it uses the escape character, followed by other characters, to move the cursor on the screen, change color, and more. archie ------ an electronic directory service for locating information throughout the internet. you can use archie to locate files on anonymous ftp archive sites, other online directories and resource listings. it is useful for finding free software. archie offers access to the "whatis" description database. this database contains descriptions that include the name and a brief synopsis of the large number of public domain software, datasets and informational documents located on the internet. this book emphasizes email access to archie. you can also reach archie servers by telnet to one of the following addresses: archie.au . . . (australian server) archie.mcgill.ca . . . (canada) archie.funet.fi . . . (finland/europe s.) archie.th-darmstadt . . . (germany) archie.cs.huji.ac.il . . . (israel server) archie.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp . . . (japan) archie.sogang.ac.kr . . . (korea) archie.nz . . . (new zealand) archie.ncu.edu.tw . . . (taiwan) archie.doc.ic.ac.uk . . . (uk/england server) archie.rutgers.edu . . . (u.s.a.) archie server ------------- an email-based file transfer facility offered by some systems connected to the internet. ascii ----- the american standard code for information interchange. a standard seven-bit code created to achieve compatibility between various types of data processing equipment. ascii, pronounced "ask-key," is the common code for microcomputer equipment. the standard ascii character set consists of decimal numbers ranging from zero through assigned to letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and the most common special characters. the extended ascii character set also consists of decimal numbers and ranges from through representing additional special, mathematical, graphic, and foreign characters. ascii download -------------- retrieval of plain ascii text (without special codes). normally, it takes place without automatic error correction, but it is typically managed by xon/xoff flow control. asynchronous transfer --------------------- serial communication between two computers. when signals are sent to a computer at irregular intervals, they are described as asynchronous. data is sent at irregular intervals by preceding each character with a start bit and following it with a stop bit. asynchronous transmission allows a character to be sent at random after the preceding character has been sent, without regard to any timing device. consequently, in case of line noise, the modem can find out right away where the next byte should start. autodial -------- when a modem dials a telephone number automatically. autodial may be started by the user entering the number manually, or the number may be sent automatically by the communications program (for example after having been selected from a phone register). baud ---- a unit of measurement that shows the number of discrete signal elements, such as bits, that can be sent per second. bits per second (bps) is the number of binary digits sent in one second. there is a difference between bps and baud rate, and the two are often confused. for example, a device such as a modem said to send at baud is not correct. it actually sends bits per second. both baud rate and bps refer to the rate at which the bits within a single frame are sent. the gaps between the frames can be of variable length. accordingly, neither baud rate nor bps refer accurately to the rate at which information is actually being transferred. bbs --- bulletin board or bulletin board system. see bulletin board. bell ---- standard frequencies used in older modems made in the united states. the standard for bps is called bell . the standard for bps full duplex is called bell a. modems using these standards are normally unable to communicate with ccitt standard modems at these speeds. big ---- coding scheme developed in taiwan for using chinese on computers. there are different varieties of big codes, the most common being et big (the code used by the taiwanese program eten, pronounced yi tian ) and hku big (the code used for programs developed at hong kong university). et big files must be read with the eten operating system. binary ------ the base number system in which only the digits and are used is called the binary system. the binary system lets us express any number, if we have enough bits, as a combination of 's and 's. also used to express conditions like on/off, true/false, yes/no. bits ---- bit is an abbreviation for binary digit. computer words and data are made-up of bits, the smallest unit of information. a bit can be either zero or one, represented in a circuit by an off or on state, respectively. the bits are set on or off to store data, or to form a code that in turn sends instructions to the computer's central processing unit. bits per second (bps) --------------------- bits per second (bps) is the number of binary digits sent in one second. it refers to the rate at which the bits within a single frame are sent ('frame' is another term for 'packet'). the gaps between frames can be of variable length. accordingly, bps does not refer to the rate at which information is actually being transferred. we usually estimate the amount of characters transferred per second (cps) by dividing the number of bps by . example: bps transfers around characters per second. boolean ------- search algorithm built on the algebraic theories of the english mathematician george booles. boolean algorithms are used in online databases to help narrow down the number of hits using the words and, or, and not. bounce ------ the return of a piece of mail because of an error in its delivery. bps --- abbreviation for bits per second. see above. browse ------ to view and possibly edit a file of data on screen similar to handling text in a word processing document. bulletin board -------------- a computer, often a microcomputer, set up to receive calls and work as an online service. the bbses let users communicate with each other through message bases, and exchange files. they and may also offer other services (like news, data base searches, and online shopping). carrier ------- the tone that the modem sends over a phone line before any data is sent on it. this tone has a fixed frequency and a fixed amplitude. it is then modified to indicate data. character --------- here used about a letter, a number or another typographical symbol or code. ccitt ----- the consultative committee for international telephony and telegraphy. an international consultative committee, organized by the united nations. membership includes telephone, governmental post, and telegraph authorities, scientific and trade associations, and private companies. ccitt is part of the international telecommunications union, a united nations treaty organization based in geneva, switzerland. ccitt sets international communications recommendations. these are often adopted as standards. it also develops interface, modem, and data network recommendations. the x. protocol for access to packet-switched networks was originally a recommendation of ccitt. a wide range of ccitt documents is available through the teledoc database of the international telecommunication union (itu): * ccitt and ccir administrative documents * lists of contributions (substantive input/proposals) to ccitt and ccir study groups * lists of ccitt reports and recommendations (i.e., standards) * summaries of ccitt new or revised recommendations * ccitt and ccir meeting schedules and other information concerning study groups structures and activities. for information, write to shaw@itu.arcom.ch or bautista@itu.arcom.ch the database is at teledoc@itu.arcom.ch . com port -------- a com port (or communication port) is a communications channel or pathway over which data is transferred between remote computing devices. ms-dos computers may have as many as four com ports, com , com , com , and com . these are serial ports most often used with a modem to set up a communications channel over telephone lines. they can also be used to send data to a serial printer, or to connect a serial mouse. conference ---------- also called sig (special interest group), forum, roundtable, echo. a conference is an area on a bulletin board or online service set up as a mini board. most conferences have separate message bases and often also file libraries and bulletins. conferences are focused on topics, like politics, games, multimedia and product support. connect time ------------ a term used for the hours, minutes, and seconds that a user is connected to an online service. on several commercial services, users have to pay for connect time. cps --- characters per second. see bits per second. data ---- information of any kind, including binary, decimal or hexadecimal numbers, integer numbers, text strings, etc. database -------- a database is a highly structured file (or set of files) that tries to provide all the information assigned to a particular subject and to allow programs to access only items they need. online services offer databases that users can search to find full-text or bibliographic references to desired topics. dce/dte ------- data communications equipment/data terminal equipment. equipment connected to an rs connector must be either a dce (like a modem or a printer) or a dte (computer or terminal). the term defines the types of equipment that will "talk" and "listen." default ------- when a value, parameter, attribute, or option is assigned by a communications program, modem, or online system unless something else is specified, it is called the default. for example, communication programs often have prespecified values for baud rate, bit size and parity that are used unless alternative values are given. these prespecified values are called the defaults. some services give users a choice between two or more options. if a selection is not made by the user, then a selection is automatically assigned, by default. discussion list --------------- see mailing list. domain name system (dns) ------------------------ email addressing system used in networks such as internet and bitnet. the internet dns consists of a hierarchical sequence of names, from the most specific to the most general (left to right), separated by dots, for example nic.ddn.mil. doors ----- a service offered by many bulletin boards to allow the user to leave the (remote) main software system to use one or several independent programs, like games and databases. downloading ----------- the transfer of data from an online service and "down" to your computers' disk. dtr --- data terminal ready is a circuit which, when on, tells the modem that your computer is ready to communicate. most modems are unable to tell your computer that a connection has been set up with a remote computer before this circuit has been switched off. if your computer turns this signal off, while it is in a dialog with a remote computer, the modem will normally disconnect. duplex ------ describes how you see text entered by the keyboard. when the setting is half duplex, all characters entered on your computer for transfer to an online service (or your modem) will be displayed. in addition, you will normally receive an echo from the online service (or modem). the result will often 'bbee lliikkee tthhiiss'. when using the setting full duplex, typed characters will not be shown. what you see, are characters echoed back to you from the online service and/or your modem. echo ---- ( ) when data is being sent, the receiving device often resends the information back so the sending device can be sure it was received correctly. ( ) term used on fidonet for this network's system of exchanging conferences (parallel conferencing). email ----- abbreviation for electronic mail. faq --- "frequently asked questions" about services on the internet. a list of faq documents is posted every four to six weeks to the usenet newsgroup news.announce.newusers. file server ----------- a file server is a device that "serves" files to everyone on a network. it allows everyone on the network to get files in a single place, on one computer. typically, it is a combination computer, data management software, and large capacity hard disk drive. file transfer ------------- the copying of a file from one computer to another over a computer network. finger ------ a program on computers directly connected to the internet that returns information about a registered user on a system. finger is useful before initiating chats, known on the internet as "talk." flame ----- a "flame" is a conference message sent by someone who generally disagrees so violently that they are willing to sink to personal attacks. flames can be extremely annoying, and can get the writer banished from several conference networks. fractal -------- a mathematical algorithm from which an image can be created. a fractal formula generates a fractal picture composed of an image based on a basic pattern. an outgrowth of chaos mathematics, it is being used for compressing and decompressing high quality images. generally, a fractally compressed image has an extremely small file size. ftp (file transfer protocol) ---------------------------- a program on the internet for sending and receiving files to and from a remote computer to your local host. ftp lets you connect to many remote computers, as an anonymous or guest user, to transfer files back to your computer. ftp only lets you list file directories on foreign systems, and get or retrieve files. you cannot browse menus, send email, or search databases. usually, type ftp at your system prompt, login on the remote system, and ask for the file you want to receive. it transfers to your local host machine. (for more on this, read under "internet" in appendix .) unless your computer is directly connected to the internet, the retrieved software will have to be transferred from your local host machine to your pc. where ftp is not available, you may use ftpmail (see chapter ). full duplex ----------- the term full-duplex means the transmission of data in two directions simultaneously as from a terminal to a computer or from the computer to the terminal. full-duplex is simultaneous two-way communication. full-text database ------------------ a database containing the full text of an article, a chapter in a book, or a book. the contents are not limited to abstracted information (indexes, bibliographic information). fyi --- "for your information." on the internet, a subseries of rfcs that are not technical standards or descriptions of protocols. gateway ------- here, we use the term gateway about an interconnection between two (or more) online services, set up to allow a user of one service to use the other service's offerings through the first service's user interface. the term also has other meanings: a gateway provides an interconnection between two networks with different communications protocols. gateways operate at the th through th layer of the osi model. for example, a pad (a packet assembler/disassembler) is a device used to interface non-x. devices to an x. network. the pad serves as a gateway. protocol converters are gateways between networks. the gateway, provided by an adapter card in a workstation, enables the network to perform as if it were a mainframe terminal connected directly to the mainframe. gopher ------ a world wide information service with many implementations. it works from a top-level subject-oriented menu system that accesses other information services across the internet. gopher combines a finding and fetching capability in one tool. gopher gets information from certain locations on the internet to which it is connected, and brings the information to your computer. it can also get information via other gophers at other locations connected to yet other hosts. the telneting or file transfer protocols are transparent to the user. "common questions and answers about the internet gopher" are posted to the following usenet newsgroups comp.infosystems.gopher, comp.answers, and news.answers every two weeks. the most recent version of this faq is also available by anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu in the /pub/usenet/news.answers directory. the file is called gopher.faq. to get it by email, write mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the command "send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body of the text. guobiao ------- coding scheme for using chinese on computers developed in mainland china. for more information, send email to listserv@uga.bitnet with one of the following commands in the text of your mail: get pc help (for pc users) get mac help (macintosh users) get cxterm help (x windows users) half duplex ----------- the term half-duplex means the transmission of data in either direction but only one direction at a time. ham --- amateur radio. handle ------ an alias used on a bulletin board or online service instead of your real name. often used in chats. header ------ ( ) in an email message, the part that precedes the body of a message and contains, among other things, the message originator, date and time. ( ) on a packet switched network, the portion of a package, preceding the actual data, containing source and destination addresses, and error checking and other fields. host ---- a term for host computer, remote computer or online service. here, we use it about a timesharing computer, a bbs system, or a central computer that controls a network and delivers online services. hytelnet -------- ( ) an internet service offering access to many other services, including university and library catalogues around the world. prefers vt- emulation. (telnet herald.usask.ca. login: hytelnet) the hytelnet anonymous ftp archive is at ftp.usask.ca. get the readme file in the /pub/hytelnet directory. ( ) a memory resident utility (ms-dos) that provides instant information on internet-accessible library catalogues, free-nets, campus wide information servers, gophers, wais, and much more. the program is available by ftp from access.usask.ca in the /pub/hytelnet/pc/ directory. file name is hytelnxx.zip where xx is the number of the latest version. hytel-l@kentvm.bitnet is a mailing list for announcements of new versions. information utility ------------------- a term often used about online services (not unlike the term power utility). internet -------- see appendix . internet number --------------- see ip address ip (internet protocol) ---------------------- the internet standard protocol that provides a common layer over dissimilar networks, used to move packets between host computers and through gateways if necessary. for more information, send a message to service@nic.ddn.mil with the following text in the subject title: rfc . ip address ---------- every machine on the internet has a unique address, called its internet number or ip address. usually, this address is represented by four numbers joined by periods ('.'), like . . . . the first two or three pieces represent the network that the system is on, called its subnet. for example, all of the computers for wesleyan university in the u.s.a. are in the subnet . , while the number in the previous paragraph represents a full address to one of the university's computers. irc --- internet relay chat is a worldwide "party line" protocol that allows one to converse with others in real time. isdn ---- an emerging technology being offered by many telephone carriers of the world. isdn combines voice and digital network services in a single medium, making it possible to offer customers digital data services as well as voice connections through a single "wire." the standards that define isdn are specified by ccitt. iso --- the international organization for standardization. a voluntary, nontreaty organization responsible for creating international standards in many areas, including computers and communications. its members are the national standards organizations of the member countries, including ansi for the u.s. iso is coordinator of the main internet networking standards that are in use today. iso@nic.ddn.mil is a mailing list focusing on the iso protocol stack. jis --- a japanese industry standard code for presenting the japanese character set kanji on computers. jis defines special ranges of user-defined characters. only the most popular ones are included. the newer shift jis standard sets aside certain character codes to signal the start of a two-character sequence. together, these define a single kanji metacharacter. there are many oddities to be found in handling kanji over the network. sending jis-encoded messages through the internet is done using a -bit code (standardized on junet). unfortunately, it incorporates the esc character, which some systems will filter out. (this problem can be overcome by using uuencoding.) some services, like apicnet in tokyo, converts outgoing kanji messages automatically to -bit format. jvarcserv --------- archive server for fidonet modelled after archie for the internet. it maintains file lists from fidonet systems throughout its area and will do searches on these file lists based on netmail requests made to it by remote systems. jvarcserv lets you search through file listings for the program you are looking for. it will send you an email message back telling you the bbs name, phone number, and file section of all the systems in the network that match the given criteria. kb -- kilobyte. a unit of data storage size which represents characters of information. kbits ----- , bits. kermit ------ protocol designed for transferring files between microcomputers and mainframe computers developed by catchings at columbia university. there are both public domain, and copyrighted kermit programs. some of these programs are complete programs in themselves offering the communication functions needed for the particular machine on which they are running. the complete kermit protocol manual and the source code for various versions are available from: kermit distribution, ( ) - columbia university center for computing activities west street, new york, ny knowbot ------- experimental directory services using intelligent computer programs that automate the search and gathering of data from distributed databases. the concept behind the knowbot is that it is supposed to be a knowledge robot -- something that goes hunting for information on the internet. to reach a knowbot: telnet cnri.reston.va.us port lan --- local area network. a data network intended to serve an area of only a few square kilometers or less. lap-m ----- link access procedure for modems is a ccitt standard for modem modulation and error control. it is the primary basis for the ccitt v. protocol. library ------- is used on online services about a collection of related databases (that you may search in) or files (that may be retrieved). list ---- file-viewing program for ms-dos computers (see chapter ). registration: us$ to buerg software, white oak circle, petaluma, ca , u.s.a. ( ). listserv -------- an automated mailing list distribution system enabling online discussions of technical and nontechnical issues conducted by electronic mail throughout the internet. the listserv program was originally designed for the bitnet/earn networks. similar lists, often using the unix readnews or rn facility, are available on the internet. lookfor ------- fast and flexible shareware program for boolean searches in text files. registration: us$ plus postage to david l. trafton, stoneham rd., bethesda, md. , u.s.a. lurking ------- no active participation by a subscriber to a mailing list, a conference, or usenet newsgroup. a person who is lurking is just listening to the discussion. mailbase -------- a program functioning like a listserv. for more information about the mailbase at newcastle university (england), send email to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk containing the following commands: send mailbase overview (for a general guide to mailbase) send mailbase userhelp (for a user guide) lists (for a list of available forums) this mailbase managed mailing lists in july . mail gateway ------------ a machine that connects to two or more electronic mail systems (including dissimilar mail systems) and transfers messages among them. mailing list ------------ a possibly moderated discussion group on the internet, distributed via email from a central computer maintaining the list of people involved in the discussion. anyone can send a message to a single mailing list address. the message is "reflected" to everyone on the list of addresses. the members of that list can respond, and the responses are reflected, forming a discussion group. (see listservers) mail path --------- a series of machine names used to direct electronic mail from one user to the other. mail server ----------- a software program that distributes files or information in response to requests sent by email. mhs --- ( ) message handling service. electronic mail software from action technologies licensed by novell for its netware operating systems. provides message routing and store and forward capabilities. mhs has gateways into profs, and x. message systems. it has been augmented with a directory naming service and binary attachments. ( ) message handling system. the standard defined by ccitt as x. and by iso as message-oriented text interchange standard (motis). mhs is the x. family of services and protocols that provides the functions for global email transfer among local mail systems. mnp --- microcom networking protocol. a proprietary standard of error control and data compression. modem ----- an acronym for modulator-demodulator. it is a device that converts digital data from a computer or terminal into analog data that can be sent over telephone lines. on the receiving end, it converts the analog data back to digital data. most modern modems can handle the dialing and answering of a telephone call and generate the speed of the data transmission, measured in bits per second, or baud rates. the telephone industry sometimes refers to a modem as a dataset. moderator --------- a person, or a small group of people, who manage moderated mailing lists and newsgroups. moderators are responsible for deciding which email submissions are passed on to list. mud --- multi-user dungeon. a multi-user, text based, virtual reality game. naplps ------ north american presentation-level protocol syntax. a text and graphics data transmission format for sending large amounts of information between computers. it was designed for the encoding of alphanumeric, alpha-mosaic, alpha-geometric and alpha-photographic constructs. the standard is resolution independent and device independent, and can easily accommodate international character sets, bit-mapped images in color, animation and sound. naplps was originally developed for videotext and teletext systems through the canadian standards association (csa-t - . it was later enhanced by at&t, and in became an ansi standard (ansi-x . - ). some videotext systems, including prodigy (u.s.a.), are based on naplps. on compuserve, naplps has been replaced with a newer protocol called gif, graphics interchange format. netfind ------- internet directory services that allow users to get information about individuals. search by name and organization/location. for more information, send email to listserv@brownvm.brown.edu with the following text in the body of your mail "get netfind help". netiquette ---------- a pun on "etiquette" referring to proper behavior on a network. netnews ------- see: usenet. network ------- a data communications system which interconnects computer systems at various sites. nic --- network information center. an organization that provides users with information about services provided by the internet network. nren ---- the national research and education network. a proposed computer network to be built in the u.s.a. nua --- network user address. the network address in a packet data network. the electronic number that is sent to the network to connect to an online service. also, called x. address. nui --- network user identification. the user name/password that you use to get access to (and use) a commercial packet switched network. offline ------- has the opposite meaning of "online" (see below). it signifies that your computer is not in direct communication with a remote online service. offline reader -------------- a computer program making the handling of mail and files from online services easier (and cheaper). some also provides automatic mail and file transfers. typically, you first connect to an online service (often a bbs) to capture new mail in a compressed file (typically through a "qmail door program.") many offline mail reader programs are idle while this goes on, while others can do communications as well. when disconnected from the service, the offline reader works as a combination message data base and message editor. it gives you the feeling of still being connected to the online service, while actually being completely disconnected. when you have read and replied to all messages offline, the offline reader creates a compressed "packet" containing any replies entered. some also let you prepare packets containing commands to join or leave conferences, subscribe to or signoff from special services, and download files. then, you dial back to the bbs to upload (send) the packet, either using the offline reader's communications module, or another communications program. readers are available for ms-dos, ms-windows, macintosh, amiga, atari st, unix, and cp/m computers. the programs may be downloaded from many bbses, and commercial services. online ------ in this book, it signifies the act of being in direct communication with a remote computer's central processing unit. an online database is a file of information that can be directly accessed by the user. osi --- open system interconnection. a set of protocols designed to be an international standard method for connecting unlike computers and networks. ozcis ----- dos-based program that automates access to compuserve using an elaborate array of menus. free for personal use. contact: ozarks west software, gleneagle drive, colorado springs, co , u.s.a. packet ------ ( ) a group of bits sent by a modem that comprise a byte of information. ( ) a group of bytes sent by a file transfer protocol. packet data networks -------------------- also called packet switching networks (pdn). value added networks offering long distance computer communications. they let users access a remote computer, by dialing a local node, or access point. the packet data networks use high speed digital links, which can be land lines or satellite communications, to transmit data from one computer to another using packets of data. they use synchronous communications, usually with the x. protocol. the routes are continually optimized, and successive packets of the same message need not necessarily follow the same path. packet switching ---------------- sending data in packets through a network to some remote location. the data to be sent is subdivided into individual packets of data, each having a unique identification and carrying its destination address. this allows each packet to go by a different route. the packet id lets the data be reassembled in proper sequence. pc -- personal computer. pdn --- see packet data networks. postmaster ---------- on the internet, the person responsible for handling electronic mail problems, answering queries about users, and other related work at a site. prompt ------ several times during interactive dialogs with online services, the flow of data stops while the host computer waits for commands from the user. at this point, the service often presents the user with a reminder, a cue, a prompt. these are some typical prompts: ? ! what now? (read) next letter - ulrik > system news - > enter #, <h>elp, or <cr> to continue? action ==> (inbox) command: enter command or <return> --> protocol -------- a formal description of message formats and the rules two computers must follow to exchange messages. protocols can describe low-level details of machine-to-machine interface (e.g., the order in which bits and bytes are sent across the wire), or high-level exchanges between allocation programs (e.g., the way in which two programs transfer a file across the internet). proyam ------ powerful script-driven communications program. us$ + $ for postage from omen technology inc., -v nw sauvie island rd, portland, oregon , u.s.a. (visa and eurocard - ) pss --- british telecom's packet switch stream, an x. packet data network. ptt --- postal telegraph and telephone. a telephone service provider, often a monopoly, in a particular country. qwk --- qwikmail. a common offline message file format for bulletin boards offering mail through a qmail door. the .qwk door and file format has been used to develop entire bbs networks (example: ilink.) see "offline reader." rfc --- the internet's request for comments document series. working notes of the internet research and development community. script files ------------ a set of commands that enable a communications program to execute a given set of tasks automatically (macro commands). server ------ a provider of resources (e.g., file servers and name servers). sig --- special interest group. snail mail ---------- a pejorative term referring to the national postal service in different countries. string search ------------- a method for searching a database. works like the search function in a common word processor program. on online services, your commands will often search the full document (including the title, subtitles, keywords, and the full text). sometimes, string searches just return a line or a few lines around the hit. in other cases, they return the full screen or the full document. sysop ----- common name used on bulletin boards for system operator. this is the person in charge of maintenance and helping users. system ------ generic name for a computer with connected equipment or for an online service or bulletin board. talk ---- a command on the internet, which may remind of irc, but is a single link between two parties only. tapcis ------ a program for automatic access to compuserve. it lets callers read and respond to personal email and forum message threads offline, and download files. contact: support group, inc., lake technology park, mchenry, md , u.s.a. also: tapcis forum. internet mail: . @compuserve.com. on compuserve: , . registration: us$ . . tcp/ip ------ transmission control protocol/internet protocol. set of communications protocols that internetwork dissimilar systems connected to the internet. tcp/ip supports services such as remote login (telnet), file transfer (ftp), and mail (smtp). telnet ------ a program on the internet that allows logins to another computer to run software there. telnet allows a user at one site to interact with a remote system at another site as if the user's terminal was connected directly to the remote computer. with telnet, you can browse menus, read text files, use gopher services, and search online databases. sometimes, you can join live, interactive games and chat with other callers. usually, you cannot download files or list file directories. telnet is not available to users who have email only access to the internet. to telnet a remote computer, you must know its name. this can either be in words, like "vm .nodak.edu", or a numeric address, like " . . . ". some services require that you connect to a specific "port" on the remote system. enter the port number, if there is one, after the internet address. for a list of special internet connections, send email to bbslist@aug .augsburg.edu. you can also get it by ftp or gopher to csd .csd.uwm.edu, and through alt.internet.services on usenet. terminal emulator ----------------- a program that allows a computer to emulate a terminal. the workstation appears as a given type of terminal to the remote host. trickle ------- servers on the internet offering the simtel shareware and public domain files by email (uuencoded). these servers include: trickle@trearn.bitnet (turkey) trickle@bbrnsf .bitnet (belgium) trickle@taunivm.bitnet (israel) trickle@imipoli.bitnet (italy) trickle@db fub .bitnet (germany) trickle@awiwuw .bitnet (austria) trickle@unalcol.bitnet (colombia) for more information and a list of trickle servers, send a message to one of these addresses with the command "/help" in the body of your text. tty --- abbreviation for teletype, a special type of writing terminal (electrical/mechanical). also, known as 'dumb terminal'. tty mode -------- this is when a communications program emulates a tty machine, which only involves printing characters and recognizing the linefeed, carriage return and backspace characters. unix ---- an operating system that supports multi-user and multitasking operations. uploading --------- the act of transferring data from your computer's disk (up) to an online service and storage there. usenet ------ a global bulletin board, of sorts, in which millions of people exchange public information on every conceivable topic. for more information, see appendix . uucp ---- see appendix . veronica -------- a service on the internet. maintains an index of gopher items, and provides keyword searches of those titles. the result of a search is a set of gopher-type data items, which is returned to the user as a gopher menu. the user can access any of these data items by selecting from the returned menu. wais (wide area information servers) ------------------------------------ a kind of indexed online search tool to locate items based on what they contain - usually keyword text searches. it is a powerful tool for concurrent searches of large databases and/or newsgroups on the internet. example: telnet quake.think.com (or telnet . . . ). login as "wais". wan --- wide area network. the 'whatis' database --------------------- archie (see above) also permits access to the whatis description database. it contains the names and brief synopses of over , public domain software packages, datasets and informational documents located on the internet. whois ----- an internet program that lets users query a database of people and other internet entities, such as domains, networks, and hosts, kept at the nic (see above). for example, whois lets you scan through a registry of researchers in the network field to find an internet address, if you have only the last name or part of it. it will give you the person's company name, address, phone number, and email address. it had around , listings in december . to access the whois, telnet to rs.internic.net. when greeted by the host, type "whois" and press return. it also has a gopher service (type "gopher" go access, instead of "wais"). www (world wide web) -------------------- is much like gopher in that it provides top level access down to other services on the internet. www uses a hypertext interface with cross links between things. you can use highlighted words to jump off onto another track. wysiwyg ------- what you see is what you get. x. ---- a ccitt standard communications protocol used internationally in packet data networks. it provides error-checked communication between packet data networks and their users or other networks. rather than sending a stream of bits like a modem, an x. router sends packets of data. there are different packet sizes and types. each packet contains data to be transmitted, information about the packet's origin, destination, size, and its place in the order of the packets sent. there are clear packets that perform the equivalent of hanging-up the phone. there are reset, restart, and diagnostic packets. on the receiving end, the packet assembler/ disassembler (pad) in the router translates the packets back into a readable format. x. ----- the ccitt and iso standard for electronic mail. x. ----- the ccitt and iso standard for electronic directory services. appendix : books, articles, newsletters, etc. for further reading ====================================================== internet -------- "the matrix: computer networks and conferencing systems worldwide," john s. quarterman, digital press, bedford, ma, pages, . (internet address: mids@tic.com. gopher service at gopher.tic.com.) "matrix news," a newsletter about cross-network issues. networks frequently mentioned include usenet, uucp, fidonet, bitnet, the internet, and conferencing systems like the well and compuserve. matrix news is about all computer networks worldwide that exchange electronic mail. online subscription: us$ for twelve monthly issues, or us$ for students. paper subscriptions: us$ for twelve monthly issues, or us$ for students; for overseas postage, add us$ ( ). contact: matrix news, building suite , south capitol of texas highway, austin, tx , u.s.a. email: mids@tic.com . "!%@:: a directory of electronic mail addressing and networks," by donnalyn frey and rick adams (o'reilly & associates, inc., petaluma avenue, sebastopol, ca , u.s.a.). pages, us . . write to nuts@ora.com for ordering information. "the user's directory of computer networks" by tracy l. laquey (ed.), university of texas, digital press, crosby drive, bedford, ma , u.s.a. pages, . "zen and the art of the internet: a beginner's guide, second edition" by brendan p. kehoe, prentice-hall series in innovative technology, . pages, isbn - - - , us$ . . "the whole internet user's guide and catalog," by ed krol. . published by o'reilly and associates, inc., morris street, suite a, sebastopol, ca , u.s.a.. pages, us$ . . isbn - - - . email questions to nuts@ora.com or uunet!ora!nuts . "a guide to electronic mail networks and addressing," by donnalyn frey and rick adams. . o'reilly & associates, inc., morris street, suite a, sebastopol, ca , u.s.a. email address: nuts@ora.com . "managing uucp and the internet." published by o'reilly and associates, inc., morris street, suite a, sebastopol, ca , u.s.a. email address: nuts@ora.com . "the internet companion: a beginner's guide to global networking" by tracy laquey, with jeanne c. ryer. addison-wesley, , $ . , p. , isbn - - - . order direct from addison-wesley publishing co., inc., jacob way, reading, ma , u.s.a. "internet: getting started," april marine, ed., sri international, menlo park, ca, may . isbn: none, us$ . "the new user's guide to the internet" by daniel p. dern, mcgraw- hill, new york, usa. . isbn - - - (hc). isbn - - - (pbk). "an internet primer for information professionals: a basic guide to networking technology," by elizabeth s. lane, and craig a. summerhil, p. , meckler corp., westport, ct, usa. us$ . . isbn - - -x. "crossing the internet threshold," by roy tennant, john ober, and anne g. lipow, p. , library solutions press, industrial rd., suite , san carlos, ca , u.s.a. . isbn: - - - . us$ . plus shipping and handling. "the internet passport: northwestnet's guide to our world online" by kochmer, jonathan and northwestnet. th ed. p. bellevue, wa, usa: northwestnet, . isbn: - - - . price: us$ . . (us$ . nonprofit and educational). fax: + - - - . "internet: mailing lists edition." franklin f. kuo, sri internet information services. published by ptr prentice hall, new jersey, usa. isbn: - - - . paperback, pages. "internet connections: a librarian's guide to dial-up access and use" by mary e. engle, marilyn lutz, william w. jones, jr., and genevieve engel. library and information technology association's monographs series, # , . pages. isbn - - - . "internet world magazine", meckler corporation, ferry lane west, westport, ct , u.s.a. (meckler@jvnc.net) "the internet business journal," - springfield road, ottawa, canada, k m c . fax: + - - - . publisher: michael strangelove < . @compuserve.com>. "netpower: resource guide to online computer networks," by eric persson, fox chapel publishing, box , lancaster, pa - , u.s.a. us$ . . . + pages. email: netpower @aol.com . "information highways." magazine. annual subscription: $ . cdn. information highways, joicey blvd., toronto, ontario, m m v , canada. fax: + - - - . bulletin board systems and networks ----------------------------------- boardwatch magazine, weat jewell ave., suite , lakewood, co , u.s.a. email: jrickard@boardwatch.com . compuserve ---------- "compuserve from a to z," by charles bowen, bantam computer books, . us$ . . paperback, pages. genie ----- "glossbrenner's master guide to genie," alfred glossbrenner, osborne/mcgraw-hill, , us$ . , paperback, pages. various ------- "ecolinking: everyone's guide to online environmental information," by don rittner. peachpit press, , us$ . , paperback, pages, appendices, index. "online information hunting," by nahum goldman, tab books, inc., , us$ . , paperback, pages. "syslaw: the legal guide for online service providers" by lance rose, esq., and jonathan wallace, esq. sold by pc information group, east broadway, winona, mn , u.s.a. us$ . plus $ . shipping. "the information broker's handbook," by sue rugge and alfred glossbrenner, windcrest/mcgraw-hill. "dvorak's guide to pc telecommunications," john dvorak and nick anis ( , pages, us$ . ). second edition. articles -------- the following articles are available by email from listserv@uhupvm (bitnet) or listserv@uhupvm .uh.edu (internet). in the text of your message, write the get command shown after the article's citation below: bailey, charles w., jr. "electronic publishing on networks: a selective bibliography of recent works." the public-access computer systems review , no. ( ): - . get bailey prv n f=mail. harnad, stevan. "post-gutenberg galaxy: the fourth revolution in the means of production of knowledge." the public-access computer systems review , no. ( ): - . get harnad prv n f=mail. halbert, martin. "public-access computer systems and the internet." the public-access computer systems review , no. ( ): - . get halbert prv n f=mail. arms, caroline r. review of library resources on the internet: strategies for selection and use, by laine farley, ed. in the public-access computer systems review , no. ( ): - . get arms prv n f=mail. barron, billy. review of zen and the art of the internet: a beginner's guide to the internet, by brendan p. kehoe. in the public-access computer systems review , no. ( ): - . get barron prv n f=mail. cook, dave. review of the user's directory of computer networks, by tracy l. laquey, ed. in the public-access computer systems review , no. ( ): - . get cook prv n f=mail. appendix : international standard top-level country codes ============================================== top-level country codes derived from the international standards organization's international standard iso , except united kingdom that should be called great britain (gb) instead of uk. domain country comments ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ad andorra ae united arab emirates af afghanistan ag antigua and barbuda ai anguilla al albania am armenia ex-ussr an netherland antilles ao angola aq antarctica ar argentina as american samoa at austria au australia aw aruba az azerbaidjan ex-ussr ba bosnia-herzegovina ex-yugoslavia bb barbados bd bangladesh be belgium bf burkina faso bg bulgaria bh bahrain bi burundi bj benin bm bermuda bn brunei darussalam bo bolivia br brazil bs bahamas bt buthan bv bouvet island bw botswana by bielorussia ex-ussr bz belize ca canada cc cocos (keeling) isl. cf central african rep. cg congo ch switzerland ci ivory coast ck cook islands cl chile cm cameroon cn china co colombia cr costa rica cs czechoslovakia cu cuba cv cape verde cx christmas island cy cyprus de germany dj djibouti dk denmark dm dominica do dominican republic dz algeria ec ecuador ee estonia ex-ussr also via .su domain eg egypt eh western sahara es spain et ethiopia fi finland fj fiji fk falkland isl.(malvinas) fm micronesia fo faroe islands fr france fx france (european ter.) ??? ga gabon gb great britain (uk) x. address gateway gd grenada ge georgia ex-ussr gh ghana gi gibraltar gl greenland gp guadeloupe (fr.) gq equatorial guinea gf guyana (fr.) gm gambia gn guinea gr greece gt guatemala gu guam (us) gw guinea bissau gy guyana hk hong kong hm heard & mcdonald isl. hn honduras hr croatia ex-yugoslavia via .yu ht haiti hu hungary id indonesia ie ireland il israel in india io british indian o. terr. iq iraq ir iran is iceland it italy jm jamaica jo jordan jp japan ke kenya kg kirgistan ex-ussr kh cambodia ki kiribati km comoros kn st.kitts nevis anguilla kp korea (north) kr korea (south) kw kuwait ky cayman islands kz kazachstan ex-ussr la laos lb lebanon lc saint lucia li liechtenstein lk sri lanka lr liberia ls lesotho lt lithuania ex-ussr lu luxembourg lv latvia ex-ussr ly libya ma morocco mc monaco md moldavia ex-ussr mg madagascar mh marshall islands ml mali mm myanmar mn mongolia mo macau mp northern mariana isl. mq martinique (fr.) mr mauritania ms montserrat mt malta mu mauritius mv maldives mw malawi mx mexico my malaysia mz mozambique na namibia nc new caledonia (fr.) ne niger nf norfolk island ng nigeria ni nicaragua nl netherlands no norway np nepal nr nauru nt neutral zone nu niue nz new zealand om oman pa panama pe peru pf polynesia (fr.) pg papua new guinea ph philippines pk pakistan pl poland pm st. pierre & miquelon pn pitcairn pt portugal pr puerto rico (us) pw palau py paraguay qa qatar re reunion (fr.) in .fr domain ro romania ru russian federation ex-ussr rw rwanda sa saudi arabia sb solomon islands sc seychelles sd sudan se sweden sg singapore sh st. helena si slovenia ex-yugoslavia also via .yu sj svalbard & jan mayen is sl sierra leone sm san marino sn senegal so somalia sr suriname st st. tome and principe su soviet union still used. sv el salvador sy syria sz swaziland tc turks & caicos islands td chad tf french southern terr. tg togo th thailand tj tadjikistan ex-ussr tk tokelau tm turkmenistan ex-ussr tn tunisia to tonga tp east timor tr turkey tt trinidad & tobago tv tuvalu tw taiwan tz tanzania ua ukraine ex-ussr via .su domain ug uganda uk united kingdom iso code is gb um us minor outlying isl. us united states uy uruguay uz uzbekistan ex-ussr va vatican city state vc st.vincent & grenadines ve venezuela vg virgin islands (british) vi virgin islands (us) vn vietnam vu vanuatu wf wallis & futuna islands ws samoa ye yemen yu yugoslavia za south africa zm zambia zr zaire zw zimbabwe some other top level codes being used: -------------------------------------- arpa old style arpanet com commercial edu educational gov government int international field used by nato mil us military nato nato field being replaced by .int net network org non-profit organization the codes (domains) in this section are special in that some of them are used in more than one country. appendix : about the author ================ odd de presno (born ) lives in arendal, a small town in norway, with his computers and modems. he has written twelve books. half these focus on various aspects of the online world. the rest is about practical applications of ms-dos based personal computers. published in norway and england. his book "the online world" is distributed globally as shareware. over of his articles have been published in management and technical magazines in scandinavia, england, japan, and the u.s. writer. international public speaker. consultant. operates an english-language bulletin board system in norway (since ). area of special expertise: applications of global sources of online information, computer conferencing, global electronic mail, automation of information retrieval, ms-dos computer applications. founder and project director of kidlink, an international non- profit organization promoting a global dialog among the youth of the world. since its start in , kidlink has involved over ten thousand kids in the - years range in over countries. educational background includes a diploma degree in business administration from bedriftsoekonomisk institutt (norway). he founded the software company data logic a/s (norway) in and was president for five years. sales manager control data corp. seven years (in charge of cybernet/norway, an international online service). marketing manager iko software service a/s, two years. currently running his own business. member of the computer press association (u.s.a.) since , and nff (norway). listed in marquis' "who's who in the world" from . appendix : how to register your copy of the online world ============================================= the online world is extremely dynamic. services and offerings come and go. your registration will support further research, and production of updates. you can register your current copy, or sign up for six updates of the book during one year. details are given below. ============================================================================== please send to: odd de presno saltrod norway (europe) please add me as a supporter of the online world book: name ______________________________________________________________ company ______________________________________________________________ address ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ city ________________________________state _______ zip ____________ country ________________________________ email address ______________________________________________________ please mark off your selections with (x) below: basic registration for individuals ---------------------------------- ( ) nok . for payment by credit card. (around us$ . ) ( ) us$ . for all other methods of payment. (or, in norwegian currency: nok . .) option (for basic registration) ------------------------------- ( ) us$ . add to have a copy of the most recent version of the book sent you on diskette. only with registration! (in norway, nok . ) ( ) . " ms-dos disk ( ) . " disk kb ms-dos registration with six updates for individuals --------------------------------------------- six updates of the manuscript will be sent you during the next months. ( ) us$ . for all methods of payment. registration for businesses --------------------------- all corporate site licence options include six updates during the next months. ( ) us$ distribution for up to people on a single network ( ) us$ . distribution for up to people on a single network ( ) us$ . distribution for up to people on a single network ( ) us$ . distribution for up to people on a single network ( ) us$ . distribution for up to people on a single network ( ) us$ . distribution for over people on a single network discounts for schools and public libraries ------------------------------------------ special rates are available for schools and public libraries. for details, send a message to listserv@vm .nodak.edu (bitnet users can send it to listserv@ndsuvm ). in the text of the message, use the command: get tow schools get tow library ( ) please identify what type of discount you are taking advantage of: ref: ______________ description: ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ amount ____________________ date _______________ ( ) check or money order payable to odd de presno in u.s. funds enclosed ( ) swift transfer to . . (kredittkassen arendal, norway) ( ) visa ( ) mastercard ( ) american express credit card number __________________________________ exp date _______ if you already have an evaluation copy of the book, where did you get it? ________________________________________________ version number: ____ comments or suggestions for improvement of the online world __________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ date ___________________ signature _________________________________ zddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd? t h a n k y o u f o r s u p p o r t i n g s h a r e w a r e @dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddy big dummy's guide to the internet (c) , by the electronic frontier foundation [eff] ***************************************************************************** copyright , electronic frontier foundation, all rights reserved. redistribution, excerpting, republication, copying, archiving, and reposting are permitted, provided that the work is not sold for profit, that eff contact information, copyright notice, and distribution information remains intact, and that the work is not qualitatively modified (translation, reformatting, and excerpting expressly permitted however - feel free to produce versions of the guide for use with typesetting, hypertext, display, etc. applications, but please do not change the text other than to translate it to another language. excerpts should be credited and follow standard fair use doctrine.) electronic frontier foundation, g st. nw, suite e, washington dc usa, + (voice) (fax.) basic info: info@eff.org; general and guide related queries: ask@eff.org. ***************************************************************************** big dummy's guide to the internet, v. . copyright electronic frontier foundation , table of contents foreword by mitchell kapor, co-founder, electronic frontier foundation. preface by adam gaffin, senior writer, network world. chapter : setting up and jacking in . ready, set... . go! . public-access internet providers . if your town doesn't have direct access . net origins . how it works . when things go wrong . fyi chapter : e-mail . . the basics . elm -- a better way . pine -- even better than elm . smileys . sending e-mail to other networks . seven unix commands you can't live without chapter : usenet i . the global watering hole . navigating usenet with nn . nn commands . using rn . rn commands . essential newsgroups . speaking up . cross-posting chapter : usenet ii . flame, blather and spew . killfiles, the cure for what ails you . some usenet hints . the brain-tumor boy, the modem tax and the chain letter . big sig . the first amendment as local ordinance . usenet history . when things go wrong . fyi chapter : mailing lists and bitnet . internet mailing lists . bitnet chapter : telnet . mining the net . library catalogs . some interesting telnet sites . telnet bulletin-board systems . putting the finger on someone . finding someone on the net . when things go wrong . fyi chapter : ftp . tons of files . your friend archie . getting the files . odd letters -- decoding file endings . the keyboard cabal . some interesting ftp sites . ncftp -- now you tell me! . project gutenberg -- electronic books . when things go wrong . fyi chapter : gophers, waiss and the world-wide web . gophers . burrowing deeper . gopher commands . some interesting gophers . wide-area information servers . the world-wide web . clients, or how to snare more on the web . when things go wrong . fyi chapter : advanced e-mail . the file's in the mail . receiving files . sending files to non-internet sites . getting ftp files via e-mail . the all knowing oracle chapter : news of the world . clarinet: upi, dave barry and dilbert . reuters . usa today . national public radio . the world today: from belarus to brazil . e-mailing news organizations . fyi chapter : irc, muds and other things that are more fun than they sound . talk . internet relay chat . irc commands . irc in times of crisis . muds . go, go, go (and chess, too)! . the other side of the coin . fyi chapter : education and the net . the net in the classroom . some specific resources for students and teachers . usenet and bitnet in the classroom chapter : business on the net . setting up shop . fyi chapter : conclusion -- the end? appendix a: lingo appendix b: electronic frontier foundation information foreword by mitchell kapor, co-founder, electronic frontier foundation. welcome to the world of the internet the electronic frontier foundation (eff) is proud to have sponsored the production of the big dummy's guide to the internet. eff is a nonprofit organization based in washington, d.c., dedicated to ensuring that everyone has access to the newly emerging communications technologies vital to active participation in the events of our world. as more and more information is available online, new doors open up for those who have access to that information. unfortunately, unless access is broadly encouraged, individuals can be disenfranchised and doors can close, as well. the big dummy's guide to the internet was written to help open some doors to the vast amounts of information available on the world's largest network, the internet. the spark for the big dummy's guide to the internet was ignited in a few informal conversations that included myself and steve cisler of apple computer, inc., in june of . with the support of apple computer, eff engaged adam gaffin to write the book and actually took on the project in september of . the idea was to write a guide to the internet for people who had little or no experience with network communications. we intended to post this guide to the net in ascii and hypercard formats and to give it away on disk, as well as have a print edition available. we have more than realized our goal. individuals from as geographically far away as germany, italy, canada, south africa, japan, scotland, norway, and antarctica have all sent electronic mail to say that they downloaded the big dummy's guide to the internet. the guide is now available in a wide array of formats, including acscii text, hypercard, world wide web, postscript and amigaguide. and the guide will be published in a printed format by mit press in june of . eff would like to thank author adam gaffin for doing a terrific job of explaining the net in such a nonthreatening way. we'd also like to thank the folks at apple, especially steve cisler of the apple library, for their support of our efforts to bring this guide to you. we invite you to join with eff in our fight to ensure that equal access to the networks and free speech are protected in newly emerging technologies. we are a membership organization, and through donations like yours, we can continue to sponsor important projects to make communications easier. information about the electronic frontier foundation and some of the work that we do can be found at the end of this book. we hope that the big dummy's guide to the internet helps you learn about whole new worlds, where new friends and experiences are sure to be yours. enjoy! mitch kapor chairman of the board electronic frontier foundation mkapor@eff.org for comments, questions, or requests regarding eff or the big dummy's guide to the internet, send a note to ask@eff.org. preface by adam gaffin, senior writer, network world, framingham, mass. welcome to the internet! you're about to start a journey through a unique land without frontiers, a place that is everywhere at once -- even though it exists physically only as a series of electrical impulses. you'll be joining a growing community of millions of people around the world who use this global resource on a daily basis. with this book, you will be able to use the internet to: = stay in touch with friends, relatives and colleagues around the world, at a fraction of the cost of phone calls or even air mail. = discuss everything from archaeology to zoology with people in several different languages. = tap into thousands of information databases and libraries worldwide. = retrieve any of thousands of documents, journals, books and computer programs. = stay up to date with wire-service news and sports and with official weather reports. = play live, "real time" games with dozens of other people at once. connecting to "the net" today, takes something of a sense of adventure, a willingness to learn and an ability to take a deep breath every once in awhile. visiting the net today is a lot like journeying to a foreign country. there are so many things to see and do, but everything at first will seem so, well, foreign. when you first arrive, you won't be able to read the street signs. you'll get lost. if you're unlucky, you may even run into some locals who'd just as soon you went back to where you came from. if this weren't enough, the entire country is constantly under construction; every day, it seems like there's something new for you to figure out. fortunately, most of the locals are actually friendly. in fact, the net actually has a rich tradition of helping out visitors and newcomers. until very recently, there were few written guides for ordinary people, and the net grew largely through an "oral" tradition in which the old- timers helped the newcomers. so when you connect, don't be afraid to ask for help. you'll be surprised at how many people will lend a hand! without such folks, in fact, this guide would not be possible. my thanks to all the people who have written with suggestion, additions and corrections since the big dummy's guide first appeared on the internet in . special thanks go to my loving wife nancy. i would also like to thank the following people, who, whether they know it or not, provided particular help. rhonda chapman, jim cocks, tom czarnik, christopher davis, david desimone, jeanne devoto, phil eschallier, nico garcia, joe granrose, joerg heitkoetter, joe ilacqua, jonathan kamens, peter kaminski, thomas a. kreeger, stanton mccandlish, leanne phillips, nancy reynolds, helen trillian rose, barry shein, jennifer "moira" smith, gerard van der leun and scott yanoff. if you have any suggestions or comments on how to make this guide better, i'd love to hear them. you can reach me via e-mail at adamg@world.std.com. boston, mass., february, . chapter : setting up and jacking in . ready, set ... the world is just a phone call away. with a computer and modem, you'll be able to connect to the internet, the world's largest computer network (and if you're lucky, you won't even need the modem; many colleges and companies now give their students or employees direct access to the