mra@searchtech.com (Michael Almond) (03/11/91)
PSI already mentioned that they are placing the leaf node restrictions only
on the $75/month UUPSI customers. They, PSI, offer a second grade of service,
with a higher price, that allows unrestricted UUPSI access.
Why should this bother anyone? It sounds to me like PSI found that $75
couldn't cover the cost of non-leaf connections and needed to change their
service a little.
Boycott? Sounds a little extreme for a rate change.
--
Michael R. Almond (Georgia Tech Alumnus) mra@srchtec.uucp (registered)
search technology, inc. mra@searchtech.com
4725 peachtree corners cir., suite 200 {uupsi,stiatl}!srchtec!mra
norcross, georgia 30092 (404) 441-1457 (office)murray@sun13.scri.fsu.edu (John Murray) (03/12/91)
In article <1991Mar11.143824.24170@searchtech.com> mra@searchtech.com (Michael Almond) writes: >PSI already mentioned that they are placing the leaf node restrictions only >on the $75/month UUPSI customers. They, PSI, offer a second grade of service, >with a higher price, that allows unrestricted UUPSI access. > >Why should this bother anyone? It sounds to me like PSI found that $75 >couldn't cover the cost of non-leaf connections and needed to change their >service a little. Did you miss the post that mentioned how much this other service cost? First, think about this: In a newsfeed, what's more costly, providing the downlink-side (the rest of the world) of a full or sizeable feed to a leaf site or (relatively) small cluster of sites, or providing the uplink side for all the posts that originate from that site or sites? Well, lessee, 15 MB/day for the down side, and an average of (15 MB / 18000 sites <est.> ) * number of sites in this cluster, for the up side. If this little cluster is, say 100 sites (!) the uplink side is still well under 1% of the total cost in bandwidth. Mail volume ignored, since even a high-volume mailing list or two run from this cluster isn't going to put a dent in these numbers. Cost for leaf site: $75. Cost for full site: exstimated at a little under $300. Liability for stuff posted by non-customers is a NON-ISSUE, since it would be TRIVIAL for PSI to contractually put the burden of liability on the customer that fed them the "bad stuff". (of course, we might jump on them for that, too };-> ) I had no opinion on this issue until one person mentioned what the cost for an unrestricted site was. (BTW, can someone verify the $825-875 quarterly cost for a full site?) Now I believe that this move is strictly a *marketing* based decision on the part of PSI. >Michael R. Almond (Georgia Tech Alumnus) mra@srchtec.uucp (registered) -- Disclaimer: Yeah, right, like you really believe I run this place. John R. Murray | "Memory serves murray@vsjrm.scri.fsu.edu | wise commanders." Supercomputer Research Inst.| - Tz'u-hsi, 638 AD
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (03/12/91)
murray@sun13.scri.fsu.edu (John Murray) writes: > mra@searchtech.com (Michael Almond) writes: >> PSI already mentioned that they are placing the leaf node >> restrictions only on the $75/month UUPSI customers. They, PSI, offer >> a second grade of service, with a higher price, that allows >> unrestricted UUPSI access. >> Why should this bother anyone? It sounds to me like PSI found that >> $75 couldn't cover the cost of non-leaf connections and needed to >> change their service a little. > Did you miss the post that mentioned how much this other service cost? > First, think about this: In a newsfeed, what's more costly, providing > the downlink-side (the rest of the world) of a full or sizeable feed > to a leaf site or (relatively) small cluster of sites, or providing > the uplink side for all the posts that originate from that site or > sites? Well, lessee, 15 MB/day for the down side, and an average of > (15 MB / 18000 sites <est.> ) * number of sites in this cluster, for > the up side. If this little cluster is, say 100 sites (!) the uplink > side is still well under 1% of the total cost in bandwidth. Mail > volume ignored, since even a high-volume mailing list or two run from > this cluster isn't going to put a dent in these numbers. > Cost for leaf site: $75. Cost for full site: exstimated at a little > under $300. > I had no opinion on this issue until one person mentioned what the > cost for an unrestricted site was. (BTW, can someone verify the > $825-875 quarterly cost for a full site?) Now I believe that this move > is strictly a *marketing* based decision on the part of PSI. Absolutely correct; they are trying to _force_ each customer that wants to take advantage of this cheap feed to connect to them directly and pay full freight (and fight over bandwidth, while UUPSI build an empire trying to keep up, the same problem UUNET is displaying today, and absolutely typical of reacting to problems rather than forecasting them and being ready before they can occur). If the problem were really upload traffic, they could simply limit uploads to 5% of downloads (a ridiculously generous allowance), which would make sure they weren't being hurt transporting an unfair amount of garbage compared to what the customer was buying in terms of bandwidth. Instead of this reasonable approach, they have chosen to dictate to their customers the type of connectivity those customers will display across the customer-UUPSI interface, which frankly is none of their damned business. Since they are selling connectivity rather than bandwidth, what their product really amounts to for the not-terribly-clever-about-news-software customer is a perpetual bondage into leafhood. Trying to convince those who have watched the net grow that it is going to behave the same with a large class of second class citizens who can't extend a feed to a friend in the time honored manner of the net without quadrupling the cost of a feed is a waste of time by all those attempting to defend UUPSI in this matter. This is bad juju for the net, period. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) (03/13/91)
