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LAYA! [eLetter for American Young Adults]
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Volume 2 Issue 6 - June 1997
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http://www.best.com/~raychin/
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HAVE AN EXCELLENT SUMMER!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS...
EDITOR'S NOTE
IRC
OVERVIEW
HICKPHONICS
DID
EXTRA PLANET VANISH INTO OUTER SPACE?
WEB SITES
SURVEYS
MYSTERY
MESSAGES
LAYA! looks best when viewed with 10 point Arial font.
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EDITOR'S NOTE
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Hello students of Los Altos!
Our new content is improving with two new feature articles this
month! Also, we have changed the survey questions to something
more thoughtful and debatable, something that may take some
thought into answering (I hope it's not too hard!). We hope you
enjoy our summer issues of LAYA!, and have an excellent summer!
Robert Chin
Editorial Director
robertchin@akamail.com
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IRC OVERVIEW
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Welcome to IRC! Since IRC is a part of the Internet that lets
users talk in a conference room style setting, we will explain
how IRC works, using an office build and conference room analogy.
To talk in a conference room, the first thing you must do is get
to the office building; you can't talk somewhere, if you aren't
there. This the connection part of IRC; when you connect to a
server, you are entering the office building, and you're in the
lobby. As with most office buildings, this one has a guard in the
lobby, who asks you who you are. When you tell him, he gives you
a little name tag to wear; this is your nickname, registered and
recognized as you. Now, you're still in the lobby, and you know
you have to go to a room and speak; this "room" is an
IRC channel. A channel is "room" of people with a
common interest; all channels in IRC start with a # to show that
it is a channel, and not a nickname. OK, you know that their a
room to go to, but you don't know what the room name is; in a
lobby, you'd check the directory. The directory of IRC is the
List Channels command; it will display a list of available
channels by name. Be warned, this is a large building, with about
ten thousand conference rooms at any given time.
Finally, now that you know where to go, you can leave the lobby,
and go to the conference room, so you take the elevator. Of
course the elevator needs to know where to go, to get you there;
this is the Join Channel command.
You've arrived! Just before you enter the conference room, you
see a gold name label on the door, with a name, and below it is a
placard that shows what conference is occurring in this room
right now. The name is the name of the channel, shown at the top
of the mobileIRC screen, and the placard is the topic of the
room, if there is one; an open ended conference would have
nothing there. When you get to the room, and go in, someone
announces to everyone else in the room, who you are, and that
you've joined the conference; this person then goes around the
room and reads everyone else's name tags for you. For IRC, this
is represented by the List Window, for a channel. Now that you're
in the room, some people might know you from different places,
and they say "Hello". You return their greetings by
saying talking to the entire room at once with one
"Hello". This is akin to a regular public channel
message; what you say, everyone else can hear. You then notice
that someone in the back knows you, and asks you a direct
question, you've forgotten one of the people's names! Instead of
panicking, you simply whisper to the person next to you,
"What is his name?", and that person responds to you,
quietly. This is an example of private messaging; only 1 other
person gets the message, and you decide who. As the rest of the
conference goes on, one person in the room is quite obviously a
problem, and he is distracting everyone else. Since you've had
enough of him, you decide to kick him out of the room. This is
the equivalent of the Kick User command of IRC; it removes a
person from the current channel.
But wait! You can't do that because, even though you are speaking
here, you didn't start this conference room, and this certainly
isn't your office building; you can't kick anyone out! For IRC,
this means you are not a channel operator (op). An Op, is a
person with a @ on their name tag (nickname); a user can get this
by starting a channel, or by the grace of another Op. Without Op
privileges, you cannot kick a user.
Now you're in trouble! The person you tried to kick out, got his
boss on his side, and they've decided to throw you out, and not
to let you back in. Guess what? In IRC, you've just been kicked;
not only that but they've banned you from the channel! This
rarely happens without good cause; if you are a courteous
speaker, and a gracious visitor, this shouldn't ever happen to
you.
As you're heading out of the building, you're stopped by someone
that hands you a note. On the note, you're told that you've been
invited back to room, mostly to get your jacket and keys, since
they threw you out. Not only can you be banned from a channel,
but you can be invited to join a channel as well; to do so,
simply join the channel, and the ban will be gone. You return to
the room, but decide that you've had enough of this corporate
life for today, so you say your good-byes, and leave the building
for the night. To leave a channel, you can used the Leave Channel
command. This will keep you
connected, but out of the channel; out in the lobby again.