internet). the phone line can be your existing voice line -- just remember that if you have any extensions, you (and everybody else in the house or office) won't be able to use them for voice calls while you are connected to the net. a modem is a sort of translator between computers and the phone system. it's needed because computers and the phone system process and transmit data, or information, in two different, and incompatible ways. computers "talk" digitally; that is, they store and process information as a series of discrete numbers. the phone network relies on analog signals, which on an oscilloscope would look like a series of waves. when your computer is ready to transmit data to another computer over a phone line, your modem converts the computer numbers into these waves (which sound like a lot of screeching) -- it "modulates" them. in turn, when information waves come into your modem, it converts them into numbers your computer can process, by "demodulating" them. increasingly, computers come with modems already installed. if yours didn't, you'll have to decide what speed modem to get. modem speeds are judged in "bps rate" or bits per second. one bps means the modem can transfer roughly one bit per second; the greater the bps rate, the more quickly a modem can send and receive information. a letter or character is made up of eight bits. you can now buy a -bps modem for well under $ -- and most now come with the ability to handle fax messages as well. at prices that now start around $ , you can buy a modem that can transfer data at , bps (and often even faster, using special compression techniques). if you think you might be using the net to transfer large numbers of files, a faster modem is always worth the price. it will dramatically reduce the amount of time your modem or computer is tied up transferring files and, if you are paying for net access by the hour, will save you quite a bit in online charges. like the computer to which it attaches, a modem is useless without software to tell it how to work. most modems today come with easy-to-install software. try the program out. if you find it difficult to use or understand, consider a trip to the local software store to find a better program. you can spend several hundred dollars on a communications program, but unless you have very specialized needs, this will be a waste of money, as there are a host of excellent programs available for around $ or less. among the basic features you want to look for are a choice of different "protocols" (more on them in a bit) for transferring files to and from the net and the ability to write "script" or "command" files that let you automate such steps as logging into a host system. when you buy a modem and the software, ask the dealer how to install and use them. try out the software if you can. if the dealer can't help you, find another dealer. you'll not only save yourself a lot of frustration, you'll also have practiced the prime internet directive: "ask. people know." to fully take advantage of the net, you must spend a few minutes going over the manuals or documentation that comes with your software. there are a few things you should pay special attention to: uploading and downloading; screen capturing (sometimes called "screen dumping"); logging; how to change protocols; and terminal emulation. it is also essential to know how to convert a file created with your word processing program into "ascii" or "text" format, which will let you share your thoughts with others across the net. uploading is the process of sending a file from your computer to a system on the net. downloading is retrieving a file from somewhere on the net to your computer. in general, things in cyberspace go "up" to the net and come "down" to you. chances are your software will come with a choice of several "protocols" to use for these transfers. these protocols are systems designed to ensure that line noise or static does not cause errors that could ruin whatever information you are trying to transfer. essentially, when using a protocol, you are transferring a file in a series of pieces. after each piece is sent or received, your computer and the net system compare it. if the two pieces don't match exactly, they transfer it again, until they agree that the information they both have is identical. if, after several tries, the information just doesn't make it across, you'll either get an error message or your screen will freeze. in that case, try it again. if, after five tries, you are still stymied, something is wrong with a) the file; b) the telephone line; c) the system you're connected to; or d) your own computer. from time to time, you will likely see messages on the net that you want to save for later viewing -- a recipe, a particularly witty remark, something you want to write your congressman about, whatever. this is where screen capturing and logging come in. when you tell your communications software to capture a screen, it opens a file in your computer (usually in the same directory or folder used by the software) and "dumps" an image of whatever happens to be on your screen at the time. logging works a bit differently. when you issue a logging command, you tell the software to open a file (again, usually in the same directory or folder as used by the software) and then give it a name. then, until you turn off the logging command, everything that scrolls on your screen is copied into that file, sort of like recording on videotape. this is useful for capturing long documents that scroll for several pages -- using screen capture, you would have to repeat the same command for each new screen. terminal emulation is a way for your computer to mimic, or emulate, the way other computers put information on the screen and accept commands from a keyboard. in general, most systems on the net use a system called vt . fortunately, almost all communications programs now on the market support this system as well -- make sure yours does. you'll also have to know about protocols. there are several different ways for computers to transmit characters. fortunately, there are only two protocols that you're likely to run across: - -n (which stands for " bits, stop bit, no parity" -- yikes!) and - -e ( bits, stop bit, even parity). in general, unix-based systems use - -e, while ms-dos-based systems use - -n. what if you don't know what kind of system you're connecting to? try one of the settings. if you get what looks like gobbledygook when you connect, you may need the other setting. if so, you can either change the setting while connected, and then hit enter, or hang up and try again with the other setting. it's also possible your modem and the modem at the other end can't agree on the right bps rate. if changing the protocols doesn't work, try using another bps rate (but no faster than the one listed for your modem). don't worry, remember, you can't break anything! if something looks wrong, it probably is wrong. change your settings and try again. nothing is learned without trial, error and effort. there are the basics. now on to the net! . go! once, only people who studied or worked at an institution directly tied to the net could connect to the world. today, though, an ever-growing number of "public-access" systems provide access for everybody. these systems can now be found in several states, and there are a couple of sites that can provide access across the country. there are two basic kinds of these host systems. the more common one is known as a uucp site (uucp being a common way to transfer information among computers using the unix operating system) and offers access to international electronic mail and conferences. however, recent years have seen the growth of more powerful sites that let you tap into the full power of the net. these internet sites not only give you access to electronic mail and conferences but to such services as databases, libraries and huge file and program collections around the world. they are also fast -- as soon as you finish writing a message, it gets zapped out to its destination. some sites are run by for-profit companies; others by non-profit organizations. some of these public-access, or host, systems, are free of charge. others charge a monthly or yearly fee for unlimited access. and a few charge by the hour. systems that charge for access will usually let you sign up online with a credit card. some also let you set up a billing system. but cost should be only one consideration in choosing a host system, especially if you live in an area with more than one provider. most systems let you look around before you sign up. what is the range of each of their services? how easy is each to use? what kind of support or help can you get from the system administrators? the last two questions are particularly important because many systems provide no user interface at all; when you connect, you are dumped right into the unix operating system. if you're already familiar with unix, or you want to learn how to use it, these systems offer phenomenal power -- in addition to net access, most also let you tap into the power of unix to do everything from compiling your own programs to playing online games. but if you don't want to have to learn unix, there are other public-access systems that work through menus (just like the ones in restaurants; you are shown a list of choices and then you make your selection of what you want), or which provide a "user interface" that is easier to figure out than the ever cryptic unix. if you don't want or need access to the full range of internet services, a uucp site makes good financial sense. they tend to charge less than commercial internet providers, although their messages may not go out as quickly. some systems also have their own unique local services, which can range from extensive conferences to large file libraries. . public-access internet providers when you have your communications program dial one of these host systems, one of two things will happen when you connect. you'll either see a lot of gibberish on your screen, or you'll be asked to log in. if you see gibberish, chances are you have to change your software's parameters (to - -e or - -n as the case may be). hang up, make the change and then dial in again. when you've connected, chances are you'll see something like this: welcome to the world public access unix for the ' s login as 'new' if you do not have an account login: that last line is a prompt asking you to do something. since this is your first call, type new and hit enter. often, when you're asked to type something by a host system, you'll be told what to type in quotation marks (for example, 'new'). don't include the quotation marks. repeat: don't include the quotation marks. what you see next depends on the system, but will generally consist of information about its costs and services (you might want to turn on your communication software's logging function, to save this information). you'll likely be asked if you want to establish an account now or just look around the system. you'll also likely be asked for your "user name." this is not your full name, but a one-word name you want to use while online. it can be any combination of letters or numbers, all in lower case. many people use their first initial and last name (for example, "jdoe"); their first name and the first letter of their last name (for example, "johnd"); or their initials ("jxd"). others use a nickname. you might want to think about this for a second, because this user name will become part of your electronic-mail address (see chapter for more on that). the one exception are the various free-net systems, all of which assign you a user name consisting of an arbitrary sequence of letters and numbers. you are now on the net. look around the system. see if there are any help files for you to read. if it's a menu-based host system, choose different options just to see what happens. remember: you can't break anything. the more you play, the more comfortable you'll be. what follows is a list of public-access internet sites, which are computer systems that offer access to the net. all offer international e-mail and usenet (international conferences). in addition, they offer: ftp: file-transfer protocol -- access to hundreds of file libraries (everything from computer software to historical documents to song lyrics). you'll be able to transfer these files from the net to your own computer. telnet: access to databases, computerized library card catalogs, weather reports and other information services, as well as live, online games that let you compete with players from around the world. additional services that may be offered include: wais: wide-area information server; a program that can search dozens of databases in one search. gopher: a program that gives you easy access to dozens of other online databases and services by making selections on a menu. you'll also be able to use these to copy text files and some programs to your mailbox. irc: internet relay chat, a cb simulator that lets you have live keyboard chats with people around the world. however, even on systems that do not provide these services directly, you will be able to use a number of them through telnet (see chapter ). in the list that follows, systems that let you access services through menus are noted; otherwise assume that when you connect, you'll be dumped right into unix (a.k.a. ms-dos with a college degree). several of these sites are available nationwide through national data networks such as the compuserve packet network and sprintnet. please note that all listed charges are subject to change. many sites require new or prospective users to log on a particular way on their first call; this list provides the name you'll use in such cases. alabama huntsville. nuance. call voice number for modem number. $ setup; $ a month. voice: ( ) - . alaska anchorage. university of alaska southeast, tundra services, ( ) - ; has local dial-in service in several other cities. $ a month. voice: ( ) - . alberta edmonton. pucnet computer connections, ( ) - . log on as: guest. $ setup fee; $ for hours a month plus $ . an hour for access to ftp and telnet. voice: ( ) - . arizona tucson. data basics, ( ) - . $ a month or $ a year. voice: ( ) - . phoenix/tucson. internet direct, ( ) - (phoenix); ( ) - (tucson). log on as: guest. $ a month. voice: ( ) - (phoenix); ( ) - (tucson). british columbia victoria victoria free-net, ( ) - . menus. access to all features requires completion of a written form. users can "link" to other free-net systems in canada and the united states. free. log on as: guest voice: ( ) - . california berkeley. holonet. menus. for free trial, modem number is ( ) - . for information or local numbers, call the voice number. $ a year for local access, $ an hour during offpeak hours. voice: ( ) - . cupertino. portal. both unix and menus. ( ) - ( bps); ( ) - ( / , bps). $ . setup fee, $ . a month. voice: ( ) - . irvine. dial n' cerf. see under san diego. los angeles/orange county. kaiwan public access internet, ( ) - ; ( ) - . $ signup; $ a month (credit card). voice: ( ) - . los angeles. dial n' cerf. see under san diego. oakland. dial n' cerf. see under san diego. pasadena. dial n' cerf see under san diego. palo alto. institute for global communications., ( ) - . unix. local conferences on environmental/peace issues. log on as: new. $ a month and $ an hour after first hour. voice: ( ) - . san diego. dial n' cerf usa, run by the california education and research federation. provides local dial-up numbers in san diego, los angeles, oakland, pasadena and irvine. for more information, call voice ( ) -cerf or ( ) - . $ setup fee; $ a month plus $ an hour ($ on weekends). voice: ( ) - . san diego. cts network services, ( ) - . log on as: help. $ set-up fee, monthly fee of $ to $ depending on services used. voice: ( ) - . san diego. cyberspace station, ( ) - . unix. log on as: guest. charges: $ sign-up fee; $ a month or $ for six months. san francisco. pathways, call voice number for number. menus. $ setup fee; $ a month and $ an hour. voice: ( ) - . san jose. netcom, ( ) - or - ; ( ) - ; ( ) - , up to bps. unix. maintains archives of usenet postings. log on as: guest. $ startup fee and then $ . a month for unlimited use if you agree to automatic billing of your credit-card account (otherwise $ . a month for a monthly invoice). voice: ( ) -unix. san jose. a i, ( ) - . log on as: guest. $ a month; $ for three months; $ for six months. sausalito. the whole earth 'lectronic link (well), ( ) - . uses moderately difficult picospan software, which is sort of a cross between unix and a menu system. new users get a written manual. more than well-only conferences. log on as: newuser. $ a month plus $ an hour. access through the nationwide compuserve packet network available for another $ . an hour. voice: ( ) - . recorded message about the system's current status: ( ) - (continental u.s. only). colorado colorado springs/denver. cns, ( ) - (colorado springs); ( ) - (denver). local calendar listings and ski and stock reports. users can choose between menus or unix. log on as: new. $ setup fee; $ . an hour (minimum fee of $ a month). voice: ( ) - . colorado springs. old colorado city communications, ( ) - . log on as: newuser. $ a month. voice: ( ) - . denver. denver free-net, ( ) - . menus. access to all services requires completion of a written form. users can "link" to other free-net systems across the country. free. log on as: guest. golden. colorado supernet. e-mail to fax service. available only to colorado residents. local dial-in numbers available in several colorado cities. for dial-in numbers, call the number below. $ an hour ($ an hour between midnight and a.m.); one-time $ sign-up fee. voice: ( ) - . delaware middletown. systems solutions, ( ) - . $ setup fee; $ a month for full internet access. voice: ( ) - florida talahassee. talahassee free-net, ( ) - . menus. full access requires completion of a registration form. can "link" to other free-net systems around the country. voice: ( ) - . georgia atlanta. netcom, ( ) - . see under los angeles, california, for information on rates. illinois champaign. prarienet free-net, ( ) - . menus. log on as: visitor. free for illinois residents; $ a year for others. voice: ( ) - . chicago. mcsnet, ( ) - . $ /month or $ for three months of unlimited access; $ for three months of access at hours a month. voice: ( ) -unix. peoria. peoria free-net, ( ) - . similar to cleveland free-net (see ohio, below). users can "link" to the larger cleveland system for access to usenet and other services. there are also peoria free-net public-access terminals in numerous area libraries, other government buildings and senior-citizen centers. contact the number below for specific locations. full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. free. voice: ( ) - . maryland baltimore. express access, ( ) - ; ( ) - ; ( ) - . log on as: new. $ setup fee; $ a month or $ a year. voice: ( - . baltimore. clarknet, ( ) - ; ( ) - ; ( ) - ; ( ) - . log on as: guest. $ a month, $ for six months or $ a year. voice: ( ) - . massachusetts bedford. the internet access company, ( ) - . to log on, follow on-line prompts. $ setup fee; $ . a month. voice: ( ) - . brookline. the world, ( ) - . "online book initiative" collection of electronic books, poetry and other text files. log on as: new. $ a month plus $ an hour or $ for hours a month. available nationwide through the compuserve packet network for another $ . an hour. voice: ( ) - . lynn. north shore access, ( ) - . log on as: new. $ for hours a month; $ an hour after that. voice: ( ) - . worcester. novalink, ( ) - . log on as: info. $ . sign-up (includes first two hours); $ . a month (includes five daytime hours), $ . an hour after that. voice: ( ) - . michigan ann arbor. msen. call voice number for dial-in number. unix. charges: $ setup; $ a month. voice: ( ) - . ann arbor. michnet. has local dial-in numbers in several michigan numbers. for local numbers, call voice number below. $ a month plus one-time $ sign-up fee. additional network fees for access through non-michnet numbers. voice: ( ) - . new hampshire manchester. mv communications, inc. for local dial-up numbers call voice line below. $ a month mininum plus variable hourly rates depending on services used. voice: ( ) - . new jersey new brunswick. digital express, ( ) - . log on as: new. $ setup fee; $ a month or $ a year. voice: ( ) - . new york new york. panix, ( ) - . unix or menus. log on as: newuser. $ setup fee; $ a month or $ a year. voice: ( ) - . new york. echo, ( ) - . unix, but with local conferencing software. log on as: newuser. $ . ($ . students and seniors) a month. voice: ( ) - . new york. mindvox, ( ) - . local conferences. log on as: guest. $ setup fee for non-credit-card accounts; $ a month. voice: ( ) - . new york. pipeline, ( ) - ( bps and higher); ( ) - ( bps). offers graphical interface for windows for $ . log on as: guest. $ a month and $ an hour after first hours or $ a month unlimited hours. voice: ( ) - . new york. maestro, ( ) - . log on as: newuser. $ a month or $ a year. voice: ( ) - . north carolina charlotte. vnet internet access, ( ) - ; ( ) - . log on as: new. $ a month. voice: ( ) - . triangle research park. rock concert net. call number below for local modem numbers in various north carolina cities. $ a month; one- time $ sign-up fee. voice: ( ) - . ohio cleveland. cleveland free-net, ( ) - . ohio and us supreme court decisions, historical documents, many local conferences. full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. free. voice: ( ) - . cincinnati. tri-state free-net, ( ) - . similar to cleveland free-net. full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. free. cleveland. wariat, ( ) - . unix or menus. $ setup fee; $ a month. voice: ( ) - . dayton. freelance systems programming, ( ) - . $ setup fee; $ an hour. voice: ( ) - . lorain. lorain county free-net, ( ) - or - . similar to cleveland free-net. users can "link" to the larger cleveland system for additional services. full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. free. voice: ( ) - . medina. medina free-net, ( ) - , - or - . users can "link" to the larger cleveland free-net for additional services. full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. free. youngstown. youngstown free-net, ( ) - . users can "link" to the cleveland system for services not found locally. full access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. free. ontario ottawa. national capital freenet, ( ) - or ( ) - . free, but requires completion of a written form for access to all services. toronto. uunorth. call voice number below for local dial-in numbers. $ startup fee; $ for hours a month of offpeak use. voice: ( ) - . toronto. internex online, ( ) - . both unix and menus. $ a year for one hour a day. voice: ( ) - . oregon portland. agora, ( ) - ( bps), ( ) - ( bps or higher). log on as: apply. $ a month for one hour per day. portland. teleport, ( ) - ( bps); ( ) - ( and higher). log on as: new. $ a month for one hour per day. voice: ( ) - . pennsylvania pittsburgh. telerama, ( ) - . $ for hours a month, cents for each additional hour. voice: ( ) - . quebec montreal. communications accessibles montreal, ( ) - ( bps); ( ) - ( bps). $ a month. voice: ( ) - . rhode island east greenwich. ids world network, ( ) - . in addition to usenet, has conferences from the fidonet and rime networks. $ a month; $ for six months; $ for a year. providence/seekonk. anomaly, ( ) - . $ for six months or $ a year. educational rate of $ for six months or $ a year. voice: ( ) - . texas austin. realtime communications, ( ) - . log on as: new. $ a year. voice: ( ) - . dallas. texas metronet, ( ) - ; ( ) - . log on as: info or signup. $ to $ setup fee, depending on service; $ to $ a month, depending on service. voice: ( ) - or ( ) - . houston. the black box, ( ) - . $ . a month. voice: ( ) - . virginia norfolk/peninsula. wyvern technologies, ( ) - (norfolk); ( ) - (peninsula). $ startup fee; $ a month or $ a year. voice: ( ) - . washington, dc the meta network. call voice number below for local dial-in numbers. caucus conferencing, menus. $ setup fee; $ a month. voice: ( ) - . capaccess, ( ), - . log on as guest with a password of visitor. a free-net system (see under cleveland, ohio, for information). free. voice: ( ) - . see also: listing under baltimore, md for express access and clarknet. washington state seattle. halcyon, ( ) - . users can choose between menus and unix. log on as: new. $ setup fee; $ a quarter or $ a year. voice: ( ) - . seattle. eskimo north, ( ) - (all speeds), ( ) - ( / . k bps). $ a month or $ a year. voice: ( ) - . united kingdom london. demon internet systems, ( ) . . setup fee; a month or . a year. voice: ( ) . if your town has no direct access if you don't live in an area with a public-access site, you'll still be able to connect to the net. several services offer access through national data networks such as the compuserve packet network and sprintnet, which have dozens, even hundreds of local dial-in numbers across the country. these include holonet in berkeley, calf., portal in cupertino, calf., the well in sausalito, calf., dial 'n cerf in san diego, calf., the world in brookline, mass., and michnet in ann arbor, mich. dial 'n cerf offers access through an number. expect to pay from $ to $ an hour to use these networks, above each provider's basic charges. the exact amount depends on the network, time of day and type of modem you use. for more information, contact the above services. four other providers deliver net access to users across the country: delphi, based in cambridge, mass., is a consumer-oriented network much like compuserve or america online -- only it now offers subscribers access to internet services. delphi charges: $ a month for internet access, in addition to standard charges. these are $ a month for four hours of off-peak (non-working hours) access a month and $ an hour for each additional hour or $ for hours of access a month and $ . an hour for each additional hour. for more information, call ( ) - . bix (the byte information exchange) offers ftp, telnet and e-mail access to the internet as part of their basic service. owned by the same company as delphi, it also offers hours of access a month for $ . for more information, call ( ) - . psi, based in reston, va., provides nationwide access to internet services through scores of local dial-in numbers to owners of ibm and compatible computers. psilink. which includes access to e-mail, usenet and ftp, costs $ a month, plus a one-time $ registration fee. special software is required, but is available free from psi. psi's global dialup service provides access to telnet for $ a month plus a one-time $ set-up fee. for more information, call ( ) psi or ( ) - . novx systems integration, based in seattle, washington, offers full internet access through an number reachable across the united states. there is a $ . setup fee, in addition to a monthly fee of $ . and a $ . hourly charge. for more information, call ( ) - . . net origins in the s, researchers began experimenting with linking computers to each other and to people through telephone hook-ups, using funds from the u.s defense department's advanced research projects agency (arpa). arpa wanted to see if computers in different locations could be linked using a new technology known as packet switching. this technology, in which data meant for another location is broken up into little pieces, each with its own "forwarding address" had the promise of letting several users share just one communications line. just as important, from arpa's viewpoint, was that this allowed for creation of networks that could automatically route data around downed circuits or computers. arpa's goal was not the creation of today's international computer-using community, but development of a data network that could survive a nuclear attack. previous computer networking efforts had required a line between each computer on the network, sort of like a one-track train route. the packet system allowed for creation of a data highway, in which large numbers of vehicles could essentially share the same lane. each packet was given the computer equivalent of a map and a time stamp, so that it could be sent to the right destination, where it would then be reassembled into a message the computer or a human could use. this system allowed computers to share data and the researchers to exchange electronic mail, or e-mail. in itself, e-mail was something of a revolution, offering the ability to send detailed letters at the speed of a phone call. as this system, known as arpanet, grew, some enterprising college students (and one in high school) developed a way to use it to conduct online conferences. these started as science-oriented discussions, but they soon branched out into virtually every other field, as people recognized the power of being able to "talk" to hundreds, or even thousands, of people around the country. in the s, arpa helped support the development of rules, or protocols, for transferring data between different types of computer networks. these "internet" (from "internetworking") protocols made it possible to develop the worldwide net we have today that links all sorts of computers across national boundaries. by the close of the s, links developed between arpanet and counterparts in other countries. the world was now tied together in a computer web. in the s, this network of networks, which became known collectively as the internet, expanded at a phenomenal rate. hundreds, then thousands, of colleges, research companies and government agencies began to connect their computers to this worldwide net. some enterprising hobbyists and companies unwilling to pay the high costs of internet access (or unable to meet stringent government regulations for access) learned how to link their own systems to the internet, even if "only" for e-mail and conferences. some of these systems began offering access to the public. now anybody with a computer and modem -- and persistence -- could tap into the world. in the s, the net continues to grow at exponential rates. some estimates are that the volume of messages transferred through the net grows percent a month. in response, government and other users have tried in recent years to expand the net itself. once, the main net "backbone" in the u.s. moved data at , bits per second. that proved too slow for the ever increasing amounts of data being sent over it, and in recent years the maximum speed was increased to . million and then million bits per second. even before the net was able to reach that latter speed, however, net experts were already figuring out ways to pump data at speeds of up to billion bits per second -- fast enough to send the entire encyclopedia britannica across the country in just one or two seconds. another major change has been the development of commercial services that provide internetworking services at speeds comparable to those of the government system. in fact, by mid- , the u.s. government will remove itself from any day-to-day control over the workings of the net, as regional and national providers continue to expand. . how it works the worldwide net is actually a complex web of smaller regional networks. to understand it, picture a modern road network of trans- continental superhighways connecting large cities. from these large cities come smaller freeways and parkways to link together small towns, whose residents travel on slower, narrow residential ways. the net superhighway is the high-speed internet. connected to this are computers that use a particular system of transferring data at high speeds. in the u.s., the major internet "backbone" theoretically can move data at rates of million bits per second (compare this to the average home modem, which has a top speed of roughly , to , bits per second). connected to the backbone computers are smaller networks serving particular geographic regions, which generally move data at speeds around . million bits per second. feeding off these in turn are even smaller networks or individual computers. unlike with commercial networks such as compuserve or prodigy, there is no one central computer or computers running the internet -- its resources are to be found among thousands of individual computers. this is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. the approach means it is virtually impossible for the entire net to crash at once -- even if one computer shuts down, the rest of the network stays up. the design also reduces the costs for an individual or organization to get onto the network. but thousands of connected computers can also make it difficult to navigate the net and find what you want -- especially as different computers may have different commands for plumbing their resources. it is only recently that net users have begun to develop the sorts of navigational tools and "maps" that will let neophytes get around without getting lost. nobody really knows how many computers and networks actually make up this net. some estimates say there are now as many as , networks connecting nearly million computers and more than million people around the world. whatever the actual numbers, however, it is clear they are only increasing. the net is more than just a technological marvel. it is human communication at its most fundamental level. the pace may be a little quicker when the messages race around the world in a few seconds, but it's not much different from a large and interesting party. you'll see things in cyberspace that will make you laugh; you'll see things that will anger you. you'll read silly little snippets and new ideas that make you think. you'll make new friends and meet people you wish would just go away. major network providers continue to work on ways to make it easier for users of one network to communicate with those of another. work is underway on a system for providing a universal "white pages" in which you could look up somebody's electronic-mail address, for example. this connectivity trend will likely speed up in coming years as users begin to demand seamless network access, much as telephone users can now dial almost anywhere in the world without worrying about how many phone companies actually have to connect their calls. and today, the links grow ever closer between the internet and such commercial networks as compuserve and prodigy, whose users can now exchange electronic mail with their internet friends. some commercial providers, such as delphi and america online, are working to bring their subscribers direct access to internet services. and as it becomes easier to use, more and more people will join this worldwide community we call the net. being connected to the net takes more than just reading conferences and logging messages to your computer; it takes asking and answering questions, exchanging opinions -- getting involved. if you choose to go forward, to use and contribute, you will become a citizen of cyberspace. if you're reading these words for the first time, this may seem like an amusing but unlikely notion -- that one could "inhabit" a place without physical space. but put a mark beside these words. join the net and actively participate for a year. then re-read this passage. it will no longer seem so strange to be a "citizen of cyberspace." it will seem like the most natural thing in the world. and that leads to another fundamental thing to remember: you can't break the net! as you travel the net, your computer may freeze, your screen may erupt into a mass of gibberish. you may think you've just disabled a million-dollar computer somewhere -- or even your own personal computer. sooner or later, this feeling happens to everyone -- and likely more than once. but the net and your computer are hardier than you think, so relax. you can no more break the net than you can the phone system. if something goes wrong, try again. if nothing at all happens, you can always disconnect. if worse comes to worse, you can turn off your computer. then take a deep breath. and dial right back in. leave a note for the person who runs the computer to which you've connected to ask for advice. try it again. persistence pays. stay and contribute. the net will be richer for it -- and so will you. . when things go wrong * your computer connects with a public-access site and get gibberish on your screen. if you are using parameters of - -n, try - -e (or vice-versa). if that doesn't work, try another modem speed. * you have your computer dial a public-access site, but nothing happens. check the phone number you typed in. if correct, turn on your modem's speaker (on hayes-compatible modems, you can usually do this by typing atm in your communications software's "terminal mode"). if the phone just rings and rings, the public-access site could be down for maintenance or due to a crash or some other problem. if you get a "connect" message, but nothing else, try hitting enter or escape a couple of times. * you try to log in, but after you type your password, nothing happens, or you get a "timed out" message followed by a disconnect. re-dial the number and try it again. * always remember, if you have a problem that just doesn't go away, ask! ask your system administrator, ask a friend, but ask. somebody will know what to do. . fyi the net grows so fast that even the best guide to its resources would be somewhat outdated the day it was printed. at the end of each chapter, however, you'll find fyi pointers to places on the net where you can go for more information or to keep updated on new resources and services. peter kaminski maintains a list of systems that provide public access to internet services. it's availble on the network itself, which obviously does you little good if you currently have no access, but which can prove invaluable should you move or want to find a new system. look for his "pdial" file in the alt.bbs.lists or news.answers newsgroups in usenet (for information on accessing usenet, see chapter ). steven levy's book, "hackers: heroes of the computer revolution," (anchor press/doubleday, ). describes the early culture and ethos that ultimately resulted in the internet and usenet. john quarterman's "the matrix: computer networks and conferencing systems worldwide" (digital press, ) is an exhaustive look at computer networks and how they connect with each other. you'll find numerous documents about the internet, its history and its resources in the pub/net_info directory on the electronic frontier foundation's ftp server (see chapter to decipher this). chapter : e-mail . the basics electronic mail, or e-mail, is your personal connection to the world of the net. all of the millions of people around the world who use the net have their own e-mail addresses. a growing number of "gateways" tie more and more people to the net every day. when you logged onto the host system you are now using, it automatically generated an address for you, as well. the basic concepts behind e-mail parallel those of regular mail. you send mail to people at their particular addresses. in turn, they write to you at your e-mail address. you can subscribe to the electronic equivalent of magazines and newspapers. you might even get electronic junk mail. e-mail has two distinct advantages over regular mail. the most obvious is speed. instead of several days, your message can reach the other side of the world in hours, minutes or even seconds (depending on where you drop off your mail and the state of the connections between there and your recipient). the other advantage is that once you master the basics, you'll be able to use e-mail to access databases and file libraries. you'll see how to do this later, along with learning how to transfer program and data files through e-mail. e-mail also has advantages over the telephone. you send your message when it's convenient for you. your recipients respond at their convenience. no more telephone tag. and while a phone call across the country or around the world can quickly result in huge phone bills, e-mail lets you exchange vast amounts of mail for only a few pennies -- even if the other person is in new zealand. e-mail is your connection to help -- your net lifeline. the net can sometimes seem a frustrating place! no matter how hard you try, no matter where you look, you just might not be able to find the answer to whatever is causing you problems. but when you know how to use e-mail, help is often just a few keystrokes away: you can ask your system administrator or a friend for help in an e-mail message. the quickest way to start learning e-mail is to send yourself a message. most public-access sites actually have several different types of mail systems, all of which let you both send and receive mail. we'll start with the simplest one, known, appropriately enough, as "mail," and then look at a couple of other interfaces. at your host system's command prompt, type: mail username where username is the name you gave yourself when you first logged on. hit enter. the computer might respond with subject: type test or, actually, anything at all (but you'll have to hit enter before you get to the end of the screen). hit enter. the cursor will drop down a line. you can now begin writing the actual message. type a sentence, again, anything at all. and here's where you hit your first unix frustration, one that will bug you repeatedly: you have to hit enter before you get to the very end of the line. just like typewriters, many unix programs have no word-wrapping (although there are ways to get some unix text processors, such as emacs, to word-wrap). when done with your message, hit return. now hit control-d (the control and the d keys at the same time). this is a unix command that tells the computer you're done writing and that it should close your "envelope" and mail it off (you could also hit enter once and then, on a blank line, type a period at the beginning of the line and hit enter again). you've just sent your first e-mail message. and because you're sending mail to yourself, rather than to someone somewhere else on the net, your message has already arrived, as we'll see in a moment. if you had wanted, you could have even written your message on your own computer and then uploaded it into this electronic "envelope." there are a couple of good reasons to do this with long or involved messages. one is that once you hit enter at the end of a line in "mail" you can't readily fix any mistakes on that line (unless you use some special commands to call up a unix text processor). also, if you are paying for access by the hour, uploading a prepared message can save you money. remember to save the document in ascii or text format. uploading a document you've created in a word processor that uses special formatting commands (which these days means many programs) will cause strange effects. when you get that blank line after the subject line, upload the message using the ascii protocol. or you can copy and paste the text, if your software allows that. when done, hit control-d as above. now you have mail waiting for you. normally, when you log on, your public-access site will tell you whether you have new mail waiting. to open your mailbox and see your waiting mail, type mail and hit enter. when the host system sees "mail" without a name after it, it knows you want to look in your mailbox rather than send a message. your screen, on a plain-vanilla unix system will display: mail version smi . mon apr : : pdt type ? for help. "/usr/spool/mail/adamg": message new unread >n adamg sat jan : / test ignore the first line; it's just computerese of value only to the people who run your system. you can type a question mark and hit return, but unless you're familiar with unix, most of what you'll see won't make much sense at this point. the second line tells you the directory on the host system where your mail messages are put, which again, is not something you'll likely need to know. the second line also tells you how many messages are in your mailbox, how many have come in since the last time you looked and how many messages you haven't read yet. it's the third line that is of real interest -- it tells you who the message is from, when it arrived, how many lines and characters it takes up, and what the subject is. the "n" means it is a new message -- it arrived after the last time you looked in your mailbox. hit enter. and there's your message -- only now it's a lot longer than what you wrote! message : from adamg jan : : received: by eff.org id aa ( . c/ida- . . /pen-ident for adamg); sat, jan : : - (ident-sender: adamg@eff.org) date: sat, jan : : - from: adam gaffin <adamg> message-id: < .aa @eff.org> to: adamg subject: test status: r this is only a test! whoa! what is all that stuff? it's your message with a postmark gone mad. just as the postal service puts its marks on every piece of mail it handles, so do net postal systems. only it's called a "header" instead of a postmark. each system that handles or routes your mail puts its stamp on it. since many messages go through a number of systems on their way to you, you will often get messages with headers that seem to go on forever. among other things, a header will tell you exactly when a message was sent and received (even the difference between your local time and greenwich mean time -- as at the end of line above). if this had been a long message, it would just keep scrolling across and down your screen -- unless the people who run your public- access site have set it up to pause every lines. one way to deal with a message that doesn't stop is to use your telecommunication software's logging or text-buffer function. start it before you hit the number of the message you want to see. your computer will ask you what you want to call the file you're about to create. after you name the file and hit enter, type the number of the message you want to see and hit enter. when the message finishes scrolling, turn off the text-buffer function. the message is now saved in your computer. this way, you can read the message while not connected to the net (which can save you money if you're paying by the hour) and write a reply offline. but in the meantime, now what? you can respond to the message, delete it or save it. to respond, type a lowercase r and hit enter. you'll get something like this: to: adamg subject: re: test note that this time, you don't have to enter a user name. the computer takes it from the message you're replying to and automatically addresses your message to its sender. the computer also automatically inserts a subject line, by adding "re:" to the original subject. from here, it's just like writing a new message. but say you change your mind and decide not to reply after all. how do you get out of the message? hit control-c once. you'll get this: (interrupt -- one more to kill letter) if you hit control-c once more, the message will disappear and you'll get back to your mail's command line. now, if you type a lowercase d and then hit enter, you'll delete the original message. type a lowercase q to exit your mailbox. if you type a q without first hitting d, your message is transferred to a file called mbox. this file is where all read, but un-deleted messages go. if you want to leave it in your mailbox for now, type a lowercase x and hit enter. this gets you out of mail without making any changes. the mbox file works a lot like your mailbox. to access it, type mail -f mbox at your host system's command line and hit enter. you'll get a menu identical to the one in your mailbox from which you can read these old messages, delete them or respond to them. it's probably a good idea to clear out your mailbox and mbox file from time to time, if only to keep them uncluttered. are there any drawbacks to e-mail? there are a few. one is that people seem more willing to fly off the handle electronically than in person, or over the phone. maybe it's because it's so easy to hit r and reply to a message without pausing and reflecting a moment. that's why we have smileys (see section . )! there's no online equivalent yet of a return receipt: chances are your message got to where it's going, but there's no absolute way for you to know for sure unless you get a reply from the other person. so now you're ready to send e-mail to other people on the net. of course, you need somebody's address to send them mail. how do you get it? alas, the simplest answer is not what you'd call the most elegant: you call them up on the phone or write them a letter on paper and ask them. residents of the electronic frontier are only beginning to develop the equivalent of phone books, and the ones that exist today are far from complete (still, later on, in chapter , we'll show you how to use some of these directories). eventually, you'll start corresponding with people, which means you'll want to know how to address mail to them. it's vital to know how to do this, because the smallest mistake -- using a comma when you should have used a period, for instance, can bounce the message back to you, undelivered. in this sense, net addresses are like phone numbers: one wrong digit and you get the wrong person. fortunately, most net addresses now adhere to a relatively easy-to-understand system. earlier, you sent yourself a mail message using just your user- name. this was sort of like making a local phone call -- you didn't have to dial a or an area code. this also works for mail to anybody else who has an account on the same system as you. sending mail outside of your system, though, will require the use of the net equivalent of area codes, called "domains." a basic net address will look something like this: tomg@world.std.com tomg is somebody's user id, and he is at (hence the @ sign) a site (or in internetese, a "domain") known as std.com. large organizations often have more than one computer linked to the internet; in this case, the name of the particular machine is world (you will quickly notice that, like boat owners, internet computer owners always name their machines). domains tell you the name of the organization that runs a given e-mail site and what kind of site it is or, if it's not in the u.s., what country it's located in. large organizations may have more than one computer or gateway tied to the internet, so you'll often see a two-part domain name; and sometimes even three- or four-part domain names. in general, american addresses end in an organizational suffix, such as ".edu," which means the site is at a college or university. other american suffixes include: .com for businesses .org for non-profit organizations .gov and .mil for government and military agencies .net for companies or organizations that run large networks. sites in the rest of the world tend to use a two-letter code that represents their country. most make sense, such as .ca for canadian sites, but there are a couple of seemingly odd ones. swiss sites end in .ch, while south african ones end in .za. some u.s. sites have followed this international convention (such as well.sf.ca.us). you'll notice that the above addresses are all in lower-case. unlike almost everything else having anything at all to do with unix, most net mailing systems don't care about case, so you generally don't have to worry about capitalizing e-mail addresses. alas, there are a few exceptions -- some public-access sites do allow for capital letters in user names. when in doubt, ask the person you want to write to, or let her send you a message first (recall how a person's e-mail address is usually found on the top of her message). the domain name, the part of the address after the @ sign, never has to be capitalized. it's all a fairly simple system that works very well, except, again, it's vital to get the address exactly right -- just as you have to dial a phone number exactly right. send a message to tomg@unm.edu (which is the university of new mexico) when you meant to send it to tomg@umn.edu (the university of minnesota), and your letter will either bounce back to you undelivered, or go to the wrong person. if your message is bounced back to you as undeliverable, you'll get an ominous looking-message from mailer-daemon (actually a rather benign unix program that exists to handle mail), with an evil-looking header followed by the text of your message. sometimes, you can tell what went wrong by looking at the first few lines of the bounced message. besides an incorrect address, it's possible your host system does not have the other site in the "map" it maintains of other host systems. or you could be trying to send mail to another network, such as bitnet or compuserve, that has special addressing requirements. sometimes, figuring all this out can prove highly frustrating. but remember the prime net commandment: ask. send a message to your system administrator. he or she might be able to help decipher the problem. there is one kind of address that may give your host system particular problems. there are two main ways that unix systems exchange mail. one is known as uucp and started out with a different addressing system than the rest of the net. most uucp systems have since switched over to the standard net addressing system, but a few traditional sites still cling to their original type, which tends to have lots of exclamation points in it, like this: uunet!somesite!othersite!mybuddy the problem for many host sites is that exclamation points (also known as "bangs") now mean something special in the more common systems or "shells" used to operate many unix computers. this means that addressing mail to such a site (or even responding to a message you received from one) could confuse the poor computer to no end and your message never gets sent out. if that happens, try putting backslashes in front of each exclamation point, so that you get an address that looks like this: uunet\!somesite\!othersite\!mybuddy note that this means you may not be able to respond to such a message by typing a lowercase r -- you may get an error message and you'll have to create a brand-new message. if you want to get a taste of what's possible through e-mail, start an e-mail message to almanac@oes.orst.edu leave the "subject:" line blank. as a message, write this: send quote or, if you're feeling a little down, write this instead: send moral-support in either case, you will get back a message within a few seconds to a few hours (depending on the state of your host system's internet connection). if you simply asked for a quote, you'll get back a fortune-cookie-like saying. if you asked for moral support, you'll also get back a fortune-cookie-like saying, only supposedly more uplifting. this particular "mail server" is run by oregon state university. its main purpose is actually to provide a way to distribute agricultural information via e-mail. if you'd like to find out how to use the server's full range of services, send a message to its address with this line in it: send help you'll quickly get back a lengthy document detailing just what's available and how to get it. feeling opinionated? want to give the president of the united states a piece of your mind? send a message to president@whitehouse.gov. or if the vice president will do, write vice-president@whitehouse.gov. the "mail" program is actually a very powerful one and a netwide standard, at least on unix computers. but it can be hard to figure out -- you can type a question mark to get a list of commands, but these may be of limited use unless you're already familiar with unix. fortunately, there are a couple of other mail programs that are easier to use. . elm -- a better way elm is a combination mailbox and letter-writing system that uses menus to help you navigate through mail. most unix-based host systems now have it online. to use it, type elm and hit enter. you'll get a menu of your waiting mail, along with a list of commands you can execute, that will look something like this: mailbox is '/usr/spool/mail/adamg' with messages [elm . pl ] sep christopher davis ( ) here's another message. sep christopher davis ( ) this is a message from eudora aug rita marie rouvali ( ) first internet hunt !!! (fwd) aug peter scott/manage ( ) new file <uk > university of londo aug peter scott/manage ( ) new file <dir > x. service at a aug peter scott/manage ( ) new file <net > datapac informatio aug peter scott/manage ( ) proposed usenet group for hytelnet n aug peter scott/manage ( ) new file <dir > janet public acces aug helen trillian ros ( ) tuesday aug peter scott/manage ( ) update <cwk > oxford university ou you can use any of the following commands by pressing the first character; d)elete or u)ndelete mail, m)ail a message, r)eply or f)orward mail, q)uit to read a message, press <return>. j = move down, k = move up, ? = help each line shows the date you received the message, who sent it, how many lines long the message is, and the message's subject. if you are using vt emulation, you can move up and down the menu with your up and down arrow keys. otherwise, type the line number of the message you want to read or delete and hit enter. when you read a message, it pauses every lines, instead of scrolling until it's done. hit the space bar to read the next page. you can type a lowercase r to reply or a lower-case q or i to get back to the menu (the i stands for "index"). at the main menu, hitting a lowercase m followed by enter will let you start a message. to delete a message, type a lower-case d. you can do this while reading the message. or, if you are in the menu, move the cursor to the message's line and then hit d. when you're done with elm, type a lower-case q. the program will ask if you really want to delete the messages you marked. then, it will ask you if you want to move any messages you've read but haven't marked for deletion to a "received" file. for now, hit your n key. elm has a major disadvantage for the beginner. the default text editor it generally calls up when you hit your r or m key is often a program called emacs. unixoids swear by emacs, but everybody else almost always finds it impossible. unfortunately, you can't always get away from it (or vi, another text editor often found on unix systems), so later on we'll talk about some basic commands that will keep you from going totally nuts. if you want to save a message to your own computer, hit s, either within the message or with your cursor on the message entry in the elm menu. a filename will pop up. if you do not like it, type a new name (you won't have to backspace). hit enter, and the message will be saved with that file name in your "home directory" on your host system. after you exit elm, you can now download it (ask your system administrator for specifics on how to download -- and upload -- such files). . pine -- an even better way pine is based on elm but includes a number of improvements that make it an ideal mail system for beginners. like elm, pine starts you with a menu. it also has an "address book" feature that is handy for people with long or complex e-mail addresses. hitting a at the main menu puts you in the address book, where you can type in the person's first name (or nickname) followed by her address. then, when you want to send that person a message, you only have to type in her first name or nickname, and pine automatically inserts her actual address. the address book also lets you set up a mailing list. this feature allows you to send the same message to a number of people at once. what really sets pine apart is its built-in text editor, which looks and feels a lot more like word-processing programs available for ms-dos and macintosh users. not only does it have word wrap (a revolutionary concept if ever there was one), it also has a spell-checker and a search command. best of all, all of the commands you need are listed in a two-line mini-menu at the bottom of each screen. the commands look like this: ^w where is the little caret is a synonym for the key marked "control" on your keyboard. to find where a particular word is in your document, you'd hit your control key and your w key at the same time, which would bring up a prompt asking you for the word to look for. some of pine's commands are a tad peculiar (control-v for "page down" for example), which comes from being based on a variant of emacs (which is utterly peculiar). but again, all of the commands you need are listed on that two-line mini-menu, so it shouldn't take you more than a couple of seconds to find the right one. to use pine, type pine at the command line and hit enter. it's a relatively new program, so some systems may not yet have it online. but it's so easy to use, you should probably send e-mail to your system administrator urging him to get it! . smileys when you're involved in an online discussion, you can't see the smiles or shrugs that the other person might make in a live conversation to show he's only kidding. but online, there's no body language. so what you might think is funny, somebody else might take as an insult. to try to keep such misunderstandings from erupting into bitter disputes, we have smileys. tilt your head to the left and look at the following sideways. :-). or simply :). this is your basic "smiley." use it to indicate people should not take that comment you just made as seriously as they might otherwise. you make a smiley by typing a colon, a hyphen and a right parenthetical bracket. some people prefer using the word "grin," usually in this form: <grin> sometimes, though, you'll see it as *grin* or even just <g> for short. some other smileys include: ;-) wink; :-( frown; :-o surprise; -) wearing glasses; =|:-)= abe lincoln. ok, so maybe the last two are a little bogus :-). . sending e-mail to other networks there are a number of computer networks that are not directly part of the net, but which are now connected through "gateways" that allow the passing of e-mail. here's a list of some of the larger networks, how to send mail to them and how their users can send mail to you: america online remove any spaces from a user's name and append "aol.com," to get user@aol.com america online users who want to send mail to you need only put your net address in the "to:" field before composing a message. attmail address your message to user@attmail.com. from attmail, a user would send mail to you in this form: internet!domain!user so if your address were nancyr@world.std.com, your correspondent would send a message to you at internet!world.std.com!nancyr bitnet users of bitnet (and netnorth in canada and earn in europe) often have addresses in this form: izzy@indvms. if you're lucky, all you'll have to do to mail to that address is add "bitnet" at the end, to get izzy@indvms.bitnet. sometimes, however, mail to such an address will bounce back to you, because bitnet addresses do not always translate well into an internet form. if this happens, you can send mail through one of two internet/bitnet gateways. first, change the @ in the address to a %, so that you get username%site.bitnet. then add either @vm.marist.edu or @cunyvm.cuny.edu, so that, with the above example, you would get izzy%indyvms.bitnet@vm.marist.edu or izzy%indvyvms.