mra@searchtech.com (Michael Almond) writes: > PSI already mentioned that they are placing the leaf node restrictions only > on the $75/month UUPSI customers. They, PSI, offer a second grade of service > with a higher price, that allows unrestricted UUPSI access. The next level of service from PSI is $175/month, and allows dialup Internet (SLIP) access. This is more than twice the cost of the USENET News service. The $75/month service was promoted as giving unrestricted uupsi access. > Why should this bother anyone? It sounds to me like PSI found that $75 > couldn't cover the cost of non-leaf connections and needed to change their > service a little. When I signed up for PSI service, they (and I) went to the effort to obtain a domain name for this system. What purpose a domain name? It makes mail from third parties easier to send. Instead of knowing a UUCP routing, they tack on the domain name and Bingo! the mail shows up here. Now PSI is saying (to some) that you may neither send nor receive mail through PSI involving third parties. Now what use is a domain name? If PSI did not intend to allow third party mail to be sent or recieved through uupsi, why was getting a domain name one of the features of their service? Why do they MX, if all they will allow is mail from PSI? As far as news goes, I think it has already been pointed out that they will either see it when I feed it upstream, or they will see it when they feed it back downstream to me. When they feed it downstream to me, it will be larger (more elements in the Path:), and older, which makes their service look slower. There has also been a description of how to get around any automatic news chopping (which will not work at this site). > Boycott? Sounds a little extreme for a rate change. Boycott sounds about right for bait and switch. A user signs up for the USENET feed. When he decides to carry on the USENET tradition of providing feeds to others, he is told he needs to buy a different (SLIP) feed, for more money. I would suggest to PSI that they examine this decision to enforce leaf status again. They will be carrying the same news in either case. I cannot believe that the amount of mail generated by any reasonable node I feed will make any dent in their capacity. In fact, any node I feed that starts to make a dent in MY capacity will be advised to talk to UUNET (would have been PSI, until this came up). On the other hand, the amount of negative publicity they have gotten (in the very newsgroups they want to sell) cannot be beneficial to them. If PSI is really concerned about the load on their systems, perhaps they would be best served by staunching the flow of unrequested newsgroups. The junk newsgroup is the most active one, here. I have not yet received the letter from PSI, so all I am going on is what has been posted here. I am moderately unhappy with the news limitation, but can live with it. However, the first piece of mail from a third party that they drop on the floor will be announced worldwide. They had best not make the mistake of dropping mail I send to myself from an outside system, and it will be impossible to tell this mail from true third party mail.
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (03/13/91)
In article <Dccqy4w163w@phoenix.com> stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: > Now PSI is saying (to some) that you may neither send nor receive >mail through PSI involving third parties. Now what use is a domain name? >If PSI did not intend to allow third party mail to be sent or recieved >through uupsi, why was getting a domain name one of the features of >their service? Why do they MX, if all they will allow is mail from PSI? Hehe. That is indeed what the stupidly worded contract says, isn't it. Of course if you can't send mail TO or FROM anyone else but UUPSI, then your "mail feed" is worthless, so we presume that's not what PSI "really meant," despite what their contract _says_. Therefore PSI's customers are in the wonderful bind of having to violate the letter of their contract every day, relying instead on PSI's voluntary goodwill in enforcing an informal, verbal reinterpretation of the signed contract. If you want to run a business relationship on "never mind what I say, just do what I tell you," why bother with messy old contracts to begin with? Ain't chaos wonderful. As has been suggested several times, it would be a piece of cake to circumvent PSI's restrictions, but... to quote a sainted former President... <hunch shoulders, waggle V-signs> "That would be wrong!"