To disconnect from the IRC server, type /exit or select
Disconnect.
Taken from the IRC Primer for mobileIRC (For WindowsCE),
http://www.adageus.com
Note: all commands are preceded by a "/". The command
names used in the
preceding article are one word. The command word is the one
capitalized in
the article, with the exception of 'Channel', which should be
replaced by
the #channelname.
You can download an excellent IRC (Internet Relay Chat) program
from http://www.mirc.com
If you already have mIRC, you can download cool extensions for it
at http://www.c-script.com
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HICKPHONICS
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The Atlanta School Board, has decided to designate Southern
slang, or
"Hickphonics," as a language to be taught in all
Southern schools.
Here are excerpts from the Hickphonics/English dictionary:
HEIDI - noun. Greeting.
HIRE YEW - Complete sentence. Remainder of greeting.
Usage: "Heidi. Hire yew."
BARD - verb. Past tense of the infinitive "to borrow."
Usage: "My brother bard my pickup truck."
JAWJUH - noun. A state just north of Florida. Capital is
Hot-lanta.
Usage: "My brother from Jawjuh bard my pickup truck."
MUNTS - noun. A calendar division.
Usage: "My brother from Jawjuh bard my pickup truck, and
I ain't herd from him in munts."
IGNERT - adjective. Not smart. See "Arkansas native."
Usage:
"Them N-C-TWO-A boys sure are ignert!"
RANCH - noun. A tool used for tight'nin' bolts.
Usage: "I think I left my ranch in the back of that
pickup truck my brother from Jawjuh bard a few munts ago."
ALL - noun. (alt. sp. AWL) A petroleum-based lubricant.
Usage: "I sure hope my brother from Jawjuh puts all in my
pickup truck."
FAR - noun. A conflagration.
Usage: "If my brother from Jawjuh don't change the all in
my pickup truck, that thing's gonna catch far."
TAR - noun. A rubber wheel.
Usage: "Gee, I hope that brother of mine from Jawjuh
don't git a flat tar in my pickup truck."
TIRE - noun. A tall monument.
Usage: "Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, I sure do
hope to see that Eiffel Tire in Paris sometime."
RETARD - Verb. To stop working.
Usage: "My grampaw retard at age 65."
TARRED - adverb. Exhausted.
Usage: "I just flew in from Hot-lanta, and boy my arms
are tarred."
FAT - noun, verb. 1. a battle or combat. 2. to engage in battle
or
combat.
ARE - pronoun. Possessive case of we used as a predicate
adjective.
RATS - noun. Entitled power or privilege.
Usage: "We Southerners are willin' to fat for are
rats."
FARN - adjective. Not local.
Usage: "I cuddint unnerstand a wurd he sed ... must be
from some farn country."
EAR - noun. A colorless, odorless gas (unless you are in LA).
Usage: "He cain't breathe ... give 'im some ear!"
BOB WAR - noun. A sharp, twisted cable.
Usage: "Kids, y'all stay away from that bob war fence."
JEW HERE - Noun and verb contraction.
Usage: "Jew here that my brother from Jawjuh got a job with
that bob war fence cump'ny?"
HAZE - a contraction.
Usage: "Is Bubba smart?" "Nah ... haze
ignert."
SEED - verb, past tense of see.
VIEW - contraction: verb and pronoun.
Usage: "I ain't never seed New York City... view?"
DID - adjective. Not alive.
Usage: "He's did, Jim."
BAHS - noun. A supervisor.
Usage: "If you don't stop reading these Southern words
and git back to work, your bahs is gonna far yew!"
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DID EXTRA PLANET VANISH INTO OUTER SPACE?
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earth may have had a neighbouring planet that vanished into outer
space long ago, along with other bodies in the Solar System. This
is one of the possibilities emerging from studies by an
astronomer in Louisiana, who says that he may be able to explain
the positions of the planets.
Astronomers believe that the Sun and planets formed as a giant
cloud of gas and dust condensed and formed clumps. But no one has
ever explained why the planets occupy their present orbits.
Although an old mathematical relationship called the Titius-Bode
law predicted the position of Uranus, the rule has no known
physical basis and failed to predict the positions of Neptune or
Pluto.