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu bitnet users have it a little easier: they can usually send mail directly to your e-mail address without fooling around with it at all. so send them your address and they should be ok. compuserve compuserve users have numerical addresses in this form: , . to send mail to a compuserve user, change the comma to a period and add "@compuserve.com"; for example: . @compuserve.com. note that some compuserve users must pay extra to receive mail from the internet. if you know compuserve users who want to send you mail, tell them to go mail and create a mail message. in the address area, instead of typing in a compuserve number, have them type your address in this form: >internet:yourid@youraddress. for example, >internet:adamg@world.std.com. note that both the ">" and the ":" are required. delphi to send mail to a delphi user, the form is username@delphi.com. fidonet to send mail to people using a fidonet bbs, you need the name they use to log onto that system and its "node number.'' fidonet node numbers or addresses consist of three numbers, in this form: : / . the first number tells which of several broad geographic zones the bbs is in ( represents the u.s. and canada, europe and israel, pacific asia, south america). the second number represents the bbs's network, while the final number is the bbs's "fidonode'' number in that network. if your correspondent only gives you two numbers (for example, / ), it means the system is in zone . now comes the tricky part. you have to reverse the numbers and add to them the letters f, n and z (which stand for "fidonode,''"network,'' and "zone'). for example, the address above would become f .n .z . now add "fidonet.org'' at the end, to get f .n .z .fidonet.org. then add "firstname.lastname@', to get firstname.lastname@f .n .z .fidonet.org note the period between the first and last names. also, some countries now have their own fidonet "backbone" systems, which might affect addressing. for example, were the above address in germany, you would end it with "fido.de" instead of "fidonet.org." whew! the reverse process is totally different. first, the person has to have access to his or her bbs's "net mail" area and know the fidonet address of his or her local fidonet/uucp gateway (often their system operator will know it). your fidonet correspondent should address a net-mail message to uucp (not your name) in the "to:" field. in the node-number field, they should type in the node number of the fidonet/uucp gateway (if the gateway system is in the same regional network as their system, they need only type the last number, for example, instead of / ). then, the first line of the message has to be your internet address, followed by a blank line. after that, the person can write the message and send it. because of the way fidonet moves mail, it could take a day or two for a message to be delivered in either direction. also, because many fidonet systems are run as hobbies, it is considered good form to ask the gateway sysop's permission if you intend to pass large amounts of mail back and forth. messages of a commercial nature are strictly forbidden (even if it's something the other person asked for). also, consider it very likely that somebody other than the recipient will read your messages. genie to send mail to a genie user, add "@genie.com" to the end of the genie user name, for example: walt@genie.com. mcimail to send mail to somebody with an mcimail account, add "@mcimail.com to the end of their name or numerical address. for example: - @mcimail.com or jsmith@mcimail.com note that if there is more than one mcimail subscriber with that name, you will get a mail message back from mci giving you their names and numerical addresses. you'll then have to figure out which one you want and re-send the message. from mci, a user would type your name (ems) at the "to:" prompt. at the ems prompt, he or she would type internet followed by your net address at the "mbx:" prompt. peacenet to send mail to a peacenet user, use this form: username@igc.org peacenet subscribers can use your regular address to send you mail. prodigy userid@prodigy.com. note that prodigy users must pay extra for internet e-mail. . seven unix commands you can't live without: if you connect to the net through a unix system, eventually you'll have to come to terms with unix. for better or worse, most unix systems do not shield you from their inner workings -- if you want to copy a usenet posting to a file, for example, you'll have to use some unix commands if you ever want to do anything with that file. like ms-dos, unix is an operating system - it tells the computer how to do things. now while unix may have a reputation as being even more complex than ms-dos, in most cases, a few basic, and simple, commands should be all you'll ever need. if your own computer uses ms-dos or pc-dos, the basic concepts will seem very familiar -- but watch out for the cd command, which works differently enough from the similarly named dos command that it will drive you crazy. also, unlike ms-dos, unix is case sensitive -- if you type commands or directory names in the wrong case, you'll get an error message. if you're used to working on a mac, you'll have to remember that unix stores files in "directories" rather than "folders." unix directories are organized like branches on a tree. at the bottom is the "root" directory, with sub-directories branching off that (and sub-directories in turn can have sub-directories). the mac equivalent of a unix sub-directory is a folder within another folder. cat equivalent to the ms-dos "type" command. to pause a file every screen, type cat file |more where "file" is the name of the file you want to see. hitting control-c will stop the display. alternately, you could type more file to achieve the same result. you can also use cat for writing or uploading text files to your name or home directory (similar to the ms-dos "copy con" command). if you type cat>test you start a file called "test." you can either write something simple (no editing once you've finished a line and you have to hit return at the end of each line) or upload something into that file using your communications software's ascii protocol). to close the file, hit control-d. cd the "change directory" command. to change from your present directory to another, type cd directory and hit enter. unlike ms-dos, which uses a \ to denote sub- directories (for example: \stuff\text), unix uses a / (for example: /stuff/text). so to change from your present directory to the stuff/text sub-directory, you would type cd stuff/text and then hit enter. as in ms-dos, you do not need the first backslash if the subdirectory comes off the directory you're already in. to move back up a directory tree, you would type cd .. followed by enter. note the space between the cd and the two periods -- this is where ms-dos users will really go nuts. cp copies a file. the syntax is cp file file which would copy file to file (or overwrite file with file ). ls this command, when followed by enter, tells you what's in the directory, similar to the dos dir command, except in alphabetical order. ls | more will stop the listing every lines -- handy if there are a lot of things in the directory. the basic ls command does not list "hidden" files, such as the .login file that controls how your system interacts with unix. to see these files, type ls -a or ls -a | more ls -l will tell you the size of each file in bytes and tell you when each was created or modified. mv similar to the ms-dos rename command. mv file file will rename file as file , the command can also be used to move files between directories. mv file news would move file to your news directory. rm deletes a file. type rm filename and hit enter (but beware: when you hit enter, it's gone for good). wildcards: when searching for, copying or deleting files, you can use "wildcards" if you are not sure of the file's exact name. ls man* would find the following files: manual, manual.txt, man-o-man. use a question mark when you're sure about all but one or two characters. for example, ls man? would find a file called mane, but not one called manual. . when things go wrong * you send a message but get back an ominous looking message from mailer-daemon containing up to several dozen lines of computerese followed by your message. somewhere in those lines you can often find a clue to what went wrong. you might have made a mistake in spelling the e-mail address. the site to which you're sending mail might have been down for maintenance or a problem. you may have used the wrong "translation" for mail to a non-internet network. * you call up your host system's text editor to write a message or reply to one and can't seem to get out. if it's emacs, try control-x, control-c (in other words, hit your control key and your x key at the same time, followed by control and c). if worse comes to worse, you can hang up. * in elm, you accidentally hit the d key for a message you want to save. type the number of the message, hit enter and then u, which will "un-delete" the message. this works only before you exit elm; once you quit, the message is gone. * you try to upload an ascii message you've written on your own computer into a message you're preparing in elm or pine and you get a lot of left brackets, capital ms, ks and ls and some funny-looking characters. believe it or not, your message will actually wind up looking fine; all that garbage is temporary and reflects the problems some unix text processors have with ascii uploads. but it will take much longer for your upload to finish. one way to deal with this is to call up the simple mail program, which will not produce any weird characters when you upload a text file into a message. another way (which is better if your prepared message is a response to somebody's mail), is to create a text file on your host system with cat, for example, cat>file and then upload your text into that. then, in elm or pine, you can insert the message with a simple command (control-r in pine, for example); only this time you won't see all that extraneous stuff. * you haven't cleared out your elm mailbox in awhile, and you accidentally hit "y" when you meant to hit "n" (or vice-versa) when exiting and now all your messages have disappeared. look in your news directory (at the command line, type: cd news) for a file called recieved. those are all your messages. unfortunately, there's no way to get them back into your elm mailbox -- you'll have to download the file or read it online. chapter : usenet i . the global watering hole imagine a conversation carried out over a period of hours and days, as if people were leaving messages and responses on a bulletin board. or imagine the electronic equivalent of a radio talk show where everybody can put their two cents in and no one is ever on hold. unlike e-mail, which is usually "one-to-one," usenet is "many-to- many." usenet is the international meeting place, where people gather to meet their friends, discuss the day's events, keep up with computer trends or talk about whatever's on their mind. jumping into a usenet discussion can be a liberating experience. nobody knows what you look or sound like, how old you are, what your background is. you're judged solely on your words, your ability to make a point. to many people, usenet is the net. in fact, it is often confused with internet. but it is a totally separate system. all internet sites can carry usenet, but so do many non-internet sites, from sophisticated unix machines to old xt clones and apple iis. technically, usenet messages are shipped around the world, from host system to host system, using one of several specific net protocols. your host system stores all of its usenet messages in one place, which everybody with an account on the system can access. that way, no matter how many people actually read a given message, each host system has to store only one copy of it. many host systems "talk" with several others regularly in case one or another of their links goes down for some reason. when two host systems connect, they basically compare notes on which usenet messages they already have. any that one is missing the other then transmits, and vice-versa. because they are computers, they don't mind running through thousands, even millions, of these comparisons every day. yes, millions. for usenet is huge. every day, usenet users pump upwards of million characters a day into the system -- roughly the equivalent of volumes a-g of the encyclopedia britannica. obviously, nobody could possibly keep up with this immense flow of messages. let's look at how to find conferences and discussions of interest to you. the basic building block of usenet is the newsgroup, which is a collection of messages with a related theme (on other networks, these would be called conferences, forums, bboards or special-interest groups). there are now more than , of these newsgroups, in several diferent languages, covering everything from art to zoology, from science fiction to south africa. some public-access systems, typically the ones that work through menus, try to make it easier by dividing usenet into several broad categories. choose one of those and you're given a list of newsgroups in that category. then select the newsgroup you're interested in and start reading. other systems let you compile your own "reading list" so that you only see messages in conferences you want. in both cases, conferences are arranged in a particular hierarchy devised in the early s. newsgroup names start with one of a series of broad topic names. for example, newsgroups beginning with "comp." are about particular computer- related topics. these broad topics are followed by a series of more focused topics (so that "comp.unix" groups are limited to discussion about unix). the main hierarchies are: bionet research biology bit.listserv conferences originating as bitnet mailing lists biz business comp computers and related subjects misc discussions that don't fit anywhere else news news about usenet itself rec hobbies, games and recreation sci science other than research biology soc "social" groups, often ethnically related talk politics and related topics alt controversial or unusual topics; not carried by all sites in addition, many host systems carry newsgroups for a particular city, state or region. for example, ne.housing is a newsgroup where new englanders look for apartments. a growing number also carry k newsgroups, which are aimed at elementary and secondary teachers and students. and a number of sites carry clari newsgroups, which is actually a commercial service consisting of wire-service stories and a unique online computer news service (more on this in chapter ). . navigating usenet with nn how do you dive right in? as mentioned, on some systems, it's all done through menus -- you just keep choosing from a list of choices until you get to the newsgroup you want and then hit the "read" command. on unix systems, however, you will have to use a "newsreader" program. two of the more common ones are known as rn (for "read news") and nn (for "no news" -- because it's supposed to be simpler to use). for beginners, nn may be the better choice because it works with menus -- you get a list of articles in a given newsgroup and then you choose which ones you want to see. to try it out, connect to your host system and, at the command line, type nn news.announce.newusers and hit enter. after a few seconds, you should see something like this: newsgroup: news.announce.newusers articles: of / new a gene spafford answers to frequently asked questions b gene spafford a primer on how to work with the usenet community c gene spafford emily postnews answers your questions on netiquette d gene spafford hints on writing style for usenet e gene spafford introduction to news.announce f gene spafford usenet software: history and sources g gene spafford what is usenet? h taylor a guide to social newsgroups and mailing lists i gene spafford alternative newsgroup hierarchies, part i j gene spafford >alternative newsgroup hierarchies, part ii k david c lawrenc how to create a new newsgroup l gene spafford how to get information about networks m gene spafford list of active newsgroups n gene spafford list of moderators o gene spafford publicly accessible mailing lists, part i p gene spafford publicly accessible mailing lists, part ii q gene spafford >publicly accessible mailing lists, part iii r jonathan kamens how to become a usenet site s jonathan kamen list of periodic informational postings, part i -- : -- select -- help:? -----top %----- explanatory postings for new users. (moderated) obviously, this is a good newsgroup to begin your exploration of usenet! here's what all this means: the first letter on each line is the letter you type to read that particular "article" (it makes sense that a "newsgroup" would have "articles"). next comes the name of the person who wrote that article, followed by its length, in lines, and what the article is about. at the bottom, you see the local time at your access site, what you're doing right now (i.e., selecting articles), which key to hit for some help (the ? key) and how many of the articles in the newsgroup you can see on this screen. the "(moderated)" means the newsgroup has a "moderator" who is the only one who can directly post messages to it. this is generally limited to groups such as this, which contain articles of basic information, or for digests, which are basically online magazines (more on them in a bit). say you're particularly interested in what "emily postnews" has to say about proper etiquette on usenet. hit your c key (lower case!), and the line will light up. if you want to read something else, hit the key that corresponds to it. and if you want to see what's on the next page of articles, hit return or your space bar. but you're impatient to get going, and you want to read that article now. the command for that in nn is a capital z. hit it and you'll see something like this: gene spafford: emily postnews answers your questions on netiquettesep : original-author: brad@looking.on.ca (brad templeton) archive-name: emily-postnews/part last-change: nov by brad@looking.on.ca (brad templeton) **note: this is intended to be satirical. if you do not recognize it as such, consult a doctor or professional comedian. the recommendations in this article should recognized for what they are -- admonitions about what not to do. "dear emily postnews" emily postnews, foremost authority on proper net behaviour, gives her advice on how to act on the net. ============================================================================ dear miss postnews: how long should my signature be? -- verbose@noisy a: dear verbose: please try and make your signature as long as you -- : --.announce.newusers-- last --help:?--top %-- the first few lines are the message's header, similar to the header you get in e-mail messages. then comes the beginning of the message. the last line tells you the time again, the newsgroup name (or part of it, anyway), the position in your message stack that this message occupies, how to get help, and how much of the message is on screen. if you want to keep reading this message, just hit your space bar (not your enter key!) for the next screen and so on until done. when done, you'll be returned to the newsgroup menu. for now hit q (upper case this time), which quits you out of nn and returns you to your host system's command line. to get a look at another interesting newsgroup, type nn comp.risks and hit enter. this newsgroup is another moderated group, this time a digest of all the funny and frightening ways computers and the people who run and use them can go wrong. again, you read articles by selecting their letters. if you're in the middle of an article and decide you want to go onto the next one, hit your n key. now it's time to look for some newsgroups that might be of particular interest to you. unix host systems that have nn use a program called nngrep (ever get the feeling unix was not entirely written in english?) that lets you scan newsgroups. exit nn and at your host system's command line, type nngrep word where word is the subject you're interested in. if you use a macintosh computer, you might try nngrep mac you'll get something that looks like this: alt.music.machines.of.loving.grace alt.religion.emacs comp.binaries.mac comp.emacs comp.lang.forth.mac comp.os.mach comp.sources.mac comp.sys.mac.announce comp.sys.mac.apps comp.sys.mac.comm comp.sys.mac.databases comp.sys.mac.digest comp.sys.mac.games comp.sys.mac.hardware comp.sys.mac.hypercard comp.sys.mac.misc comp.sys.mac.programmer comp.sys.mac.system comp.sys.mac.wanted gnu.emacs.announce gnu.emacs.bug gnu.emacs.gnews gnu.emacs.gnus gnu.emacs.help gnu.emacs.lisp.manual gnu.emacs.sources gnu.emacs.vm.bug gnu.emacs.vm.info gnu.emacs.vms note that some of these obviously have something to do with macintoshes while some obviously do not; nngrep is not a perfect system. if you want to get a list of all the newsgroups available on your host system, type nngrep -a |more or nngrep -a |pg and hit enter (which one to use depends on the unix used on your host system; if one doesn't do anything, try the other). you don't absolutely need the |more or |pg, but if you don't include it, the list will keep scrolling, rather than pausing every lines. if you are in nn, hitting a capital y will bring up a similar list. typing "nn newsgroup" for every newsgroup can get awfully tiring after awhile. when you use nn, your host system looks in a file called .newsrc. this is basically a list of every newsgroup on the host system along with notations on which groups and articles you have read (all maintained by the computer). you can also use this file to create a "reading list" that brings up each newsgroup to which you want to "subscribe." to try it out, type nn without any newsgroup name, and hit enter. unfortunately, you will start out with a .newsrc file that has you "subscribed" to every single newsgroup on your host system! to delete a newsgroup from your reading list, type a capital u while its menu is on the screen. the computer will ask you if you're sure you want to "unsubscribe." if you then hit a y, you'll be unsubscribed and put in the next group. with many host systems carrying thousands of newsgroups, this will take you forever. fortunately, there are a couple of easier ways to do this. both involve calling up your .newsrc file in a word or text processor. in a .newsrc file, each newsgroup takes up one line, consisting of the group's name, an exclamation point or a colon and a range of numbers. newsgroups with a colon are ones to which you are subscribed; those followed by an exclamation point are "un-subscribed." to start with a clean slate, then, you have to change all those colons to exclamation points. if you know how to use emacs or vi, call up the .newsrc file (you might want to make a copy of .newsrc first, just in case), and use the search-and-replace function to make the change. if you're not comfortable with these text processor, you can download the .newsrc file, make the changes on your own computer and then upload the revised file. before you download the file, however, you should do a couple of things. one is to type cp .newsrc temprc and hit enter. you will actually download this temprc file (note the name does not start with a period -- some computers, such as those using ms-dos, do not allow file names starting with periods). after you download the file, open it in your favorite word processor and use its search-and-replace function to change the exclamation points to colons. be careful not to change anything else! save the document in ascii or text format. dial back into your host system. at the command line, type cp temprc temprc and hit enter. this new file will serve as your backup .newsrc file just in case something goes wrong. upload the temprc file from your computer. this will overwrite the unix system's old temprc file. now type cp temprc .newsrc and hit enter. you now have a clean slate to start creating a reading list. . nn commands to mark a specific article for reading, type the letter next to it (in lower case). to mark a specific article and all of its responses, type the letter and an asterisk, for example: a* to un-select an article, type the letter next to it (again, in lower case). c cancels an article (around the world) that you wrote. every article posted on usenet has a unique id number. hitting a capital c sends out a new message that tells host systems that receive it to find earlier message and delete it. f to post a public response, or follow-up. if selected while still on a newsgroup "page", asks you which article to follow up. if selected while in a specific article, will follow up that article. in either case, you'll be asked if you want to include the original article in yours. caution: puts you in whatever text editor is your default. n goes to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. p goes to the previous subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. g news.group goes to a specific newsgroup. can be used to subscribe to new newsgroups. hitting g brings up a sub-menu: u goes to the group and shows only un-read articles. a goes to the group and shows all articles, even ones you've already read. s will show you only articles with a specific subject. n will show you only articles from a specific person. m mails a copy of the current article to somebody. you'll be asked for the recipient's e-mail address and whether you want to add any comments to the article before sending it off. as with f, puts you in the default editor. :post post an article. you'll be asked for the name of the group. q quit, or exit, nn. u un-subscribe from the current newsgroup. r responds to an article via e-mail. space hitting the space bar brings up the next page of articles. x if you have selected articles, this will show them to you and then take you to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. if you don't have any selected articles, it marks all articles as read and takes you to the next unread subscribed newsgroup. =word finds and marks all articles in the newsgroup with a specific word in the "subject:" line, for example: =modem z shows you selected articles immediately and then returns you to the current newsgroup. ? brings up a help screen. < goes to the previous page in the newsgroup. > goes to the next page in the newsgroup. $ goes to the last page in an article. ^ goes to the first page in an article. . using rn some folks prefer this older newsreader. if you type rn news.announce.newusers at your host system's command line, you'll see something like this: ******** unread articles in news.announce.newusers--read now? [ynq] if you hit your y key, the first article will appear on your screen. if you want to see what articles are available first, though, hit your computer's = key and you'll get something like this: introduction to news.announce a primer on how to work with the usenet community what is usenet? answers to frequently asked questions hints on writing style for usenet alternative newsgroup hierarchies, part i alternative newsgroup hierarchies, part ii emily postnews answers your questions on netiquette usenet software: history and sources a guide to social newsgroups and mailing lists how to get information about networks how to create a new newsgroup list of active newsgroups list of moderators publicly accessible mailing lists, part i publicly accessible mailing lists, part ii publicly accessible mailing lists, part iii how to become a usenet site list of periodic informational postings, part i list of periodic informational postings, part ii list of periodic informational postings, part iii end of article (of )--what next? [npq] notice how the messages are in numerical order this time, and don't tell you who sent them. article looks interesting. to read it, type in and hit enter. you'll see something like this: article ( more) in news.announce.newusers (moderated): from: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (gene spafford) newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.admin,news.answers subject: what is usenet? date: sep : : gmt followup-to: news.newusers.questions organization: dept. of computer sciences, purdue univ. lines: supersedes: <spaf-whatis_ @cs.purdue.edu> archive-name: what-is-usenet/part original from: chip@tct.com (chip salzenberg) last-change: july by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (gene spafford) the first thing to understand about usenet is that it is widely misunderstood. every day on usenet, the "blind men and the elephant" phenomenon is evident, in spades. in my opinion, more flame wars arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of usenet than from any other source. and consider that such flame wars arise, of necessity, among people who are on usenet. imagine, then, how poorly understood usenet must be by those outside! --more--( %) this time, the header looks much more like the gobbledygook you get in e-mail messages. to keep reading, hit your space bar. if you hit your n key (lower case), you'll go to the next message in the numerical order. to escape rn, just keep hitting your q key (in lower case), until you get back to the command line. now let's set up your reading list. because rn uses the same .newsrc file as nn, you can use one of the search-and-replace methods described above. or you can do this: type rn and hit enter. when the first newsgroup comes up on your screen, hit your u key (in lower case). hit it again, and again, and again. or just keep it pressed down (if your computer starts beeping, let up for a couple of seconds). eventually, you'll be told you're at the end of the newsgroups, and asked what you want to do next. here's where you begin entering newsgroups. type g newsgroup (for example, g comp.sys.mac.announce) and hit enter. you'll be asked if you want to "subscribe." hit your y key. then type g next newsgroup (for example, g comp.announce.newusers) and hit enter. repeat until done. this process will also set up your reading list for nn, if you prefer that newsreader. but how do you know which newsgroups to subscribe? typing a lowercase l and then hitting enter will show you a list of all available newsgroups. again, since there could be more than , newsgroups on your system, this might not be something you want to do. fortunately, you can search for groups with particular words in their names, using the l command. typing l mac followed by enter, will bring up a list of newsgroups with those letters in them (and as in nn, you will also see groups dealing with emacs and the like, in addition to groups related to macintosh computers). because of the vast amount of messages transmitted over usenet, most systems carry messages for only a few days or weeks. so if there's a message you want to keep, you should either turn on your computer's screen capture or save it to a file which you can later download). to save a message as a file in rn, type s filename where filename is what you want to call the file. hit enter. you'll be asked if you want to save it in "mailbox format." in most cases, you can answer with an n (which will strip off the header). the message will now be saved to a file in your news directory (which you can access by typing cd news and then hitting enter). also, some newsgroups fill up particularly quickly -- go away for a couple of days and you'll come back to find hundreds of articles! one way to deal with that is to mark them as "read" so that they no longer appear on your screen. in nn, hit a capital j; in rn, a small c. . rn commands different commands are available to you in rn depending on whether you are already in a newsgroup or reading a specific article. at any point, typing a lowercase h will bring up a list of available commands and some terse instructions for using them. here are some of them: after you've just called up rn, or within a newsgroup: c marks every article in a newsgroup as read (or "caught up") so that you don't have to see them again. the system will ask you if you are sure. can be done either when asked if you want to read a particular newsgroup or once in the newsgroup. g goes to a newsgroup, in this form: g news.group use this both for going to groups to which you're already subscribed and subscribing to new groups. h provides a list of available commands with terse instructions. l gives a list of all available newsgroups. p goes to the first previous subscribed newsgroup with un-read articles. q quits, or exits, rn if you have not yet gone into a newsgroup. if you are in a newsgroup, it quits that one and brings you to the next subscribed newsgroup. only within a newsgroup: = gives a list of all available articles in the newsgroup. m marks a specific article or series of articles as "un-read" again so that you can come back to them later. typing m and hitting enter would mark just that article as un-read. typing - m and hitting enter would mark all of those articles as un- read. space brings up the next page of article listings. if already on the last page, displays the first article in the newsgroup. u un-subscribe from the newsgroup. /text/ searches through the newsgroup for articles with a specific word or phrase in the "subject:" line, from the current article to the end of the newsgroup. for example, /eff/ would bring you to the first article with "eff" in the "subject:" line. ?text? the same as /text/ except it searches in reverse order from the current article. only within a specific article: e some newsgroups consist of articles that are binary files, typically programs or graphics images. hitting e will convert the ascii characters within such an article into a file you can then download and use or view (assuming you have the proper computer and software). many times, such files will be split into several articles; just keep calling up the articles and hitting e until done. you'll find the resulting file in your news subdirectory. c if you post an article and then decide it was a mistake, call it up on your host system and hit this. the message will soon begin disappearing on systems around the world. f post a public response in the newsgroup to the current article. includes a copy of her posting, which you can then edit down using your host system's text editor. f the same as above except it does not include a copy of the original message in yours. m marks the current article as "un-read" so that you can come back to it later. you do not have to type the article number. control-n brings up the first response to the article. if there is no follow-up article, this returns you to the first unread article in the newsgroup). control-p goes to the message to which the current article is a reply. n goes to the next unread article in the newsgroup. n takes you to the next article in the newsgroup even if you've already read it. q quits, or exits, the current article. leaves you in the current newsgroup. r reply, via e-mail only, to the author of the current article. includes a copy of his message in yours. r the same as above, except it does not include a copy of his article. s file copies the current article to a file in your news directory, where "file" is the name of the file you want to save it to. you'll be asked if you want to use "mailbox" format when saving. if you answer by hitting your n key, most of the header will not be saved. s|mail user mails a copy of the article to somebody. for "user" substitute an e-mail address. does not let you add comments to the message first, however. space hitting the space bar shows the next page of the article, or, if at the end, goes to the next un-read article. . essential newsgroups with so much to choose from, everybody will likely have their own unique usenet reading list. but there are a few newsgroups that are particularly of interest to newcomers. among them: news.announce.newusers this group consists of a series of articles that explain various facets of usenet. news.newusers.questions this is where you can ask questions (we'll see how in a bit) about how usenet works. news.announce.newsgroups look here for information about new or proposed newsgroups. news.answers contains lists of "frequently asked questions" (faqs) and their answers from many different newsgroups. learn how to fight jet lag in the faq from rec.travel.air; look up answers to common questions about microsoft windows in an faq from comp.os.ms-windows; etc. alt.internet.services looking for something in particular on the internet? ask here. alt.infosystems.announce people adding new information services to the internet will post details here. . speaking up "threads" are an integral part of usenet. when somebody posts a message, often somebody else will respond. soon, a thread of conversation begins. following these threads is relatively easy. in nn, related messages are grouped together. in rn, when you're done with a message, you can hit control-n to read the next related message, or followup. as you explore usenet, it's probably a good idea to read discussions for awhile before you jump in. this way, you can get a feel for the particular newsgroup -- each has its own rhythms. eventually, though, you'll want to speak up. there are two main ways to do this. you join an existing conversation, or you can start a whole new thread. if you want to join a discussion, you have to decide if you want to include portions of the message you are responding to in your message. the reason to do this is so people can see what you're responding to, just in case the original message has disappeared from their system (remember that most usenet messages have a short life span on the average host system) or they can't find it. if you're using a unix host system, joining an existing conversation is similar in both nn and rn: hit your f key when done with a given article in the thread. in rn, type a small f if you don't want to include portions of the message you're responding to; an uppercase f if you do. in nn, type a capital f. you'll then be asked if you want to include portions of the original message. and here's where you hit another unix wall. when you hit your f key, your host system calls up its basic unix text editor. if you're lucky, that'll be pico, a very easy system. more likely, however, you'll get dumped into emacs (or possibly vi), which you've already met in the chapter on e-mail. the single most important emacs command is control-x control-c this means, depress your control key and hit x. then depress the control key and hit c. memorize this. in fact, it's so important, it bears repeating: control-x control-c these keystrokes are how you get out of emacs. if they work well, you'll be asked if you want to send, edit, abort or list the message you were working on. if they don't work well (say you accidentally hit some other weird key combination that means something special to emacs) and nothing seems to happen, or you just get more weird-looking emacs prompts on the bottom of your screen, try hitting control-g. this should stop whatever emacs was trying to do (you should see the word "quit" on the bottom of your screen), after which you can hit control-x control-c. but if this still doesn't work, remember that you can always disconnect and dial back in! if you have told your newsreader you do want to include portions of the original message in yours, it will automatically put the entire thing at the top of your message. use the arrow keys to move down to the lines you want to delete and hit control-k, which will delete one line at a time. you can then write your message. remember that you have to hit enter before your cursor gets to the end of the line, because emacs does not have word wrapping. when done, hit control-x control-c. you'll be asked the question about sending, editing, aborting, etc. choose one. if you hit y, your host system will start the process to sending your message across the net. the nn and rn programs work differently when it comes to posting entirely new messages. in nn, type :post and hit enter in any newsgroup. you'll be asked which newsgroup to post a message to. type in its name and hit enter. then you'll be asked for "keywords." these are words you'd use to attract somebody scanning a newsgroup. say you're selling your car. you might type the type of car here. next comes a "summary" line, which is somewhat similar. finally, you'll be asked for the message's "distribution." this is where you put how widely you want your message disseminated. think about this one for a second. if you are selling your car, it makes little sense to send a message about it all over the world. but if you want to talk about the environment, it might make a lot of sense. each host system has its own set of distribution classifications, but there's generally a local one (just for users of that system), one for the city, state or region it's in, another for the country (for example, usa), one for the continent (for americans and canadians, na) and finally, one for the entire world (usually: world). which one to use? generally, a couple of seconds' thought will help you decide. if you're selling your car, use your city or regional distribution -- people in australia won't much care and may even get annoyed. if you want to discuss presidential politics, using a usa distribution makes more sense. if you want to talk about events in the middle east, sending your message to the entire world is perfectly acceptable. then you can type your message. if you've composed your message offline (generally a good idea if you and emacs don't get along), you can upload it now. you may see a lot of weird looking characters as it uploads into emacs, but those will disappear when you hit control-x and then control-c. alternately: "save" the message (for example, by hitting m in rn), log out, compose your message offline, log back on and upload your message into a file on your host system. then call up usenet, find the article you "saved." start a reply, and you'll be asked if you want to include a prepared message. type in the name of the file you just created and hit enter. in rn, you have to wait until you get to the end of a newsgroup to hit f, which will bring up a message-composing system. alternately, at your host system's command line, you can type pnews and hit enter. you'll be prompted somewhat similarly to the nn system, except that you'll be given a list of possible distributions. if you chose "world," you'll get this message: this program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire civilized world. your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere. please be sure you know what you are doing. are you absolutely sure that you want to do this? [ny] don't worry -- your message won't really cost the net untold amounts, although, again, it's a good idea to think for a second whether your message really should go everywhere. if you want to respond to a given post through e-mail, instead of publicly, hit r in nn or r or r in rn. in rn, as with follow-up articles, the upper-case key includes the original message in yours. most newsgroups are unmoderated, which means that every message you post will eventually wind up on every host system within the geographic region you specified that carries that newsgroup. some newsgroups, however, are moderated, as you saw earlier with comp.risks. in these groups, messages are shipped to a single location where a moderator, acting much like a magazine editor, decides what actually gets posted. in some cases, groups are moderated like scholarly journals. in other cases, it's to try to cut down on the massive number of messages that might otherwise be posted. you'll notice that many articles in usenet end with a fancy "signature" that often contains some witty saying, a clever drawing and, almost incidentally, the poster's name and e-mail address. you too can have your own "signature" automatically appended to everything you post. on your own computer, create a signature file. try to keep it to four lines or less, lest you annoy others on the net. then, while connected to your host system, type cat>.signature and hit enter (note the period before the s). upload your signature file into this using your communications software's ascii upload protocol. when done, hit control-d, the unix command for closing a file. now, every time you post a message, this will be appended to it. there are a few caveats to posting. usenet is no different from a town meeting or publication: you're not supposed to break the law, whether that's posting copyrighted material or engaging in illegal activities. it is also not a place to try to sell products (except in certain biz. and for-sale newsgroups). . cross-posting sometimes, you'll have an issue you think should be discussed in more than one usenet newsgroup. rather than posting individual messages in each group, you can post the same message in several groups at once, through a process known as cross-posting. say you want to start a discussion about the political ramifications of importing rare tropical fish from brazil. people who read rec.aquaria might have something to say. so might people who read alt.politics.animals and talk.politics.misc. cross-posting is easy. it also should mean that people on other systems who subscribe to several newsgroups will see your message only once, rather than several times -- news-reading software can cancel out the other copies once a person has read the message. when you get ready to post a message (whether through pnews for rn or the :post command in nn), you'll be asked in which newsgroups. type the names of the various groups, separated by a comma, but no space, for example: rec.aquaria,alt.politics.animals,talk.politics.misc and hit enter. after answering the other questions (geographic distribution, etc.), the message will be posted in the various groups (unless one of the groups is moderated, in which case the message goes to the moderator, who decides whether to make it public). it's considered bad form to post to an excessive number of newsgroups, or inappropriate newsgroups. probably, you don't really have to post something in different places. and while you may think your particular political issue is vitally important to the fate of the world, chances are the readers of rec.arts.comics will not, or at least not important enough to impose on them. you'll get a lot of nasty e-mail messages demanding you restrict your messages to the "appropriate" newsgroups. chapter : usenet ii . flame, blather and spew something about online communications seems to make some people particularly irritable. perhaps it's the immediacy and semi-anonymity of it all. whatever it is, there are whole classes of people you will soon think seem to exist to make you miserable. rather than pausing and reflecting on a message as one might do with a letter received on paper, it's just so easy to hit your r key and tell somebody you don't really know what you really think of them. even otherwise calm people sometimes find themselves turning into raving lunatics. when this happens, flames erupt. a flame is a particularly nasty, personal attack on somebody for something he or she has written. periodically, an exchange of flames erupts into a flame war that begin to take up all the space in a given newsgroup (and sometimes several; flamers like cross-posting to let the world know how they feel). these can go on for weeks (sometimes they go on for years, in which case they become "holy wars," usually on such topics as the relative merits of macintoshes and ibms). often, just when they're dying down, somebody new to the flame war reads all the messages, gets upset and issues an urgent plea that the flame war be taken to e- mail so everybody else can get back to whatever the newsgroup's business is. all this usually does, though, is start a brand new flame war, in which this poor person comes under attack for daring to question the first amendment, prompting others to jump on the attackers for impugning this poor soul... you get the idea. every so often, a discussion gets so out of hand that somebody predicts that either the government will catch on and shut the whole thing down or somebody will sue to close down the network, or maybe even the wrath of god will smote everybody involved. this brings what has become an inevitable rejoinder from others who realize that the network is, in fact, a resilient creature that will not die easily: "imminent death of usenet predicted. film at .'' flame wars can be tremendously fun to watch at first. they quickly grow boring, though. and wait until the first time you're attacked! flamers are not the only net.characters to watch out for. spewers assume that whatever they are particularly concerned about either really is of universal interest or should be rammed down the throats of people who don't seem to care -- as frequently as possible. you can usually tell a spewer's work by the number of articles he posts in a day on the same subject and the number of newsgroups to which he then sends these articles -- both can reach well into double digits. often, these messages relate to various ethnic conflicts around the world. frequently, there is no conceivable connection between the issue at hand and most of the newsgroups to which he posts. no matter. if you try to point this out in a response to one of these messages, you will be inundated with angry messages that either accuse you of being an insensitive racist/american/whatever or ignore your point entirely to bring up several hundred more lines of commentary on the perfidy of whoever it is the spewer thinks is out to destroy his people. closely related to these folks are the holocaust revisionists, who periodically inundate certain groups (such as soc.history) with long rants about how the holocaust never really happened. some people attempt to refute these people with facts, but others realize this only encourages them. blatherers tend to be more benign. their problem is that they just can't get to the point -- they can wring three or four screenfuls out of a thought that others might sum up in a sentence or two. a related condition is excessive quoting. people afflicted with this will include an entire message in their reply rather than excising the portions not relevant to whatever point they're trying to make. the worst quote a long message and then add a single line: "i agree!" or some such, often followed by a monster .signature (see section . ) there are a number of other usenet denizens you'll soon come to recognize. among them: net.weenies. these are the kind of people who enjoy insulting others, the kind of people who post nasty messages in a sewing newsgroup just for the hell of it. net.geeks. people to whom the net is life, who worry about what happens when they graduate and they lose their free, -hour access. net.gods. the old-timers; the true titans of the net and the keepers of its collective history. they were around when the net consisted of a couple of computers tied together with baling wire. lurkers. actually, you can't tell these people are there, but they are. they're the folks who read a newsgroup but never post or respond. wizards. people who know a particular net-related topic inside and out. unix wizards can perform amazing tricks with that operating system, for example. net.saints. always willing to help a newcomer, eager to share their knowledge with those not born with an innate ability to navigate the net, they are not as rare as you might think. post a question about something and you'll often be surprised how many responses you get. the last group brings us back to the net's oral tradition. with few written guides, people have traditionally learned their way around the net by asking somebody, whether at the terminal next to them or on the net itself. that tradition continues: if you have a question, ask. today, one of the places you can look for help is in the news.newusers.questions newsgroup, which, as its name suggests, is a place to learn more about usenet. but be careful what you post. some of the usenet wizards there get cranky sometimes when they have to answer the same question over and over again. oh, they'll eventually answer your question, but not before they tell you should have asked your host system administrator first or looked at the postings in news.announce.newusers. . killfiles, the cure for what ails you as you keep reading usenet, you are going to run across things or people that really drive you nuts -- or that you just get tired of seeing. killfiles are just the thing for you. when you start your newsreader, it checks to see if you have any lists of words, phrases or names you don't want to see. if you do, then it blanks out any messages containing those words. such as cascades. as you saw earlier, when you post a reply to a message and include parts of that message, the original lines show up with a > in front of them. well, what if you reply to a reply? then you get a >> in front of the line. and if you reply to that reply? you get >>>. keep this up, and soon you get a triangle of >'s building up in your message. there are people who like building up these triangles, or cascades. they'll "respond" to your message by deleting everything you've said, leaving only the "in message , you said:" part and the last line of your message, to which they add a nonsensical retort. on and on they go until the triangle has reached the right end of the page. then they try to expand the triangle by deleting one > with each new line. whoever gets to finish this mega-triangle wins. there is even a newsgroup just for such folks: alt.cascade. unfortunately, cascaders would generally rather cascade in other newsgroups. because it takes a lot of messages to build up a completed cascade, the targeted newsgroup soon fills up with these messages. of course, if you complain, you'll be bombarded with messages about the first amendment and artistic expression -- or worse, with another cascade. the only thing you can do is ignore them, by setting up a killfile. there are also certain newsgroups where killfiles will come in handy because of the way the newsgroups are organized. for example, readers of rec.arts.tv.soaps always use an acronym in their subject: line for the show they're writing about (amc, for example, for "all my children"). this way, people who only want to read about "one life to live" can blank out all the messages about "the young and the restless" and all the others (to keep people from accidentally screening out messages that might contain the letters "gh" in them, "general hospital" viewers always use "gh:" in their subject lines). both nn and rn let you create killfiles, but in different ways. to create a killfile in nn, go into the newsgroup with the offending messages and type a capital k. you'll see this at the bottom of your screen: auto (k)ill or (s)elect (cr => kill subject days) if you hit return, nn will ask you which article's subject you're tired of. choose one and the article and any follow-ups will disappear, and you won't see them again for days. if you type a lower-case k instead, you'll get this: auto kill on (s)ubject or (n)ame (s) if you hit your s key or just enter, you'll see this: kill subject: (=/) type in the name of the offending word or phrase and hit enter. you'll then be prompted: kill in (g)roup 'eff.test' or in (a)ll groups (g) except that the name of the group you see will be the one you're actually in at the moment. because cascaders and other annoying people often cross-post their messages to a wide range of newsgroups, you might consider hitting a instead of g. next comes: lifetime of entry in days (p)ermanent ( ) the p key will screen out the offending articles forever, while hitting enter will do it for days. you can also type in a number of days for the blocking. creating killfiles in rn works differently -- its default killfile generator only works for messages in specific groups, rather than globally for your entire newsgroup list. to create a global killfile, you'll have to write one yourself. to create a killfile in rn, go into the newsgroup where the offending messages are and type in its number so you get it on your screen. type a capital k. from now on, any message with that subject line will disappear before you read the group. you should probably choose a reply, rather than the original message, so that you will get all of the followups (the original message won't have a "re: " in its subject line). the next time you call up that newsgroup, rn will tell you it's killing messages. when it's done, hit the space bar to go back into reading mode. to create a "global" kill file that will automatically wipe out articles in all groups you read, start rn and type control-k. this will start your whatever text editor you have as your default on your host system and create a file (called kill, in your news subdirectory). on the first line, you'll type in the word, phrase or name you don't want to see, followed by commands that tell rn whether to search an entire message for the word or name and then what to do when it finds it. each line must be in this form /pattern/modifier:j "pattern" is the word or phrase you want rn to look for. it's case-insensitive: both "test" and "test" will be knocked out. the modifier tells rn whether to limit its search to message headers (which can be useful when the object is to never see messages from a particular person): a: looks through an entire message h: looks just at the header you can leave out the modifier command, in which case rn will look only at the subject line of messages. the "j" at the end tells rn to screen out all articles with the offending word. so if you never want to see the word "foo" in any header, ever again, type this: /foo/h:j this is particularly useful for getting rid of articles from people who post in more than one newsgroup, such as cascaders, since an article's newsgroup name is always in the header. if you just want to block messages with a subject line about cascades, you could try: /foo/:j to kill anything that is a followup to any article, use this pattern: /subject: *re:/:j when done writing lines for each phrase to screen, exit the text editor as you normally would, and you'll be put back in rn. one word of caution: go easy on the global killfile. an extensive global killfile, or one that makes frequent use of the a: modifier can dramatically slow down rn, since the system will now have to look at every single word in every single message in all the newsgroups you want to read. if there's a particular person whose posts you never want to see again, first find his or her address (which will be in the "from:" line of his postings) and then write a line in your killfile like this: /from: *name@address\.all/h:j . some usenet hints case counts in unix -- most of the time. many unix commands, including many of those used for reading usenet articles, are case sensitive. hit a d when you meant a d and either nothing will happen, or something completely different from what you expected will happen. so watch that case! in nn, you can get help most of the time by typing a question mark (the exception is when you are writing your own message, because then you are inside the text-processing program). in rn, type a lower-case h at any prompt to get some online help. when you're searching for a particular newsgroup, whether through the l command in rn or with nngrep for nn, you sometimes may have to try several keywords. for example, there is a newsgroup dedicated to the grateful dead, but you'd never find it if you tried, say, l grateful dead, because the name is rec.music.gdead. in general, try the smallest possible part of the word or discussion you're looking for, for example, use "trek" to find newsgroups about "star trek." if one word doesn't produce anything, try another. . the brain-tumor boy, the modem tax and the chain letter like the rest of the world, usenet has its share of urban legends and questionable activities. there are three in particular that plague the network. spend more than, oh, minutes within usenet and you're sure to run into the brain tumor boy, the plot by the evil fcc to tax your modem and dave rhode's miracle cure for poverty. for the record, here's the story on all of them: there once was a seven-year-old boy in england named craig shergold who was diagnosed with a seemingly incurable brain tumor. as he lay dying, he wished only to have friends send him postcards. the local newspapers got a hold of the tear-jerking story. soon, the boy's wish had changed: he now wanted to get into the guinness book of world records for the largest postcard collection. word spread around the world. people by the millions sent him postcards. miraculously, the boy lived. an american billionaire even flew him to the u.s. for surgery to remove what remained of the tumor. and his wish succeeded beyond his wildest dreams -- he made the guinness book of world records. but with craig now well into his teens, his dream has turned into a nightmare for the post office in the small town outside london where he lives. like craig himself, his request for cards just refuses to die, inundating the post office with millions of cards every year. just when it seems like the flow is slowing, along comes somebody else who starts up a whole new slew of requests for people to send craig post cards (or greeting cards or business cards -- craig letters have truly taken on a life of their own and begun to mutate). even dear abby has been powerless to make it stop! what does any of this have to do with the net? the craig letter seems to pop up on usenet as often as it does on cork boards at major corporations. no matter how many times somebody like gene spafford posts periodic messages to ignore them or spend your money on something more sensible (a donation to the local red cross, say), somebody manages to post a letter asking readers to send cards to poor little craig. don't send any cards to the federal communications commission, either. in , the fcc considered removing a tax break it had granted compuserve and other large commercial computer networks for use of the national phone system. the fcc quickly reconsidered after alarmed users of bulletin-board systems bombarded it with complaints about this "modem tax." now, every couple of months, somebody posts an "urgent" message warning net users that the fcc is about to impose a modem tax. this is not true. the way you can tell if you're dealing with the hoax story is simple: it always mentions an incident in which a talk-show host on kgo radio in san francisco becomes outraged on the air when he reads a story about the tax in the new york times. another way to tell it's not true is that it never mentions a specific fcc docket number or closing date for comments. save that letter to your congressman for something else. sooner or later, you're going to run into a message titled "make money fast." it's your basic chain letter. the usenet version is always about some guy named dave rhodes who was on the verge of death, or something, when he discovered a perfectly legal way to make tons of money -- by posting a chain letter on computer systems around the world. yeah, right. . big sig there are .sigs and there are .sigs. many people put only bare-bones information in their .sig files -- their names and e-mail addresses, perhaps their phone numbers. others add a quotation they think is funny or profound and a disclaimer that their views are not those of their employer. still others add some ascii-art graphics. and then there are those who go totally berserk, posting huge creations with multiple quotes, hideous ascii "barfics" and more e-mail addresses than anybody could humanly need. college freshmen unleashed on the net seem to excel at these. you can see the best of the worst in the alt.fan.warlord newsgroup, which exists solely to critique .sigs that go too far, such as: ___________________________________________________________________________ |#########################################################################| |#| |#| |#| ***** * * ***** * * ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| * * * * ** ** * * * * |#| |#| * ****** *** * * * *** * ** ***** ***** |#| |#| * * * * * * * * * * * |#| |#| * * * ***** * * ***** ***** * * |#| |#| |#| |#| **** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| * ** * * * * * * * * |#| |#| **** * * ** ***** * * ** * * * |#| |#| * ** * * * ** * * * * * * * |#| |#| **** ***** ***** ** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| |#| |#| t-h-e m-e-g-a b-i-g .s-i-g c-o-m-p-a-n-y |#| |#| ~-----------------------------~ |#| |#| "annoying people with huge net.signatures for over years..." |#| |#| |#| |#|---------------------------------------------------------------------|#| |#| "the difference between a net.idiot and a bucket of shit is that at |#| |#| least a bucket can be emptied. let me further illustrate my point |#| |#| by comparing these charts here. (pulls out charts) here we have a |#| |#| user who not only flames people who don't agree with his narrow- |#| |#| minded drivel, but he has this huge signature that takes up many |#| |#| pages with useless quotes. this also makes reading his frequented |#| |#| newsgroups a torture akin to having at baud modem on a vax. i |#| |#| might also add that his contribution to society rivals only toxic |#| |#| dump sites." |#| |#| -- robert a. dumpstik, jr |#| |#| president of the mega big sig company |#| |#| september th, at : pm |#| |#| during his speech at the "net.abusers |#| |#| society luncheon" during the |#| |#| " net.idiots annual convention" |#| |#|_____________________________________________________________________|#| |#| |#| |#| thomas babbit, iii: th assistant to the vice president of sales |#| |#| __ |#| |#| ========== ______ digital widget manufacturing co. |#| |#| \\ / complex incorporated drive |#| |#| )-======= suite |#| |#| nostromo, va - |#| |#| #nc- enterpoop ship :) phone # - - |#| |#| ---------------- fax # - - |#| |#| "shut up, wesley!" online service # - - |#| |#| -- me at - , and now baud! |#| |#| punet: tbabb!digwig!nostromo |#| |#| home address: internet: dvader@imperial.emp.com |#| |#| thomas babbit, iii prodigy: still awaiting author- |#| |#| luzyer way ization |#| |#| sulaco, va "manufacturing educational widget |#| |#| phone # - - design for over years..." |#| |#|=====================================================================|#| |#| |#| |#| introducing: |#| |#| ______ |#| |#| the |\ /| / |#| |#| | \/ | / |#| |#| | | / |#| |#| | | / |#| |#| | | etelhed /_____ one |#| |#|'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'|#| |#| megs online! the k l bbs for rad teens! lots of games and many |#| |#| bases for kul topix! call now and be validated to the metelhed zone|#| |#| -- - - -- |#| |#|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\v/////////////////////////////////////|#| |#| "this is the end, my friend..." -- the doors |#| |#########################################################################| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- hit "b" to continue hahahha... fooled u! . the first amendment as local ordinance usenet's international reach raises interesting legal questions that have yet to be fully resolved. can a discussion or posting that is legal in one country be transmitted to a country where it is against the law? does the posting even become illegal when it reaches the border? and what if that country is the only path to a third country where the message is legal as well? several foreign colleges and other institutions have cut off feeds of certain newsgroups where americans post what is, in the u.s., perfectly legal discussions of drugs or alternative sexual practices. even in the u.s., some universities have discontinued certain newsgroups their administrators find offensive, again, usually in the alt. hierarchy. an interesting example of this sort of question happened in , when a canadian court issued a gag order on