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (03/13/91)
In article <1991Mar12.134431.14294@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: > Absolutely correct; they are trying to _force_ each customer that wants > to take advantage of this cheap feed to connect to them directly and > pay full freight Absolutely correct. So? They priced the cheap feed with the expectation that a reasonable percentage of the sites in an area would pay the $75 for a direct feed to UUPSI, to pay for the cost of the dedicated links. When it became obvious that that wasn't going to happen, they changed the rules to further encourage a direct UUPSI connect. If they don't do something like this, the limiting case comes when each area and its expensive dedicated line serves a single UUPSI customer who then feeds all the other sites. This is a perennial problem with Usenet, where whever can ship the most bits the fastest becomes "the" feed for an area, the redundant feeds drop off, and when "the" feed goes everyone panics. It's happened twice in the Houston-Dallas-Austin area that I can remember. And people still don't seem to be learning. > Instead of this reasonable approach, they have chosen to dictate to > their customers the type of connectivity those customers will display > across the customer-UUPSI interface, which frankly is none of their > damned business. No, they're dictating whose traffic will go over the link. It's no different from (and, if anything, more liberal than) any commercial network. I get a flat rate from SWBell but, common carrier status notwitstanding, I'm sure they'd drop me in a minute if I tried running wires into my neighbors' apartments and set up some sort of party-line mechanism. > Since they are selling connectivity rather than bandwidth, what their > product really amounts to for the not-terribly-clever-about-news-software > customer is a perpetual bondage into leafhood. No it *doesn't*. There is absolutely no reason a UUPSI customer has to be a leaf. I *know* you know better than that, Kent. I have explained several times in Email and on the net how to set up a UUPSI feed so you can have a well connected site and still take advantage of their service. Anyone with the brains to set up C News should be able to do it. As you pointed out, the reverse flow is *cheap*. Surely one site in an area can afford the long-distance calls to get news and mail back to any of dozens of well-connected sites that are happy to take them. If not, you can all get together and order a UUNET connect. Or depend on the existing usenet flood algorithm to get the message back. That's what you seem to be pushing for: for UUPSI to get out of the pool and let us go back to the uncertanties of riding in the backs of big sites. > This is bad juju for the net, period. No, Kent. Helping people get off the tax-subsidised backs of universities and the government, and quit hanging on the uncertain arms of friendly system administrators in a hostile commercial environment, is good juju. Period. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (03/14/91)
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >> Since they are selling connectivity rather than bandwidth, what their >> product really amounts to for the not-terribly-clever-about-news-software ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >> customer is a perpetual bondage into leafhood. > No it *doesn't*. There is absolutely no reason a UUPSI customer has to > be a leaf. I *know* you know better than that, Kent. I have explained > several times in Email and on the net how to set up a UUPSI feed so > you can have a well connected site and still take advantage of their > service. Anyone with the brains to set up C News should be able to do > it. Peter, if you would ever LEARN TO READ THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, you could avoid dozens of flamefests into which you plunge youself each month by bulling ahead on your own path, blind eyed, brain in neutral, without bothering to read what you are answering. You don't put yourself in the right by saying the same stupid, wrongheaded, ignorant thing more times in a row than anyone is willing to answer, no matter how convinced you are to the contrary, no matter how often you act as if that will work, no matter how many people start nodding their heads hypnotized after their senses go numb from your continued abuse. Posting the same idiocy that gets rejected in email just proves you to be an exceptionally, perhaps uniquely, slow learner. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
jerry@olivey.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Jerry Aguirre) (03/14/91)