Dimitris Christodoulou of Louisiana State University in Baton
Rouge announced at this week's meeting of the American
Astronomical Society in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that
"by accident" he has found a new way to predict the
positions of the planets. The results emerged from a study of how
the gas pressure in the original cloud, along with its gravity,
rotation, and magnetic fields, would affect the way in which the
cloud condensed.
His analysis shows that the density of the cloud would have
decreased gradually with distance, but with concentric
rings--peaks and valleys--superimposed at distances determined by
an equation called a Bessel function. Christodoulou says that the
planets would have been most likely to form at the peaks where
gas and dust collected.
His initial calculations did not reveal the positions of the
peaks, so Christodoulou calculated this by assuming that Earth's
orbit matches the third peak. Having done that, the actual
positions of the orbits of Mercury and Venus closely match the
positions of the first and second peaks from the equation. Mars
lies a little way from the fifth ring, the Hungaria asteroids
occupy the sixth, and the main asteroid belt spans the seventh to
tenth rings. Jupiter and the outer planets also fit neatly onto
peaks.
The fourth ring is empty, however. Christodoulou speculates that
a planet formed in the ring and has since escaped. He suggests
that Mars may have been disturbed from its original position in
the middle of the fifth ring by some unknown event that ejected
the original fourth planet from its slot. "Either [that
planet] never formed, or it formed and went away," he says.
Alastair Cameron, an expert on planet formation at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, says that he is "sceptical".
Christodoulou concedes that there are problems--notably that in
the outer Solar System, there are many vacant slots. "I have
too many planetary sites," he says. Other astronomers are
reserving judgment until they can study the model in detail.
Taken from NewScientist Magazine, June 14, 1997
http://www.newscientist.com
Written by By Jeff Hecht, Boston
Note- Visit this picture for an image of what this article talks
about:
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/970614/images/missing.gif
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WEB SITES
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This Month's Theme: Sports
http://www.tns.lcs.mit.edu/cgi-bin/sports World Wide Web of
Sports - Extensive Database of sports!
http://www.gatorade.com/ Gatorade's Cooler Site - None other
than!
http://www.scubaduba.com/ ScubaDuba - ' THE ULTIMATE SCUBA DIVING
SITE...'
http://www.xnet.com/~schneid/vball.shtml Scneid's Volleyball Page
- An ultimate volleyball page!
http://www.gsn.com/bin/fishing.exe?/sports/boating/soundings/soundings.htm
Soundings - Searchable database of
boating newspapers
http://www.bayou.com/~brooklyn/ Brooklyn Dodgers: The Boys of
Summer - Baseball.
http://www.westdat.com/galactic/surf/ Boardriders Club -
Quicksilver store.
http://www.world-of-speedo.com/ World of Speedo - Speedo!!!
http://www.nbc.com/sports/ NBC Sports - You got it! N-B-C!
http://www.goals.com/ Global Online Adventure Learning Site
(GOALS) - Adventure!
List taken off the Lycos top 5%
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SURVEYS
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1. Should Timoth McVeigh get the death penalty for being
convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing?
2. General Ralston (Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff)
was recently recommended for the job of Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, even though he admitted having an affair with a
married woman 10 years ago. He declined the position. Lt. Kelly
Flinn (first woman pilot to fly the B2 Bomber) was recently
generally discharged from the Air Force for committing adultery.
She was found to have an affair with a married man, but she said
she thought the man was separated. Was Lt. Flinn a victim of a
double standard by the military?
E-mail "cclin@worldnet.att.net" with your answers.
Title the "subject" as "surveys." It will
remain anonymous.
Just include your answers. You do not have to answer all of them.
The results will be posted in the next issue!
You can submit a survey you want to conduct by e-mailing
"dancheng@akamail.com"
Title the "subject" as "new surveys."
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MYSTERY MESSAGES
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If you have a message you want someone to see, you can e-mail
that message
to "dancheng@akamail.com" Title the "subject"
as "Mystery Messages" and
in the next issue, we will print all the messages we receive.
The message CAN remain anonymous (please specify).
Please make the message appropriate with no put downs.
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LAYA's STAFF...
Compiled, edited, designed, and approved by:
Robert Chin
Editor
robertchin@akamail.com
Daniel Cheng
Layout & Design
dancheng@akamail.com
Chris Lin
Quotes and Facts
cclin@worldnet.att.net
Charles Hua
Internet Supervisor
charleyman@akamail.com
Scott Chiang
Public Relations
illuminator@juno.com
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LAYA!
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(c) copyright 1997 by LAYA!