canadian reporters covering a particularly controversial murder case. americans, not bound by the gag order, began posting accounts of the trial -- which any canadian with a net account could promptly read. . usenet history in the late s, unix developers came up with a new feature: a system to allow unix computers to exchange data over phone lines. in , two graduate students at duke university in north carolina, tom truscott and jim ellis, came up with the idea of using this system, known as uucp (for unix-to-unix copy), to distribute information of interest to people in the unix community. along with steve bellovin, a graduate student at the university of north carolina and steve daniel, they wrote conferencing software and linked together computers at duke and unc. word quickly spread and by , a graduate student at berkeley, mark horton and a nearby high school student, matt glickman, had released a new version that added more features and was able to handle larger volumes of postings -- the original north carolina program was meant for only a few articles in a newsgroup each day. today, usenet connects tens of thousands of sites around the world, from mainframes to amigas. with more than , newsgroups and untold thousands of readers, it is perhaps the world's largest computer network. . when things go wrong * when you start up rn, you get a "warning" that "bogus newsgroups" are present. within a couple of minutes, you'll be asked whether to keep these or delete them. delete them. bogus newsgroups are newsgroups that your system administrator or somebody else has determined are no longer needed. * while in a newsgroup in rn, you get a message: "skipping unavailable article." this is usually an article that somebody posted and then decided to cancel. * you upload a text file to your unix host system for use in a usenet message or e-mail, and when you or your recipient reads the file, every line ends with a ^m. this happens because unix handles line endings differently than ms- dos or macintosh computers. most unix systems have programs to convert incoming files from other computers. to use it, upload your file and then, at your command line, type dos unix filename filename or mac unix filename filename depending on which kind of computer you are using and where filename is the name of the file you've just uploaded. a similar program can prepare text files for downloading to your computer, for example: unix dos filename filename or unix mac filename filename will ensure that a text file you are about to get will not come out looking odd on your computer. . fyi leanne phillips periodically posts a list of frequently asked questions (and answers) about use of the rn killfile function in the news.newusers.questions and news.answers newsgroups on usenet. bill wohler posts a guide to using the nn newsreader in the news.answers and news.software newsgroups. look in the news.announce.newusers and news.groups newsgroups on usenet for "a guide to social newsgroups and mailing lists,'' which gives brief summaries of the various soc. newsgroups. "managing uucp and usenet,' by tim o'reilly and grace todino (o'reilly & associates, ) is a good guide for setting up your own usenet system. chapter : mailing lists and bitnet . internet mailing lists usenet is not the only forum on the net. scores of "mailing lists" represent another way to interact with other net users. unlike usenet messages, which are stored in one central location on your host system's computer, mailing-list messages are delivered right to your e-mail box, unlike usenet messages. you have to ask for permission to join a mailing list. unlike usenet, where your message is distributed to the world, on a mailing list, you send your messages to a central moderator, who either re-mails it to the other people on the list or uses it to compile a periodic "digest" mailed to subscribers. given the number of newsgroups, why would anybody bother with a mailing list? even on usenet, there are some topics that just might not generate enough interest for a newsgroup; for example, the queen list, which is all about the late freddie mercury's band. and because a moderator decides who can participate, a mailing list can offer a degree of freedom to speak one's mind (or not worry about net.weenies) that is not necessarily possible on usenet. several groups offer anonymous postings -- only the moderator knows the real names of people who contribute. examples include step, where people enrolled in such programs as alcoholics anonymous can discuss their experiences, and sappho, a list limited to gay and bisexual women. you can find mailing addresses and descriptions of these lists in the news.announce.newusers newsgroup with the subject of "publicly accessible mailing lists." mailing lists now number in the hundreds, so this posting is divided into three parts. if you find a list to which you want to subscribe, send an e- mail message to list-request@address where "list" is the name of the mailing list and "address" is the moderator's e-mail address, asking to be added to the list. include your full e-mail address just in case something happens to your message's header along the way, and ask, if you're accepted, for the address to mail messages to the list. . bitnet as if usenet and mailing lists were not enough, there are bitnet "discussion groups" or "lists." bitnet is an international network linking colleges and universities, but it uses a different set of technical protocols for distributing information from the internet or usenet. it offers hundreds of discussion groups, comparable in scope to usenet newsgroups. one of the major differences is the way messages are distributed. bitnet messages are sent to your mailbox, just as with a mailing list. however, where mailing lists are often maintained by a person, all bitnet discussion groups are automated -- you subscribe to them through messages to a "listserver" computer. this is a kind of robot moderator that controls distribution of messages on the list. in many cases, it also maintains indexes and archives of past postings in a given discussion group, which can be handy if you want to get up to speed with a discussion or just search for some information related to it. many bitnet discussion groups are now "translated" into usenet form and carried through usenet in the bit.listserv hierarchy. in general, it's probably better to read messages through usenet if you can. it saves some storage space on your host system's hard drives. if people subscribe to the same bitnet list, that means copies of each message get stored on the system; whereas if people read a usenet message, that's still only one message that needs storage on the system. it can also save your sanity if the discussion group generates large numbers of messages. think of opening your e-mailbox one day to find messages in it -- of them from a discussion group and one of them a "real" e-mail message that's important to you. subscribing and canceling subscriptions is done through an e- mail message to the listserver computer. for addressing, all listservers are known as "listserv" (yep) at some bitnet address. this means you will have to add ".bitnet" to the end of the address, if it's in a form like this: listserv@miamiu. for example, if you have an interest in environmental issues, you might want to subscribe to the econet discussion group. to subscribe, send an e-mail message to listserv@miamiu.bitnet some bitnet listservers are also connected to the internet, so if you see a listserver address ending in ".edu", you can e-mail the listserver without adding ".bitnet" to the end. always leave the "subject:" line blank in a message to a listserver. inside the message, you tell the listserver what you want, with a series of simple commands: subscribe group your name to subscribe to a list, where "group" is the list name and "your name" is your full name, for example: subscribe econet henry fielding unsubscribe group your name to discontinue a group, for example: unsubscribe econet henry fielding list global this sends you a list of all available bitnet discussion groups. but be careful -- the list is very long! get refcard sends you a list of other commands you can use with a listserver, such as commands for retrieving past postings from a discussion group. each of these commands goes on a separate line in your message (and you can use one or all of them). if you want to get a list of all bitnet discussion groups, send e-mail to listserv@bitnic.educom.edu leave the "subject:" line blank and use the list global command. when you subscribe to a bitnet group, there are two important differences from usenet. first, when you want to post a message for others to read in the discussion group, you send a message to the group name at its bitnet address. using econet as an example, you would mail the message to: econet@miamiu.bitnet note that this is different from the listserv address you used to subscribe to the group to begin with. use the listserv address only to subscribe to or unsubscribe from a discussion group. if you use the discussion-group address to try to subscribe or unsubscribe, your message will go out to every other subscriber, many of whom will think unkind thoughts, which they may share with you in an e-mail message). the second difference relates to sending an e-mail message to the author of a particular posting. usenet newsreaders such as rn and nn let you do this with one key. but if you hit your r key to respond to a discussion-group message, your message will go to the listserver, and from there to everybody else on the list! this can prove embarrassing to you and annoying to others. to make sure your message goes just to the person who wrote the posting, take down his e-mail address from the posting and then compose a brand-new message. remember, also, that if you see an e-mail address like izzy@indyvms, it's a bitnet address. two bitnet lists will prove helpful for delving further into the network. new-list tells you the names of new discussion groups. to subscribe, send a message to listserv@ndsuvm .bitnet: sub new-list your name infonets is the place to go when you have questions about bitnet. it is also first rate for help on questions about all major computer networks and how to reach them. to subscribe, send e-mail to info-nets- request@think.com: sub infonets your name both of these lists are also available on usenet, the former as bit.listserv.new-list; the latter as bit.listserv.infonets (sometimes bit.listserv.info-nets). chapter : telnet . mining the net like any large community, cyberspace has its libraries, places you can go to look up information or take out a good book. telnet is one of your keys to these libraries. telnet is a program that lets you use the power of the internet to connect you to databases, library catalogs, and other information resources around the world. want to see what the weather's like in vermont? check on crop conditions in azerbaijan? get more information about somebody whose name you've seen online? telnet lets you do this, and more. alas, there's a big "but!'' unlike the phone system, internet is not yet universal; not everybody can use all of its services. almost all colleges and universities on the internet provide telnet access. so do all of the for-fee public-access systems listed in chapter . but the free-net systems do not give you access to every telnet system. and if you are using a public-access uucp or usenet site, you will not have access to telnet. the main reason for this is cost. connecting to the internet can easily cost $ , or more for a leased, high-speed phone line. some databases and file libraries can be queried by e-mail, however; we'll show you how to do that later on. in the meantime, the rest of this chapter assumes you are connected to a site with at least partial internet access. most telnet sites are fairly easy to use and have online help systems. most also work best (and in some cases, only) with vt emulation. let's dive right in and try one. at your host system's command line, type telnet access.usask.ca and hit enter. that's all you have to do to connect to a telnet site! in this case, you'll be connecting to a service known as hytelnet, which is a database of computerized library catalogs and other databases available through telnet. you should see something like this: trying . . . ... connected to access.usask.ca. escape character is '^]'. ultrix unix (access.usask.ca) login: every telnet site has two addresses -- one composed of words that are easier for people to remember; the other a numerical address better suited for computers. the "escape character" is good to remember. when all else fails, hitting your control key and the ] key at the same time will disconnect you and return you to your host system. at the login prompt, type hytelnet and hit enter. you'll see something like this: welcome to hytelnet version . ................... what is hytelnet? <whatis> . up/down arrows move library catalogs <sites > . left/right arrows select other resources <sites > . ? for help anytime help files for catalogs <op > . catalog interfaces <sys > . m returns here internet glossary <glossary> . q quits telnet tips <telnet> . telnet/tn escape keys <escape.key> . key-stroke commands <help.txt> . ........................ hytelnet . was written by peter scott, u of saskatchewan libraries, saskatoon, sask, canada. unix and vms software by earl fogel, computing services, u of s the first choice, "<whatis>" will be highlighted. use your down and up arrows to move the cursor among the choices. hit enter when you decide on one. you'll get another menu, which in turn will bring up text files telling you how to connect to sites and giving any special commands or instructions you might need. hytelnet does have one quirk. to move back to where you started (for example, from a sub-menu to a main menu), hit the left-arrow key on your computer. play with the system. you might want to turn on your computer's screen-capture, or at the very least, get out a pen and paper. you're bound to run across some interesting telnet services that you'll want to try -- and you'll need their telnet "addresses.'' as you move around hytelnet, it may seem as if you haven't left your host system -- telnet can work that quickly. occasionally, when network loads are heavy, however, you will notice a delay between the time you type a command or enter a request and the time the remote service responds. to disconnect from hytelnet and return to your system, hit your q key and enter. some telnet computers are set up so that you can only access them through a specific "port." in those cases, you'll always see a number after their name, for example: india.colorado.edu . it's important to include that number, because otherwise, you may not get in. in fact, try the above address. type telnet india.colorado.edu and hit enter. you should see something like this: trying . . . ... followed very quickly by this: telnet india.colorado.edu escape character is '^]'. sun jan : : connection closed by foreign host. what we want is the middle line, which tells you the exact mountain standard time, as determined by a government-run atomic clock in boulder, colo. . library catalogs several hundred libraries around the world, from the snohomish public library in washington state to the library of congress are now available to you through telnet. you can use hytelnet to find their names, telnet addresses and use instructions. why would you want to browse a library you can't physically get to? many libraries share books, so if yours doesn't have what you're looking for, you can tell the librarian where he or she can get it. or if you live in an area where the libraries are not yet online, you can use telnet to do some basic bibliographic research before you head down to the local branch. there are several different database programs in use by online libraries. harvard's is one of the easier ones to use, so let's try it. telnet to hollis.harvard.edu. when you connect, you'll see: ***************** h a r v a r d u n i v e r s i t y ***************** office for information technology *** *** *** *** ve *** ri *** *** *** *** hollis (harvard online library system) ***** ***** **** tas **** hubs (harvard university basic services) *** *** ***** iu (information utility) *** cms (vm/cms timesharing service) ** hollis is available without access restrictions ** access to other applications is limited to individuals who have been granted specific permission by an authorized person. to select one of the applications above, type its name on the command line followed by your user id, and press return. ** hollis does not require a userid ** examples: hollis (press return) or hubs userid (press return) ===> type hollis and hit enter. you'll see several screens flash by quickly until finally the system stops and you'll get this: welcome to hollis (harvard online library information system) to begin, type one of the -character database codes listed below: hu union catalog of the harvard libraries ow catalog of older widener materials lg guide to harvard libraries and computing resources ai expanded academic index (selective - , full - ) lr legal resource index ( - ) pa pais international ( - ) to change databases from any place in hollis, type choose followed by a -character database code, as in: choose hu for general help in using hollis, type help. for hollis news, type help news. for hollis hours of operation, type help hours. always press the enter or return key after typing your command the first thing to notice is the name of the system: hollis. librarians around the world seem to be inordinately found of cutesy, anthropomorphized acronyms for their machines (not far from harvard, the librarians at brandeis university came up with library on-line user information service, or louis; mit has barton). if you want to do some general browsing, probably the best bet on the harvard system is to choose hu, which gets you access to their main holdings, including those of its medical libraries. choose that, and you'll see this: the harvard university library union catalog to begin a search, select a search option from the list below and type its code on the command line. use either upper or lower case. au author search ti title search su subject search me medical subject search keyword keyword search options call call number search options other other search options for information on the contents of the union catalog, type help. to exit the union catalog, type quit. a search can be entered on the command line of any screen. always press the enter or return key after typing your command. say you want to see if harvard has shed the starchy legacy of the puritans, who founded the school. why not see if they have "the joy of sex" somewhere in their stacks? type ti joy of sex and hit enter. this comes up: hu: your search retrieved no items. enter new command or help. you typed: ti joy of sex ******************************************************************************* always press the enter or return key after typing your command. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- options: find start - search options help quit - exit database command? oh, well! do they have anything that mentions "sex" in the title? try another ti search, but this time just: ti sex. you get: hu guide: summary of search results items retrieved by your search: find ti sex ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ sex sex a sexa sexbo sexce sexdr sexe sexie sexja sexle sexo sexpi sext sexua sexwa sexy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- options: index (or i etc) to see list of items help start - search options redo - edit search quit - exit database command? if you want to get more information on the first line, type and hit enter: hu index: list of items retrieved items retrieved by your search: find ti sex ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ sex geddes patrick sir / bks sex a z goldenson robert m/ bks sex abuse hysteria salem witch trials revisited gardner richard a/ bks sex aetates mundi english and irish irish sex aetates mundi/ bks sex after sixty a guide for men and women for their later years butler robert n / bks ------------------------------------------------------ (continues) ------------ options: display (or d etc) to see a record help guide more - next page start - search options redo - edit search quit - exit database command? most library systems give you a way to log off and return to your host system. on hollis, hit escape followed by xx one particularly interesting system is the one run by the colorado alliance of research libraries, which maintains databases for libraries throughout colorado, the west and even in boston. telnet pac.carl.org. follow the simple log-in instructions. when you get a menu, type (even though that is not listed), which takes you to the pikes peak library district, which serves the city of colorado springs. several years ago, its librarians realized they could use their database program not just for books but for cataloging city records and community information, as well. today, if you want to look up municipal ordinances or city records, you only have to type in the word you're looking for and you'll get back cites of the relevant laws or decisions. carl will also connect you to the university of hawaii library, which, like the one in colorado springs, has more than just bibliographic material online. one of its features is an online hawaiian almanac that can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about hawaiians, including the number injured in boogie-board accidents each year (seven). . some interesting telnet sites agriculture penpages, run by pennsylvania state university's college of agricultural sciences, provides weekly world weather and crop reports from the u.s. department of agriculture. these reports detail everything from the effect of the weather on palm trees in malaysia to the state of the ukrainian wheat crop. reports from pennsylvania country extension officers offer tips for improving farm life. one database lists pennsylvania hay distributors by county -- and rates the quality of their hay! the service lets you search for information two different ways. a menu system gives you quick access to reports that change frequently, such as the weekly crop/weather reports. an index system lets you search through several thousand online documents by keyword. at the main menu, you can either browse through an online manual or choose "penpages,'' which puts you into the agriculture system. telnet: psupen.psu.edu user name: your -letter state code or world california state university's advanced technology information network provides similar information as penpages, only focusing on california crops. it also maintains lists of upcoming california trade shows and carries updates on biotechnology. telnet: caticsuf.cati.csufresno.edu log in: public you will then be asked to register and will be given a user name and password. hit "a'' at the main menu for agricultural information. hit "d'' to call up a menu that includes a biweekly biotechnology report. aids the university of miami maintains a database of aids health providers in southern florida. telnet: callcat.med.miami.edu log in: library at the main menu, select p (for "aids providers" and you'll be able to search for doctors, hospitals and other providers that care for patients with aids. you can also search by speciality. see also under conversation and health. amateur radio: the national ham radio call-sign callbook lets you search for american amateur operators by callsign, city, last name or zip code. a successful search will give you the ham's name, address, callsign, age, type of license and when he or she got it. telnet: callsign.cs.buffalo.edu or ham.njit.edu . when you connect, you tell the system how you want to search and what you're looking for. for example, if you want to search for hams by city, you would type city city name and hit enter (for example: city kankakee). other search choices are "call" (after which you would type a ham's name), "name," and "zip" (which you would follow with a zip code). be careful when searching for hams in a large city; there doesn't seem to be anyway to shut off the list once it starts except by using control-]. otherwise, when done, type quit and hit enter to disconnect. animals see under health. calculators hewlett-packard maintains a free service on which you can seek advice about their line of calculators. telnet: hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com no log-in is needed. chemistry the electronic periodic table of the elements draws the table on your screen and then lets you look up various properties of individual elements. telnet: camms .caos.kun.nl no password needed. congress the library of congress information service lets you search current and past legislation (dating to ). telnet: locis.loc.gov password: none needed. when you connect, you'll get a main menu that lets you select from several databases, including the library of congress card catalog (with book entries dating to ) and a database of information on copyright laws. for the congressional database, select the number next to its entry and hit enter. you'll then be asked to choose which legislative year to search. after that, a menu similar to this will come up: ***c - the legislative information file for the rd congress, which was updated on / / and contains , records, is now available for your search. currency: all information is not current through the above date, which is machine generated when any information is added to the file. bill numbers, official titles, sponsors, and status (step) added within hours. indexing terms and digests added later, in some cases several weeks after the bill is added to the file. to start retrieve to find: examples: search: member name --------------> retrieve rep gingrich retrieve sen kennedy bill number --------------> retrieve h.r. subject keywords ---------> retrieve day care for help: type the word help and press the enter key. ready for new command: conversation communications canada, a canadian government agency is developing conversational hypertext access technology (chat) is a system being developed by communications canada to provide easy database access to people with little or no computer experience, using what are known as hypertext links. instead of cryptic computer commands, users type questions in english. telnet: debra.doc.ca log in: chat you choose one of the three databases now online, one on aids, and then ask questions in english. ask the aids database, "when was aids first discovered?'' and it answers: "the first case of aids in north america was diagnosed in . before that, it existed in africa, probably beginning in the 's. aids was discovered in north america when a number of young men with a history of homosexuality developed a rare type of cancer called kaposi's sarcoma.'' sometimes, you do have to rephrase your question. for example, when asked "what is the link between aids and drug use?'' the computer responds: "i know two things about drugs: the drugs that are used to treat people with aids, and the risks that drug users have in getting aids. please ask about treatments or drug users.'' copyright law see under congress. current events every year, the cia publishes a fact book that is essentially an almanac of all the world's countries and international organizations, including such information as major products, type of government and names of its leaders. it's available for searching through the university of maryland info database. telnet: info.umd.edu choose a terminal type and hit enter (or just hit enter if you are using vt ). at the main menu, choose the number next to "educational resources." then select the number next to "international," followed by "factbook." you can then search by country or agency. this site also maintains copies of the u.s. budget, documents related to the north american free trade agreement and other government initiatives. at the "educational resources" menu, select the number next to "united states" and then the one next to "government." the access legislative information service lets you browse through and look up bills before the hawaiian legislature. telnet: access.uhcc.hawaii.edu environment envirolink is a large database and conference system about the environment, based in pittsburgh. telnet: envirolink.org log on: gopher the u.s. environmental protection agency maintains online databases of materials related to hazardous waste, the clean lakes program and cleanup efforts in new england. the agency plans to eventually include cleanup work in other regions, as well. the database is actually a computerized card catalog of epa documents -- you can look the documents up, but you'll still have to visit your regional epa office to see them. telnet: epaibm.rtpnc.epa.gov no password or user name is needed. at the main menu, type public and hit enter (there are other listed choices, but they are only for use by epa employees). you'll then see a one-line menu. type ols and hit enter, and you'll see something like this: net- logon to tso in progress. databases: n national catalog ch chemical coll. system h hazardous waste region i l clean lakes other options: ? help q quit enter selection --> choose one and you'll get a menu that lets you search by document title, keyword, year of publication or corporation. after you enter the search word and hit enter, you'll be told how many matches were found. hit and then enter to see a list of the entries. to view the bibliographic record for a specific entry, hit v and enter and then type the number of the record. the university of michigan maintains a database of newspaper and magazine articles related to the environment, with the emphasis on michigan, dating back to . telnet: hermes.merit.edu host: mirlyn log in: meem geography the university of michigan geographic name server can provide basic information, such as population, latitude and longitude of u.s. cities and many mountains, rivers and other geographic features. telnet: martini.eecs.umich.edu no password or user name is needed. type in the name of a city, a zip code or a geographic feature and hit enter. the system doesn't like names with abbreviations in them (for example, mt. mckinley), so spell them out (for example, mount mckinley). by typing in a town's name or zip code, you can find out a community's county, zip code and longitude and latitude. not all geographic features are yet included in the database. government the national technical information service runs a system that not only provides huge numbers of federal documents of all sorts -- from environmental factsheets to patent abstract -- but serves as a gateway to dozens of other federal information systems. telnet: fedworld.gov log on as: new see also under congress and current events. health the u.s. food and drug administration runs a database of health- related information. telnet: fdabbs.fda.gov log in: bbs you'll then be asked for your name and a password you want to use in the future. after that, type topics and hit enter. you'll see this: topics description * news news releases * enforce enforcement report * approvals drug and device product approvals list * cdrh centers for devices and radiological health bulletins * bulletin text from drug bulletin * aids current information on aids * consumer fda consumer magazine index and selected articles * subj-reg fda federal register summaries by subject * answers summaries of fda information * index index of news releases and answers * date-reg fda federal register summaries by publication date * congress text of testimony at fda congressional hearings * speech speeches given by fda commissioner and deputy * vetnews veterinary medicine news * meetings upcoming fda meetings * import import alerts * manual on-line user's manual you'll be able to search these topics by key word or chronologically. it's probably a good idea, however, to capture a copy of the manual, first, because the way searching works on the system is a little odd. to capture a copy, type manual and hit enter. then type scan and hit enter. you'll see this: for list of available topics type topics or enter the topic you desire ==> manual bbsuser -oct- bbs user manual at this point, turn on your own computer's screen-capture or logging function and hit your key and then enter. the manual will begin to scroll on your screen, pausing every lines. hiring and college program information the federal information exchange in gaithersburg, md, runs two systems at the same address: fedix and molis. fedix offers research, scholarship and service information for several federal agencies, including nasa, the department of energy and the federal aviation administration. several more federal agencies provide minority hiring and scholarship information. molis provides information about minority colleges, their programs and professors. telnet: fedix.fie.com user name: fedix (for the federal hiring database) or molis (for the minority-college system) both use easy menus to get you to information. history stanford university maintains a database of documents related to martin luthor king. telnet: forsythetn.stanford.edu account: socrates at the main menu, type select mlk and hit enter. ski reports see under weather. space nasa spacelink in huntsville, ala., provides all sorts of reports and data about nasa, its history and its various missions, past and present. you'll find detailed reports on every single probe, satellite and mission nasa has ever launched along with daily updates and lesson plans for teachers. the system maintains a large file library of gif-format space graphics, but you can't download these through telnet. if you want them, you have to dial the system directly, at ( ) - . telnet: spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov when you connect, you'll be given an overview of the system and asked to register and choose a password. the ned-nasa/ipac extragalactic database lists data on more than , galaxies, quasars and other objects outside the milky way. telnet: ipac.caltech.edu. log in: ned you can learn more than you ever wanted to about quasars, novae and related objects on a system run by the smithsonian astrophysical observatory in cambridge, mass. telnet: cfa .harvard.edu log in: einline the physics department at the university of massachusetts at amherst runs a bulletin-board system that provides extensive conferences and document libraries related to space. telnet: spacemet.phast.umass.edu log on with your name and a password. supreme court decisions the university of maryland info database maintains u.s. supreme court decisions from on. telnet: info.umd.edu choose a terminal type and hit enter (or just hit enter if you are using vt ). at the main menu, choose the number next to "educational resources" and hit enter. one of your options will then be for "united states." select that number and then, at the next menu, choose the one next to "supreme court." telnet hytelnet, at the university of saskatchewan, is an online guide to hundreds of telnet sites around the world. telnet: access.usask.ca log in: hytelnet time to find out the exact time: telnet: india.colorado.edu you'll see something like this: escape character is '^]'. sun apr : : connection closed by foreign host. the middle line tells you the date and exact mountain standard time, as determined by a federal atomic clock. transportation the subway navigator in paris can help you learn how long it will take to get from point a to point b on subway systems around the world. telnet: metro.jussieu.fr no log-in is needed. when you connect, you'll be asked to choose a language in which to search (you can choose english or french) and then a city to search. you'll be asked for the station you plan to leave from and the station you want to get to. weather the university of michigan's department of atmospheric, oceanographic and space sciences supplies weather forecasts for u.s. and foreign cities, along with skiing and hurricane reports. telnet: madlab.sprl.umich.edu (note the ). no log-in name is needed. also see under weather in the ftp list for information on downloading satellite and radar weather images. . telnet bulletin-board systems you might think that usenet, with its hundreds of newsgroups, would be enough to satisfy the most dedicated of online communicators. but there are a number of "bulletin-board" and other systems that provide even more conferences or other services, many not found directly on the net. some are free; others charge for access. they include: bookstacks unlimited is a cleveland bookstore that uses the internet to advertise its services. its online system features not only a catalog, however, but conferences on books and literature. telnet: books.com log in with your own name and select a password for future connections. cimarron. run by the instituto technical in monterey, mexico, this system has spanish conferences, but english commands, as you can see from this menu of available conferences: list of boards name title general board general dudas dudas de cimarron comentarios comentarios al sysop musica para los afinados........ libros el sano arte de leer..... sistemas sistemas operativos en general. virus su peor enemigo...... cultural espacio cultural de cimarron next el mundo de next ciencias solo apto para nerds. inspiracion para los romanticos e inspirados. deportes discusiones deportivas to be able to write messages and gain access to files, you have to leave a note to sysop with your name, address, occupation and phone number. to do this, at any prompt, hit your m key and then enter, which will bring up the mail system. hitting h brings up a list of commands and how to use them. telnet: bugs.mty.itesm.mx ( p.m. to a.m., eastern time, only). at the "login:" prompt, type bbs and hit enter. cleveland free-net. the first of a series of free-nets, this represents an ambitious attempt to bring the net to the public. originally an in-hospital help network, it is now sponsored by case western reserve university, the city of cleveland, the state of ohio and ibm. it uses simple menus, similar to those found on compuserve, but organized like a city: <<< cleveland free-net directory >>> the administration building the post office public square the courthouse & government center the arts building science and technology center the medical arts building the schoolhouse (academy one) the community center & recreation area the business and industrial park the library university circle the teleport the communications center nptn/usa today headline news ------------------------------------------------ h=help, x=exit free-net, "go help"=extended help your choice ==> the system has a vast and growing collection of public documents, from copies of u.s. and ohio supreme court decisions to the magna carta and the u.s. constitution. it links residents to various government agencies and has daily stories from usa today. beyond usenet (found in the teleport area), it has a large collection of local conferences on everything from pets to politics. and yes, it's free! telnet: freenet-in-a.cwru.edu or freenet-in-b.cwru.edu or freenet-in-c.cwru.edu when you connect to free-net, you can look around the system. however, if you want to be able to post messages in its conferences or use e-mail, you will have to apply in writing for an account. information on this is available when you connect. dubbs. this is a bulletin-board system in delft in the netherlands. the conferences and files are mostly in dutch, but the help files and the system commands themselves are in english. telnet: tudrwa.tudelft.nl isca bbs. run by the iowa student computer association, it has more than conferences, including several in foreign languages. after you register, hit k for a list of available conferences and then j to join a particular conference (you have to type in the name of the conference, not the number next to it). hitting h brings up information about commands. telnet bbs.isca.uiowa.edu at the "login:" prompt, type bbs and hit enter. youngstown free-net. the people who created cleveland free-net sell their software for $ to anybody willing to set up a similar system. a number of cities now have their own free-nets, including youngstown, ohio. telnet: yfn.ysu.edu at the "login:" prompt, type visitor and hit enter. . putting the finger on someone finger is a handy little program which lets you find out more about people on the net -- and lets you tell others on the net more about yourself. finger uses the same concept as telnet or ftp. but it works with only one file, called .plan (yes, with a period in front). this is a text file an internet user creates with a text editor in his home directory. you can put your phone number in there, tell a little bit about yourself, or write almost anything at all. to finger somebody else's .plan file, type this at the command line: finger email-address where email-address is the person's e-mail address. you'll get back a display that shows the last time the person was online, whether they've gotten any new mail since that time and what, if anything, is in their .plan file. some people and institutions have come up with creative uses for these .plan files, letting you do everything from checking the weather in massachusetts to getting the latest baseball standings. try fingering these e-mail addresses: weather@cirrus.mit.edu latest national weather service weather forecasts for regions in massachusetts. quake@geophys.washington.edu locations and magnitudes of recent earthquakes around the world. jtchern@ocf.berkeley.edu current major-league baseball standings and results of the previous day's games. nasanews@space.mit.edu the day's events at nasa. coke@cs.cmu.edu see how many cans of each type of soda are left in a particular soda machine in the computer-science department of carnegie-mellon university. . finding someone on the net so you have a friend and you want to find out if he has an internet account to which you can write? the quickest way may be to just pick up the phone, call him and ask him. although there are a variety of "white pages" services available on the internet, they are far from complete -- college students, users of commercial services such as compuserve and many internet public-access sites, and many others simply won't be listed. major e-mail providers are working on a universal directory system, but that could be some time away. in the meantime, a couple of "white pages" services might give you some leads, or even just entertain you as you look up famous people or long-lost acquaintances. the whois directory provides names, e-mail and postal mail address and often phone numbers for people listed in it. to use it, telnet to internic.net no log-on is needed. the quickest way to use it is to type whois name at the prompt, where "name" is the last name or organization name you're looking for. another service worth trying, especially since it seems to give beginners fewer problems, is the knowbot information service reachable by telnet at info.cnri.reston.va.us again, no log-on is needed. this service actually searches through a variety of other "white pages" systems, including the user directory for mcimail. to look for somebody, type query name where "name" is the last name of the person you're looking for. you can get details of other commands by hitting a question mark at the prompt. you can also use the knowbot system by e-mail. start a message to netaddress@info.cnri.reston.va.us you can leave the "subject:" line blank. as your message, type query name for the simplest type of search. if you want details on more complex searches, add another line: man another way to search is via the usenet name server. this is a system at mit that keeps track of the e-mail addresses of everybody who posts a usenet message that appears at mit. it works by e-mail. send a message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu leave the "subject:" line blank. as your message, write send usenet-addresses/lastname where "lastname" is the last name of the person you're looking for. . when things go wrong * nothing happens when you try to connect to a telnet site. the site could be down for maintenance or problems. * you get a "host unavailable" message. the telnet site is down for some reason. try again later. * you get a "host unknown" message. check your spelling of the site name. * you type in a password on a telnet site that requires one, and you get a "login incorrect" message. try logging in again. if you get the message again, hit your control and ] keys at the same time to disengage and return to your host system. * you can't seem to disconnect from a telnet site. use control-] to disengage and return to your host system. . fyi the usenet newsgroups alt.internet.services and alt.bbs.internet can provide pointers to new telnet systems. scott yanoff periodically posts his "updated internet services list" in the former. the alt.bbs.internet newsgroup is also where you'll find aydin edguer's compendium of faqs related to internet bulletin-board systems. peter scott, who maintains the hytelnet database, runs a mailing list about new telnet services and changes in existing ones. to get on the list, send him a note at scott@sklib.usask.ca. gleason sackman maintains another mailing list dedicated to new internet services and news about the new uses to which the net is being put. to subscribe, send a message to listserv@internic.net. leave the "subject:" line blank, and as your message, write: sub net-happenings your name. chapter : ftp . tons of files hundreds of systems connected to internet have file libraries, or archives, accessible to the public. much of this consists of free or low- cost shareware programs for virtually every make of computer. if you want a different communications program for your ibm, or feel like playing a new game on your amiga, you'll be able to get it from the net. but there are also libraries of documents as well. if you want a copy of a recent u.s. supreme court decision, you can find it on the net. copies of historical documents, from the magna carta to the declaration of independence are also yours for the asking, along with a translation of a telegram from lenin ordering the execution of rebellious peasants. you can also find song lyrics, poems, even summaries of every "lost in space" episode ever made. you can also find extensive files detailing everything you could ever possibly want to know about the net itself. first you'll see how to get these files; then we'll show you where they're kept. the commonest way to get these files is through the file transfer protocol, or ftp. as with telnet, not all systems that connect to the net have access to ftp. however, if your system is one of these, you'll be able to get many of these files through e-mail (see the next chapter). starting ftp is as easy as using telnet. at your host system's command line, type ftp site.name and hit enter, where "site.name" is the address of the ftp site you want to reach. one major difference between telnet and ftp is that it is considered bad form to connect to most ftp sites during their business hours (generally a.m. to p.m. local time). this is because transferring files across the network takes up considerable computing power, which during the day is likely to be needed for whatever the computer's main function is. there are some ftp sites that are accessible to the public hours a day, though. you'll find these noted in the list of ftp sites in section . . your friend archie how do you find a file you want, though? until a few years ago, this could be quite the pain -- there was no master directory to tell you where a given file might be stored on the net. who'd want to slog through hundreds of file libraries looking for something? alan emtage, bill heelan and peter deutsch, students at mcgill university in montreal, asked the same question. unlike the weather, though, they did something about it. they created a database system, called archie, that would periodically call up file libraries and basically find out what they had available. in turn, anybody could dial into archie, type in a file name, and see where on the net it was available. archie currently catalogs close to , file libraries around the world. today, there are three ways to ask archie to find a file for you: through telnet, "client" archie program on your own host system or e- mail. all three methods let you type in a full or partial file name and will tell you where on the net it's stored. if you have access to telnet, you can telnet to one of the following addresses: archie.mcgill.ca; archie.sura.net; archie.unl.edu; archie.ans.net; or archie.rutgers.edu. if asked for a log-in name, type archie and hit enter. when you connect, the key command is prog, which you use in this form: prog filename followed by enter, where "filename" is the program or file you're looking for. if you're unsure of a file's complete name, try typing in part of the name. for example, "pkzip" will work as well as "pkzip .exe." the system does not support dos or unix wildcards. if you ask archie to look for "pkzip*," it will tell you it couldn't find anything by that name. one thing to keep in mind is that a file is not necessarily the same as a program -- it could also be a document. this means you can use archie to search for, say, everything online related to the beetles, as well as computer programs and graphics files. a number of net sites now have their own archie programs that take your request for information and pass it onto the nearest archie database -- ask your system administrator if she has it online. these "client" programs seem to provide information a lot more quickly than the actual archie itself! if it is available, at your host system's command line, type archie -s filename where filename is the program or document you're looking for, and hit enter. the -s tells the program to ignore case in a file name and lets you search for partial matches. you might actually want to type it this way: archie -s filename|more which will stop the output every screen (handy if there are many sites that carry the file you want). or you could open a file on your computer with your text-logging function. the third way, for people without access to either of the above, is e- mail. send a message to archie@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca. you can leave the subject line blank. inside the message, type prog filename where filename is the file you're looking for. you can ask archie to look up several programs by putting their names on the same "prog" line, like this: prog file file file within a few hours, archie will write back with a list of the appropriate sites. in all three cases, if there is a system that has your file, you'll get a response that looks something like this: host sumex-aim.stanford.edu location: /info-mac/comm file -rw-r--r-- feb : zterm- .hqx location: /info-mac/misc file -rw-r--r-- sep zterm-sys -color-icons.hqx chances are, you will get a number of similar looking responses for each program. the "host" is the system that has the file. the "location" tells you which directory to look in when you connect to that system. ignore the funny-looking collections of r's and hyphens for now. after them, come the size of the file or directory listing in bytes, the date it was uploaded, and the name of the file. . getting the files now you want to get that file. assuming your host site does have ftp, you connect in a similar fashion to telnet, by typing: ftp sumex-aim.stanford.edu (or the name of whichever site you want to reach). hit enter. if the connection works, you'll see this: connected to sumex-aim.stanford.edu. sumex-aim ftp server (version . mon jan : : pst ) ready. name (sumex-aim.stanford.edu:adamg): if nothing happens after a minute or so, hit control-c to return to your host system's command line. but if it has worked, type anonymous and hit enter. you'll see a lot of references on the net to "anonymous ftp." this is how it gets its name -- you don't really have to tell the library site what your name is. the reason is that these sites are set up so that anybody can gain access to certain public files, while letting people with accounts on the sites to log on and access their own personal files. next, you'll be asked for your password. as a password, use your e-mail address. this will then come up: guest connection accepted. restrictions apply. remote system type is unix. using binary mode to transfer files. ftp> now type ls and hit enter. you'll see something awful like this: port command successful. opening ascii mode data connection for /bin/ls. total -rw-rw-r-- mar : readme.posting dr-xr-xr-x nov : bin -rw-r--r-- apr : core dr--r--r-- nov : etc drwxrwsr-x mar : imap drwxr-xr-x apr : info-mac drwxr-x--- apr : pid drwxrwsr-x mar : pub drwxr-xr-x feb tmycin transfer complete. ftp> ack! let's decipher this rosetta stone. first, ls is the ftp command for displaying a directory (you can actually use dir as well, but if you're used to ms-dos, this could lead to confusion when you try to use dir on your host system, where it won't work, so it's probably better to just remember to always use ls for a directory while online). the very first letter on each line tells you whether the listing is for a directory or a file. if the first letter is a ``d,'' or an "l", it's a directory. otherwise, it's a file. the rest of that weird set of letters and dashes consist of "flags" that tell the ftp site who can look at, change or delete the file. you can safely ignore it. you can also ignore the rest of the line until you get to the second number, the one just before the date. this tells you how large the file is, in bytes. if the line is for a directory, the number gives you a rough indication of how many items are in that directory -- a directory listing of bytes is relatively small. next comes the date the file or directory was uploaded, followed (finally!) by its name. notice the readme.posting file up at the top of the directory. most archive sites have a "read me" document, which usually contains some basic information about the site, its resources and how to use them. let's get this file, both for the information in it and to see how to transfer files from there to here. at the ftp> prompt, type get readme and hit enter. note that ftp sites are no different from unix sites in general: they are case-sensitive. you'll see something like this: port command successful. opening binary mode data connection for readme ( bytes). transfer complete. bytes received in . seconds ( . kbytes/s) and that's it! the file is now located in your home directory on your host system, from which you can now download it to your own computer. the simple "get" command is the key to transferring a file from an archive site to your host system. if you want to download more than one file at a time (say a series of documents, use mget instead of get; for example: mget *.txt this will transfer copies of every file ending with .txt in the given directory. before each file is copied, you'll be asked if you're sure you want it. despite this, mget could still save you considerable time -- you won't have to type in every single file name. if you want to save even more time, and are sure you really want all of the given files, type prompt before you do the mget command. this will turn off the prompt, and all the files will be zapped right into your home directory. there is one other command to keep in mind. if you want to get a copy of a computer program, type bin and hit enter. this tells the ftp site and your host site that you are sending a binary file, i.e., a program. most ftp sites now use binary format as a default, but it's a good idea to do this in case you've connected to one of the few that doesn't. to switch to a directory, type cd directory-name (substituting the name of the directory you want to access) and hit enter. type ls and hit enter to get the file listing for that particular directory. to move back up the directory tree, type cd .. (note the space between the d and the first period) and hit enter. or you could type cdup and hit enter. keep doing this until you get to the directory of interest. alternately, if you already know the directory path of the file you want (from our friend archie), after you connect, you could simply type get directory/subdirectory/filename on many sites, files meant for public consumption are in the pub or public directory; sometimes you'll see an info directory. almost every site has a bin directory, which at first glance sounds like a bin in which interesting stuff might be dumped. but it actually stands for "binary" and is simply a place for the system administrator to store the programs that run the ftp system. lost+found is another directory that looks interesting but actually never has anything of public interest in them. before, you saw how to use archie. from our example, you can see that some system administrators go a little berserk when naming files. fortunately, there's a way for you to rename the file as it's being transferred. using our archie example, you'd type get zterm-sys -color-icons.hqx zterm.hqx and hit enter. instead of having to deal constantly with a file called zterm-sys -color-icons.hqx, you'll now have one called, simply, zterm.hqx. those last three letters bring up something else: many program files are compressed to save on space and transmission time. in order to actually use them, you'll have to use an un-compress program on them first. . odd letters -- decoding file endings there are a wide variety of compression methods in use. you can tell which method was used by the last one to three letters at the end of a file. here are some of the more common ones and what you'll need to un- compress the files they create (most of these decompression programs can be located through archie). .txt or .txt by itself, this means the file is a document, rather than a program. .ps or .ps a postscript document (in adobe's page description language). you can print this file on any postscript capable printer, or use a previewer, like gnu project's ghostscript. .doc or .doc another common "extension" for documents. no decompression is needed, unless it is followed by: .z this indicates a unix compression method. to uncompress, type uncompress filename.z and hit enter at your host system's command line. if the file is a compressed text file, you can read it online by instead typing zcat filename.txt.z |more u .zip is an ms-dos program that will let you download such a file and uncompress it on your own computer. the macintosh equivalent program is called maccompress (use archie to find these). .zip or .zip these indicate the file has been compressed with a common ms-dos compression program, known as pkzip (use archie to find pkzip .exe). many unix systems will let you un-zip a file with a program called, well, unzip. .gz a unix version of zip. to uncompress, type gunzip filename.gz at your host system's command line. .zoo or .zoo a unix and ms-dos compression format. use a program called zoo to uncompress .hqx or .hqx mactintosh compression format. requires the binhex program. .shar or another unix format. use unshar to uncompress. .shar .tar another unix format, often used to compress several related files into one large file. most unix systems will have a program called tar for "un-tarring" such files. often, a "tarred" file will also be compressed with the gz method, so you first have to use uncompress and then tar. .sit or .sit a mactinosh format that requires the stuffit program. .arc another ms-dos format, which requires the use of the arc or arce programs. .lhz another ms-dos format; requires the use of lharc. a few last words of caution: check the size of a file before you get it. the net moves data at phenomenal rates of speed. but that , - byte file that gets transferred to your host system in a few seconds could take more than an hour or two to download to your computer if you're using a -baud modem. your host system may also have limits on the amount of bytes you can store online at any one time. also, although it is really extremely unlikely you will ever get a file infected with a virus, if you plan to do much downloading over the net, you'd be wise to invest in a good anti-viral program, just in case. . the keyboard cabal system administrators are like everybody else -- they try to make things easier for themselves. and when you sit in front of a keyboard all day, that can mean trying everything possible to reduce the number of keys you actually have to hit each day. unfortunately, that can make it difficult for the rest of us. you've already read about bin and lost+found directories. etc is another seemingly interesting directory that turns out to be another place to store files used by the ftp site itself. again, nothing of any real interest. then, once you get into the actual file libraries, you'll find that in many cases, files will have such non-descriptive names as v . - ak.txt. the best known example is probably a set of several hundred files known as rfcs, which provide the basic technical and organizational information on which much of the internet is built. these files can be found on many ftp sites, but always in a form such as rfc .txt, rfc .txt and so on, with no clue whatsoever as to what information they contain. fortunately, almost all ftp sites have a "rosetta stone" to help you decipher these names. most will have a file named readme (or some variant) that gives basic information about the system. then, most directories will either have a similar readme file or will have an index that does give brief descriptions of each file. these are usually the first file in a directory and often are in the form index.txt. use the ftp command to get this file. you can then scan it online or download it to see which files you might be interested in. another file you will frequently see is called ls-lr.z. this contains a listing of every file on the system, but without any descriptions (the name comes from the unix command ls -lr, which gives you a listing of all the files in all your directories). the z at the end means the file has been compressed, which means you will have to use a unix un-compress command before you can read the file. and finally, we have those system administrators who almost seem to delight in making things difficult -- the ones who take full advantage of unix's ability to create absurdly long file names. on some ftp sites, you will see file names as long as characters or so, full of capital letters, underscores and every other orthographic device that will make it almost impossible for you to type the file name correctly when you try to get it. your secret weapon here is the mget command. just type mget, a space, and the first five or six letters of the file name, followed by an asterisk, for example: mget this_f* the ftp site will ask you if you want to get the file that begins with that name. if there are several files that start that way, you might have to answer 'n' a few times, but it's still easier than trying to recreate a ludicrously long file name. . some interesting ftp sites what follows is a list of some interesting ftp sites, arranged by category. with hundreds of ftp sites now on the net, however, this list barely scratches the surface of what is available. liberal use of archie will help you find specific files. the times listed for each site are in eastern time and represent the periods during which it is considered acceptable to connect. amiga ftp.uu.net has amiga programs in the systems/amiga directory. available hours. wuarchive.wustl.edu. look in the pub/aminet directory. available hours. atari atari.archive.umich.edu find almost all the atari files you'll ever need, in the atari directory. p.m. - a.m. books rtfm.mit.edu the pub/usenet/rec.arts.books directories has reading lists for various authors as well as lists of recommended bookstores in different cities. unfortunately, this site uses incredibly long file names -- so long they may scroll off the end of your screen if you are using an ms-dos or certain other computers. even if you want just one of the files, it probably makes more sense to use mget than get. this way, you will be asked on each file whether you want to get it; otherwise you may wind up frustrated because the system will keep telling you the file you want doesn't exist (since you may miss the end of its name due to the scrolling problem). p.m. - a.m. mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu project gutenberg is an effort to translate paper texts into electronic form. already available are more than titles, from works by lewis carrol to mark twain; from "a tale of two cities" to "son of tarzan." look in the /etext/etext and /etext/etext directories. p.m. - a.m. computer ethics ftp.eff.org the home of the electronic frontier foundation. use cd to get to the pub directory and then look in the eff, sjg and cpsr directories for documents on the eff itself and various issues related to the net, ethics and the law. available hours. consumer rtfm.mit.edu the pub/usenet/misc.consumers directory has documents related to credit. the pub/usenet/rec.travel.air directory will tell you how to deal with airline reservation clerks, find the best prices on seats, etc. see under books for a caveat in using this ftp site. p.m. - a.m. cooking wuarchive.wustl.edu look for recipes and recipe directories in the usenet/rec.food.cooking/recipes directory. gatekeeper.dec.com