OK first off, I see we have a new listee in the nursery called Honey. Welcome little Honey! It's all very spooky and I bet it's one of you lot sniggering behind the bikesheds, but this Honey's email address is "honey@sinister.co.uk", which is NOT THE SAME as mine, although s/he's very welcome. Mine is "honey@majordomo.net", you can remember it because it's the same domain as the list address. Nursery Honey's is "honey@sinister.co.uk". Mine is "honey@majordomo.net". Got that? Good. Starry Sarah, Unix Solaris servers are indeed very like cake. Actually I got a phone call from Starry's MOBILE this morning telling me her A level results - the phone was literally jumping up and down. Suffice to say Starry is now The Sinister Swot and will do all your homework on request. Electronic Renaissance indeed. Ailsa, my joint favourite listee who's name begins with "A" and ends in "a" along with Arantxa and the departed AYA, wrote this: "can I be Honey for a moment and suggest you look in the archives for these things? No? Oh well, I'm sure he may pop in and say it himself soon." Anyone can be Honey as demonstrated above. Yes Ailsa you can be Honey, and then I'll be Honey again for a bit and say YES please do use the archives. Actually lots of you do :) But the search engine is very stable now and "just works" - you can search for anything over the .. blimey 2 years!.. this list's been going. You can even use the archives to look up when I've last suggested people use the archives. And pretty soon you'll be able to look up when I last suggested looking up to see when I last suggested using the archives. Anyway I owe Ailsa a few favours as I took ages to put her Bowlie photos on the WWW site, so being Honey For A Day will be one of them. That's right - 2 years in a week's time - you're all mad. What will we do on 27th August to celebrate please? Oh and Jason's dead right about the newsgroup: Phil and Andy who set it up have an admirable attitude towards how it and Sinister fit together and I can't see the problem - people go where they most feel at home. There have been a couple of odd comments on there recently, but remember that every community consists of lots of people. Mind you Jason, I haven't seen anyone slagging off the newsgroup here anyway, which is nice. Don't please, it'll work out best in the long run. Ta :) - IRC chat - If you don't use and don't intend to join the chat channel "#sinister" ever, swerve to avoid this bit now. If you want to find out how to join in, see the Sinister WWW page in the footer. If you're bonkers, read on. Our channel on Undernet has now become "official" and providing a load of sinister goths don't complain the the Undernet gods that they are more sinister than us, it's where we will stay. You'll know it's official because most times, except when she's in a sulk, there's a channel robot called "W" there - you can call her Wendy. Wendy's the maid and generally cleans things up, a bit like the nice lady on the Ajax ad. Tim Hopkins keeps calling her "slut", but when the two of them are alone he whispers sweet nothings to her and tickles her robotic robot bottom. He gets very lonely in there all day on his own. In order to keep the channel sane, we need some "ops" - people with an "@" sign in front of their names who learn how to look after things a little. The "ideal candidate" will posses a brainless devotion to reading boring over-complicated instructions from me without moaning, and will spend far too long online. The balance is between having enough to cover, and not too many so it isn't intimidating, like bikers standing around at the bar. I reckon we need a dozen, so I'm mailing all the original ops I can remember (mail me if you don't hear from me) and adding a couple of people to cover for now. Anyone who's a very regular chatter is invited to suggest to me who else should be one. Lulou tells me this is Eurovision Song Contest style voting. You're not allowed to vote for yourself, or anyone you've exchanged bodily fluids with, and the criteria for your chosen op(s) should be: (1) they're on IRC *much* too long for their own good (I mean, like seriously on almost every day for ages, til they don't know what day it is), and (2) they've told YOU they'd be happy to take it on. Please don't go suggesting people you haven't checked this with first, as it does entail a bit of learning, and it's a bit dull. And if you're volunteering to someone, make sure you really want to do it and are prepared to do a bit of reading. You vote by coming to find me on IRC at UK evening times, NOT by emailing me please - it proves your devotion to the cause. :) I'd beg people to be sensible about all this ops stuff, because some people have shown a tendency to feel left out if they don't get ops and put on a pouty face: being an op ISN'T A SIGN OF FLIPPIN PRIVILEGE! On the contrary it probably means you're on your way to blindness, either because you stare at the screen far too long, or you spend too long in *those* channels. If anyone wants to do the job, they're expected to learn the ropes, and they're expected to have been around on #sinister for ages already and connect most days for unfeasibly long periods of time. Anyway I'll pick the top 5 voted for in the next week, with the proviso that they're on IRC *all the time* and that there's a good spread geographically. School maam paragraph ends. Has anyone taken chinese medicine? Apparently it's all to do with my spleen and my internal dampness. Tastes like cold curry powder. Yuck. Honey xx +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+