recipes are in the pub/recipes directory. economics neeedc.umesbs.maine.edu the federal reserve bank of boston uses this site (yes, there are three 'e's in "neeedc") to house all sorts of data on the new england economy. many files contain years or more of information, usually in forms that are easily adaptable to spreadsheet or database files. look in the frbb directory. p.m. - a.m. town.hall.org. look in the edgar directory for the beginnings of a system to distribute annual reports and other data publicly held companies are required to file with the securities and exchange commission. the other/fed directory holds various statistical files from the federal reserve board. ftp iraun .ira.uka.de run by the computer-science department of the university of karlsruhe in germany, this site offers lists of anonymous- ftp sites both internationally (in the anon.ftp.sites directory) and in germany (in anon.ftp.sites.de). p.m. to a.m. ftp.netcom.com the pub/profiles directory has lists of ftp sites. government ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu the senate directory contains bibliographic records of u.s. senate hearings and documents for the past several congresses. get the file readme.dos , which will explain the cryptic file names. p.m. - a.m. nptn.org the general accounting office is the investigative wing of congress. the pub/e.texts/gao.reports directory represents an experiment by the agency to use ftp to distribute its reports. available hours. info.umd.edu the info/government/us/whitehouse directory has copies of press releases and other documents from the clinton administration. p.m. - a.m. leginfo.public.ca.gov this is a repository of legislative calendars, bills and other information related to state government in california. available hours. whitehouse.gov look for copies of presidential position papers, transcripts of press conferences and related information here. available hours. see also under law. history nptn.org this site has a large, growing collecting of text files. in the pub/e.texts/freedom.shrine directory, you'll find copies of important historical documents, from the magna carta to the declaration of independence and the emancipation proclamation. available hours. ra.msstate.edu mississippi state maintains an eclectic database of historical documents, detailing everything from attilla's battle strategy to songs of soldiers in vietnam, in the docs/history directory. p.m. - a.m. seq .loc.gov the library of congress has acquired numerous documents from the former soviet government and has translated many of them into english. in the pub/soviet.archive/text.english directory, you'll find everything from telegrams from lenin ordering the death of peasants to khrushchev's response to kennedy during the cuban missile crisis. the readme file in the pub/soviet.archive directory provides an index to the documents. p.m. - a.m. hong kong nok.lcs.mit.edu gif pictures of hong kong pop stars, buildings and vistas are available in the pub/hongkong/hkpa directory. p.m. - a.m. internet ftp.eff.org the pub/net_info directory has a number of sub- directories containing various internet resources guides and information files, including the latest online version of the big dummy's guide. available hours. nic.ddn.mil the internet-drafts directory contains information about internet, while the scc directory holds network security bulletins. p.m. - a.m. law info.umd.edu u.s. supreme court decisions from to the present are stored in the info/government/us/supremect directory. each term has a separate directory (for example, term ). get the readme and index files to help decipher the case numbers. p.m. - a.m. ftp.uu.net supreme court decisions are in the court-opinions directory. you'll want to get the index file, which tells you which file numbers go with which file names. the decisions come in wordperfect and atex format only. available hours a day. libraries ftp.unt.edu the library directory contains numerous lists of libraries with computerized card catalogs accessible through the net. literature nptn.org in the pub/e.texts/gutenberg/etext and etext directories, you can get copies of aesop's fables, works by lewis carroll and other works of literature, as well as the book of mormon. available hours. world.std.com the obi directory has everything from online fables to accounts of hiroshima survivors. p.m. - a.m. macintosh sumex-aim.stanford.edu this is the premier site for macintosh software. after you log in, switch to the info-mac directory, which will bring up a long series of sub-directories of virtually every free and shareware mac program you could ever want. p.m. - a.m. ftp.uu.net you'll find lots of macintosh programs in the systems/mac/simtel directory. available hours a day. movie reviews lcs.mit.edu look in the movie-reviews directory. p.m. - a.m. ms-dos wuarchive.wustl.edu this carries one of the world's largest collections of ms-dos software. the files are actually copied, or "mirrored" from a computer at the u.s. army's white sands missile range (which uses ftp software that is totally incomprehensible). it also carries large collections of macintosh, windows, atari, amiga, unix, os , cp/m and apple ii software. look in the mirrors and systems directories. the gif directory contains a large number of gif graphics images. accessible hours. ftp.uu.net look for ms-dos programs and files in the systems/msdos/simtel directory. available hours a day. music cs.uwp.edu the pub/music directory has everything from lyrics of contemporary songs to recommended cds of baroque music. it's a little different - and easier to navigate - than other ftp sites. file and directory names are on the left, while on the right, you'll find a brief description of the file or directory, like this: sites other music-related ftp archive sites classical/ - (dir) classical buying guide database/ - (dir) music database program discog/ = (dir) discographies faqs/ = (dir) music frequently asked questions files folk/ - (dir) folk music files and pointers guitar/ = (dir) guitar tab files from ftp.nevada.edu info/ = (dir) rec.music.info archives interviews/ - (dir) interviews with musicians/groups lists/ = (dir) mailing lists archives lyrics/ = (dir) lyrics archives misc/ - (dir) misc files that don't fit anywhere else pictures/ = (dir) gifs, jpegs, pbms and more. press/ - (dir) press releases and misc articles programs/ - (dir) misc music-related programs for various machines releases/ = (dir) upcoming usa release listings sounds/ = (dir) short sound samples transfer complete. ftp> when you switch to a directory, don't include the /. p.m. - a.m. potemkin.cs.pdx.edu the bob dylan archive. interviews, notes, year-by-year accounts of his life and more, in the pub/dylan directory. p.m. - a.m. ftp.nevada.edu guitar chords for contemporary songs are in the pub/guitar directory, in subdirectories organized by group or artist. native americans pines.hsu.edu home of indiannet, this site contains a variety of directories and files related to indians and eskimos, including federal census data, research reports and a tribal profiles database. look in the pub and indian directories. pets rtfm.mit.edu the pub/usenet/rec.pets.dogs and pub/usenet.rec.pets.cats directories have documents on the respective animals. see under books for a caveat in using this ftp site. p.m. - a.m. pictures wuarchiv.wustl.edu the graphics/gif directory contains hundreds of gif photographic and drawing images, from cartoons to cars, space images to pop stars. these are arranged in a long series of subdirectories. photography ftp.nevada.edu photolog is an online digest of photography news, in the pub/photo directory. religion nptn.org in the pub/e.texts/religion directory, you'll find subdirectories for chapters and books of both the bible and the koran. available hours. science fiction elbereth.rutgers.edu in the pub/sfl directory, you'll find plot summaries for various science-fiction tv shows, including star trek (not only the original and next generation shows, but the cartoon version as well), lost in space, battlestar galactica, the twilight zone, the prisoner and doctor who. there are also lists of various things related to science fiction and an online science-fiction fanzine. p.m. - a.m. sex rtfm.mit.edu look in the pub/usenet/alt.sex and pub/usenet/alt.sex.wizards directories for documents related to all facets of sex. see under books for a caveat in using this ftp site. p.m. - a.m. shakespeare atari.archive.umich.edu the shakespeare directory contains most of the bard's works. a number of other sites have his works as well, but generally as one huge mega-file. this site breaks them down into various categories (comedies, poetry, histories, etc.) so that you can download individual plays or sonnets. space ames.arc.nasa.gov stores text files about space and the history of the nasa space program in the pub/space subdirectory. in the pub/gif and pub/space/gif directories, you'll find astronomy- and nasa-related gif files, including pictures of planets, satellites and other celestial objects. p.m. - a.m. tv coe.montana.edu the pub/tv/guides directory has histories and other information about dozens of tv shows. only two anonymous-ftp log-ins are allowed at a time, so you might have to try more than once to get in. p.m. - a.m. ftp.cs.widener.edu the pub/simpsons directory has more files than anybody could possibly need about bart and family. the pub/strek directory has files about the original and next generation shows as well as the movies. see also under science fiction. travel nic.stolaf.edu before you take that next overseas trip, you might want to see whether the state department has issued any kind of advisory for the countries on your itinerary. the advisories, which cover everything from hurricane damage to civil war, are in the pub/travel- advisories/advisories directory, arranged by country. p.m. - a.m. usenet ftp.uu.net in the usenet directory, you'll find "frequently asked questions" files, copied from rtfm.mit.edu. the communications directory holds programs that let ms-dos users connect directly with uucp sites. in the info directory, you'll find information about ftp and ftp sites. the inet directory contains information about internet. available hours. rtfm.mit.edu this site contains all available "frequently asked questions" files for usenet newsgroups in the pub/usenet directory. see under books for a caveat in using this ftp site. p.m. - a.m. viruses ftp.unt.edu the antivirus directory has anti-virus programs for ms- dos and macintosh computers. p.m. - a.m. weather wuarchive.wustl.edu the /multimedia/images/wx directory contains gif weather images of north america. files are updated hourly and take this general form: cv . the first two letters tell the type of file: cv means it is a visible-light photo taken by a weather satellite. ci images are similar, but use infrared light. both these are in black and white. files that begin with sa are color radar maps of the u.s. that show severe weather patterns but also fronts and temperatures in major cities. the numbers indicate the date and time (in gmt - five hours ahead of est) of the image: the first two numbers represent the month, the next two the date, the last two the hour. the file wxkey.gif explains the various symbols in sa files. . ncftp -- now you tell me! if you're lucky, the people who run your host system or public- access site have installed a program called ncftp, which takes some of the edges off the ftp process. for starters, when you use ncftp instead of plain old ftp, you no longer have to worry about misspelling "anonymous" when you connect. the program does it for you. and once you're in, instead of getting line after line filled with dashes, x's, r's and d's, you only get listings of the files or directories themselves (if you're used to ms-dos, the display you get will be very similar to that produced by the dir/w command). the program even creates a list of the ftp sites you've used most recently, so you can pick from that list, instead of trying to remember some incredibly complex ftp site name. launching the program, assuming your site has it, is easy. at the command prompt, type ncftp sitename where "sitename" is the site you want to reach (alternately, you could type just ncftp and then use its open command). once connected, you can use the same ftp commands you've become used to, such as ls, get and mget. entries that end in a / are directories to which you can switch with cd; others are files you can get. a couple of useful ncftp commands include type, which lets you change the type of file transfer (from ascii to binary for example) and size, which lets you see how large a file is before you get it, for example size declaration.txt would tell you how large the declaration.txt file is before you get it. when you say "bye" to disconnect from a site, ncftp remembers the last directory you were in, so that the next time you connect to the site, you are put back into that directory automatically. if you type help you'll get a list of files you can read to extend the power of the program even further. . project gutenberg -- electronic books project gutenberg, coordinated by michael hart, has a fairly ambitious goal: to make more than , books and other documents available electronically by the year . in , the project uploaded an average of four books a month to its ftp sites; in , they hope to double the pace. begun in , the project already maintains a "library" of hundreds of books and stories, from aesop's fables to "through the looking glass" available for the taking. it also has a growing number of current- affairs documents, such as the cia's annual "world factbook" almanac. besides nptn.org, project gutenberg texts can be retrieved from mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu in the etext directory. . when things go wrong * you get a "host unavailable" message. the ftp site is down for some reason. try again later. * you get a "host unknown" message. check your spelling of the site name. * you misspell "anonymous" when logging in and get a message telling you a password is required for whatever you typed in. type something in, hit enter, type bye, hit enter, and try again. alternately, try typing "ftp" instead of "anonymous." it will work on a surprising number of sites. or just use ncftp, if your site has it, and never worry about this again. . fyi liberal use of archie will help you find specific files or documents. for information on new or interesting ftp sites, try the comp.archives newsgroup on usenet. you can also look in the comp.misc, comp.sources.wanted or news.answers newsgroups on usenet for lists of ftp sites posted every month by tom czarnik and jon granrose. the comp.archives newsgroup carries news of new ftp sites and interesting new files on existing sites. in the comp.virus newsgroup on usenet, look for postings that list ftp sites carrying anti-viral software for amiga, ms-dos, macintosh, atari and other computers. the comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest and comp.sys.mac.digest newsgroups provide information about new ms-dos and macintosh programs as well as answers to questions from users of those computers. chapter : gophers, waiss and the world-wide web . . gophers even with tools like hytelnet and archie, telnet and ftp can still be frustrating. there are all those telnet and ftp addresses to remember. telnet services often have their own unique commands. and, oh, those weird directory and file names! but now that the net has become a rich repository of information, people are developing ways to make it far easier to find and retrieve information and files. gophers and wide-area information servers (waiss) are two services that could ultimately make the internet as easy to navigate as commercial networks such as compuserve or prodigy. both gophers and waiss essentially take a request for information and then scan the net for it, so you don't have to. both also work through menus -- instead of typing in some long sequence of characters, you just move a cursor to your choice and hit enter. gophers even let you select files and programs from ftp sites this way. let's first look at gophers (named for the official mascot of the university of minnesota, where the system was developed). many public-access sites now have gophers online. to use one, type gopher at the command prompt and hit enter. if you know your site does not have a gopher, or if nothing happens when you type that, telnet to consultant.micro.umn.edu at the log-in prompt, type gopher and hit enter. you'll be asked what type of terminal emulation you're using, after which you'll see something like this: internet gopher information client v . root gopher server: gopher.micro.umn.edu --> . information about gopher/ . computer information/ . discussion groups/ . fun & games/ . internet file server (ftp) sites/ . libraries/ . news/ . other gopher and information servers/ . phone books/ . search lots of places at the u of m <?> . university of minnesota campus information/ press ? for help, q to quit, u to go up a menu page: / assuming you're using vt or some other vt emulation, you'll be able to move among the choices with your up and down arrow keys. when you have your cursor on an entry that looks interesting, just hit enter, and you'll either get a new menu of choices, a database entry form, or a text file, depending on what the menu entry is linked to (more on how to tell which you'll get in a moment). gophers are great for exploring the resources of the net. just keep making choices to see what pops up. play with it; see where it takes you. some choices will be documents. when you read one of these and either come to the end or hit a lower-case q to quit reading it, you'll be given the choice of saving a copy to your home directory or e-mailing it to yourself. other choices are simple databases that let you enter a word to look for in a particular database. to get back to where you started on a gopher, hit your u key at a menu prompt, which will move you back "up" through the gopher menu structure (much like "cd .." in ftp). notice that one of your choices above is "internet file server (ftp) sites." choose this, and you'll be connected to a modified archie program -- an archie with a difference. when you search for a file through a gopher archie, you'll get a menu of sites that have the file you're looking for, just as with the old archie. only now, instead of having to write down or remember an ftp address and directory, all you have to do is position the cursor next to one of the numbers in the menu and hit enter. you'll be connected to the ftp site, from which you can then choose the file you want. this time, move the cursor to the file you want and hit a lower-case s. you'll be asked for a name in your home directory to use for the file, after which the file will be copied to your home system. unfortunately, this file-transfer process does not yet work with all public-access sites for computer programs and compressed files. if it doesn't work with yours, you'll have to get the file the old-fashioned way, via anonymous ftp. in addition to ftp sites, there are hundreds of databases and libraries around the world accessible through gophers. there is not yet a common gopher interface for library catalogs, so be prepared to follow the online directions more closely when you use gopher to connect to one. gopher menu entries that end in a / are gateways to another menu of options. entries that end in a period are text, graphics or program files, which you can retrieve to your home directory (or e-mail to yourself or to somebody else). a line that ends in <?> or <cso> represents a request you can make to a database for information. the difference is that <?> entries call up one-line interfaces in which you can search for a keyword or words, while <cso> brings up an electronic form with several fields for you to fill out (you might see this in online "white pages" directories at colleges). gophers actually let you perform some relatively sophisticated boolean searches. for example, if you want to search only for files that contain the words "ms-dos" and "macintosh," you'd type ms-dos and macintosh (gophers are not case-sensitive) in the keyword field. alternately, if you want to get a list of files that mention either "ms-dos" or "macintosh," you'd type ms-dos or macintosh . burrowing deeper as fascinating as it can be to explore "gopherspace," you might one day want to quickly retrieve some information or a file. or you might grow tired of calling up endless menus to get to the one you want. fortunately, there are ways to make even gophers easier to use. one is with archie's friend, veronica (it allegedly is an acronym, but don't believe that for a second), who does for gopherspace what archie does for ftp sites. in most gophers, you'll find veronica by selecting "other gopher and information services" at the main menu and then "searching through gopherspace using veronica." select this and you'll get something like this: internet gopher information client v . search titles in gopherspace using veronica --> . . . faq: frequently-asked questions about veronica ( / / ). . how to compose veronica queries (new june ) read me!!. . search gopher directory titles at psinet <?> . search gopher directory titles at sunet <?> . search gopher directory titles at u. of manitoba <?> . search gopher directory titles at university of cologne <?> . search gopherspace at psinet <?> . search gopherspace at sunet <?> . search gopherspace at u. of manitoba <?> . search gopherspace at university of cologne <?> press ? for help, q to quit, u to go up a menu page: / a few choices there! first, the difference between searching directory titles and just plain ol' gopherspace. if you already know the sort of directory you're looking for (say a directory containing ms-dos programs), do a directory-title search. but if you're not sure what kind of directory your information might be in, then do a general gopherspace search. in general, it doesn't matter which of the particular veronicas you use -- they should all be able to produce the same results. the reason there is more than one is because the internet has become so popular that only one veronica (or one gopher or one of almost anything) would quickly be overwhelmed by all the information requests from around the world. you can use veronica to search for almost anything. want to find museums that might have online displays from their exhibits? try searching for "museum." looking for a copy of the declaration of independence? try "declaration." in many cases, your search will bring up a new gopher menu of choices to try. say you want to impress those guests coming over for dinner on friday by cooking cherries flambe. if you were to call up veronica and type in "flambe" after calling up veronica, you would soon get a menu listing several flambe recipes, including one called "dessert flambe." put your cursor on that line of the menu and hit enter, and you'll find it's a menu for cherries flambe. then hit your q key to quit, and gopher will ask you if you want to save the file in your home directory on your public-access site or whether you want to e-mail it somewhere. as you can see, you can use veronica as an alternative to archie, which, because of the internet's growing popularity, seems to take longer and longer to work. in addition to archie and veronica, we now also have jugheads (no bettys yet, though). these work the same as veronicas, but their searches are limited to the specific gopher systems on which they reside. if there are particular gopher resources you use frequently, there are a couple of ways to get to them even more directly. one is to use gopher in a manner similar to the way you can use telnet. if you know a particular gopher's internet address (often the same as its telnet or ftp address), you can connect to it directly, rather than going through menus. for example, say you want to use the gopher at info.umd.edu. if your public-access site has a gopher system installed, type this gopher info.umd.edu at your command prompt and you'll be connected. but even that can get tedious if there are several gophers you use frequently. that's where bookmarks come in. gophers let you create a list of your favorite gopher sites and even database queries. then, instead of digging ever deeper into the gopher directory structure, you just call up your bookmark list and select the service you want. to create a bookmark for a particular gopher site, first call up gopher. then go through all the gopher menus until you get to the menu you want. type a capital a. you'll be given a suggested name for the bookmark enty, which you can change if you want by backspacing over the suggestion and typing in your own. when done, hit enter. now, whenever you're in gopherspace and want to zip back to that particular gopher service, just hit your v key (upper- or lower-case; in this instance, gopher doesn't care) anywhere within gopher. this will bring up a list of your bookmarks. move to the one you want and hit enter, and you'll be connected. using a capital a is also good for saving particular database or veronica queries that you use frequently (for example, searching for news stories on a particular topic if your public-access site maintains an indexed archive of wire-service news). instead of a capital a, you can also hit a lower-case a. this will bring you to the particular line within a menu, rather than show you the entire menu. if you ever want to delete a bookmark, hit v within gopher, select the item you want to get rid of, and then hit your d key. one more hint: if you want to find the address of a particular gopher service, hit your = key after you've highlighted its entry in a gopher menu. you'll get back a couple of lines, most of which will be technicalese of no immediate value to most folks, but some of which will consist of the site's address. . . gopher commands a add a line in a gopher menu to your bookmark list. a add an entire gopher menu or a database query to your bookmark list. d delete an entry from your bookmark list (you have to hit v first). q quit, or exit, a gopher. you'll be asked if you really want to. q quit, or exit, a gopher without being asked if you're sure. s save a highlighted file to your home directory. u move back up a gopher menu structure v view your bookmark list. = get information on the originating site of a gopher entry. > move ahead one screen in a gopher menu. < move back one screen in a gopher menu. . . some interesting gophers there are now hundreds of gopher sites around the world. what follows is a list of some of them. assuming your site has a gopher "client" installed, you can reach them by typing gopher sitename at your command prompt. can't find what you're looking for? remember to use veronica to look up categories and topics! agriculture cyfer.esusda.gov more agricultural statistics and regulations most people will ever need. usda.mannlib.cornell.edu more than different types of agricultural data, most in lotus - - spreadsheet format. animals saimiri.primate.wisc.edu information on primates and animal-welfare laws. architecture libra.arch.umich.edu maintains online exhibits of a variety of architectural images. art marvel.loc.gov the library of congress runs several online "galleries" of images from exhibits at the library. many of these pictures, in gif or jpeg format, are huge, so be careful what you get first. exhibits include works of art from the vatican, copies of once secret soviet documents and pictures of artifacts related to columbus's voyage. at the main menu, select and then "exhibits." galaxy.ucr.edu the california museum of photography maintains its own online galery here. at the main menu, select "campus events," then "california museum of photography," then "network ex- hibitions." astronomy cast .ast.cam.ac.uk a gopher devoted to astronomy, run by the institute of astronomy and the royal greenwich observatory, cambridge, england. census bigcat.missouri.edu you'll find detailed federal census data for communities of more than , people, as well as for states and counties here. at the main menu, select "reference and information center," then "united states and missouri census information" and "united states census." computers wuarchive.wustl.edu dozens of directories with software for all sorts of computers. most programs have to be "un-compressed" before you can use them. sumex-aim.stanford.edu a similar type of system, with the emphasis on macintosh programs and files. disability val-dor.cc.buffalo.edu the cornucopia of disability information carries numerous information resources on disability issues and links to other disability-related services. environment ecosys.drdr.virginia.edu copies of environmental protection agency factsheets on hundreds of chemicals, searchable by keyword. select "education" and then "environmental fact sheets." envirolink.org dozens of documents and files related to environmental activism around the world. entomology spider.ento.csiro.au all about creepy-crawly things, both the good and the bad ones. geology gopher.stolaf.edu select "internet resources" and then "weather and geography" for information on recent earthquakes. government marvel.loc.gov run by the library of congress, this site provides numerous resources, including access to the library card catalog and all manner of information about the u.s. congress. gopher.lib.umich.edu wide variety of government information, from congressional committee assignments to economic statistics and nafta information. ecix.doc.gov information on conversion of military installations to private uses. sunsite.unc.edu copies of current and past federal budgets can be found by selecting "sunsite archives," then "politics," then "sunsite politcal science archives." wiretap.spies.com documents related to canadian government can be found in the "government docs" menu. stis.nih.gov select the "other u.s. government gopher servers" for access to numerous other federal gophers. health odie.niaid.nih.gov national institutes of health databases on aids, in the "aids related information" menu. helix.nih.gov for national cancer institute factsheets on different cancers, select "health and clinical information" and then "cancernet information." nysernet.org look for information on breast cancer in the "special collections: breast cancer" menu. welchlink.welch.jhu.edu this is johns hopkins university's medical gopher. history see under art. internet gopher.lib.umich.edu home to several guides to internet resources in specific fields, for example, social sciences. select "what's new & featured resources" and then "clearinghouse." israel jerusalem .datasrv.co.il this israeli system offers numerous documents on israel and jewish life. japan gopher.ncc.go.jp look in the "japan information" menu for documents related to japanese life and culture. music mtv.com run by adam curry, an mtv video jock, this site has music news and curry's daily "cybersleaze" celebrity report. nature ucmp .berkeley.edu the university of california at berkeley's museum of paleontology runs several online exhibits here. you can obtain gif images of plants and animals from the "remote nature" menu. the "origin of the species" menu lets you read darwin's work or search it by keyword. sports culine.colorado.edu look up schedules for teams in various professional sports leagues here, under "professional sports schedules." weather wx.atmos.uiuc.edu look up weather forecasts for north america or bone up on your weather facts. . . wide-area information servers now you know there are hundreds of databases and library catalogs you can search through. but as you look, you begin to realize that each seems to have its own unique method for searching. if you connect to several, this can become a pain. gophers reduce this problem somewhat. wide-area information servers promise another way to zero in on information hidden on the net. in a wais, the user sees only one interface -- the program worries about how to access information on dozens, even hundreds, of different databases. you tell give a wais a word and it scours the net looking for places where it's mentioned. you get a menu of documents, each ranked according to how relevant to your search the wais thinks it is. like gophers, wais "client" programs can already be found on many public-access internet sites. if your system has a wais client, type swais at the command prompt and hit enter (the "s" stands for "simple"). if it doesn't, telnet to bbs.oit.unc.edu, which is run by the university of north carolina at the "login:" prompt, type bbs and hit enter. you'll be asked to register and will then get a list of "bulletins,'' which are various files explaining how the system works. when done with those, hit your q key and you'll get another menu. hit for the "simple wais client," and you'll see something like this: swais source selection sources: # server source cost : [ archie.au] aarnet-resource-guide free : [ archive.orst.edu] aeronautics free : [nostromo.oes.orst.ed] agricultural-market-news free : [sun-wais.oit.unc.edu] alt-sys-sun free : [ archive.orst.edu] alt.drugs free : [ wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.gopher free : [sun-wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.sys.sun free : [ wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.wais free : [ archive.orst.edu] archie-orst.edu free : [ archie.au] archie.au-amiga-readmes free : [ archie.au] archie.au-ls-lrt free : [ archie.au] archie.au-mac-readmes free : [ archie.au] archie.au-pc-readmes free : [ pc .pc.maricopa.edu] ascd-education free : [ archie.au] au-directory-of-servers free : [ cirm .univ-mrs.fr] bib-cirm free : [ cmns-sun.think.com] bible free : [ zenon.inria.fr] bibs-zenon-inria-fr free keywords: <space> selects, w for keywords, arrows move, <return> searches, q quits, or ? each line represents a different database (the .au at the end of some of them means they are in australia; the .fr on the last line represents a database in france). and this is just the first page! if you type a capital k, you'll go to the next page (there are several pages). hitting a capital j will move you back a page. the first thing you want to do is tell the wais program which databases you want searched. to select a database, move the cursor bar over the line you want (using your down and up arrow keys) and hit your space bar. an asterisk will appear next to the line number. repeat this until you've selected all of the databases you want searched. then hit your w key, after which you'll be prompted for the key words you're looking for. you can type in an entire line of these words -- separate each with a space, not a comma. hit return, and the search begins. let's say you're utterly fascinated with wheat. so you might select agricultural-market-news to find its current world price. but you also want to see if it has any religious implications, so you choose the bible and the book of mormon. what do you do with the stuff? select recipes and usenet-cookbook. are there any recent supreme court decisions involving the plant? choose supreme-court. how about synonyms? try roget-thesaurus and just plain thesaurus. now hit w and type in wheat. hit enter, and the wais program begins its search. as it looks, it tells you whether any of the databases are offline, and if so, when they might be ready for a search. in about a minute, the program tells you how many hits it's found. then you get a new menu, that looks something like this: keywords: # score sourcetitlelines : [ ] (roget-thesaurus) # . [results of comparison. ] di : [ ] (roget-thesaurus) # . choice. -- n. choice, option; : [ ] (roget-thesaurus) # . [results of comparison. ] di : [ ] (roget-thesaurus) # . choice. -- n. choice, option; : [ ] (recipes) aem@mthvax re: monthly: rec.food.recipes : [ ] ( book_of_mormon) mosiah : : [ ] ( book_of_mormon) nephi : : [ ] (agricultural-ma) re: jo gr , weekly grain : [ ] (agricultural-ma) re: wa cb prospective plantings : [ ] ( recipes) kms@apss.a re: request: wheat-free, suga : [ ] (agricultural-ma) re: wa cb crop production : [ ] (agricultural-ma) re: sj gr daily nat grn sum : [ ] ( recipes) pat@jaamer re: vegan: honey granola : [ ] ( recipes) jrtrint@pa re: ovo-lacto: sourdough/trit each of these represents an article or citing that contains the word wheat, or some related word. move the cursor bar (with the down and up arrow keys) to the one you want to see, hit enter, and it will begin to appear on your screen. the "score" is a wais attempt to gauge how closely the citing matches your request. doesn't look like the supreme court has had anything to say about the plant of late! now think of how much time you would have spent logging onto various databases just to find these relatively trivial examples. . the world-wide web developed by researchers at the european particle physics laboratory in geneva, the world-wide web is somewhat similar to a wais. but it's designed on a system known as hypertext. words in one document are "linked" to other documents. it's sort of like sitting with an encyclopedia -- you're reading an article, see a reference that intrigues you and so flip the pages to look up that reference. to try the worldwide web, telnet to ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu log on as: www. when you connect, you'll see something like: welcome to cern the world-wide web: cern entry point cern is the european particle physics laboratory in geneva, switzerland. select by number information here, or elsewhere. help[ ] about this program world-wide web[ ] about the w global information initiative. cern information[ ] information from and about this site particle physics[ ] other hep sites with information servers other subjects[ ] catalogue of all online information by subject. also: by server type[ ] . ** check out x browser "violawww": anon ftp to info.cern.ch in /pub/www/src *** still beta, so keep bug reports calm :-) if you use this service frequently, please install this or any w browser on your own machine (see instructions[ ] ). you can configure it to start - , <return> for more, quit, or help: you navigate the web by typing the number next to a given reference. so if you want to know more about the web, hit . this is another system that bears playing with. . . clients, or how to snare more on the web if you are used to plain-vanilla unix or ms-dos, then the way these gophers and waiss work seems quite straightforward. but if you're used to a computer with a graphical interface, such as a macintosh, an ibm compatible with windows or a next, you'll probably regard their interfaces as somewhat primitive. and even to a veteran ms-dos user, the world-wide web interface is rather clunky (and some of the documents and files on the web now use special formatting that would confuse your poor computer). there are, however, ways to integrate these services into your graphical user interface. in fact, there are now ways to tie into the internet directly, rather than relying on whatever interface your public-access system uses, through what are known as "client" programs. these programs provide graphical interfaces for everything from ftp to the world-wide web. there is now a growing number of these "client" programs for everything from ftp to gopher. psi of reston, va., which offers nationwide internet access, in fact, requires its customers to use these programs. using protocols known as slip and ppp, these programs communicate with the net using the same basic data packets as much larger computers online. beyond integration with your own computer's "desktop,'' client programs let you do more than one thing at once on the net -- while you're downloading a large file in one window, you can be chatting with a friend through an internet chat program in another. unfortunately, using a client program can cost a lot of money. some require you to be connected directly to the internet through an ethernet network for example. others work through modem protocols, such as slip, but public-access sites that allow such access may charge anywhere from $ to $ a month extra for the service. your system administrator can give you more information on setting up one of these connections. . . when things go wrong as the internet grows ever more popular, its resources come under more of a strain. if you try to use gopher in the middle of the day, at least on the east coast of the u.s., you'll sometimes notice that it takes a very long time for particular menus or database searches to come up. sometimes, you'll even get a message that there are too many people connected to whichever service you're trying to use and so you can't get in. the only alternative is to either try again in minutes or so, or wait until later in the day, when the load might be lower. when this happens in veronica, try one of the other veronica entries. when you retrieve a file through gopher, you'll sometimes be asked if you want to store it under some ludicrously long name (there go our friends the system administrators again, using characters just because unix lets them). with certain ms-dos communications programs, if that name is longer than one line, you won't be able to backspace all the way back to the first line if you want to give it a simpler name. backspace as far as you can. then, when you get ready to download it to your home computer, remember that the file name will be truncated on your end, because of ms-dos's file-naming limitations. worse, your computer might even reject the whole thing. what to do? instead of saving it to your home directory, mail it to yourself. it should show up in your mail by the time you exit gopher. then, use your mail command for saving it to your home directory -- at which point you can name it anything you want. now you can download it. . fyi david riggins maintains a list of gophers by type and category. you can find the most recent one at the ftp site ftp.einet.net, in the pub directory. look for a file with a name like "gopher-jewels.txt." alternately, you can get on a mailing list to get the latest version sent to your e-mailbox automatically. send a mail message to gopherjewelslist- request@tpis.cactus.org (yep, that first part is all one word). leave the "subject:" line blank, and as a message, write subscribe. blake gumprecht maintains a list of gopher and telnet sites related to, or run by, the government. he posts it every three weeks to the news.answers and soc.answers newsgroups on usenet. it can also be obtained via anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu, as /pub/usenet/news.answers/us-govt-net-pointers. students at the university of michigan's school of information and library studies, recently compiled separate lists of internet resources in specific areas, from aeronautics to theater. they can be obtained via gopher at gopher.lib.umich.edu, in the "what's new and featured resources" menu. the usenet newsgroups comp.infosystems.gopher and comp.infosystems.wais are places to go for technical discussions about gophers and waiss respectively. the interpedia project is an attempt to take gopher one step further, by creating an online repository of all of the interesting and useful information availble on the net and from its users. to get on the mailing list for the project, send an e-mail message, with a "subject:" of "subscribe" to interpedia-request@telerama.lm.com. you can get supporting documentation for the project via anonymous ftp at ftp.lm.com in the pub/interpedia directory. chapter : advanced e-mail . the file's in the mail e-mail by itself is a powerful tool, and by now you may be sending e-mail messages all over the place. you might even be on a mailing list or two. but there is a lot more to e-mail than just sending messages. if your host system does not have access to ftp, or it doesn't have access to every ftp site on the net, you can have programs and files sent right to your mailbox. and using some simple techniques, you can use e-mail to send data files such as spreadsheets, or even whole programs, to friends and colleagues around the world. a key to both is a set of programs known as encoders and decoders. for all its basic power, net e-mail has a big problem: it can't handle graphics characters or the control codes found in even the simplest of computer programs. encoders however, can translate these into forms usable in e-mail, while decoders turn them back into a form that you can actually use. if you are using a unix-based host system, chances are it already has an encoder and decoder online that you can use. these programs will also let you use programs posted in several usenet newsgroups, such as comp.binaries.ibm.pc. if both you and the person with whom you want to exchange files use unix host systems, you're in luck because virtually all unix host systems have encoder/decoder programs online. for now, let's assume that's the case. first, upload the file you want to send to your friend to your host site (ask your system administrator how to upload a file to your name or "home" directory if you don't already know how). then type uuencode file file > file.uu and hit enter. "file" is the name of the file you want to prepare for mailing, and yes, you have to type the name twice! the > is a unix command that tells the system to call the "encoded" file "file.uu" (you could actually call it anything you want). now to get it into a mail message. the quick and dirty way is to type mail friend where "friend" is your friend's address. at the subject line, tell her the name of the enclosed file. when you get the blank line, type ~r file.uu or whatever you called the file, and hit enter. (on some systems, the ~ may not work; if so, ask your system administrator what to use). this inserts the file into your mail message. hit control-d, and your file is on its way! on the other end, when your friend goes into her mailbox, she should transfer it to her home directory. then she should type uudecode file.name and hit enter. this creates a new file in her name directory with whatever name you originally gave it. she can then download it to her own computer. before she can actually use it, though, she'll have to open it up with a text processor and delete the mail header that has been "stamped" on it. if you use a mailer program that automatically appends a "signature," tell her about that so she can delete that as well. . receiving files if somebody sends you a file through the mail, you'll have to go through a couple of steps to get it into a form you can actually use. if you are using the simple mail program, go into mail and type w # file.name where # is the number of the message you want to transfer and file.name is what you want to call the resulting file. in pine, call up the message and hit your o key and then e. you'll then be asked for a file name. in elm, call up the message and hit your s key. you'll get something that looks like this: =file.request type a new file name and hit enter (if you hit enter without typing a file name, the message will be saved to another mail folder, not your home directory). in all three cases, exit the mail program to return to your host system's command line. because the file has been encoded for mail delivery, you now have to run a decoder. at the command line, type uudecode file.name where file.name is the file you created while in mail. uudecode will create a new, uncompressed binary file. in some cases, you may have to run it through some other programs (for example, if it is in "tar" form), but generally it should now be ready for you to download to your own computer (on which you might then have to run a de-compressor program such as pkxzip). . files to non-internet sites what if your friend only connects with a non-unix system, such as compuserve or mcimail? there are programs available for ms-dos, apple and amiga computers that will encode and decode files. of course, since you can't send one of these programs to your friend via e-mail (how would she un-encode it?), you'll have to mail (the old-fashioned way) or give her a diskette with the program on it first. then, she can get the file by e-mail and go through the above process (only on her own computer) to get a usable file. remember to give her an encoder program as well, if she wants to send you files in return. for ms-dos machines, you'll want to get uunecode.com and uudecode.com. both can be found through anonymous ftp at wuarchive.wustl.edu in the /mirrors/msdos/starter directory. the ms- dos version is as easy to use as the unix one: just type uudecode filename.ext and hit enter. mac users should get a program called uutool, which can be found in the info-mac/util directory on sumex-aim.stanford.edu. think twice before sending somebody a giant file. although large sites connected directly to the internet can probably handle mega-files, many smaller systems cannot. some commercial systems, such as compuserve and mcimail, limit the size of mail messages their users can receive. fidonet doesn't even allow encoded messages. in general, a file size of , or so bytes is a safe upper limit for non-internet systems. . getting ftp files via e-mail to help people without ftp access, a number of ftp sites have set up mail servers (also known as archive servers) that allow you to get files via e-mail. you send a request to one of these machines and they send back the file you want. as with ftp, you'll be able to find everything from historical documents to software (but please note that if you do have access to ftp, that method is always quicker and ties up fewer resources than using e-mail). some interesting or useful mail servers include: mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu files of "frequently asked questions" related to usenet; state-by-state lists of u.s. representatives and senators and their addresses and office phone numbers. archive-server@eff.org information about the electronic frontier foundation; documents about legal issues on the net. archive-server@cs.widener.edu back copies of the computer underground digest and every possible fact you could want to know about "the simpsons." netlib@uunet.uu.net programs for many types of personal computers; archives of past postings from many usenet newsgroups. archive-server@ames.arc.nasa.gov space-related text and graphics (gif-format) files. service@nic.ddn.mil detailed information about internet. most mail servers work pretty much the same -- you send an e-mail message that tells them what file you want and how you want it sent to you. the most important command is "send," which tells the computer you want it to send you a particular file. first, though, you'll need to know where the mail server stores that file, because you have to tell it which directory or sub- directory it's in. there are a couple of ways to do this. you can send an e-mail message to the archive-server that consists of one line: index the server will then send you a directory listing of its main, or root directory. you'll then have to send a second message to the archive server with one line: index directory/subdirectory where that is the directory or directory path for which you want a listing. an alternative is to send an e-mail message to our old friend archie, which should send you back the file's exact location on the archive-server (along with similar listings for all the other sites that may have the file, however) once you have the file name and its directory path, compose a message to the archive server like this: send directory/subdirectory/file send off the message and, anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of days later, you'll find a new message in your mailbox: a copy of the file you requested. the exact time it will take a file to get to you depends on a variety of factors, including how many requests are in line before yours (mail servers can only process so many requests at a time) and the state of the connections between the server and you. seems simple enough. it gets a little more complicated when you request a program rather than a document. programs or other files that contain unusual characters or lines longer than characters (graphics files, for example) require special processing by both the mail server to ensure they are transmitted via e-mail. then you'll have to run them through at least one converter program to put them in a form you can actually use. to ensure that a program or other "non-mailable" file actually gets to you, include another line in your e-mail message to the server: encoder this converts the file into an encoded form. to decode it, you'll first have to transfer the file message into a file in your home directory. one further complication comes when you request a particularly long file. many net sites can only handle so much mail at a time. to make sure you get the entire file, tell the mail server to break it up into smaller pieces, with another line in your e-mail request like this: size this gives the mail server the maximum size, in bytes, of each file segment. this particular size is good for uucp sites. internet and bitnet sites can generally go up to . when you get all of these files in mail, transfer them to your home directory. exit mail and call up each file in your host system's text processor and delete each one's entire header and footer (or "signature" at the end). when done with this, at your host system's command line, type cat file file > bigfile where file is the first file, file the second file, and so on. the > tells your host system to combine them into a new megafile called bigfile (or whatever you want to call it). after you save the file to your home directory (see section . above), you can then run uudecode, tar, etc. one word of caution, though: if the file you want is long enough that it has to be broken into pieces, think of how much time it's going to take you to download the whole thing -- especially if you're using a -baud modem! there are a number of other mail servers. to get a list, send an e-mail message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu: send usenet/comp.sources.wanted/how_to_find_sources_(read_this_before_posting) you'll have to spell it exactly as listed above. some mail servers use different software, which will require slightly different commands than the ones listed here. in general, if you send a message to a mail server that says only help you should get back a file detailing all of its commands. but what if the file you want is not on one of these mail servers? that's where ftpmail comes in. run by digital equipment corp. in california, this service can connect to almost any ftp site in the world, get the file you want and then mail it to you. using it is fairly simple -- you send an e-mail message to ftpmail that includes a series of commands telling the system where to find the file you want and how to format it to mail to you. compose an e-mail message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com leave the "subject:" line blank. inside the message, there are several commands you can give. the first line should be reply address where "address" is your e-mail address. the next line should be connect host where "host" is the system that has the file you want (for example: wuarchive.wustl.edu). other commands you should consider using are "binary" (required for program files); "compress" (reduces the file size for quicker transmission) and "uuencode" (which encodes the file so you can do something with it when it arrives). the last line of your message should be the word "quit". let's say you want a copy of the u.s. constitution. using archie, you've found a file called, surprise, constitution, at the ftp site archive.cis.ohio-state.edu, in the /pub/firearms/politics/rkba directory. you'd send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com that looks like this: reply adamg@world.std.com connect archive.cis.ohio-state.edu binary compress uuencode get pub/firearms/politics/rkba/constitution quit when you get the file in your mailbox, use the above procedure for copying it to a file. run it through uudecode. then type uncompress file.name to make it usable. since this was a text file, you could have changed the "binary" to "ascii" and then eliminated the "uuencode" file. for programs, though, you'll want to keep these lines. one caveat with ftpmail: it has become such a popular service that it could take a week or more for your requested files to arrive. . the all knowing oracle one other thing you can do through e-mail is consult with the usenet oracle. you can ask the oracle anything at all and get back an answer (whether you like the answer is another question). first, you'll want to get instructions on how to address the oracle (he, or she, or it, is very particular about such things and likes being addressed in august, solemn and particularly sycophantic tones). start an e-mail message to oracle@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu in the "subject:" line, type help and hit enter. you don't actually have to say anything in the message itself -- at least not yet. hit control-d to send off your request for help. within a few hours, the oracle will mail you back detailed instructions. it's a fairly long file, so before you start reading it, turn on your communications software's logging function, to save it to your computer (or save the message to a file on your host system's home directory and then download the file). after you've digested it, you can compose your question to the oracle. mail it to the above address, only this time with a subject line that describes your question. expect an answer within a couple of days. and don't be surprised if you also find a question in your mailbox -- the oracle extracts payment by making seekers of knowledge answer questions as well! chapter : news of the world . clarinet: upi, dave barry and dilbert. usenet "newsgroups" can be something of a misnomer. they may be interesting, informative and educational, but they are often not news, at least, not the way most people would think of them. but there are several sources of news and sports on the net. one of the largest is clarinet, a company in cupertino, calf., that distributes wire-service news and columns, along with a news service devoted to computers and even the dilbert comic strip, in usenet form. distributed in usenet form, clarinet stories and columns are organized into more than newsgroups (in this case, a truly appropriate name), some of them with an extremely narrow focus, for example, clari.news.gov.taxes. the general news and sports come from united press international; the computer news from the newsbytes service; the features from several syndicates. because clarinet charges for its service, not all host systems carry its articles. those that do carry them as usenet groups starting with "clari." as with other usenet hierarchies, these are named starting with broad area and ending with more specific categories. some of these include business news (clari.biz); general national and foreign news, politics and the like (clari.news), sports (clari.sports); columns by mike royko, miss manners, dave barry and others (clari.feature); and newsbytes computer and telecommunications reports (clari.nb). because clarinet started in canada, there is a separate set of clari.canada newsgroups. the clari.nb newsgroups are divided into specific computer types (clari.nb.apple, for example). clari news groups feature stories updated around the clock. there are even a couple of "bulletin" newsgroups for breaking stories: clari.news.bulletin and clari.news.urgent. clarinet also sets up new newsgroups for breaking stories that become ongoing ones (such as major natural disasters, coups in large countries and the like). occasionally, you will see stories in clari newsgroups that just don't seem to belong there. stories about former washington, d.c. mayor marion barry, for example, often wind interspersed among columns by dave barry. this happens because of the way wire services work. upi uses three-letter codes to route its stories to the newspapers and radio stations that make up most of its clientele, and harried editors on deadline sometimes punch in the wrong code. . reuters this is roughly the british equivalent of upi or associated press. msen, a public-access site in michigan, currently feeds reuters dispatches into a series of usenet-style conferences. if your site subscribes to this service, look for newsgroups with names that begin in msen.reuters. . usa today if your host system doesn't carry the clari or msen.reuters newsgroups, you might be able to keep up with the news a different way over the net. usa today has been something of an online newspaper pioneer, selling its stories to bulletin-board and online systems across the country for several years. cleveland free-net provides the online version of usa today (along with all its other services) for free. currently, the paper only publishes five days a week, so you'll have to get your weekend news fix elsewhere. telnet: freenet-in-a.cwru.edu or freenet-in-b.cwru.edu after you connect and log in, look for this menu entry: nptn/usa today headline news. type the number next to it and hit enter. you'll then get a menu listing a series of broad categories, such as sports and telecommunications. choose one, and you'll get a yet another menu, listing the ten most recent dates of publication. each of these contains one-paragraph summaries of the day's news in that particular subject. . the world today, from belarus to brazil radio free europe and radio liberty are american radio stations that broadcast to the former communist countries of eastern europe. every day, their news departments prepare a summary of news in those countries, which is then disseminated via the net, through a bitnet mailing list and a usenet newsgroup. to have the daily digests sent directly to your e-mailbox, send a message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu leave the subject line blank, and as a message, write: subscribe rferl-l your name alternately, look for the bulletins in the usenet newsgroup misc.news- east-europe.rferl. daily brazilian news updates are available (in portuguese) from the university of sao paulo. use anonymous ftp to connect to uspif.if.usp.br use cd to switch to the whois directory. the news summaries are stored in files with this form: news. oct ; . but to get them, leave off the semicolon and the , and don't capitalize anything, for example: get news. oct daily summaries of news reports from france (in french) are availble on the national capital freenet in ottawa, ont. telnet to freenet.carleton.ca and log on as: guest. at the main menu, select the number for "the newsstand" and then "la presse de france." . e-mailing news organizations a number of newspapers, television stations and networks and other news organizations now encourage readers and viewers to communicate with them electronically, via internet e-mail addresses. they include: the middlesex news, framingham, mass. sysop@news.ci.net the boston globe voxbox@globe.com wcvb-tv, boston, mass. wcvb@aol.com nbc news, new york, n.y. nightly@nbc.com the ottawa citizen, ottawa, ont. ottawa-citizen@freenet.carleton.ca cjoh-tv, ottawa, ont. ab @freenet.carleton.ca st. petersburg (fla.) times . @compuserve.com illinois issues, springfield, ill. gherardi@sangamon.edu wtvf-tv, nashville, tenn. craig.ownsby@nashville.com . fyi the clari.net.newusers newsgroup on usenet provides a number of articles about clarinet and ways of finding news stories of interest to you. to discuss the future of newspapers and newsrooms in the new electronic medium, subscribe to the computer assisted reporting and research mailing list on bitnet. send a mail message of subscribe carr-l your name to listserv@ulkyvm.bitnet. chapter : advanced e-mail . the file's in the mail e-mail by itself is a powerful tool, and by now you may be sending e-mail messages all over the place. you might even be on a mailing list or two. but there is a lot more to e-mail than just sending messages. if your host system does not have access to ftp, or it doesn't have access to every ftp site on the net, you can have programs and files sent right to your mailbox. and using some simple techniques, you can use e-mail to send data files such as spreadsheets, or even whole programs, to friends and colleagues around the world. a key to both is a set of programs known as encoders and decoders. for all its basic power, net e-mail has a big problem: it can't handle graphics characters or the control codes found in even the simplest of computer programs. encoders however, can translate these into forms usable in e-mail, while decoders turn them back into a form that you can actually use. if you are using a unix-based host system, chances are it already has an encoder and decoder online that you can use. these programs will also let you use programs posted in several usenet newsgroups, such as comp.binaries.ibm.pc. if both you and the person with whom you want to exchange files use unix host systems, you're in luck because virtually all unix host systems have encoder/decoder programs online. for now, let's assume that's the case. first, upload the file you want to send to your friend to your host site (ask your system administrator how to upload a file to your name or "home" directory if you don't already know how). then type uuencode file file > file.uu and hit enter. "file" is the name of the file you want to prepare for mailing, and yes, you have to type the name twice! the > is a unix command that tells the system to call the "encoded" file "file.uu" (you could actually call it anything you want). now to get it into a mail message. the quick and dirty way is to type mail friend where "friend" is your friend's address. at the subject line, type the name of the enclosed file. when you get the blank line, type ~r file.uu or whatever you called the file, and hit enter. (on some systems, the ~ may not work; if so, ask your system administrator what to use). this inserts the file into your mail message. hit control-d, and your file is on its way! on the other end, when your friend goes into her mailbox, she should transfer it to her home directory. then she should type uudecode file.name and hit enter. this creates a new file in her name directory with whatever name you originally gave it. she can then download it to her own computer. before she can actually use it, though, she'll have to open it up with a text processor and delete the mail header that has been "stamped" on it. if you use a mailer program that automatically appends a "signature," tell her about that so she can delete that as well. . receiving files if somebody sends you a file through the mail, you'll have to go through a couple of steps to get it into a form you can actually use. if you are using the simple mail program, go into mail and type w # file.name where # is the number of the message you want to transfer and file.name is what you want to call the resulting file. in pine, call up the message and hit your o key and then e. you'll then be asked for a file name. in elm, call up the message and hit your s key. you'll get something that looks like this: =file.request type a new file name and hit enter (if you hit enter without typing a file name, the message will be saved to another mail folder, not your home directory). in all three cases, exit the mail program to return to your host system's command line. because the file has been encoded for mail delivery, you now have to run a decoder. at the command line, type uudecode file.name where file.name is the file you created while in mail. uudecode will create a new, uncompressed binary file. in some cases, you may have to run it through some other programs (for example, if it is in "tar" form), but generally it should now be ready for you to download to your own computer (on which you might then have to run a de-compressor program such as pkxzip). . sending files to non-internet sites what if your friend only connects with a non-unix system, such as compuserve or mcimail? there are programs available for ms-dos, apple and amiga computers that will encode and decode files. of course, since you can't send one of these programs to your friend via e-mail (how would she un-encode it?), you'll have to mail (the old-fashioned way) or give her a diskette with the program on it first. then, she can get the file by e-mail and go through the above process (only on her own computer) to get a usable file. remember to give her an encoder program as well, if she wants to send you files in return. for ms-dos machines, you'll want to get uunecode.com and uudecode.com. both can be found through anonymous ftp at wuarchive.wustl.edu in the /mirrors/msdos/starter directory. the ms- dos version is as easy to use as the unix one: just type uudecode filename.ext and hit enter. mac users should get a program called uutool, which can be found in the info-mac/util directory on sumex-aim.stanford.edu. think twice before sending somebody a giant file. although large sites connected directly to the internet can probably handle mega-files, many smaller systems cannot. some commercial systems, such as compuserve and mcimail, limit the size of mail messages their users can receive. fidonet doesn't even allow encoded messages. in general, a file size of , or so bytes is a safe upper limit for non-internet systems. . getting ftp files via e-mail to help people without ftp access, a number of ftp sites have set up mail servers (also known as archive servers) that allow you to get files via e-mail. you send a request to one of these machines and they send back the file you want. as with ftp, you'll be able to find everything from historical documents to software (but please note that if you do have access to ftp, that method is always quicker and ties up fewer resources than using e-mail). some interesting or useful mail servers include: mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu files of "frequently asked questions" related to usenet; state-by-state lists of u.s. representatives and senators and their addresses and office phone numbers. archive-server@eff.org information about the electronic frontier foundation; documents about legal issues on the net. archive-server@cs.widener.edu back copies of the computer underground digest and every possible fact you could want to know about "the simpsons." netlib@uunet.uu.net programs for many types of personal computers; archives of past postings from many usenet newsgroups. archive-server@ames.arc.nasa.gov space-related text and graphics (gif-format) files. service@nic.ddn.mil detailed information about internet. most mail servers work pretty much the same -- you send an e-mail message that tells them what file you want and how you want it sent to you. the most important command is "send," which tells the computer you want it to send you a particular file. first, though, you'll need to know where the mail server stores that file, because you have to tell it which directory or sub- directory it's in. there are a couple of ways to do this. you can send an e-mail message to the archive-server that consists of one line: index the server will then send you a directory listing of its main, or root directory. you'll then have to send a second message to the archive server with one line: index directory/subdirectory where directory/subdirectory is the directory path for which you want a listing. an alternative is to send an e-mail message to our old friend archie, which should send you back the file's exact location on the archive-server (along with similar listings for all the other sites that may have the file, however) once you have the file name and its directory path, compose a message to the archive server like this: send directory/subdirectory/file send off the message and, anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of days later, you'll find a new message in your mailbox: a copy of the file you requested. the exact time it will take a file to get to you depends on a variety of factors, including how many requests are in line before yours (mail servers can only process so many requests at a time) and the state of the connections between the server and you. seems simple enough. it gets a little more complicated when you request a program rather than a document. programs or other files that contain unusual characters or lines longer than characters (graphics files, for example) require special processing by the mail server to ensure they are transmitted via e-mail. then you'll have to run them through at least one converter program to put them in a form you can actually use. to ensure that a program or other "non-mailable" file actually gets to you, include another line in your e-mail message to the server: encoder this converts the file into an encoded form. to decode it, you'll first have to transfer the file message into a file in your home directory. one further complication comes when you request a particularly long file. many net sites can only handle so much mail at a time. to make sure you get the entire file, tell the mail server to break it up into smaller pieces, with another line in your e-mail request like this: size this gives the mail server the maximum size, in bytes, of each file segment. this particular size is good for uucp sites. internet and bitnet sites can generally go up to . when you get all of these files in mail, transfer them to your home directory. exit mail and call up each file in your host system's text processor and delete each one's entire header and footer (or "signature" at the end). when done with this, at your host system's command line, type cat file file > bigfile where file is the first file, file the second file, and so on. the > tells your host system to combine them into a new megafile called bigfile (or whatever you want to call it). after you save the file to your home directory (see section . above), you can then run uudecode, tar, etc. one word of caution, though: if the file you want is long enough that it has to be broken into pieces, think of how much time it's going to take you to download the whole thing -- especially if you're using a -baud modem! there are a number of other mail servers. to get a list, send an e-mail message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu: send usenet/comp.sources.wanted/how_to_find_sources_(read_this_before_posting) you'll have to spell it exactly as listed above. some mail servers use different software, which will require slightly different commands than the ones listed here. in general, if you send a message to a mail server that says only help you should get back a file detailing all of its commands. but what if the file you want is not on one of these mail servers? that's where ftpmail comes in. run by digital equipment corp. in california, this service can connect to almost any ftp site in the world, get the file you want and then mail it to you. using it is fairly simple -- you send an e-mail message to ftpmail that includes a series of commands telling the system where to find the file you want and how to format it to mail to you. compose an e-mail message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com leave the "subject:" line blank. inside the message, there are several commands you can give. the first line should be reply address where "address" is your e-mail address. the next line should be connect host where "host" is the system that has the file you want (for example: wuarchive.wustl.edu). other commands you should consider using are "binary" (required for program files); "compress" (reduces the file size for quicker transmission) and "uuencode" (which encodes the file so you can do something with it when it arrives). the last line of your message should be the word "quit". let's say you want a copy of the u.s. constitution. using archie, you've found a file called, surprise, constitution, at the ftp site archive.cis.ohio-state.edu, in the /pub/firearms/politics/rkba directory. you'd send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com that looks like this: reply adamg@world.std.com connect archive.cis.ohio-state.edu binary compress uuencode get pub/firearms/politics/rkba/constitution quit when you get the file in your mailbox, use the above procedure for copying it to a file. run it through uudecode. then type uncompress file.name to make it usable. since this was a text file, you could have changed the "binary" to "ascii" and then eliminated the "uuencode" file. for programs, though, you'll want to keep these lines. one caveat with ftpmail: it has become such a popular service that it could take a week or more for your requested files to arrive. . the all knowing oracle one other thing you can do through e-mail is consult with the usenet oracle. you can ask the oracle anything at all and get back an answer (whether you'll like the answer is another question). first, you'll want to get instructions on how to address the oracle (he, or she, or it, is very particular about such things and likes being addressed in august, solemn and particularly sycophantic tones). start an e-mail message to oracle@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu in the "subject:" line, type help and hit enter. you don't actually have to say anything in the message itself -- at least not yet. hit control-d to send off your request for help. within a few hours, the oracle will mail you back detailed instructions. it's a fairly long file, so before you start reading it, turn on your communications software's logging function, to save it to your computer (or save the message to a file on your host system's home directory and then download the file). after you've digested it, you can compose your question to the oracle. mail it to the above address, only this time with a subject line that describes your question. expect an answer within a couple of days. and don't be surprised if you also find a question in your mailbox -- the oracle extracts payment by making seekers of knowledge answer questions as well! chapter : news of the world . clarinet: upi, dave barry and dilbert. usenet "newsgroups" can be something of a misnomer. they may be interesting, informative and educational, but they are often not news, at least, not the way most people would think of them. but there are several sources of news and sports on the net. one of the largest is clarinet, a company in cupertino, calf., that distributes wire-service news and columns, along with a news service devoted to computers and even the dilbert comic strip, in usenet form. distributed in usenet form, clarinet stories and columns are organized into more than newsgroups (in this case, a truly appropriate name), some of them with an extremely narrow focus, for example, clari.news.gov.taxes. the general news and sports come from united press international; the computer news from the newsbytes service; the features from several syndicates. because clarinet charges for its service, not all host systems carry its articles. those that do carry them as usenet groups starting with "clari." as with other usenet hierarchies, these are named starting with broad area and ending with more specific categories. some of these include business news (clari.biz); general national and foreign news, politics and the like (clari.news), sports (clari.sports); columns by mike royko, miss manners, dave barry and others (clari.feature); and newsbytes computer and telecommunications reports (clari.nb). because clarinet started in canada, there is a separate set of clari.canada newsgroups. the clari.nb newsgroups are divided into specific computer types (clari.nb.apple, for example). clari news groups feature stories updated around the clock. there are even a couple of "bulletin" newsgroups for breaking stories: clari.news.bulletin and clari.news.urgent. clarinet also sets up new newsgroups for breaking stories that become ongoing ones (such as major natural disasters, coups in large countries and the like). occasionally, you will see stories in clari newsgroups that just don't seem to belong there. stories about former washington, d.c. mayor marion barry, for example, often wind interspersed among columns by dave barry. this happens because of the way wire services work. upi uses three-letter codes to route its stories to the newspapers and radio stations that make up most of its clientele, and harried editors on deadline sometimes punch in the wrong code. . reuters this is roughly the british equivalent of upi or associated press. msen, a public-access site in michigan, currently feeds reuters dispatches into a series of usenet-style conferences. if your site subscribes to this service, look for newsgroups with names that begin in msen.reuters. . usa today if your host system doesn't carry the clari or msen.reuters newsgroups, you might be able to keep up with the news a different way over the net. usa today has been something of an online newspaper pioneer, selling its stories to bulletin-board and online systems across the country for several years. cleveland free-net provides the online version of usa today (along with all its other services) for free. currently, the paper publishes only five days a week, so you'll have to get your weekend news fix elsewhere. telnet: freenet-in-a.cwru.edu or freenet-in-b.cwru.edu or freenet-in-c.cwru.edu after you connect and log in, look for this menu entry: nptn/usa today headline news. type the number next to it and hit enter. you'll then get a menu listing a series of broad categories, such as sports and telecommunications. choose one, and you'll get a yet another menu, listing the ten most recent dates of publication. each of these contains one-paragraph summaries of the day's news in that particular subject. . national public radio look in the alt.radio.networks.npr newsgroup in usenet for summaries of npr news shows such as "all things considered." this newsgroup is also a place to discuss the network and its shows, personalities and policies. . the world today, from belarus to brazil radio free europe and radio liberty are american radio stations that broadcast to the former communist countries of eastern europe. every day, their news departments prepare a summary of news in those countries, which is then disseminated via the net, through a bitnet mailing list and a usenet newsgroup. to have the daily digests sent directly to your e-mailbox, send a message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu leave the subject line blank, and as a message, write: subscribe rferl-l your name alternately, look for the bulletins in the usenet newsgroup misc.news- east-europe.rferl. the voice of america, a government broadcasting service aimed at other countries, provides transcripts of its english-language news reports through both gopher and anonymous ftp. for the former, use gopher to connect to this address: gopher.voa.gov and for the latter, to this address: ftp.voa.gov daily brazilian news updates are available (in portuguese) from the university of sao paulo. use anonymous ftp to connect to uspif.if.usp.br use cd to switch to the whois directory. the news summaries are stored in files with this form: news. oct ; . but to get them, leave off the semicolon and the , and don't capitalize anything, for example: get news. oct daily summaries of news reports from france (in french) are availble on the national capital freenet in ottawa, ont. telnet to freenet.carleton.ca and log on as: guest. at the main menu, select the number for "the newsstand" and then "la presse de france." . e-mailing news organizations a number of newspapers, television stations and networks and other news organizations now encourage readers and viewers to communicate with them electronically, via internet e-mail addresses. they include: the middlesex news, framingham, mass. sysop@news.ci.net the boston globe voxbox@globe.com wcvb-tv, boston, mass. wcvb@aol.com nbc news, new york, n.y. nightly@nbc.com the ottawa citizen, ottawa, ont. ottawa-citizen@freenet.carleton.ca cjoh-tv, ottawa, ont. ab @freenet.carleton.ca st. petersburg (fla.) times . @compuserve.com illinois issues, springfield, ill. gherardi@sangamon.edu wtvf-tv, nashville, tenn. craig.ownsby@nashville.com santa cruz county (calif.) sentinel sented@cruzio.com morning journal, lorain, ohio mamjornl@freenet.lorain.oberlin.edu wcco-tv, minneapolis, minn. wccotv@mr.net tico times, costa rica ttimes@huracon.cr . fyi the clari.net.newusers newsgroup on usenet provides a number of articles about clarinet and ways of finding news stories of interest to you. to discuss the future of newspapers and newsrooms in the new electronic medium, subscribe to the computer assisted reporting and research mailing list on bitnet. send a mail message of subscribe carr-l your name to listserv@ulkyvm.bitnet. chapter : irc, muds and other things that are more fun than they sound many net systems provide access to a series of interactive services that let you hold live "chats" or play online games with people around the world. to find out if your host system offers these, you can ask your system administrator or just try them -- if nothing happens, then your system does not provide them. in general, if you can use telnet and ftp, chances are good you can use these services as well. . talk this is the net equivalent of a telephone conversation and requires that both you and the person you want to talk to have access to this function and are online at the same time. to use it, type talk user@site.name where user@site.name is the e-mail address of the other person. she will see something like this on her screen: talk: connection requested by yourname@site.name talk: respond with: talk yourname@site.name to start the conversation, she should then type (at her host system's command line): talk yourname@site.name where that is your e-mail address. both of you will then get a top and bottom window on your screen. she will see everything you type in one window; you'll see everything she types in the other. to disconnect, hit control-c. one note: public-access sites that use sun computers sometimes have trouble with the talk program. if talk does not work, try typing otalk or ntalk instead. however, the party at the other end will have to have the same program online for the connection to work. . internet relay chat irc is a program that lets you hold live keyboard conversations with people around the world. it's a lot like an international cb radio - it even uses "channels." type something on your computer and it's instantly echoed around the world to whoever happens to be on the same channel with you. you can join in existing public group chats or set up your own. you can even create a private channel for yourself and as few as one or two other people. and just like on a cb radio, you can give yourself a unique "handle" or nickname. irc currently links host systems in different countries, from australia to hong kong to israel. unfortunately, it's like telnet -- either your site has it or it doesn't. if your host system does have it, just type irc and hit enter. you'll get something like this: *** connecting to port of server world.std.com *** welcome to the internet relay network, adamg *** your host is world.std.com, running version . . e+ *** you have new mail. *** if you have not already done so, please read the new user information with +/help newuser *** this server was created sat apr at : : edt *** there are users on servers *** users have connection to the twilight zone *** there are channels. *** i have clients and servers motd - world.std.com message of the day - motd - be careful out there... motd - motd - ->spike * end of /motd command. : [ ] adamg [mail: ] * type /help for help ---------------------------------------------------------------------- you are now in channel , the "null" channel, in which you can look up various help files, but not much else. as you can see, irc takes over your entire screen. the top of the screen is where messages will appear. the last line is where you type irc commands and messages. all irc commands begin with a /. the slash tells the computer you are about to enter a command, rather than a message. to see what channels are available, type /list and hit enter. you'll get something like this: *** channel users topic *** #money school ca$h (/msg sos_aid help) *** #gone ----->> gone with the wind!!! ------>>>>> *** #mee *** #eclipse *** #hiya *** #saigon *** #screwed *** #z *** #comix let's talk 'bout comix!!!!! *** #drama *** #raytrace rendering to reality and back *** #next *** #wicca mr. potato head, r. i. p. *** #dde^mhe` no'ng chay? mo*? ...ba` con o*iiii *** #jgm *** #ucd *** #maine *** #snuffland *** #p/g! *** #dragonsrv because irc allows for a large number of channels, the list might scroll off your screen, so you might want to turn on your computer's screen capture to capture the entire list. note that the channels always have names, instead of numbers. each line in the listing tells you the channel name, the number of people currently in it, and whether there's a specific topic for it. to switch to a particular channel, type /join #channel where "#channel" is the channel name and hit enter. some "public" channels actually require an invitation from somebody already on it. to request an invitation, type /who #channel-name where channel-name is the name of the channel, and hit enter. then ask someone with an @ next to their name if you can join in. note that whenever you enter a channel, you have to include the #. choose one with a number of users, so you can see irc in action. if it's a busy channel, as soon as you join it, the top of your screen will quickly be filled with messages. each will start with a person's irc nickname, followed by his message. it may seem awfully confusing at first. there could be two or three conversations going on at the same time and sometimes the messages will come in so fast you'll wonder how you can read them all. eventually, though, you'll get into the rhythm of the channel and things will begin to make more sense. you might even want to add your two cents (in fact, don't be surprised if a message to you shows up on your screen right away; on some channels, newcomers are welcomed immediately). to enter a public message, simply type it on that bottom line (the computer knows it's a message because you haven't started the line with a slash) and hit enter. public messages have a user's nickname in brackets, like this: <tomg> if you receive a private message from somebody, his name will be between asterisks, like this: *tomg* . irc commands note: hit enter after each command. /away when you're called away to put out a grease fire in the kitchen, issue this command to let others know you're still connected but just away from your terminal or computer for awhile. /help brings up a list of commands for which there is a help file. you will get a "topic:" prompt. type in the subject for which you want information and hit enter. hit enter by itself to exit help. /invite asks another irc to join you in a conversation. /invite fleepo #hottub would send a message to fleepo asking him to join you on the #hottub channel. the channel name is optional. /join use this to switch to or create a particular channel, like this: /join #hottub if one of these channels exists and is not a private one, you will enter it. otherwise, you have just created it. note you have to use a # as the first character. /list this will give you a list of all available public channels, their topics (if any) and the number of users currently on them. hidden and private channels are not shown. /m name send a private message to that user. /mode this lets you determine who can join a channel you've created. /mode #channel +s creates a secret channel. /mode #channel +p makes the channel private /nick this lets you change the name by which others see you. /nick fleepo would change your name for the present session to fleepo. people can still use /whois to find your e-mail address. if you try to enter a channel where somebody else is already using that nickname, irc will ask you to select another name. /query this sets up a private conversation between you and another irc user. to do this, type /query nickname every message you type after that will go only to that person. if she then types /query nickname where nickname is yours, then you have established a private conversation. to exit this mode, type /query by itself. while in query mode, you and the other person can continue to "listen" to the discussion on whatever public channels you were on, although neither of you will be able to respond to any of the messages there. /quit exit irc. /signoff exit irc. /summon asks somebody connected to a host system with irc to join you on irc. you must use the person's entire e-mail address. /summon fleepo@foo.bar.com would send a message to fleepo asking him to start irc. usually not a good idea to just summon people unless you know they're already amenable to the idea; otherwise you may wind up annoying them no end. this command does not work on all sites. /topic when you've started a new channel, use this command to let others know what it's about. /topic #amiga would tell people who use /list that your channel is meant for discussing amiga computers. /who <chan> shows you the e-mail address of people on a particular channel. /who #foo would show you the addresses of everybody on channel foo. /who by itself shows you every e-mail address for every person on irc at the time, although be careful: on a busy night you might get a list of names! /whois use this to get some information about a specific irc user or to see who is online. /whois nickname will give you the e-mail address for the person using that nickname. /whois * will list everybody on every channel. /whowas similar to /whois; gives information for people who recently signed off irc. . irc in times of crisis irc has become a new medium for staying on top of really big breaking news. in , when russian lawmakers barricaded themselves inside the parliament building, some enterprising muscovites and a couple of americans set up a "news channel" on irc to relay first-person accounts direct from moscow. the channel was set up to provide a continuous loop of information, much like all-news radio stations that cycle through the day's news every minutes. in , los angeles residents set up a similar channel to relay information related to the northridge earthquake. in both cases, logs of the channels were archived somewhere on the net, for those unable to "tune in" live. how would you find such channels in the future? use the /list command to scroll through the available channels. if one has been set up to discuss a particular breaking event, chances are you'll see a brief description next to the channel name that will tell you that's the place to tune. . muds multiple-user dimensions or dungeons (muds) take irc into the realm of fantasy. muds are live, role-playing games in which you enter assume a new identity and enter an alternate reality through your keyboard. as you explore this other world, through a series of simple commands (such as "look," "go" and "take"), you'll run across other users, who may engage you in a friendly discussion, enlist your aid in some quest or try to kill you for no apparent reason. each mud has its own personality and creator (or god) who was willing to put in the long hours required to establish the particular mud's rules, laws of nature and information databases. some muds stress the social aspects of online communications -- users frequently gather online to chat and join together to build new structures or even entire realms. others are closer to "dungeons and dragons" and are filled with sorcerers, dragons and evil people out to keep you from completing your quest -- through murder if necessary. many muds (there are also related games known as mucks and muses) require you to apply in advance, through e-mail, for a character name and password. one that lets you look around first, though, is holomuck at mcgill university in montreal. the premise of this game is that you arrive in the middle of tanstaafl, a city on the planet holo. you have to find a place to live (else you get thrown into the homeless shelter) and then you can begin exploring. magic is allowed on this world, but only outside the city limits. get bored with the city and you can roam the rest of the world or even take a trip into orbit (of course, all this takes money; you can either wait for your weekly salary or take a trip to the city casino). once you become familiar with the city and get your own character, you can even begin erecting your own building (or subway line, or almost anything else). to connect, telnet to collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu when you connect, type connect guest guest and hit enter. this connects you to the "guest" account, which has a password of "guest." you'll see this: the homeless shelter(# rna) you wake up in the town's homeless shelter, where vagrants are put for protective holding. please don't sleep in public places-- there are plenty of open apartments available. type 'apartments' to see how to get to an apartment building with open vacancies. there is a small sign on the wall here, with helpful information. type 'look sign' to read it. the door is standing open for your return to respectable society. simply walk 'out' to the center. of course, you want to join respectable society, but first you want to see what that sign says. so you type look sign and hit enter, which brings up a list of some basic commands. then you type out followed by enter, which brings up this: you slip out the door, and head southeast... tanstaafl center this is the center of the beautiful town of tanstaafl. high street runs north and south into residential areas, while main street runs east and west into business districts. sw: is tanstaafl towers. please claim an apartment... no sleeping in public! se: the public library offers both information and entertainment. nw: is the homeless shelter, formerly the town jail. ne: is town hall, site of several important services, including: public message board, bureau of land management (with maps and regulations), and other governmental/ bureaucratic help. down: below a sign marked with both red and blue large letter 'u's, a staircase leads into an underground subway passage. (feel free to 'look' in any direction for more information.) [obvious exits: launch, d, nw, se, w, e, n, s, ne, sw] contents: instructions for newcomers directional signpost founders' statue to see "instructions for newcomers", type look instructions for newcomers and hit enter. you could do the same for "directional signpost" and "founders' statue." then type sw and enter to get to tanstaafl towers, the city housing complex, where you have to claim an apartment (you may have to look around; many will already) be occupied. and now it's off to explore holo! one command you'll want to keep in mind is "take." periodically, you'll come across items that, when you take them will confer certain abilities or powers on you. if you type help and enter, you'll get a list of files you can read to learn more about the mud's commands. the "say" command lets you talk to other players publicly. for example, say hey, i'm here! would be broadcast to everybody else in the room with you. if you want to talk to just one particular person, use "whisper" instead of "say." whisper agora=hey, i'm here! would be heard only by agora. another way to communicate with somebody regardless of where on the world they are is through your pager. if you suddenly see yours go off while visiting, chances are it's a wizard checking to see if you need any help. to read his message, type page to send him a message, type page name=message where name is the wizard's name (it'll be in the original message). other muds and mucks may have different commands, but generally use the same basic idea of letting you navigate through relatively simple english commands. when you connect to a mud, choose your password as carefully as you would one for your host system; alas, there are mud crackers who enjoy trying to break into other people's mud accounts. and never, never use the same password as the one you use on your host system! muds can prove highly addicting. "the jury is still out on whether mudding is 'just a game' or 'an extension of real life with gamelike qualities'," says jennifer smith, an active mud player who wrote an faq on the subject. she adds one caution: "you shouldn't do anything that you wouldn't do in real life, even if the world is a fantasy world. the important thing to remember is that it's the fantasy world of possibly hundreds of people, and not just yours in particular. there's a human being on the other side of each and every wire! always remember that you may meet these other people some day, and they may break your nose. people who treat others badly gradually build up bad reputations and eventually receive the no fun stamp of disapproval." . go, go, go (and chess, too)! fancy a good game of go or chess? you no longer have to head for the nearest park with a board in hand. the internet has a couple of machines that let you engage people from around the world in your favorite board games. or, if you prefer, you can watch matches in progress. to play go, telnet hellspark.wharton.upenn.edu log on as: guest you'll find prompts to various online help files to get you started. for a chess match, telnet news.panix.com log on as: guest you'll find prompts for online help files on the system, which lets you choose your skill level. . the other side of the coin all is not fun and games on the net. like any community, the net has its share of obnoxious characters who seem to exist only to make your life miserable (you've already met some of them in chapter ). there are people who seem to spend a bit more time on the net than many would find healthy. it also has its criminals. clifford stoll writes in "the cuckoo's egg" how he tracked a team of german hackers who were breaking into u.s. computers and selling the information they found to the soviets. robert morris, a cornell university student, was convicted of unleashing a "worm" program that effectively disabled several thousand computers connected to the internet. of more immediate concern to the average net user are crackers who seek to find other's passwords to break into net systems and people who infect programs on ftp sites with viruses. there is a widely available program known as "crack" that can decipher user passwords composed of words that might be found in a dictionary (this is why you shouldn't use such passwords). short of that, there are the annoying types who take a special thrill in trying to make you miserable. the best advice in dealing with them is to count to and then ignore them -- like juveniles everywhere, most of their fun comes in seeing how upset you can get. meanwhile, two cornell university students pleaded guilty in to uploading virus-infected macintosh programs to ftp sites. if you plan to try out large amounts of software from ftp sites, it might be wise to download or buy a good anti-viral program. but can law enforcement go too far in seeking out the criminals? the electronic frontier foundation was founded in large part in response to a series of government raids against an alleged gang of hackers. the raids resulted in the near bankruptcy of one game company never alleged to have had anything to do with the hackers, when the government seized its computers and refused to give them back. the case against another alleged participant collapsed in court when his attorney showed the "proprietary" and supposedly hacked information he printed in an electronic newsletter was actually available via an number for about $ -- from the phone company from which that data was taken. . fyi you can find discussions about irc in the alt.irc newsgroup. "a discussion on computer network conferencing," by darren reed (may, ), provides a theoretical background on why conferencing systems such as irc are a good thing. it's available through ftp at nic.ddn.mil in the rfc directory as rfc .txt. every friday, scott goehring posts a new list of muds and related games and their telnet addresses in the newsgroup rec.games.mud.announce. there are several other mud newsgroups related to specific types of muds, including rec.games.mud.social, rec.games.mud.adventure, rec.games.mud.tiny, rec.games.mud.diku and rec.games.mud.lp. for a good overview of the impact on the internet of the morris worm, read "virus highlights need for improved internet management," by the u.s. general accounting office (june, ). you can get a copy via ftp from cert.sei.cmu.edu in the pub/virus-l/docs directory. it's listed as gao_rpt. clifford stoll describes how the internet works and how he tracked a group of kgb-paid german hackers through it, in "the cuckoo's egg: tracking a spy through the maze of computer espionage," doubleday ( ). chapter : education and the net . the net in the classroom if you're a teacher, you've probably already begun to see the potential the net has for use in the class. usenet, ftp and telnet have tremendous educational potential, from keeping up with world events to arranging international science experiments. because the net now reaches so many countries and often stays online even when the phones go down, you and your students can "tune in" to first-hand accounts during international conflicts. look at your system's list of usenet soc.culture groups to see if there is one about the country or region you're interested in. even in peacetime, these newsgroups can be great places to find people from countries you might be studying. the biggest problem may be getting accounts for your students, if you're not lucky enough to live within the local calling area of a free-net system. many colleges and universities, however, are willing to discuss providing accounts for secondary students at little or no cost. several states, including california and texas, have internet- linked networks for teachers and students. . some specific resources for students and teachers in addition, there are a number of resources on the internet aimed specifically at elementary and secondary students and teachers. you can use these to set up science experiments with classes in another country, learn how to use computers in the classroom or keep up with the latest advances in teaching everything from physics to physical education. among them: askeric run by the educational resource and information center, askeric provides a way for educators, librarians and others interested in k- education to get more information about virtually everything. the center maintains an e-mail address (askeric@ericir.syr.edu) for questions and promises answers within hours. it also maintains a gopher site that contains digests of questions and answers, lesson plans in a variety of fields and other educationally related information. the gopher address is ericir.syr.edu. health-ed: a mailing list for health educators. send a request to health-ed-request@stjhmc.fidonet.org k net: begun on the fidonet hobbyist network, k net is now also carried on many usenet systems and provides a host of interesting and valuable services. these include international chat for students, foreign-language discussions (for example, there are french and german- only conference where american students can practice those languages with students from quebec and german). there are also conferences aimed at teachers of specific subjects, from physical education to physics. the k network still has limited distribution, so ask your system administrator if your system carries it. kidsphere: kidsphere is a mailing list for elementary and secondary teachers, who use it to arrange joint projects and discuss educational telecommunications. you will find news of new software, lists of sites from which you can get computer-graphics pictures from various nasa satellites and probes and other news of interest to modem-using teachers. to subscribe, send a request by e-mail to kidsphere- request@vms.cis.pitt.edu or joinkids@vms.cis.pitt.edu and you will start receiving messages within a couple of days. to contribute to the discussion, send messages to kidsphere@vms.cis.pitt.edu. kids is a spin-off of kidsphere just for students who want to contact students. to subscribe, send a request to joinkids@vms.cis.pitt.edu, as above. to contribute, send messages to kids@vms.cist.pitt.edu. knoxville using the newspaper in the electronic classroom. this news- gopher site lets students and teachers connect to sentinel the newspaper, and provides resources for them derived online from the newsroom. use gopher to connect to gopher.opup.org micromuse this is an online, futuristic city, built entirely by participants (see chapter for information on muses and muds in general). hundreds of students from all over have participated in this educational exercise, coordinated by mit. telnet to michael.ai.mit.edu. log on as guest and then follow the prompts for more information. nasa spacelink: this system, run by nasa in huntsville, ala., provides all sorts of reports and data about nasa, its history and its various missions, past and present. telnet spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov or . . . . when you connect, you'll be given an overview of the system and asked to register. the system maintains a large file library of gif-format space graphics, but note that you can't download these through telnet. if you want to, you have to dial the system directly, at ( ) - . many can be obtained through ftp from ames.arc.nasa.gov, however. newton: run by the argonne national laboratory, it offers conferences for teachers and students, including one called "ask a scientist." telnet: newton.dep.anl.gov. log in as: cocotext you'll be asked to provide your name and address. when you get the main menu, hit for the various conferences. the "ask a scientist" category lets you ask questions of scientists in fields from biology to earth science. other categories let you discuss teaching, sports and computer networks. oeri: the u.s. department of education's office of educational resources and improvement runs a gopher system that provides numerous educational resources, information and statistics for teachers. use gopher to connect to gopher.ed.gov. spacemet forum: if your system doesn't carry the k conferences, but does provide you with telnet, you can reach the conferences through spacemet forum, a bulletin-board system aimed at teachers and students that is run by the physics and astronomy department at the university of massachusetts at amherst. telnet: spacemet.phast.umass.edu. when you connect, hit escape once, after which you'll be asked to log on. like k net, spacemet forum began as a fidonet system, but has since grown much larger. mort and helen sternheim, professors at the university, started spacemet as a one-line bulletin-board system several years ago to help bolster middle-school science education in nearby towns. in addition to the k conferences, spacemet carries numerous educationally oriented conferences. it also has a large file library of interest to educators and students, but be aware that getting files to your site could be difficult and maybe even impossible. unlike most other internet sites, spacemet does not use an ftp interface. the sternheims say zmodem sometimes works over the network, but don't count on it. . usenet and bitnet in the classroom there are numerous usenet newsgroups of potential interest to teachers and students. as you might expect, many are of a scientific bent. you can find these by typing l sci. in rn or using nngrep sci. for nn. there are now close to , with subjects ranging from archaeology to economics (the "dismal science," remember?) to astronomy to nanotechnology (the construction of microscopically small machines). one thing students will quickly learn from many of these groups: science is not just dull, boring facts. science is argument and standing your ground and making your case. the usenet sci. groups encourage critical thinking. beyond science, social-studies and history classes can keep busy learning about other countries, through the soc.culture newsgroups. most of these newsgroups originated as ways for expatriates of a given country to keep in touch with their homeland and its culture. in times of crisis, however, these groups often become places to disseminate information from or into the country and to discuss what is happening. from afghanistan to yugoslavia, close to countries are now represented on usenet. to see which groups are available, use l soc.culture. in rn or nngrep soc.culture. for nn. several "talk" newsgroups provide additional topical discussions, but teachers should screen them first before recommending them to students. they range from talk.abortion and talk.politics.guns to talk.politics.space and talk.environment. one caveat: teachers might want to peruse particular newsgroups before setting their students loose in them. some have higher levels of flaming and blather than others. there are also a number of bitnet discussion groups of potential interest to students and teachers. see chapter for information on finding and subscribing to bitnet discussion groups. some with an educational orientation include: biopi-l ksuvm.bitnet secondary biology education chemed-l uwf.bitnet chemistry education dts-l iubvm.bitnet the dead teacher's society list phys-l uwf.bitnet discussions for physics teachers physhare psuvm.bitnet where physics teachers share resources scimath-l psuvm.bitnet science and math education to get a list of ftp sites that carry astronomical images in the gif graphics format, use ftp to connect to nic.funet.fi. switch to the /pub/astro/general directory and get the file astroftp.txt. among the sites listed is ames.arc.nasa.gov, which carries images taken by the voyager and galileo probes, among other pictures. chapter : business on the net . setting up shop back in olden days, oh, before or so, there were no markets in the virtual community -- if you wanted to buy a book, you still had to jump in your car and drive to the nearest bookstore. this was because in those days, the net consisted mainly of a series of government-funded networks on which explicit commercial activity was forbidden. today, much of the net is run by private companies, which generally have no such restrictions, and a number of companies have begun experimenting with online "shops" or other services. many of these shops are run by booksellers, while the services range from delivery of indexed copies of federal documents to an online newsstand that hopes to entice you to subscribe to any of several publications (of the printed on paper variety). a number of companies also use usenet newsgroups (in the biz hierarchy) to distribute press releases and product information. still, commercial activity on the remains far below that found on other networks, such as compuserve, with its electronic mall, or prodigy, with its advertisements on almost every screen. in part that's because of the newness and complexity of the internet as a commercial medium. in part, however, that is because of security concerns. companies worry about such issues as crackers getting into their system over the network, and many people do not like the idea of sending a credit-card number via the internet (an e-mail message could be routed through several sites to get to its destination). these concerns could disappear as net users turn to such means as message encryption and "digital signatures." in the meantime, however, businesses on the net can still consider themselves something of internet pioneers. a couple of public-access sites and a regional network have set up "marketplaces" for online businesses. the world in brookline, mass., currently rents "space" to several bookstores and computer-programming firms, as well as an "adult toy shop." to browse their offerings, use gopher to connect to world.std.com at the main menu, select "shops on the world." msen in ann arbor provides its "msen marketplace," where you'll find a travel agency and an "online career center" offering help-wanted ads from across the country. msen also provides an "internet business pages," an online directory of companies seeking to reach the internet community. you can reach msen through gopher at gopher.msen.com at the main menu, select "msen marketplace." the nova scotia technology network runs a "cybermarket" on its gopher service at nstn.ns.ca there, you'll find an online bookstore that lets you order books through e-mail (to which you'll have to trust your credit-card number) and a similar "virtual record store.'' both let you search their wares by keyword or by browsing through catalogs. other online businesses include: anyware associates this boston company runs an internet-to-fax gateway that lets you send fax message anywhere in the world via the internet (for a fee, of course). for more information, write sales@awa.com bookstacks unlimited this cleveland bookstore offers a keyword- searchable database of thousands of books for sale. telnet: books.com counterpoint publishing based in cambridge, mass., this company's main internet product is indexed versions of federal journals, including the federal register (a daily compendium of government contracts, proposed regulations and the like). internet users can browse through recent copies, but complete access will run several thousand dollars a year. use gopher to connect to enews.com and select "counterpoint publishing" dialog the national database company can be reached through telnet at dialog.com to log on, however, you will have first had to set up a dialog account. dow jones news a wire service run by the information company retrieval that owns the wall street journal. available via telnet at djnr.dowjones.com as with dialog, you need an account to log on. infinity link browse book, music, software, video-cassette and laser-disk catalogs through this system based in malvern, penn. use gopher to connect to columbia.ilc.com log on as: cas the internet company sort of a service bureau, this company, based in cambridge, mass., is working with several publishers on internet-related products. its electronic newsstand offers snippets and special subscription rates to a number of national magazines, from the new republic to the new yorker. use gopher to connect to enews.com marketbase you can try the classified-ads system developed by this company in santa barbara, calif., by gopher to connect to mb.com o'reilly and associates best known for its "nutshell" books on unix, o'reilly runs three internet services. the gopher server, at ora.com provides information about the company and its books. it posts similar information in the biz.oreilly.announce usenet newsgroup. its global network navigator, accessible through the world-wide web, is a sort of online magazine that lets users browse through interesting services and catalogs. . fyi the com-priv mailing list is the place to discuss issues surrounding the commercialization and the privatization of the internet. to subscribe (or un-subscribe), send an e-mail request to com-priv- request@psi.com. mary cronin's book, "doing business on the internet" ( , van nostrand reinhold), takes a more in-depth look at the subject. kent state university in ohio maintains a repository of "business sources on the net." use gopher to connect to refmac.kent.edu. chapter : conclusion -- the end? the revolution is just beginning. new communications systems and digital technologies have already meant dramatic changes in the way we live. think of what is already routine that would have been considered impossible just ten years ago. you can browse through the holdings of your local library -- or of libraries halfway around the world -- do your banking and see if your neighbor has gone bankrupt, all through a computer and modem. imploding costs coupled with exploding power are bringing ever more powerful computer and digital systems to ever growing numbers of people. the net, with its rapidly expanding collection of databases and other information sources, is no longer limited to the industrialized nations of the west; today the web extends from siberia to zimbabwe. the cost of computers and modems used to plug into the net, meanwhile, continue to plummet, making them ever more affordable. cyberspace has become a vital part of millions of people's daily lives. people form relationships online, they fall in love, they get married, all because of initial contacts in cyberspace, that ephemeral ``place'' that transcends national and state boundaries. business deals are transacted entirely in ascii. political and social movements begin online, coordinated by people who could be thousands of miles apart. yet this is only the beginning. we live in an age of communication, yet the various media we use to talk to one another remain largely separate systems. one day, however, your telephone, tv, fax machine and personal computer will be replaced by a single ``information processor'' linked to the worldwide net by strands of optical fiber. beyond databases and file libraries, power will be at your fingertips. linked to thousands, even millions of like-minded people, you'll be able to participate in social and political movements across the country and around the world. how does this happen? in part, it will come about through new technologies. high-definition television will require the development of inexpensive computers that can process as much information as today's workstations. telephone and cable companies will cooperate, or in some cases compete, to bring those fiber-optic cables into your home. the clinton administration, arguably the first led by people who know how to use not only computer networks but computers, is pushing for creation of a series of "information superhighways" comparable in scope to the interstate highway system of the s (one of whose champions in the senate has a son elected vice president in ). right now, we are in the network equivalent of the early s, just before the creation of that massive highway network. sure, there are plenty of interesting things out there, but you have to meander along two-lane roads, and have a good map, to get to them. creation of this new net will require more than just high-speed channels and routing equipment; it will require a new communications paradigm: the net as information utility. the net remains a somewhat complicated and mysterious place. to get something out of the net today, you have to spend a fair amount of time with a net veteran or a manual like this. you have to learn such arcana as the vagaries of the unix cd command. contrast this with the telephone, which now also provides access to large amounts of information through push buttons, or a computer network such as prodigy, which one navigates through simple commands and mouse clicks. internet system administrators have begun to realize that not all people want to learn the intricacies of unix, and that that fact does not make them bad people. we are already seeing the development of simple interfaces that will put the net's power to use by millions of people. you can already see their influence in the menus of gophers and the world-wide web, which require no complex computing skills but which open the gates to thousands of information resources. mail programs and text editors such as pico and pine promise much of the power of older programs such as emacs at a fraction of the complexity. some software engineers are taking this even further, by creating graphical interfaces that will let somebody navigate the internet just by clicking on the screen with a mouse or by calling up an easy text editor, sort of the way one can now navigate a macintosh computer -- or a commercial online service such as prodigy. then there are the internet services themselves. for every database now available through the internet, there are probably three or four that are not. government agencies are only now beginning to connect their storehouses of information to the net. several commercial vendors, from database services to booksellers, have made their services available through the net. few people now use one of the net's more interesting applications. a standard known as mime lets one send audio and graphics files in a message. imagine opening your e-mail one day to hear your granddaughter's first words, or a "photo" of your friend's new house. eventually, this standard could allow for distribution of even small video displays over the net. all of this will require vast new amounts of net power, to handle both the millions of new people who will jump onto the net and the new applications they want. replicating a moving image on a computer screen alone takes a phenomenal amount of computer bits, and computing power to arrange them. all of this combines into a national information infrastructure able to move billions of bits of information in one second -- the kind of power needed to hook information "hoses" into every business and house. as these "superhighways" grow, so will the "on ramps," for a high- speed road does you little good if you can't get to it. the costs of modems seem to fall as fast as those of computers. high-speed modems ( baud and up) are becoming increasingly affordable. at baud, you can download a satellite weather image of north america in less than two minutes, a file that, with a slower modem could take up to minutes to download. eventually, homes could be connected directly to a national digital network. most long-distance phone traffic is already carried in digital form, through high-volume optical fibers. phone companies are ever so slowly working to extend these fibers the "final mile" to the home. the electronic frontier foundation is working to ensure these links are affordable. beyond the technical questions are increasingly thorny social, political and economic issues. who is to have access to these services, and at what cost? if we live in an information age, are we laying the seeds for a new information under class, unable to compete with those fortunate enough to have the money and skills needed to manipulate new communications channels? who, in fact, decides who has access to what? as more companies realize the potential profits to be made in the new information infrastructure, what happens to such systems as usenet, possibly the world's first successful anarchistic system, where everybody can say whatever they want? what are the laws of the electronic frontier? when national and state boundaries lose their meaning in cyberspace, the question might even be: who is the law? what if a practice that is legal in one country is "committed" in another country where it is illegal, over a computer network that crosses through a third country? who goes after computer crackers? what role will you play in the revolution? appendix a: the lingo like any community, the net has developed its own language. what follows is a glossary of some of the more common phrases you'll likely run into. but it's only a small subset of net.speak. you an find a more complete listing in "the new hacker's dictionary," compiled by eric raymond (mit press). raymond's work is based on an online reference known as "the jargon file," which you can get through anonymous ftp from ftp.gnu.mit.ai.mit as jarg .txt.gz in the pub/gnu directory (see chapter for information on how to un-compress a .gz file). ascii has two meanings. ascii is a universal computer code for english letters and characters. computers store all information as binary numbers. in ascii, the letter "a" is stored as , whether the computer is made by ibm, apple or commodore. ascii also refers to a method, or protocol, for copying files from one computer to another over a network, in which neither computer checks for any errors that might have been caused by static or other problems. ansi computers use several different methods for deciding how to put information on your screen and how your keyboard interacts with the screen. ansi is one of these "terminal emulation" methods. although most popular on pc-based bulletin-board systems, it can also be found on some net sites. to use it properly, you will first have to turn it on, or enable it, in your communications software. arpanet a predecessor of the internet. started in with funds from the defense department's advanced projects research agency. backbone a high-speed network that connects several powerful computers. in the u.s., the backbone of the internet is often considered the nsfnet, a government funded link between a handful of supercomputer sites across the country. baud the speed at which modems transfer data. one baud is roughly equal to one bit per second. it takes eight bits to make up one letter or character. modems rarely transfer data at exactly the same speed as their listed baud rate because of static or computer problems. more expensive modems use systems, such as microcom network protocol (mnp), which can correct for these errors or which "compress" data to speed up transmission. bitnet another, academically oriented, international computer network, which uses a different set of computer instructions to move data. it is easily accessible to internet users through e-mail, and provides a large number of conferences and databases. its name comes from "because it's time." " bounce what your e-mail does when it cannot get to its recipient -- it bounces back to you -- unless it goes off into the ether, never to be found again. command line on unix host systems, this is where you tell the machine what you want it to do, by entering commands. communications a program that tells a modem how to work. software daemon an otherwise harmless unix program that normally works out of sight of the user. on the internet, you'll most likely encounter it only when your e-mail is not delivered to your recipient -- you'll get back your original message plus an ugly message from a "mailer daemon. distribution a way to limit where your usenet postings go. handy for such things as "for sale" messages or discussions of regional politics. domain the last part of an internet address, such as "news.com." dot when you want to impress the net veterans you meet at parties, say "dot" instead of "period," for example: "my address is john at site dot domain dot com." dot file a file on a unix public-access system that alters the way you or your messages interact with that system. for example, your .login file contains various parameters for such things as the text editor you get when you send a message. when you do an ls command, these files do not appear in the directory listing; do ls -a to list them. down when a public-access site runs into technical trouble, and you can no longer gain access to it, it's down. download copy a file from a host system to your computer. there are several different methods, or protocols, for downloading files, most of which periodically check the file as it is being copied to ensure no information is inadvertently destroyed or damaged during the process. some, such as xmodem, only let you download one file at a time. others, such as batch-ymodem and zmodem, let you type in the names of several files at once, which are then automatically downloaded. emacs a standard unix text editor preferred by unix types that beginners tend to hate. e-mail electronic mail -- a way to send a private message to somebody else on the net. used as both noun and verb. emoticon see smiley. f f face to face. when you actually meet those people you been corresponding with/flaming. faq frequently asked questions. a compilation of answers to these. many usenet newsgroups have these files, which are posted once a month or so for beginners. film at one reaction to an overwrought argument: "imminent death of the net predicted. film at ." finger an internet program that lets you get some bit of information about another user, provided they have first created a .plan file. flame online yelling and/or ranting directed at somebody else. often results in flame wars, which occasionally turn into holy wars (see). followup a usenet posting that is a response to an earlier message. foo/foobar a sort of online algebraic place holder, for example: "if you want to know when another site is run by a for- profit company, look for an address in the form of foo@foobar.com." fortune cookie an inane/witty/profund comment that can be found around the net. freeware software that doesn't cost anything. ftp file-transfer protocol. a system for transferring files across the net. get a life what to say to somebody who has, perhaps, been spending a wee bit too much time in front of a computer. gif graphic interchange format. a format developed in the mid- s by compuserve for use in photo-quality graphics images. now commonly used everywhere online. gnu gnu's not unix. a project of the free software foundation to write a free version of the unix operating system. hacker on the net, unlike among the general public, this is not a bad person; it is simply somebody who enjoys stretching hardware and software to their limits, seeing just what they can get their computers to do. what many people call hackers, net.denizens refer to as crackers. handshake two modems trying to connect first do this to agree on how to transfer data. hang when a modem fails to hang up. holy war arguments that involve certain basic tenets of faith, about which one cannot disagree without setting one of these off. for example: ibm pcs are inherently superior to macintoshes. host system a public-access site; provides net access to people outside the research and government community. imho in my humble opinion. internet a worldwide system for linking smaller computer networks together. networks connected through the internet use a particular set of communications standards to communicate, known as tcp/ip. killfile a file that lets you filter usenet postings to some extent, by excluding messages on certain topics or from certain people. log on/log in connect to a host system or public-access site. log off disconnect from a host system. lurk read messages in a usenet newsgroup without ever saying anything. mailing list essentially a conference in which messages are delivered right to your mailbox, instead of to a usenet newsgroup. you get on these by sending a message to a specific e- mail address, which is often that of a computer that automates the process. motss members of the same sex. gays and lesbians online. originally an acronym used in the federal census. net.god one who has been online since the beginning, who knows all and who has done it all. net.personality somebody sufficiently opinionated/flaky/with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different usenet newsgroups, whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the net. often used in vigorous flame wars (in which it occasionally mutates to net.nazis). netiquette a set of common-sense guidelines for not annoying others. network a communications system that links two or more computers. it can be as simple as a cable strung between two computers a few feet apart or as complex as hundreds of thousands of computers around the world linked through fiber optic cables, phone lines and satellites. newbie somebody new to the net. sometimes used derogatorily by net.veterans who have forgotten that, they, too, were once newbies who did not innately know the answer to everything. "clueless newbie" is always derogatory. newsgroup a usenet conference. nic network information center. as close as an internet- style network gets to a hub; it's usually where you'll find information about that particular network. nsa line eater the more aware/paranoid net users believe that the national security agency has a super-powerful computer assigned to reading everything posted on the net. they will jokingly (?) refer to this line eater in their postings. goes back to the early days of the net when the bottom lines of messages would sometimes disappear for no apparent reason. nsf national science foundation. funds the nsfnet, a high-speed network that once formed the backbone of the internet in the u.s. offline when your computer is not connected to a host system or the net, you are offline. online when your computer is connected to an online service, bulletin-board system or public-access site. ping a program that can trace the route a message takes from your site to another site. .plan file a file that lists anything you want others on the net to know about you. you place it in your home directory on your public-access site. then, anybody who fingers (see) you, will get to see this file. post to compose a message for a usenet newsgroup and then send it out for others to see. postmaster the person to contact at a particular site to ask for information about the site or complain about one of his/her user's behavior. protocol the method used to transfer a file between a host system and your computer. there are several types, such as kermit, ymodem and zmodem. prompt when the host system asks you to do something and waits for you to respond. for example, if you see "login:" it means type your user name. readme files files found on ftp sites that explain what is in a given ftp directory or which provide other useful information (such as how to use ftp). real soon now a vague term used to describe when something will actually happen. rfc request for comments. a series of documents that describe various technical aspects of the internet. rotfl rolling on the floor laughing. how to respond to a particularly funny comment. rot a simple way to encode bad jokes, movie reviews that give away the ending, pornography, etc. essentially, each letter in a message is replace by the letter spaces away from it in the alphabet. there are online decoders to read these; nn and rn have them built in. rtfm read the, uh, you know, manual. often used in flames against people who ask computer-related questions that could be easily answered with a few minutes with a manual. more politely: rtm. screen capture a part of your communications software that opens a file on your computer and saves to it whatever scrolls past on the screen while connected to a host system. server a computer that can distribute information or files automatically in response to specifically worded e-mail requests. shareware software that is freely available on the net. if you like and use the software, you should send in the fee requested by the author, whose name and address will be found in a file distributed with the software. .sig file sometimes, .signature file. a file that, when placed in your home directory on your public-access site, will automatically be appended to every usenet posting you write. .sig quote a profound/witty/quizzical/whatever quote that you include in your .sig file. signal-to-noise the amount of useful information to be found in a given ratio usenet newsgroup. often used derogatorily, for example: "the signal-to-noise ratio in this newsgroup is pretty low." simtel the white sands missile range used to maintain a giant collection of free and low-cost software of all kinds, which was "mirrored" to numerous other ftp sites on the net. in the fall of , the air force decided it had better things to do than maintain a free software library and shut it down. but you'll still see references to the collection, known as simtel , around the net. smiley a way to describe emotion online. look at this with your head tilted to the left :-). there are scores of these smileys, from grumpy to quizzical. snail mail mail that comes through a slot in your front door or a box mounted outside your house. sysadmin the system administrator; the person who runs a host system or public-access site. sysop a system operator. somebody who runs a bulletin-board system. tanstaafl there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. tcp/ip transmission control protocol/internet protocol. the particular system for transferring information over a computer network that is at the heart of the internet. telnet a program that lets you connect to other computers on the internet. terminal there are several methods for determining how your emulation keystrokes and screen interact with a public-access site's operating system. most communications programs offer a choice of "emulations" that let you mimic the keyboard that would normally be attached directly to the host-system computer. uucp unix-to-unix copy. a method for transferring usenet postings and e-mail that requires far fewer net resources than tcp/ip, but which can result in considerably slower transfer times. upload copy a file from your computer to a host system. user name on most host systems, the first time you connect you are asked to supply a one-word user name. this can be any combination of letters and numbers. vt another terminal-emulation system. supported by many communications program, it is the most common one in use on the net. vt is a newer version. appendix b: general information about the electronic frontier foundation the electronic frontier foundation (eff) is a membership organization that was founded in july of to ensure that the principles embodied in the constitution and the bill of rights are protected as new communications technologies emerge. from the beginning, eff has worked to shape our nation's communications infrastructure and the policies that govern it in order to maintain and enhance first amendment, privacy and other democratic values. we believe that our overriding public goal must be the creation of electronic democracy, so our work focuses on the establishment of: o new laws that protect citizens' basic constitutional rights as they use new communications technologies, o a policy of common carriage requirements for all network providers so that all speech, no matter how controversial, will be carried without discrimination, o a national public network where voice, data and video services are accessible to all citizens on an equitable and affordable basis, and o a diversity of communities that enable all citizens to have a voice in the information age. join us! i wish to become a member of the electronic frontier foundation. i enclose: $__________ regular membership -- $ $__________ student membership -- $ special contribution i wish to make a tax-deductible donation in the amount of $__________ to further support the activities of eff and to broaden participation in the organization. documents available in hard copy form the following documents are available free of charge from the electronic frontier foundation. please indicate any of the documents you wish to receive. ___ open platform proposal - eff's proposal for a national telecommunications infrastructure. pages. july, ___ an analysis of the fbi digital telephony proposal - response of eff-organized coalition to the fbi's digital telephony proposal of fall, . pages. september, . ___ building the open road: the nren and the national public network - a discussion of the national research and education network as a prototype for a national public network. pages. may, . ___ innovative services delivered now: isdn applications at home, school, the workplace and beyond - a compilation of isdn applications currently in use. pages. january, . ___ decrypting the puzzle palace - john perry barlow's argument for strong encryption and the need for an end to u.s. policies preventing its development and use. pages. may, . ___ crime and puzzlement - john perry barlow's piece on the founding of the electronic frontier foundation and the world of hackers, crackers and those accused of computer crimes. pages. june, . ___ networks & policy - a quarterly newsletter detailing eff's activities and achievements. your contact information: name: __________________________________________________________ organization: ____________________________________________________ address: ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ phone: (____) _______________ fax: (____) _______________ (optional) e-mail address: ___________________________________________________ payment method ___ enclosed is a check payable to the electronic frontier foundation. ___ please charge my: ___ mastercard ___ visa ___ american express card number: ___________________________________________ expiration date: _________________________________________ signature: ______________________________________________ privacy policy eff occasionally shares our mailing list with other organizations promoting similar goals. however, we respect an individual's right to privacy and will not distribute your name without explicit permission. ___ i grant permission for the eff to distribute my name and contact information to organizations sharing similar goals. print out and mail to: membership coordinator electronic frontier foundation g street, n.w. suite east washington, dc / - voice / - fax the electronic frontier foundation is a nonprofit, (c)( ) organization supported by contributions from individual members, corporations and private foundations. donations are tax-deductible. a brief history of the internet the bright side: the dark side by michael hart with max fuller (c) , released on march th, chapter preface the internet conquers space, time, and mass production... michael hart called it neomass production [tm] in ... and published the u.s. declaration of independence on the and no one was listening...or were they? ???careful!!!! if the governments, universities or colleges of the world wanted people to be educated, they certainly could have a copy of things like the declaration of independence where everyone could get an electronic copy. after all, it has been over years since the internet began as government funded projects among our universities, and only years since the declaration was posted, followed by the bill of rights, constitution, the bible, shakespeare, etc. why do more people get their electronic books from others than these institutions when they spend a trillion dollar budget every year pretending their goal is some universal form of education. this is the story of the bright side and dark side of the internet. . .bright side first. the facts: the internet is a primitive version of the "star trek communicator," the "star trek transporter," and, also a primitive version of the "star trek replicator." communicator the internet "let's" you talk to anyone on the earth, as long as they, too, are on the internet. transporter the internet "let's" you transport anything you would be able to get into your computer to any netter. replicator the internet "let's" you replicate anything anyone is able to get into their computer, from "the mona lisa" to "the klein bottle" if you use the right "printer," and the library never closes, the books are always on the shelves, never checked out, lost, in for binding, and there is never an overdue fine because you never, ever, have to take them back. the bright side and the dark side for the first time in the entire history of the earth, we have the ability for everyone to get copies of everything as long as it can be digitized and communicated to all of the people on the earth, via computers [and the devices a person might need to make a physical, rather than virtual copy of whatever it might be. . . think about what you have just read for a moment, please, everything for everyone. . . as long as the information superhighway is not taken over by the information rich and denied access to others other than for a fee they may not be able to pay, and shouldn't have to pay. . .since the information rich have had rides for free for the first years of the internet.] from to , most of the traffic on the information superhighway was generated by individuals who did not pay tolls to get on the ramps to the information superhighway . . .in fact, all of the early users were paid to get on, except one. . .they were paid. . .by you! michael hart may have been the first person who got on as a private individual, not paid by any of the nodes, or the internet/arpanet system, for his work; but who at the time of this publication might have given away billion worth of etexts in return for his free network access. [i.e. mr. hart was the first "normal" person to have this access to the internet, a first non-computer-professional for social responsibility; "we should provide information to all persons, without delay. . .simply because we can!" just like climbing mount everest or going into space, and this is so much cheaper and less dangerous. [for those of you considering asking that his accesses be revoked, he has received permission from ccso management, previously cso as indicated in his email address, for the posting of this document and has also received permission from several other colleges and/or universities, at which he has computer accounts and/or is affiliated.] in the beginning, all the messages on the net were either hardware or software crash messages, people looking for a helping hand in keeping their mainframes up and running-- and that was about it for the first - years of cyber- space. . .cyber-space. . .mostly just space. . .there was nothing really in it for anyone, but mainframe operators, programmers, and a few computer consultants who worked in multi-state regions because there weren't enough computer installations in any single state, not even california or illinois, to keep a computer consultant in business. the bright side mr. hart had a vision in that the greatest purpose a computer network would ever provide would be the storage, transmission, and copying of the library of information a whole planet of human beings would generate. these ideas were remarkably ahead of their time, as attested to by an independent plans of study degree in the subject of human machine interfaces from the university of illinois, . this degree, and the publications of the first few etexts [electronic texts] on the internet, began the process the internet now knows as project gutenberg, which has caught fire and spread to all areas of the internet, and spawned several generations of "information providers," as we now have come to call them. it is hard to log in to the internet without finding many references to project gutenberg and information providers these days, but you might be surprised just how much of a plethora of information stored on the internet is only on line for limited distribution even though the information is actually in the public domain and has been paid for in money paid by your taxes, and by grants, which supposedly are given for the betterments of the human race, not just a favored few at the very top % of the information rich. many of you have seen the publicity announcements of such grants in the news media, and an information professional sees them all the time. you may have seen grants totalling one billion dollars to create "electronic libraries;" what you haven't seen is a single "electronic book" released into the public domain, in any form for you to use, from any one of these. the dark side why don't you see huge electronic libraries available for download from the internet? why are the most famous universities in the world working on electronic libraries and you can't read the books? if it costs $ , to create an electronic book through a government or foundation grant, then $ , , , funds for electronic libraries should easily create a , , volume electronic library in no time at all. after all, if someone paid you $ , to type, scan or to otherwise get a public domain book onto the internet, you could do that in no time at all, and so could one million other people, and they could probably do it in a week, if they tried really hard, maybe in a month if they only did it in their spare time. for $ , per book, i am sure a few people would be turning out a book a week for as long as it took to get all million books into electronic text. there has been perhaps one billion dollars granted for an electronic library in a variety of places, manners, types and all other diversities; if the cost is one thousand of those dollars to create a single electronic book, then we should have one million books online for everyone to use. how has this process been stopped? anyone who wants to stop this process for a public domain library of information is probably suffering from several of the seven deadly sins: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, greed, envy, and sloth. merriam webster third international unabridged dictionary [above: greed = gluttony, and moved back one place] [below: my simple descriptions of the seven deadly sins] . pride: i have one and you don't. . covetousness: mine is worth more if you don't have a copy or something similar. i want yours. i want the one you have, even if i already have one or many. . lust: i have to have it. . anger: i will hurt you to ensure that i have it, and and to ensure that you do not have one. . envy: i hate that you have one. . greed: there is no end to how much i want, or to how little i want you to have in comparison. . sloth: i am opposed to you moving up the ladder: it means that i will have to move up the ladder, to keep my position of lordship over you. if i have twice as much as you do, and you gain a rung, that means i can only regain my previous lordship by moving up two; it is far easier to knock you back a rung, or to prevent you from climbing at all. destruction is easier than construction. this becomes even more obvious for the person who has a goal of being or times further up the ladder of success. . .given the old, and hopefully obsolete, or soon to be obsolete, definitions of success. "if i worked like a fiend all my life to ensure i had a thousand dollars for every dollar you had, and then someone came along and wanted to give everyone $ , then i would be forced to work like a fiend again, to get another million dollars to retain my position." think about it: someone spends a lifetime achieving, creating, or otherwise investing their life, building a talent, an idea, or a physical manifestation of the life they have led. . .the destruction of this is far easier than the construction. . .just as the building of a house is much more difficult, requires training, discipline, knowledge of the laws of physics to get a temperature and light balance suitable for latitudes, etc., etc., etc. but nearly anyone can burn down a building, or a pile of books without a fraction of this kind of training. people are used to lording it over others by building and writing certain items that reflect their lordship over themselves, their environments, and, last/least, over other people. if they were not engaged in power over themselves [self-discipline, education, etc,] or over their environments [food, clothing and shelter], then they have only other people to have control over and that is the problem. they don't want other people to have it easier than they did. "if _i_ did it with the hard ways and tools of the past, then _you_ would threaten me if you use some easier ways and tools the present has to offer, and _i_ don't want to learn the new tools, since i have invested my whole life to the mastery of the old tools." i have literally met very highly placed souls in the system of higher education who have told me they will quit the system on the day they have to use email because it removes the control they used to have over physical meetings, phone calls and the paper mails. it is just too obvious if a big wig is not answering your email, since email programs can actually tell you the second it was delivered and also the second the person "opened" it. this is why some people fear the new internet: other people fear it not because they lose the kind of lord position that comes with ownership; rather they fear, in a similar manner, they will lose the control which they have used to achieve their position of lordship, such as one kind of professor mentioned below. *****as hart's dos prompt sometimes states:***** "money is how people with no talent keep score!" "control is how others with no money keep score!" these seven deadly sins, while named by various names and by most civilizations, have nonetheless often been actual laws; in that certain people were required, by law, to be victims of the rest of their populations in that a person might be legally denied ownership of any property, due to racism or sexism, or denied the right to a contract, even legally denied the ability to read and write, not just an assortment of rights to vote, contract and own property-- there have even been laws that forbade any but the "upper crust" to wear certain types of clothing, a "statement of fashion" of a slightly different order than we see today, but with similar ends. you might want to look up laws that once divided this and other countries by making it illegal to teach any persons of certain races or genders reading, writing, arithmetic, and others of the ways human beings learn to have a power over their environments. power over oneself is the first kind of power...if you do not control yourself, you will find difficulty in control of anything. power over the environment is the second kind of power... if you do not control food, clothing and shelter, you are going to have a hard time controlling anything else. power over other human being is the third kind of power-- described above in the seven deadly sins, a third raters' kind of power. those who cannot control anything else... must, by definition, have others control things for them. if they don't want to depend on the voluntary cooperation of others, then they must find some way to control them. we are now seeing the efforts by those who couldn't build the internet to control it, and the million people who are on it; people from the goverment to big business, who feel "freedom is slavery" or at least dangerous; and, who feel the internet is the "next commercial frontier" where customers are all ready to be inundated with advertising, more cheaply than with junkmail. fortunately some of the other internet pioneers have developed ways of preventing this sort of thing from happening but i am sure we aren't far from lawsuits by the cash rich and information rich, complaining that they can't get their junkemail into "my" emailbox. we will probably all be forced to join into an assortment of "protectives" in which we subscribe to such "killbots" as are required to let in the mail we want and keep out the junkemail. these same sorts of protectives were forming a century or so before the internet, in a similar response to the hard monopolistic pricing policies of the railroads which went transcontinental just years before this internet did. i suggest you look up grange in your encyclopedias, where one of them says: "the national grange is the popular name of the order of the patrons of husbandry, the oldest general farm organization in the united states. . .formed largely through the efforts of oliver hudson kelley, a minnesota farmer who was deeply affected by the poverty and isolation of the farmers he saw will inspecting farm areas in the south for the u.s. department of agriculture in . in the 's the grange was prominent in the broader granger movement, which campaigned against extortionate charges by monopolistic railroads and warehouses and helped bring about laws regulating these charges. . . . although challenged, the constitutionality of such laws was upheld by the u.s. supreme court in munn v. illinois ( ). [ grolier electronic enyclcopedia] *** the internet conquers space, time and mass production the internet is a primitive version of the "star trek communicator," the "star trek transporter," and, also a primitive version of the "star trek replicator." the internet "let's" you talk to anyone on the earth, as long as they, too, are on the internet. the internet "let's" you transport anything you would be able to get into your computer to any netter. the internet "let's" you replicate anything anyone is able to get into their computer, from "the mona lisa" to "the klein bottle" if you use the right "printer." don't forget the "sneakernet" is part of the internet and let's you get information to or from those who do not have direct internet connections. sneakernet was a term developed to describe the concept of sending a file to someone nearby the person you wanted, and the person would then put on his/her sneakers and run the disk down the street for you. from my experience, it was incredibly obvious that sneakernet traversed from east to west and west to east around the world before the internet did, as i received letters from the east and west as the project gutenberg alice in wonderland etext circled the globe long before the internet did. this is very important to know if you consider that a possible future development might keep you from using the internet for this, due to socio-political motions to turn the internet into a "world wide mall" [wwm] a term coined specifically to describe that moneymaking philosophy that says "even if it has been given away, free of charge, to % of the users for years, our goal is to make sure we change it from an information superhighway to an information supertollway. i said "let's" you do the star trek communicator, and transporter, and replicator functions because it will soon be obvious that those "information rich" who had free access to the internet for so long want to do an internet monopoly thing to ensure that what was free, to the information rich, will no longer be free for a class of the information poor. this is serious business, and if you consider that it would cost the million netters about $ per month to "subscribe" to the information rich version of the internet, that means one thousand million dollars per month going into the hands of the information rich at the expense of the information poor; we would shortly be up to our virtual ears in a monopoly that would be on the order of the one recently broken up in a major anti-trust and anti-monopoly actions against the hand of the telephone company. hopefully, if we see it coming we can prevent it now, but it will take far more power than _i_ have. people will tell you "no one can own the internet!"-- but the fact is that while you may own your computer, you do not "own the internet" any more than owning my own telephones or pbx exchanges means i own telephone networks that belong to the telephone companies. the corporations that own the physical wires and cabling, they are the ones who own the internet, and right now that system is being sold to the telephone companies, and your "rights" to the information superhighway are being sold with them. the goal of giving , books to everyone on earth, which we at project gutenberg have been trying to do, virtually since the start of the internet, is in huge danger of becoming just another tool for those we are becoming enslaved by on the internet, and these books might never get into the high schools: much less the middle schools and grade schools because the trillion dollars we spend on educations with the rise and fall of every congress of the united states isn't meant to educate, it is meant for something else. after all-- if a trillion dollars were really being spent on this process of education every two years, should literacy rates have plummeted to % and college level testing scores fallen for many straight years? [oh yes, i heard yesterday's report the tests were up for the first time in decades. . .but what i did not! hear was any reference to the fact that the score was "inflated" not only by the "normal" free points a person gets for just being able to sign their names-- but by an additional points for math, verbal.] [written february th, ] this kind of "grade inflation" has been going on in a similar, though less official manner, in our schools, for decades. there are schools in which the averages indicate more "a"s are given out than all other grade points combined, not just more "a"s than "b"s or "b"s than "c"s. some of the most importanted studies were never published, even though they were tax funded. watch out, the term "grade inflation" is "politically incorrect" to such a degree that it does not appear a single time in any of the encyclopedias i have tried, although it does appear in my random house unabridged and college dictionaries, but not the merriam-webster ninth new college dictionary, american heritage or in any other references i have searched. please tell me if you find it in any. "the awarding of higher grades than students deserve either to maintain a school's academic reputation or as a result of diminished teacher expectations." [ - ] i can personally tell you this was a huge concern in - when the average grade at some colleges in question had already passed the point mentioned just above, yielding averages including all undergraduate courses, including the grades of "flunk-outs," still higher than a "b" which means more "a"s were given a whole undergraduate student body than "b"s and "c"s. [actually it means worse than that, but point made.] so, we reached the point at which large numbers of a nation's high school graduates couldn't even read or fill out a minimum wage job application form, while, on paper, we were doing better than ever, excepting, thank god, the fact that testing scores showed there was something incredibly wrong, and businesses would notice they were having to interview more people for a job before they could find someone to fill it. this is what happens when we separate a country into the "information rich" and the "information poor." don't let it happen to the entire world. for the first time in all history, we have the chance to ensure that every person can put huge amounts of "public domain" and other information into computers that should be as inexpensive as calculators in a few more years. i would like to ensure these people actually have material to put in those computers when they get them. example: some shakespeare professors believe that the way to be a great shakespeare professor is to know something about a shakespeare play or poem that no one else knows. therefore they never tell anyone, and that knowledge can quite possibly die with them if it is never published in a wide manner. example: damascus steel was famous, for hundreds of years, but the knowledge of how to make this steel was so narrowly known that all those who knew that technique died without passing it on, and it was a truly long time before computer simulations finally managed to recreate damascus steel after all those centuries when a person had to buy an antique to get any. some other shakespeare professors believe that the way a person should act to be a great shakespeare professor is to teach as many people as possible about shakespeare in as complete a manner as they want to learn. the internet is balancing on this same dichotomy now.... do we want unlimited distribution... or do we want to continue with limited distribution? the french have just given us one of the great examples: a month or so ago [i am writing this in early february.] they found a cave containing the oldest known paintings, twice as old as any previously discovered, and after the initial month of photographing them in secret, placed an electronic set of photographs on the internet for all of us to have. . .all! this is in great contradistinction to the way things had been done around the time i was born, when the "dead sea scrolls" were discovered, and none of you ever saw them, or any real description of them, until a few years ago-- in case you are wondering when, i was born in ; this is being published on my th birthday when i officially become "old." [as a mathematician, i don't cheat, and i admit that if you divide a year lifespan into equals, you only get years to be young, years to be middle aged, and years to be old. . .after that you have the odds beaten. if you divide the us into young and old, a person has to be considered "old" at , since is the median age [meaning half the people are younger than , and half the people are older. the median internet age? . median web age . some predictions indicate these will decrease until the median internet age is . who will rule the internet? will it be the internet aristocrats... or an internet everyman? the difference is whether the teacher or scholar lording it over others is our example, or the teacher or scholar who teaches as well and as many as possible. we say our people should have and must have universal education yet with test scores and literacy rates in a tailspin it can obvious that we have anything but a widest universalness of primary and secondary education program in mind. not to leave out college education, which has been known for the graduation of people who were totally illiterate. for the first time we actually have an opportunity for a whole world's population to share not only air or water, but also to share the world of ideas, of art or of music and other sounds. . .anything that can be digitized. do you remember what the first protohumans did in " " [the movie by stanley kubrick and arthur c. clark] ? they chased their neighbors away from the water hole. will let the thought police chase us away from this huge watering hole, just so they can charge us admission, for something our tax dollars have already paid for? the internet conquers space, time and mass production... think of the time and effort people save simply by being able to consult a dictionary, an encyclopedia, thesaurus or other reference book, a newspaper or magazine library of vast proportions, or a library of a thousand books of the greatest works of all history without even having to get up and go to the bookcase. think of the simple increase in education just because a person can and will look up more information, judgements become sharper and more informed.... unless someone believes that good judgement, an informed population, and their effects are their enemies, it is a difficult stretch to understand why certain institutions and people want to limit this flow of information. yet a great number of our institutions, and even some of the people who run them, are against this kind of easily available information...they either want to control it-- or they want to maintain their "leadership" in fields of endeavor by making sure we "have to do it the hard way," simply because they did it the hard way. there is no longer any reason to "do it the hard way" as you will see below, and on the internet. end of the preface to "a brief history of the internet." chapter introduction michael hart is trying to change human nature. he says human nature is all that is stopping the internet from saving the world. the internet, he says, is a primitive combination of star trek communicators, transporters and replicators; and can and will bring nearly everything to nearly everyone. "i type in shakespeare and everyone, everywhere, and from now until the end of history as we know it--everyone will have a copy instantaneously, on request. not only books, but the pictures, paintings, music. . .anything that will be digitized. . .which will eventually include it all. a few years ago i wrote some articles about -d replication [stereographic lithography] in which i told of processes, in use today, that videotaped and played back fastforward on a vcr, look just like something appearing in star trek replicators. last month i saw an article about a stove a person could program from anyhere on the internet. . .you could literally `fax someone a pizza' or other meals, the `faxing a pizza' being a standard joke among internetters for years, describing one way to tell when the future can be said to have arrived." for a billion or so people who own or borrow computers it might be said "the future is now" because they can get at project gutenberg electronic library items, including shakespeare, beethoven, and neil armstrong landing on the moon in the same year the internet was born. this is item # , and we hope it will save the internet, and the world. . .and not be a futile, quixotic effort. let's face it, a country with an adult illiteracy rate of % is not nearly as likely to develop a cure for aids as a country with an adult literacy rate of %. however, michael hart says the internet has changed a lot in the last year, and not in the direction that will take the project gutenberg etexts into the homes of the % of the adult population of the united states that is said to be functionally illiterate by the us report on adult literacy. he has been trying to ensure that there is not going to be an "information rich" and "information poor," as a result of a feudal dark ages approach to this coming "age of information". . .he has been trying since , a virtual "first citizen" of the internet since he might be the first person on the internet who was not paid to work on the internet/arpanet or its member computers. flashback in either case, he was probably one of the first on a fledgling net and certainly the first to post information of a general nature for others on the net to download; it was the united states' declaration of independence. this was followed by the u.s. bill of rights, and then a whole etext of the u.s. constitution, etc. you might consider, just for the ten minutes the first two might require, the reading of the first two of these documents that were put on the internet starting years ago: and maybe reading the beginning of the third. the people who provided his internet account thought this whole concept was nuts, but the files didn't take a whole lot of space, and the th anniversary of the revolution [of the united states against england] was coming up, and parchment replicas of all the revolution's documents were found nearly everywhere at the time. the idea of putting the complete works of shakespeare, the bible, the q'uran, and more on the net was still pure science fiction to any but mr. hart at the time. for the first years of this project, the only responses received were of the order of "you want to put shakespeare on a computer!? you must be nuts!" and that's where it stayed until the "great growth spurt" hit the internet in - . all of a sudden, the internet hit "critical mass" and there were enough people to start a conversation on nearly any subject, including, of all things, electronic books, and, for the first time, project gutenberg received a message saying the etext for everyone concept was a good idea. that watershed event caused a ripple effect. with others finally interested in etext, a "mass marketing approach," and such it was, was finally appropriate, and the release of alice in wonderland and peter pan signalled beginnings of a widespread production and consumption of etexts. in appendix a you will find a listing of these , in order of their release. volunteers began popping up, right on schedule, to assist in the creation or distribution of what project gutenberg hoped would be , items by the end of , only just years after the first etext was posted on the net. flash forward today there are about volunteers at project gutenberg and they are spread all over the globe, from people doing their favorite book then never being heard from again, to phd's, department heads, vice-presidents, and lawyers who do reams of copyright research, and some who have done in excess of etexts pretty much by themselves; appreciate is too small a word for how michael feel about these, and tears would be the only appropriate gesture. there are approximately million computers today, with the traditional % of them being on the internet, and the traditional ratio of about users per internet node has continued, too, as there are about million people on a vast series of internet gateways. ratios like these have been a virtual constant through internet development. if there is only an average of . people on each of m computers, that is a billion people, just in . there will probably be a billion computers in the world by when project gutenberg hopes to have , items online. if only % of those computers contain the average etexts from project gutenberg that will mean project gutenberg's goal of giving away one trillion etexts will be completed at that time, not counting that more than one person will be able to use any of these copies. if the average would still be . people per computer, then only % of all the computers would be required to have reached one trillion. [ , etexts to , , people equals one trillion] hart's dream as adequately expressed by "grolier's" cdrom electronic encyclopedia has been his signature block with permission, for years, but this idea is now threatened by those who feel threatened by unlimited distribution: ===================================================== | the trend of library policy is clearly toward | the ideal of making all information available | without delay to all people. | |the software toolworks illustrated encyclopedia (tm) |(c) , grolier electronic publishing, inc. ============================================= michael s. hart, professor of electronic text executive director of project gutenberg etext illinois benedictine college, lisle, il no official connection to u of illinois--uiuc hart@uiucvmd.bitnet and hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu internet user number [approximately] [tm] break down the bars of ignorance & illiteracy on the carnegie libraries' th anniversary! human nature such as it is, has presented a great deal of resistance to the free distribution of anything, even air and water, over the millennia. hart hopes the third millennium a.d. can be different. but it will require an evolution in human nature and even perhaps a revolution in human nature. so far, the history of humankind has been a history of an ideal of monopoly: one tribe gets the lever, or a wheel, or copper, iron or steel, and uses it to command, control or otherwise lord it over another tribe. when there is a big surplus, trade routes begin to open up, civilizations begin to expand, and good times are had by all. when the huge surplus is not present, the first three estates lord it over the rest in virtually the same manner as historic figures have done through the ages: "i have got this and you don't." [nyah nyah naa naa naa!] *** *** now that ownership of the basic library of human thoughts is potentially available to every human being on earth--i have been watching the various attempts to keep this from actually being available to everyone on the planet: this is what i have seen: . ridicule those who would prefer to think their worlds would be destroyed by infinite availability of books such as: alice in wonderland, peter pan, aesop's fables or the complete works of shakespeare, milton or others, have ridiculed the efforts of those who would give them to all free of charge by arguing about whether it should be: "to be or not to be" or "to be [,] or not to be" or "to be [;] or not to be"/"to be [:] or not to be" or whatever; and that whatever their choices are, for this earthshaking matter, that no other choice should be possible to anyone else. my choice of editions is final because _i_ have a scholarly opinion. a. my response has been to refuse to discuss: "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin," [or many other matters of similar importance]. i know this was once considered of utmost importance, but in a country where half the adults could not even read shakespeare if it were given to them, i feel the general literacy and literary requirements overtake a decision such as theirs. if they honestly wanted the best version of shakespeare [in their estimations] to be the default version on the internet, they wouldn't have refused to create just such an edition, wouldn't have shot down my suggested plan to help them make it . . .for so many years. . .nor, when they finally did agree, they wouldn't have let an offer from a largest wannabee etext provider to provide them with discount prices, and undermine their resolve to create a super quality public domain edition of shakespeare. it was an incredible commentary on the educational system in that the shakespeare edition we finally did use for a standard internet etext was donated by a commercial-- yes--commercial vendor, who sells it for a living. in fact, i must state for the record, that education, as an institution, has had very little to do with the creation and distribution of public domain etexts for the public, and that contributions by the commercial, capitalistic corporations has been the primary force, by a large margin, that funds project gutenberg. the volunteers we have come exclusively from smaller, less renowned institutions of education, without any, not one that i can think of, from any of the major or near major educational institutions of the world. it would appear that those seven deadly sins listed a few paragraphs previously have gone a long way to the proof of the saying that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." power certainly accrues to those who covet it and the proof of the pudding is that all of the powerful club we have approached have refused to assist in the very new concept of truly universal education. members of those top educational institutions managed to subscribe to our free newsletter often enough, but not one of them ever volunteered to do a book or even to donate a dollar for what they have received: even send in lists of errors they say they have noticed. not one. [there is a word for the act of complaining about something without [literally] lifting a finger] the entire body of freely available etexts has been a product of the "little people." . cost inflation when etexts were first coming it, estimates were sent around the internet that it took $ , to create an etexts, and that therefore it would take $ , , to create the proposed project gutenberg library. $ , , was supposedly donated to create etexts, by one famous foundation, duly reported by the media, but these etexts have not found their way into hands, or minds, of the public, nor will they very soon i am afraid, though i would love to be put out of business [so to say] by the act of these institutions' release of the thousands of etexts some of them already have, and that others have been talking about for years. my response was, has been, and will be, simply to get the etexts out there, on time, and with no budget. a simple proof that the problem does not exist. if the team of project gutenberg volunteers can produce this number of etexts and provide it to the entire world's computerized population, then the zillions of dollars you hear being donated to the creations of electronic libraries by various government and private donations should be used to keep the information superhighway a free and productive place for all, not just for those % of computers that have already found a home there. . graphics and markup versus plain vanilla ascii the one thing you will see in common with all of such graphics and markup proposals is limited distribution as a way of life. the purpose of each one of these is and always has been to keep knowledge in the hands of the few and away from the minds of the many. i predict that in the not-too-distant-future that all materials will either be circulating on the internet, or that they will be jealously guarded by owners whom i described with the seven deadly sins. if there is ever such a thing as the "tri-corder," of star trek fame, i am sure there simultaneously has to be developed a "safe" in which those who don't want a whole population to have what they have will "lock" a valuable object to ensure its uniqueness; the concept of which i am speaking is illustrated by this story: "a butler announces a delivery, by very distinguished members of a very famous auction house. the master-- for he is master--beckons him to his study desk where the butler deposits his silver tray, containing a big triangular stamp, then turns to go. what some of these projects with tens of millions for their "electronic libraries" are doing to ensure this is for them and not for everyone is to prepare etexts in a manner in which no normal person would either be willing or able to read them. shakespeare's hamlet is a tiny file in pvascii, small enough for half a dozen copies to fit [uncompressed!] on a $. floppy disk that fits in your pocket. but, if it is preserved as a picture of each page, then it will take so much space that it would be difficult to carry around even a single copy in that pocket unless it were on a floppy sized optical disk, and even then i don't think it would fit. another way to ensure no normal person would read it, to mark it up so blatantly that the human eyes should have difficulty in scansion, stuttering around pages, rather than sliding easily over them; the information contained in this "markup" is deemed crucial by those esoteric scholars who think it is of vital importance that a coffee cup stain appears at the lower right of a certain page, and that "act i" be followed by [<act one>] to ensure everyone knows this is actually where this is where an act or scene or whatever starts. you probably would not believe how much money has had the honor of being spent on these kinds of projects a normal person is intentionlly deprived of through the mixture is just plain hiding the files, to making the files so big you can't download them, to making them so weird you wouldn't read them if you got them. the concept of requiring all documents to be formatted in a certain manner such that only a certain program can read them has been proposed more often then you might ever want to imagine, for the twin purposes of profit and limited distribution in a medium which requires a virtue of unlimited distribution to keep it growing. every day i read articles, proposals, proceedings for various conferences that promote limited distribution on the nets. . .simply to raise the prestige or money to keep some small oligarchy in power. this is truly a time of power to the people as people say in the united states. what we have here is a conflict between the concepts that everything should be in limited distribution, and that of the opposing concept of unlimited distribution. if you look over the table of contents on the next pages, you will see that each of these item stresses the greater and greater differences between an history which has been dedicated to the preservation of limited distribution and something so new it has no history longer than years-- *** contents chapter preface chapter introduction saving time and effort the new scholarship chapter general comments plain vanilla ascii versus proprietary markups chapter copyright chapter luddites chapter internet as chandelier [the famous chandelier diatribe of ] chapter the rush to the top chapter those who would be king gopher, www, mosaic, netscape chapter listowners vs list moderators those who would be king, part i chapter lurkers those who would be king, part ii chapter "lurking is good. . .remember. . .lurking is good" those who would be king, part iii the netiquetters chapter tpc, the phone company those who would be king, part iv ****** chapter plain vanilla ascii versus proprietary markups chapter copyright chapter luddites chapter internet as chandelier [the infamous chandelier diatribe of ] [chandel /wp] -------------------original message-------------------------- hart undoubtedly saw academia as a series of dark brown dream shapes, disorganized, nightmarish, each with its set of rules for nearly everything: style of writing, footnoting, limited subject matter, and each with little reference to each other. -------------------------reply---------------------------------- what he wanted to see was knowledge in the form of a chandelier, with each subject area powered by the full intensity of the flow of information, and each sending sparks of light to other areas, which would then incorporate and reflect them to others, a never ending flexion and reflection, an illumination of the mind, soul and heart of wo/mankind as could not be rivalled by a diamond of the brightest and purest clarity. instead, he saw petty feudal tyrants, living in dark poorly lit, poorly heated, well defended castles: living on a limited diet, a diet of old food, stored away for long periods of time, salted or pickled or rotted or fermented. light from the outside isn't allowed in, for with it could come the spears and arrows of life and the purpose of the castle was to keep the noble life in, and all other forms of life out. thus the nobility would continue a program of inbreeding which would inevitably be outclassed by an entirely random reflexion of the world's gene pool. a chandelier sends light in every direction, light of all colors and intensities. no matter where you stand, there are sparkles, some of which are aimed at you, and you alone, some of which are also seen by others: yet, there is no spot of darkness, neither are there spots of overwhelming intensity, as one might expect a sparkling source of lights to give off. instead, the area is an evenly lit paradise, with direct and indirect light for all, and at least a few sparkles for everyone, some of which arrive, pass and stand still as we watch. but the system is designed to eliminate sparkles, reflections or any but the most general lighting. scholars are encouraged to a style and location of writing which guarantee that and one hundredths of the people who read their work will be colleagues, already a part of that inbred nobility of their fields. we are already aware that most of our great innovations are made from leaps from field to field, that the great thinkers apply an item here in this field which was gleaned from that field: thus are created the leaps which create new fields which widen fields of human endeavor in general. yet, our petty nobles, cased away in their casements, encased in their tradition, always reject the founding of these new fields, fearing their own fields can only be dimmed by comparison. this is true, but only by their own self-design. if their field were open to light from the outside, then the new field would be part of their field, but by walling up the space around themselves, a once new and shining group of enterprising revolutionaries could only condemn themselves to awaiting the ravages of time, tarnish and ignorance as they become ignorant of the outside world while the outside world becomes ignorant of them. so, i plead with you, for your sake, my sake, for everyone's, to open windows in your mind, in your field, in your writing and in your thinking; to let illumination both in and out, to come from underneath and from behind the bastions of your defenses, and to embrace the light and the air, to see and to breathe, to be seen and to be breathed by the rest of wo/mankind. let your light reflect and be reflected by the other jewels in a crown of achievement more radiant than anything we have ever had the chance to see or to be before. join the world! [chandel .txt] a re-visitation to the chandelier by michael s. hart every so often i get a note from a scholar with questions and comments about the project gutenberg edition of this or that. most of the time this appears to be either idle speculation-- since there is never any further feedback about passages this or that edition does better in the eye of particular scholars or the feedback is of the "holier than thou" variety in which the scholar claims to have found errors in our edition, which the scholar then refuses to enumerate. as for the first, there can certainly be little interest in a note that appears, even after follow-up queries, of that idle brand of inquiry. as to the second, we are always glad to receive a correction, that is one of the great powers of etext, that corrections be made easily and quickly when compared to paper editions, with the corrections being made available to those who already had the previous editions, at no extra charge. however, when someone is an expert scholar in a field they do have a certain responsibility to have their inquiries be some reasonable variety, with a reasonable input, in order to have a reasonable output. to complain that there is a problem w/o pointing out the problem has a rich and powerful vocabulary i do not feel is appropriate for this occasion. we have put an entirely out-of-proportion cash reward on these errors at one time or another and still have not received any indications a scholar has actually ever found them, which would not be more difficult than finding errors in any other etexts, especially ones not claiming an beginning accuracy of only . %. however, if these corrections were forthcoming, then the . would soon approach . , which is the reference error level referred to several times in the library of congress workshop on electronic text proceedings. on the other hand, just as the project gutenberg's efficiency would drop dramatically if we insisted our first edition of a book were over . % accurate, so too, should efficiency drop dramatically if we were ever to involve ourselves in any type of discussion resembling "how many angels can dance on a pin- head." the fact is, that our editions are not targeted to an audience specifically interested in whether shakespeare would have said: "to be or not to be" "to be, or not to be" "to be; or not to be" "to be: or not to be" "to be--or not to be" this kind of conversation is and should be limited to the few dozen to few hundred scholars who are properly interested. a book designed for access by hundreds of millions cannot spend that amount of time on an issue that is of minimal relevance, at least minimal to . % of the potential readers. however, we do intend to distribute a wide variety of shakespeare, and the contributions of such scholars would be much appreciated, were it ever given, just as we have released several editions of the bible, paradise lost and even aesop's fables. in the end, when we have different editions of shakespeare on line simulateously, this will probably not even be worthy, as it hardly is today, of a footnote. . .i only answer out of respect for the process of creating these editions as soon as possible, to improve the literacy and education of the masses as soon as possible. for those who would prefer to see that literacy and education continue to wallow in the mire, i can only say that a silence on your part creates its just reward. your expertise dies an awful death when it is smothered by hiding your light under a bushel, as someone whom is celebrated today once said: matthew : neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. mark : and he said unto them, is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick? luke : no man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. luke : no man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. chapter the rush to the top chapter those who would be king gopher, www, mosaic, netscape this chapter discusses why urls aren't u, why universal resource locators are not universal when i first tried the experimental gopher sites, i asked the inventors of gopher if their system could be oriented to also support ftp, should a person be more inclined for going after something one already had researched: rather than the "browsing" that was being done so often on those gopher servers. the answer was technically "yes," but realistically "no," in that while gophers could be configured such that every file would be accessible by both gopher and ftp, the real intent of gopher was to bypass ftp and eventually replace it as the primary method of surfing the internet. i tried to explain to them that "surfing" the internet is much more time consuming as well as wasteful of bandwidth [this at a time when all bandwidth was still free, and we were only trying to make things run faster, as opposed to actually saving money. chapter listowners vs list moderators those who would be king, part i chapter lurkers those who would be king, part ii chapter "lurking is good. . .remember. . .lurking is good" those who would be king, part iii the netiquetters "we are surrounded by an insurmountable opportunity." "it is like drinking from a firehose." "be sure to have your messages `netiquette approved.'" these sentiments reflect a portion of the internet who have terrified thoughts and feelings about a wonderful set of opportunties made available by the internet and other networks. they are afraid of too much opportunity and would like to make sure no one else takes advantage of such great opportunities because it will make themselves look and feel very small by comparison. they want to make sure you don't cross the boundaries, simply because they are afraid to cross them. their thinking is sociological rather than logical, as follows: : they are obviously afraid of so much opportunity. : they want to reduce the pressure of so much highly available opportunity. . this is because they are afraid someone else would make good use of this opportunity and leave them a footnote in their own fields as opportunity shifts into hyper-drive and nothing will ever be quite as sedate, staid, prim, proper, stiff and reserved as it was previous in a paper dominated room, full of stuffed shirts and robert's rules of order: which they used to keep you from upsetting apple and ibm carts with more horsepower than they were willing, and able, to use. history is full of examples of those in position of an older variety of power using their power to deny, defy and otherwise stultify anything new, and therefore out of their own immediate forms of control. it is also full of examples of the "powers-that-be" so vaingloriously squashing any potential rival powers in much the same manner as a queen bee stings other queen bees to death before they are even born. in such a manner are the ideas of the new refused in a world dominated by the old. of course what comes to mind is napoleon iii's "salon- des-refuses" in which works of the [now!] greatest and most famous painters in the world finally had a day to have their works shown to the public after years of an autocratic denial by the academic francaise's official salon, originally begun in the louvre, and where great examples of these works hang today, in defiance of the greatest "powers-that-be" that ever were, who failed-- as all such attempts should fail. "the academie francaise (french academy) is the most renouned and oldest of the five learned socities that make up the insititue de france, established by cardinal richelieu. [grolier's electronic encyclopedia] the encyclopedia goes on to state that "`unification, and purification'" were among the prime "`development'" goals. the most famous recounting of cardinal richelieu's attempts to take over france and to remold it in a reflection of his own conservative power structure are detailed in alexandre dumas' three musketeers. please...take time to "read more about it." the encyclopedia article continues on to describe the intense conservatism these institutes maintain even a few centuries later even though at least this "oldest and most powerful" of them, "the salon gradually lost its position as the sole official exibition of french painting," sculpture, etc., which also stood against the eiffel tower, as well as everything else new. just say no when they come to your electronic door, enlisting your support for their views of how to run the internet you can "just say no" and feel no obligation to make their rules of order be your rules of order: . don't bother with their requests for "conservation of bandwidth" because their idea of bandwidth is a sociological "inversion, diversion and perversion" of the term "bandwidth." they would have you believe that a dozen short message files sent through their listservers are a "bandwidth- preserver" rather than one message containing what you had to say all at once. a. this is just so much sociological barnyard matter. they just want to keep you from having your say in an uninterrupted manner. . .it is only this manner in which anyone can be interrupted on the internet and it requires you to interrupt yourself, because they can't do interrupt you themselves: they have to talk you into the cutting your own throat. b. the logical rather than sociological truth is that short messages are % made up of header materials that are not part of the message you are sending-- but rather header and packet identifiers for these messages. thus your series of a dozen messages of the short variety is going to be % wasteful of a bandwidth it uses, in comparison to sending the thoughts you might want to express as one, single, uninterrupted message. *** insert header here here is an example of the kind of header attached to a normal internet message. some very wasteful emailers, netiquetters included, have much longer headers due to their refusal to take the time to delete the addresses when they send the same message to hundreds of people. i have received messages in which the header literally contained hundreds of extra lines beyond this. **header starts below** [margins were shortened. this header contains characters, which would take byte packets, each packet of which has to have its own header normal users never see. a mailer can be set not to show most of the header, but it is all there, and taking up bandwidth.] received: from ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu (ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu [ . . . ]) by mtshasta.snowcrest.net ( . . / . . ) with smtp id faa ; thu, feb : : - message-id: < .faa @ mtshasta.snowcrest.net> received: from ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu by ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu (ibm vm smtp v r ) with bsmtp id ; thu, feb : : est received: from uicbit.uic.edu (nje origin vmmail@pplcats) by ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu (lmail v . a/ . a) with bsmtp id ; wed, feb : : - received: from uicbit.bitnet (nje origin listserv@uicbit) by uicbit.uic.edu (lmail v . a/ . a) with bsmtp id ; wed, feb : : - date: wed, feb : : cst reply-to: project gutenberg email list <gutnberg%uiucvmd.bitnet@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu> sender: project gutenberg email list <gutnberg%uiucvmd.bitnet@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu> from: "michael s. hart" <hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu> subject: march gutenberg etexts to: multiple recipients of list gutnberg <gutnberg%uiucvmd.bitnet@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu> **header ends here** another demonstration of socio-logical argumentation i have a signature block that contains the usual in a name, position, and disclaimer along with information of how long you should wait for a reply to a message, who to contact for further information and it has one line about how long i have been on the internet. it takes up about this much space: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx which is about characters and receives complaints from those who accept signature blocks that look like: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x x x x x your message here x x x x x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx which takes over characters because all the blank spaces are real spaces. i have pointed out this discrepancy in logic, but the people readily reply the space they are talking about is in the human mind, and not in the computers. to which _i_ reply "barnyard material!" these people are not out to save "buzzword bandwidth". . . they are out to control you. . .don't let them. "netiquette" is something they have invented to control you! all you have to do is remind them that each individual has a most powerful protection against anything they don't want to see. . .the delete key! you will probably also have to remind them, sometimes in the manner of using a different platform to speak from, if their response is not to post your messages, that: "since everyone has their own delete key, there is no need to delete this for them! chapter tpc, the phone company those who would be king, part iv my apologies for using the united states as an example so many times, but...most of my experience has been in the us. asychnronous availability of information one of the major advantages of electronic information is that you don't have to schedule yourself to match others in their schedules. this is very important. just this very week i have been waiting for a power supply for one of my computers, just because the schedule of the person who has it was not in sync with the schedule of the person picking it up. the waste has been enormous, and trips all the way across an entire town are wasted, while the computer lies unused. the same things happens with libraries and stores of all kinds around the world. how many times have you tried a phone call, a meeting, a purchase, a repair, a return or a variety of other things, and ended up not making these connections? no longer, with things that are available electronically over the nets. you don't have to wait until the door of the library swings open to get that book you want for an urgent piece of research; you don't have to wait until a person is available to send them an instant message; you don't have to wait for the evening news on tv.... this is called asyncronous communication...meaning those schedules don't have to match exactly any more to have a meaningful and quick conversation. a minute here, there or wherever can be saved instead of wasted and the whole communication still travels at near instantaneous speed, without the cost of ten telegrams, ten phone calls, etc. you can be watching television and jump up and put a few minutes into sending, or answering, your email and would not miss anything but the commercials. "commercials" bring to mind another form of asynchronous communication...taping a tv or radio show and watching a show in minutes instead of an hour because you do not have to sit through minute of "not-show" per minutes of show. no only to you not have to be home on thursday night to watch your favorite tv show any more, but those pesky commercials can be edited out, allowing you to see three shows in the time it used to take to watch two. this kind of efficiency can have a huge effect on you or your children. . .unless you want them to see ads per hour on television, or spend hours copying notes from an assortment of library books carried miles from, and back to, the libraries. gone are the piles of x cards past students and scholars have heaped before time in efforts to organize mid-term papers for , , or years of institutionalized education. whole rainforests of trees can be saved, not to mention the billions of hours of an entire population's educated scribbling that should have been spent between the ears instead of between paper and hand, cramping the thought and style of generations upon generations of those of us without photographic memories to take the place of the written word. now we all can have photographic memories, we can quote, with total accuracy, millions of x cards worth of huge encyclopedias of information, all without getting up for any reason other than eating, drinking and stretching. research in this area indicates that % of the time the previous generations spent for research papers was spent traipsing through the halls, stairways and bookstacks of libraries; searching through to books for each of the ones selected for further research; and searching on - pages for each quote worthy of making it into the sacred piles of x cards; then searching the card piles for those fit for the even more sacred sheets of paper a first draft was written on. even counting the fanatical dedication of those who go through several drafts before a presentation draft is finally achieved the researchers agree that % of this kind of work is spent in "hunting and gathering" the information and only % of this time is spent "digesting" the information. if you understand that civilization was based on the new invention called "the plow," which changed the habits of "hunting and gathering" peoples into civilized cities... then you might be able to understand the the changes the computer and computer networks are making to those using them instead of the primitive hunting and gathering jobs we used to spend % of our time on. in mid- th century the united states was over % in an agrarian economy, spending nearly all of its efforts for raising food to feed an empty belly. mid- th century's advances reversed that ratio, so that only % was being used for the belly, % for civilization. the same thing will be said for feeding the mind, if our civilization ever gets around deciding that spending the majority of our research time in a physical, rather than mental, portion of the educational process. think of it this way, if it takes only % as long to do the work to write a research paper, we are likely to get either times as many research papers, or papers which are times as good, or some combination...just like we ended up with times as much food for the body when we turned from hunting and gathering food to agriculture at the beginnings of civilization...then we would excpect a similar transition to a civilization of the future. *** if mankind is defined as the animal who thinks; thinking more and better increases the degree to which we are the human species. decreasing our ability to think is going to decrease our humanity...and yet i am living in what a large number of people define as the prime example of an advanced country...where half the adult population can't read at a functional level. [from the us adult literacy report of ] *** "now that cloning geniuses, along with all other humans, has been outlawed, only outlaws will clone geniuses, and the rest of mankind will be `unarmed' in a battle of the mind between themselves and the geniuses." "have you ever noticed that the only workers in history, all of history; never to have a guild or a union are the inventors who live by the effort of the mind?" we have workers who live by the efforts of their bodies, whether dock workers or professional athletes who have a set of established unions, pay dues, have gone on strike from time to time, and all the related works of unions-- but we have never had a union of those who change worlds from old world to new world**** appendix the growth of the internet date hosts ----- --------- / / / / / / / / / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , / , , / , , / , , / , , / , , / , , / ~ , , [multiply hosts by to get approximate numbers of computers in the world at the time. for instance we should be approaching about million computers in the world at the time of this first edition.] [multiply hosts by to get an approximation of the total number of people. early on, this was probably a smaller multiplier, as there were only people on the uiuc login list at the time: half of these were not logging in on a regular basis. thus my estimate that i was about the th person on the internet as i presume our site was not the first nor the last of the new sites in , so approximating th, plus the already there, we were probably around th or so, though they tell me we were actually earlier, to facilitate transcontinental traffic. sticking with the conservative estimate of th, and with the same numbers of people on each of the other nodes, that would have made me the th user.] television versus education: who is winning? [as if you had to ask] basketball, football, baseball, hockey and golf [live and video games] versus shakespeare, milton, chaucer, verne and hugo you would think that some operation that spends a hundred times more than another would not fear much competition-- especially when the deck is stacked in their favor as the following examples demonstrate: . there is always great battle between macbeth and macduff; macbeth never gets blown out in the first quarter and the author never jacks you up for higher royalties. . shakespeare was designed to be entertaining, so you don't have to change the rules every season to make things more exciting. of course, if you want to, you can always turn romeo and juliet into a story about new york city warfare between street gangs instead of noble families of verona. if the us actually spends a trillion dollars on education every year or two, and major sports franchising spends in the neighborhood of / th of that amount, and the video game businesses spend even less, then why is it that your exposure to michael jordan was a given, and his paychecks were higher than any other college graduate in his class? ten to fifteen year old basketball shoes are nearly all a forgotten item, rotting away in landfills while computers the same age are still available for studying shakespeare more efficiently than any paper copy can ever provide and less expensively. those computers are more than fast enough for the kind of studying most kids do in school, and they cost no more on today's market than a pair of basketball shoes. why is the centuries old blackboard still the default for classrooms around the world, when they cost much more and do much less than computers one tenth their age? why do we have physical olympics and no mental olympics? why do trivia games shows thrive on the market, and shows featuring our brightest students die on the vine and then get relegated to local programming on sunday morning? outfitting a kid with a decade old computer costs no more than outfitting that kid with basketball shows, much less a basketball and a hoop, and the kid doesn't outgrow that computer every year or wear it out, and regulation height of the monitor doesn't change and make all the older ones obsolete just due to some rule change. throwing billions of etexts out there into cyberspace can not guarantee anyone will actually learn to read any more than throwing a billion basketballs out there should be a guarantee that there will be another michael jordan: nor will it guarantee a new einstein, edison, shakespeare, or any other great person. . . . . .but. . .it will increase the odds. someone still has to pick up the books, just as there has to be someone to pick up the basketballs, for both remain dead until someone brings them to life. television, on the other hand, natters on into the night, long after you have fallen asleep. education has all the advantages in competition with ball games and video games, not only those listed above, but a whole world insists on education, forces edcuation, which just might have caused some of the problem. perhaps education has too many advantages. . .so many, in fact, that education has never realized it is competition bound with other messages. a hundred years ago there were no industries vying for an audience of kids, life outside the schoolhouse was boring and there was very little to bring to class to compete in some manner with the teacher, other than a bullfrog. the massive variety of things kids have competing for them is something educational systems have not taken into account and they still rely on the threat of truant officers, not on earning the attention of the students. the competition is not nearly so sound asleep. . . . tv shows spend billions of their dollars figuring out how to get you to stay tuned in for that last few seconds and billions more watching overnight ratings results to check their performances and those of their competitors. when tv ratings go down, the shows are changed, sometimes so drastically you wouldn't recognize them, and are often cancelled altogether, sometimes only two weeks into a new season. i once saw a show featured on one of the morning talk shows to promote that evening's performance, but the show was cancelled during the intervening hours. when school ratings go down, the ratings are changed; the show remains essentially the same, and it is often a best teacher award winner who gets cancelled while more boring teachers go on year after year to bore the children of an assortment of former students. the preservation of errors with the advent of electronic text there is no longer any reason but the seven deadly sins [enumerated above] for a person not to share information. . .except. . .some value added work to make the texts better than what passed into their hands from previous editions. however, with a kind of infinitely reverse logic, most of the scholars dipping their toes into cyberspace, have the espoused idea that no etexts should vary by one character from some exact paper predecessor, and that these etexts, new that they are, should be absolutely identified with a particular paper edition which cannot be improved upon. somehow this reminds me of the dark ages, that years during which no weighty tome of the past could be updated because that would be the same thing as challenging those revered authorities of the golden age of greece, which we all know can never be improved upon. their tomes were copied, over, and over, and over again-- with the inevitable degradation that comes with telephone games [in which you whisper a secret message through ears after ears in a circle, until completely distorted babble returns from the other side]. even xeroxing has this bad result if you do it over and over. therefore scholars developed a habit of searching for any differences between editions, and referring back to older editions to resolve differences, because the more copying the more chances for the addition of errors, comments and other possibly spurious information. this was probably ok for the environment they lived in... but a serious failing caused the dark ages which lasted a very long time by anyone's standards, and served to warn, in a manner we should not ignore, that this should not be the way things should be done in the future. [the most minimized estimates of the length of the period approximate about years from the latest possible date of the fall of the roman empire sometime in the 's ad, to charlemagne in the 's. of course, most believe the fall of the roman empire was much earlier, as the empire, such as it was, was "neither holy, nor roman, nor empire" for a long time before ad and things tended to return to the way they had been before charlemagne after he died with estimates of the end of dark ages ranging as late as the renaissance in the 's. thus the longest estimate would be no more than years from the birth of caesar until the renaissance was truly underway, with a shortest possible estimate being somewhat under years. thus a medium estimate of years would be sure to antagonize both end of the spectrum, and is therefore certainly more accurate than either.] it would appear that the effort to reproduce books with a perfection that refuses the corrections of errors because of a misplaced loyalty to previous editions, looms again, this time over the electronic libraries of the future, in that a significant number of etext creators are insisting on continuing the practices, policies and precepts of the dark ages in that they insist on the following: . copies must be exact, no corrections can be made. . any differences between copies must be decided in an ethic that honors the oldest over the newest. . the authoritative copies must be held in sacred trust in the sepulchres of the oldest institutions, and not let out into the hands of the public. of course, these are totally belied by the facts: . digitial ascii reproductions are exact by nature, and thus no errors can creep in. . any differences that do creep in can be found in just a single second with programs such as comp, diff, cf, and the like. even a change as unnoticeable as blank space added to the end of a sentence or file is found and precisely located without effort. . holding books in sacred trust in this manner does not allow them to do their work. a book that is not read is a book that is dead. books are written for people to read, to hear, to see performed on stage, not so a sort of intellectual gestapo/geheimnis stadt polizei/ home state police could come to power by holding book power in secret. *** on march , , project gutenberg completed its th offering to the internet public library, as many have come to call it. a great number of changes have come to the internet since we got the complete works of shakespeare out as out th publication-- some of them extraordinarily good, some of the of more moderated goodness, and some on the other end of the spectrum probably the most exciting two recent events are the , year old cave paintings discovered in france in january, released for the news media in february, and posted as # on march th with several versions of each painting having been collected, in both .gif and .jpg formats. this is particularly exciting when you realize that the dead sea scrolls were discovered in and that no one outside a select few ever even saw them or pictures of them until just a few were smuggled out on macintosh disks a couple years ago; four decades went by without the public getting any view of them. the french ministry of culture has been very swift in getting an extraordinary event such as this covered by the general media on a worldwide basis only one month after their discovery, and also has taken only a week or two to grant project gutenberg a permit to post these wonderful paintings on the internet. on the other hand, the future of the internet public library may be in serious danger if we do not ensure that information may be continually forthcoming to the public. as many of you know, the project gutenberg etexts are % from the public domain with % reproduced by permission. however, there is a movement to cease the introduction of materials into the public domain in congress [of the united states] which would effectively stop the entry of this kind of information into general internet circulation. years ago the us copyright was established at years according to the speeches of senator orrin hatch, sponsoring one bill, and then extended another , then another , then extended to life of the author plus another years after, and years for that kind of copyright which is created by a corporation. this means that if you took your year old kid to see "the lion king" when it came out, the kid would have to be years old to have lived long enough to have a copy that was not licensed by a commercial venture. the fact that the average person will never reach the age of effectively creates a permanent copyright to deny public access during the expected lifetimes of any of us. however, this is not enough. . .the new bill is designed to kill off any chance that even % of the youngest of us will ever have our own rights to an unlicensed copy of any material produced in our lifetimes because if these bills are passed, our young kid a paragraph above will have to reach the age of to have rights to the materials published today, while the rights of inventors, protected by patent law, will still expire in years. why is it more important that we all can buy public domain legal copies of the latest supersonic toaster less than two decades of production after the original, but it is not as important for us to be well read, well informed and well educated? *** free winnie-the-pooh we hope with your assistance we can mount a successful effort to free winnie-the pooh, imprisoned by various copyright laws since his birth in . at the beginning of project gutenberg, one of our first projects was going to be the children's classic winnie-the-pooh: written in , and therefore up for copyright renewal in , and the copyright renewal would have then expired in , and thus been a perfect candidate for project gutenberg's children's library. however, this was not allowed to happen. instead, the copyright on winnie-the-pooh was extended, for a year total, meaning we would have to wait until for the new copyright term to expire, effectively keeping winnie-the-pooh in jail for another two decades or so. however, two new bills have been introduced into the senate, and the house of representatives of the united states to extend this term of imprisonment yet again, for an additional years. the last copyright extension in the united states was in as i recall. if we extend the copyright years every years we will destroy the very concept of public domain, as we have known it since the beginning of copyright. copyright only began when people other than those extremely rich few who could afford a price of a family farm for every book had their places as the only owners of books destroyed by gutenberg, the inventor of the moveable type printing press. mass availability of books was just something that should not be tolerated. . .therefore the printers' guilds lobbied for a right to decide not only who could print any book but whether the book would be printed at all. this was a very strong monopoly put on an industry that had been a free-for-all since gutenberg. this copyright remained virtually the same length, years, for quite a while, and the first united states copyright was for two year periods, the second automatically given on request. when books once again became too popular at the turn of the last century, and many publishers began selling inexpensive sets of a variety of extensive subjects, the copyrights were doubled again so that the years plus year extension became years with a year extension, which was done around . then, in the last half of this century, books once again were to become too widely spread, this time with the advent of the xerox machine. not only were new laws made to curb copying, but those old laws were extended from that + = years to years, and this was done in or so. now with the advent of truly unlimited distribution available to the world via computer files, books are once again getting to be too widely spread, and further restriction is in the works, this time only years after the last extension, which was for about years. work is already underway for a permanent copyright to keep us from putting "the library of congress" on our disks. i have said for years that by the time computers get as far into the future as they have come from the past, that we will be able to hold all of the library of congress in one hand, but i added, "they probably won't let us do it." let me explain that for a minute; back in project gutenberg bought its first hard drive for about $ dollars, for apple's new personal computer. not counting inflation we can buy drives that will hold , times as much data for the same price. the true cost, counting inflation, would be that our $ would buy closer to , times as much space because our $ from is equivalent to about $ , today, if we get the new "magneto- resistive" drive from ibm. this is not counting zip compression or other compression programs. if you count them, you would get about , times as much data for your money today as in . million bytes = $ in = one copy of shakespeare billion bytes = $ in [inflation has tripled plus] billion bytes . . .with compression programs. this is , copies of the complete shakespeare on one disk, or less then $ per copy. this upsets those who think there should not be unlimited numbers of books in the world, so definition of copyright and consequently the definition of public domain is in danger of being changed, as they have been every time in history that the public got too much information. if the trend listed above continues for only more years, will see drives containing million copies of shakespeare, for the same price as the drive that could only hold one copy thirty years earlier, and the price per copy will be so low that it may take more money to run the calculation to figure the prices than the prices actually are. this is the real reason copyright gets extended, history repeats itself, over and over again, and "those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it." what they want is to ensure you do not study history, so they can do the same things over and over, because that is the easiest way for them to make money. change, especially the kinds that are happening in the computers' world, is what scares them. when changes comes along, they try as hard as they can to keep things the way they were, and nowhere is it more obvious than now. most copyrighted materials are gone, out of print forever, in only five years, maybe % in ten years, in years probably % are out of print, years at that rate is %, years is %, years is % and years would be well over %. . .and that doesn't even take into account the shorter term runs of newspapers, magazines, tv show, movies, records and all those things that most people don't even expect to last more than year in the public eye. the fact is that probably only . % or less of anything published in the s is still in print for the original edition. . .that is only one item out of , , and that estimate is probably quite high. the point is that can our copyright laws support the withholding of , books for that is actually available. . .we don't make our driving laws for the out of , that could be race car drivers, that would be one of the silliest laws on record. we have to make our laws so the law applies well to everyone, not just to make the rich richer-- or in this case the information rich richer. much of this new effort not to let anything out of copyright was made by the music industry, which just had the best year of all, ever, shipping over a billion cd's, tapes, records and videos. why, with all this success, they want to keep copyrights on items that are % out of print. . .is a question worth asking-- the answer is the copyright has always been extended when books, or other forms of information, have become too plentiful; we say we want everyone to be well read and well informed, and then the law makes it more difficult. just look as what has happened for literacy in the united states during the period that a copyright law demanded that nothing become public domain coming up to . . .is keeping hemingway or winnie-the-pooh from becoming parts of the public domain going to improve the us literacy rate? we hope with your assistance we can mount a successful effort to free winnie-the pooh, imprisoned by various copyright laws since his birth in . . .all copyright laws referred to were united states copyright laws in effect at various times winnie-the-pooh has been incarcerated. other countries have different copyright laws, and winnie-the-pooh was written in england, so a variation in the us laws cannot be said to have affects other copyrights. however, the above example is pretty valid for any book that was published in the us during the s or 's. *** ladies and gentlemen. . .start your engines! the race to the information age has begun. it began in a much more quiet manner than the golden spike which joined the two halves of a transcontinental railroad exactly years earlier. . .so much more quietly that we never knew it was happening, and we were all left standing there at the starting gate, gawking at men on the moon. it all happened about years ago, in , but the media never put the word "internet" on the front page of a major newspaper until the wall street journal did it, on october , . . .yet even so, most of you probably never heard or saw the word internet in the media until , with the th anniversay hardly ever mentioned, as the idea was for everyone to think the internet is the newest thing around, and to get us all to buy tickets for $ -$ a month. what is the "first rule of reporting a story?". . .oh yes: follow the money right now there are - million people on the internet-- and if someone could figure out how to make them all pay a $ -$ fee. . .that would be $ million a month or over a billion dollars a year. wow. . .if they can do that to an information superhighway that had been running free of charge since the 's, might be they will figure out how to do it with those interstate superhighways made of concrete, too, most of them have not been running any longer than that. the nsfnet [national science foundation network] was being cussed and discussed by the powers that be in the hopes it could be dismantled at the same time most of us were first hearing about the internet, and none of us would notice it when we were all asked to pay that billion dollars a year, for something that had been as free as the highway systems to the information rich/etite for all those years. let's follow the money some more the first hard drives anyone used on the internet were not very big in terms of how much information they would hold, but they were huge compared to any other hard drives every computer has used for over years. . .they were the size of washing machines, and could not hold information as big as the bible or shakespeare. today, for % of the price you can get , times as much storage space. . . , times as much, if you use a modern compression program when storing your information. the point i am trying to make here is that the price of an electronic storage device has fallen literally closer to than to % of the price it was when the internet started-- and this is scheduled to continue for the next few decades, which means we will all be able to affort drives that will be able to hold the entire library of congress. . . .if it is allowed. but it won't be. there's the rub. the point i am trying to make is that just because we will finally have the box capable of storing the entire library of congress. . .they will make sure we don't get to, ever, for we will be dead by the time anything we see today gets old enough for the copyright to expire. let's follow the money some more just a few months ago, the music industry completed record sales figures for any year in history, moving billion of a combination of cds, tapes, records and music videos, for a staggering $ billion dollars. the response to this success, a few weeks ago, was for the music industry to propose, not a rebate to their customers but just the opposite, an additional years during which the music industry could have a continued monopoly on that music, and. . .purely incidentally. . .this monopoly would also be extended to books, television, movies, video games and everything else that could be copyrighted. i think the only way to understand this is to put it in an elementary perspective such as this: right now, you take your kid to see a movie, any movie the producers are releasing right now. let's say your kid has been alive years, under current law, that kid has to get to years old before s/he can own a copy of that movie-- without the permission of the copyright holder. . .and the average age such kids can be expected to live is less than years. . .thus making the copyright permanent for us or the kids we take to the movies. the same is true for all current copyrighted materials and the music industry is trying to add another years to an already "life sentence". . .and this when their sales have just broken all records in history, if you will pardon the pun. . . . since the founding of the united states when copyrights or patents were proposed by thomas jefferson for years the period was lengthened to years, plus another years-- and most recently to years for corporate copyrights and "life plus years" for individual copyrights. that means that "zen and the art of the internet," written by a year old, who will be expected to live for another years or so, will still be under copyright sentencing a century from now, and will be totally out of date and will be totally useless other than as a historical footnote. if this is the response of an industry that has just had a huge record bashing year of sales, a response not to lower prices but to raise them, then we are doing something in a backwards manner in the case of copyright. when car makers have really good years, or really bad ones for that matter, they work very hard to attract customers, with new innovations, more car for the money, financing on better terms, or whatever, and when they have record years they give their workers huge bonuses, which i am sure most of you have heard about recently, and they also compete in an aggressive manner to keep sales up. copyright and patents are what allow people not to compete in the marketplace, as least for the first decade or two a new item is in the marketplace. . .only now copyrights are being extended to include the entire lifetime, not only of the copyright holder, but of the audience as well. something is wrong. the information age is being ruled by the information rich as surely as the transcontinental railroads were ruled for decades by the robber barons. the information rich had a free ride on the superhighways, about years worth of free ride, and now the information poor want a ride so the information rich are shutting down the free rides and are selling tickets. . .selling tickets to something which until this year was so inexpensive that it it hardly paid to figure out what to charge any person, much less any institution. copyright (c) by lidija rangelovska. please see the corresponding rtf file for this ebook. rtf is rich text format, and is readable in nearly any modern word processing program. nren for all: insurmountable opportunity c. jean armour polly manager of network development and user training nysernet, inc. jpolly@nysernet.org this was originally published in the february , issue of library journal (volume , n. , pp - ). it may be freely reprinted for educational use, please let me know if you are redistributing it, i like to know if it's useful and where it's been. please do not sell it, and keep this message intact. when senator al gore was evangelizing support for his visionary national research and education network bill, he often pointed to the many benefits of a high-speed, multi-lane, multi-level data superhighway. some of these included: -- collaborating research teams, physically distant from each other, working on shared projects via high speed computer networks. some of these "grand challenges" might model global environmental change, or new therapeutic drug research, or the design of a new airplane for inexpensive consumer air travel. -- a scientist or engineer might design a product, which could be instantly communicated to a manufacturing plant, whose robotic machine could turn the drawing-board product into reality. one example of this is the capability to digitally measure a new recruit for an army uniform, transmit the information to a clothing manufacturer, and take delivery of a custom-tailored uniform the next day. -- access to digital libraries of information, both textual and graphic. besides hundreds of online public access catalogs, and full text documents, color illustrations of photographic quality, full motion videos and digital audio will also be available over the network. in his many articles and speeches touting the bill, gore often used an example of a little girl, living in a rural area, at work on a school project. was she information-poor due to her physical location, far from the resources of large cities? no-- the national research and education network would give her the capability to dial into the library of congress-- to collect information on dinosaurs. now that the nren bill has been signed into law ( / ), and committees are being formed, and policies are being made, i'm still thinking about that little girl, and her parents, for that matter. in fact i've got some "grand questions" to pose. - how will we get access? the internet has been called the "interim nren", since it's what we have in place now. i'm wondering how the family is going to get to the internet "dial tone", let alone the nren, especially since they live in a rural area. the information superhighway may be miles from their home, and it may be an expensive long-distance call to the "entrance ramp". or, the superhighway may run right through their front yard, but they can't make use of it because they have no computer, no modem, and no phone line to make the connection. what good is a superhighway if all you've got is a tricycle? - what will they be able to gain access to, and will their privacy be protected? beyond the infrastructure issues, i'm concerned about what kind of things will be available for them once they do get connected, how the resources will be arranged, and how they will learn to use these tools to advantage. beyond that, how authoritative is the information in the digital collection, and how do we know for sure it came from a legitimate source? how confidential will their information searches be, and how will it be safeguarded? - who will get access? i'm concerned that even if the infrastructure and resource problems are resolved, that little girl still won't be allowed access, because a lot of folks don't think the internet is a safe place for unaccompanied minors. - does the family have any electronic rights? electronic responsibilities? are dinosaurs and a grade-school project too trivial for nren? some people think the nren should be reserved for scientists working on "grand challenges", not ordinary ones. who will decide what constitutes "acceptable use"? - what is the future of the local public library? worse yet, i'm worried that the reason they are phoning the library of congress in the first place is that their local public library has shut its doors, sold off the book stock, and dismissed the librarian. what can public libraries do to avoid that future? brief background: the internet today computers all over the world are linked by high speed telecommunications lines. on the other side of their screens are people of all races and nationalities who are able to exchange ideas quickly through this network. this "brain to brain" interface brings both delight and despair, as evidenced by the following true tales from the internet: -- children all over the world participate in class collaborations, sharing holiday customs, local food prices, proverbs, acid rain measurements, and surveys such as a recent one from a fifth grade class in argentina who wanted to know (among other things) "can you wear jeans to school?". -- during the soviet coup in the summer of , hundreds read eyewitness accounts of developments posted to the net by computer users in moscow and other soviet cities with network connectivity. a literal hush fell over this side of the network after a plea came across from the soviet side. we appreciate your messages of encouragement and offers of help, it said, but please save the bandwidth for our outgoing reports! - proliferation of discussion groups on the internet means one can find a niche to discuss everything from cats to camelot, from library administration to lovers of mysteries, from monty python to medieval history. -- predictably, elvis has been sighted on the internet. besides electronic mail, full text resources may be downloaded from many internet host computers. some of these are religious materials, such as the bible, and the koran, others are the complete works of shakespeare, peter pan, and far from the madding crowd. searchable resources include lyrics from popular songs, chord tablature for guitar, recipes, news articles, government information, supreme court opinions, census data, current and historical weather information, dictionaries, thesauri, the cia world fact book, and much more. hundreds of library opacs may be searched, and those with accounts set up at carl may use uncover to find articles of interest, which then may be faxed on demand. the richness of the internet changes on a daily basis as more data resources, computer resources, and human resources join those already active on the net. but, back to that little girl. how will she get access? she'll need a plain old telephone line, a modem, a computer, and some communications software. will her family be able to afford it? if not, will she be able to dial in from her school? her post office? the local feed store? a kiosk at k-mart? at the american library association's convention in san francisco, gloria steinem said "the public library is the last refuge of those without modems." i'm sure she meant that the library will act as information provider for those unable to get their information using a home computer's telecommunications connections. but it could be taken another way. couldn't the public library act as electronic information access centers, providing public modems and telecommunications alongside the books and videos? why the public library is a good place for nren access the public library is an institution based on long-standing beliefs in intellectual freedom and the individual's right to know. let's revisit ala's library bill of rights, adopted june , ; amended february , , and january , , by the ala council. the american library association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services. . books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation. no problem here. the internet's resources are as diverse as their creators, from nations all over the world. every community can find something of interest on the internet. . libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval. . libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment. . libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas. again, global electronic communication allows discussion and debate in an instant electronic forum. there is no better "reality check" than this. . a person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views. in a public library, the little girl won't be barred from using the internet because of her age. the ala interpretation of the above right states: "librarians and governing bodies should not resort to age restrictions on access to library resources in an effort to avoid actual or anticipated objections from parents or anyone else. the mission, goals, and objectives of libraries do not authorize librarians or governing bodies to assume, abrogate, or overrule the rights and responsibilities of parents or legal guardians. librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents - and only parents - have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children - and only their children - to library resources. parents or legal guardians who do not want their children to have access to certain library services, materials or facilities, should so advise their children. librarians and governing bodies cannot assume the role of parents or the functions of parental authority in the private relationship between parent and child. librarians and governing bodies have a public and professional obligation to provide equal access to all library resources for all library users." . libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use." the internet provides the equivalent of electronic meeting rooms and virtual exhibit spaces. public libraries will offer access to all comers, regardless of their status. further, as part of the interpretation of the library bill of rights, this statement appears: "the u.s. supreme court has recognized that `the right to receive ideas follows ineluctably from the sender's first amendment right to send them. . . . more importantly, the right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate to the recipient's meaningful exercise of his own rights such as speech, press, and political freedom' board of education, island trees union free school district no. v. pico, u.s. , - ( ) (plurality opinion)." clearly, reception and sending of ideas is a first amendment issue. oral, written, and electronic speech must be equally protected so that democracy may flourish. public libraries also provide "free" services, though in fact the costs are just deferred. taxes, state aid derived from taxes, federal aid derived from taxes, and private funds all pay for the "free" services at public libraries. public libraries may be thought of as information management organizations (imo's), similar to health management organizations, where patrons/patients contribute before they need information/health care, so that when they do need it, librarians/doctors are available to render aid. why nren in the public library is a bad idea on the surface, the public library looks like an excellent place to drop internet/nren connectivity. libraries are veritable temples of learning, intellectual freedom, and confidentiality. however, most public libraries lack what computer experts call infrastructure. if there are computers, they may be out of date. staff may not have had time to learn to operate them, and the computers may literally be collecting dust. there may be no modems, no phone line to share, no staff with time to learn about the internet and its many resources. money to update equipment, hire staff, and buy training is out of the question. public libraries face slashed budgets, staff layoffs, reduced hours, and cutbacks in services. many of these drawbacks are noted in the recent study by dr. charles r. mcclure, called public libraries and the internet/nren: new challenges, new opportunities. public librarians were surveyed about their attitudes toward nren in interviews and focus groups. according to the study, public librarians thought that the public had a "right" to the internet, and its availability in their libraries would provide a safety net for the electronic-poor. on the other hand they felt that they could not commit resources to this initiative until they knew better what the costs were and the benefits might be. they longed for someone else to create a pilot project to demonstrate the internet's usefulness, or lack thereof, for public library users. the study describes several scenarios for public libraries as the nren evolves. some may simply choose to ignore the sweeping technological changes in information transfer. they may continue to exist by purveying high-demand items and traditional services, but they may find it increasingly difficult to maintain funding levels as the rest of the world looks elsewhere for their information and reference needs. the public library may find itself servicing only the information disenfranchised, while the rest of the community finds, and pays for, other solutions. as the study explains: "while embracing and exploiting networked information and services, [successfully transitioned libraries] also maintain high visibility and high demand traditional services. but resources will be reallocated from collections and less-visible services to support their involvement in the network. all services will be more client-centered and demand-based, and the library will consciously seek opportunities to deliver new types of information resources and services electronically." "in this scenario, the public library will develop and mount services over the nren, provide for public access to the nren, and will compete successfully against other information providers. in its networked role, the library can serve as a central point of contact as an electronic navigator and intermediary in linking individuals to electronic information resources- regardless of type or physical location. the public library in this second scenario will define a future for itself in the nren and develop a strategic plan to insure its successful participation as an information provider in the networked environment." what should happen senator gore has proposed what has been variously called son of nren or gore ii, which should help address many of these infrastructure problems. unfortunately, the bill was not passed and the closing of the last congress. there is hope, however, that it will be reintroduced this spring. specifically, gore's bill would have ensured that the technology developed by the high-performance computing act of is applied widely in k- education, libraries, health care and industry, particularly manufacturing. it would have authorized a total of $ . billion over the next five years. according to a press release from senator gore's office, "the information infrastructure and technology act charges the white house office of science and technology policy (ostp) with coordinating efforts to develop applications for high-performance computing networking and assigns specific responsibilities to the national science foundation, the national aeronautics and space agency, the national institute of standards and technology, and the national institutes of health. it would expand the role of ostp in overseeing federal efforts to disseminate scientific and technical information." "the bill provides funding to both nsf and nasa to develop technology for 'digital libraries'-- huge data bases that store text, imagery, video, and sound and are accessible over computer networks like nsfnet. the bill also funds development of prototype 'digital libraries' around the country." the public needs nren because baud used to be fast and low- resolution graphics used to be pretty. now we get impatient waiting for fax machines to print out a document from half a continent away, when a few years ago we would have been content to wait days or weeks for the same article to arrive by mail. we are satisfied with technology until it starts to impede our lives in some way. we wait impatiently, sure that we spend half our lives waiting for printers, and the other half waiting for disk drives. time is a commodity. i can envision that little girl walking into the public library with the following request: "i'm doing a school report on the challenger disaster. i need a video clip of the explosion, a sound bite of richard feynman explaining the o-ring problem, some neat graphics from nasa, oh, and maybe some virtual reality mock-ups of the shuttle interior. can you put it all on this floppy disk for me, i know it's only minutes before you close but, gee, i had band practice." this is why public libraries need nren. we would do well to remember the words of ranganathan, whose basic tenets of good librarianship need just a little updating from : "[information] is for use." "every [bit of information], its user." "every user, [his/her bit of information]." "save the time of the [user]." "a [network] is a growing organism." and so is the public library. a promising future awaits the public library that can be proactive rather than reactive to technology. information technology is driving the future, librarians should be at the wheel. it is hoped that the new administration in washington will provide the fuel to get us going. _______________________________ sidebar ------------------------------------------------------- excerpts from s. as introduced july , nd congress nd session in the senate of the united states mr. gore (for himself, rockefeller (d-wv), kerry (d-ma), prestler (r-sd), riegle (d-mi), robb (d-va), lieberman (d-ct), kerrey (d-ne) and burns (r-mt)) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the committee on commerce, science and transportation. a bill to expand federal efforts to develop technologies for applications of high-performance computing and high-speed networking, to provide for a coordinated federal program to accelerate development and deployment of an advanced information infrastructure, and for other purposes. be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives of the united states of america in congress assembled, section . short title. this act may be cited as the "information infrastructure and technology act of ". sec. . applications for libraries. (a) digital libraries.--in accordance with the plan developed under section of the national science and technology policy, organization and priorities act of ( u.s.c. et seq.), as added by section of this act, the national science foundation, the national aeronautics and space administration, the defense advanced research projects agency, and other appropriate agencies shall develop technologies for "digital libraries" of electronic information. development of digital libraries shall include the following: ( ) development of advanced data storage systems capable of storing hundreds of trillions of bits of data and giving thousands of users nearly instantaneous access to that information. ( ) development of high-speed, highly accurate systems for converting printed text, page images, graphics, and photographic images into electronic form. ( ) development of database software capable of quickly searching, filtering, and summarizing large volumes of text, imagery, data, and sound. ( ) encouragement of development and adoption of standards for electronic data. ( ) development of computer technology to categorize and organize electronic information in a variety of formats. ( ) training of database users and librarians in the use of and development of electronic databases. ( ) development of technology for simplifying the utilization of networked databases distributed around the nation and around the world. ( ) development of visualization technology for quickly browsing large volumes of imagery. (b) development of prototypes.--the national science foundation, working with the supercomputer centers it supports, shall develop prototype digital libraries of scientific data available over the internet and the national research and education network. (c) development of databases of remote- sensing images.--the national aeronautics and space administration shall develop databases of software and remote-sensing images to be made available over computer networks like the internet. (d) authorization of appropriations.-- ( ) there are authorized to be appropriated to the national science foundation for the purposes of this section, $ , , for fiscal year , $ , , for fiscal year , $ , , for fiscal year , $ , , for fiscal year , and $ , , for fiscal year . ( ) there are authorized to be appropriated to the national aeronautics and space administration for the purposes of this section, $ , , for fiscal year , $ , , for fiscal year , $ , , for fiscal year , $ , , for fiscal year , and $ , , for fiscal year . ________________________ sidebar resources ___________________________ mcclure, charles r., joe ryan, diana lauterbach and william e. moen public libraries and the internet/nren: new challenges, new opportunities. . copies of this -page study may be ordered at $ each from the publication office, school of information studies, syracuse university, syracuse, ny - / - . the u.s. national commission on libraries and information science (nclis) has issued a report to the office of science and technology policy on library and information services' roles in the national research and education network. the -page document, released in late november, , summarizes the results of an open forum held in washington during the previous summer. topics addressed include funding nren, charging for use, commercial access, protection of intellectual property, and security and privacy. the report "focuses on fulfilling the potential for extending the services and effectiveness of libraries and information services for all americans through high-speed networks and electronic databases." a limited number of copies are available from nclis at th st., nw, suite , washington, d.c. / - . grand challenges : high performance computing and communications. the "teal book" (because of its color) "provides a far-sighted vision for investment in technology but also recognizes the importance of human resources and applications that serve major national needs. this � investment will bring both economic and social dividends, including advances in education, productivity, basic science, and technological innovation." requests for copies of this -page document should go to: federal coordinating council for science, engineering and technology, committee on physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences c/o national science foundation, computer and information science and engineering directorate, g st. nw, washington, d.c. carl kadie operates an excellent electronic resource of documents pertaining to academic freedom, the library bill of rights, and similar policy statements. those with internet access may use file transfer protocol (ftp) to ftp.eff.org ( . . . ) login as anonymous, use your network address as the password. the documents are in the /pub/academic directory. further reading kehoe, brendan. ( ). zen and the art of the internet: a beginner's guide ( nd ed.). englewood cliffs, nj: prentice-hall. the first edition is available for free from many ftp sites. (see below) this version has about pages of new material and corrects various minor errors in the first edition. includes the story of the coke machine on the internet. for much of late and the first half of , this was the document of choice for learning about the internet. isbn - - - . index. $ . to ftp zen: ftp.uu.net [ . . . ] in /inet/doc ftp.cs.toronto.edu [ . . . ] in pub/zen ftp.cs.widener.edu [ . . . ] in pub/zen as zen- . .tar.z, zen- . .dvi, and zen- . .ps ftp.sura.net [ . . . ] in pub/nic as zen- . .ps krol, ed. ( ). the whole internet user's guide & catalog. sebastopol, ca: o'reilly & associates. comprehensive guide to how the network works, the domain name system, acceptable use, security, and other issues. chapters on telnet/remote login, file transfer protocol, and electronic mail explain error messages, special situations, and other arcana. archie, gopher, netnews, wais, www, and troubleshooting each enjoy a chapter in this well-written book. appendices contain info on how to get connected in addition to a glossary. isbn - - - . $ . laquey, tracy, & ryer, j. c. ( ). the internet companion: a beginner's guide to global networking. reading, ma: addison-wesley. beginning with a foreword by vice-president elect al gore, this book provides an often- humorous explanation of the origins of the internet, acceptable use, basics of electronic mail, netiquette, online resources, transferring information, and finding email addresses. the in the know guide provides background on internet legends (elvis sightings is one), organizations, security issues, and how to get connected. bibliography. index. isbn - - - $ . polly, jean armour. surfing the internet . . an enthusiastic tour of selected internet resources, electronic serials, listserv discussion groups, service providers, manuals and guides and more. available via anonymous ftp from nysernet.org ( . . . ) in the directory /pub/resources/guides surfing. . .txt. tennant, roy, ober, j., & lipow, a. g. ( ). crossing the internet threshold: an instructional handbook. berkeley, ca: library solutions press. a cookbook to run your own internet training sessions. real-world examples. foreword by cliff lynch. library solutions institute and press oregon street berkeley, ca phone:( ) - fax: ( ) - isbn: - - - $ .