In article <Dccqy4w163w@phoenix.com> stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: >mra@searchtech.com (Michael Almond) writes: > Now PSI is saying (to some) that you may neither send nor receive >mail through PSI involving third parties. Now what use is a domain name? >If PSI did not intend to allow third party mail to be sent or recieved >through uupsi, why was getting a domain name one of the features of >their service? Why do they MX, if all they will allow is mail from PSI? Let me preface this by saying that I have not seen the contract nor do I have any relationship with PSI. The term "third party" seems to be used in a strange way here. When I think of "third party" as applied to the telephone or postal mail it means someone other than the originator or intended recipiant. By example if you make a phone call then you can record it. If you receive a phone call then you can record it. If you are making a phone call to someone else and I record it then I am breaking the law. You are number 1, :-) the person you are calling is number 2, :-) and I would be the 3rd party. The phone company is the carrier, not one of the parties. You are not restricted to placing calls only to the telephone company. Given that accepted usage, if you, as a PSI customer, send mail to someone external, or someone else external sends mail to you, then it is not third party mail. PSI does not count as one of the parties (unless the mail is to or from them). They are the carrier. There are a lot of regulations in fields from ham radio to the post office and they all assume this model of usage. On the other hand, PSI's refusal to accept incoming news postings sounds like a hasty decision, made without considering the ramifications. Companies do this all the time, alienating their customers for no benefit to themselves. They feel so threatened by the unexpected negative response that by the time they finally understand why it was a bad decision they have become stubborn and refuse to admit it. Usenet is not mail. There is no such thing as "third party" for usenet. Lumping usenet under the same restrictions as mail was ill considered. PSI sells news feeds, not posting privileges. You can not reasonably charge someone for posting if you are going to freely accept the same article when it comes in later via NNTP. As has been pointed out someone can easily circumvent the restrictions by making an inexpensive 5 minute call each night to upload the local postings to a backbone system. PSI will then attempt to feed, at no extra charge, the same article they wanted to charge money for receiving. The cost savings PSI offers is for the incoming feed, not the few postings the local cluster might generate.
peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (03/18/91)
stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: > Now PSI is saying (to some) that you may neither send nor receive > mail through PSI involving third parties. Now what use is a domain name? That seems to be a misunderstanding. The intent is that mail should not be to or from some site on the other side of a subscriber. Perhaps PSI needs to make this clearer. -- (peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com) `-_-' 'U`
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (03/19/91)
In article <7H31y1w163w@phoenix.com> stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: > As taronga.hackercorp.com is 'another organization' (neither PSI nor >mine), I am prohibited from accepting mail from you, as I must receive >it through UUPSI. However, UUPSI is supposedly selling me the ability to >receive mail from other organizations through them. The latter is not in >writing, though, and the former is. Which is correct? You are supposed to rely on PSI's good faith in enforcing, not what they had you sign and date in ink, but what they generally sort of "meant." Better not decide that what YOU "meant" is different from what you signed, though! That would be breach of contract. :-)
peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (03/19/91)
stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: > I wish those who know what the intent of PSI is would tell the rest > of us how they found that out! I asked them. -- (peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com) `-_-' 'U`
phil@ls.com (Phil Eschallier) (03/19/91)
In article <1991Mar19.020431.28067@jpradley.jpr.com> jpr@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) writes: > >I don't have here any of the documents which define domains. Simple >question, net-folk: > >I've got a domain: which sites may or not be IN my domain, and by what >criteria? > > Jean-Pierre Radley NYC Public Unix jpr@jpradley.jpr.com CIS: 72160,1341 i have been passively reading this thread -- admittedly i am somewhat confused. about 2 months ago i decided to get information from psi about their uucp services, hoping for a cheaper way to handle e-mail. in all, the information i got looked quite appealing and i decided i would go with their service (the $75/mo service that i gather is the service being discussed here). being short on time i didn't get to it right away -- but john eldrige did give me a follow up call, which i figured was convenient. i told him i was interested in the service and confirmed there were modems available in the philadelphia area. before we were about to cemment the deal, it (luckily) came out that we could not receive any mail other than what is addressed for .ls.com. that was the end of the conversation. who was he to tell me who/what mail my computers could pass. i understand theirs is a flat rate service -- if they did not have this restriction then i could buy a uucp account from psi then distribute e-mail to the entire philadelphia area -- they would have the expense of maintaining the equipement and would only take in $75/mo for the area. if your site is a leaf node, psi sounds like a good way to get connected. otherwise i would suggest a alternative service -- usually you get what you pay for. now i understand that psi is saying you can only send AND receive mail for your domain -- this may be appropriate for corporation with branches around the country. but for the leaf node (or one site domain), you are now paying $75/mo to be connected with yourself -- not exactly my definition of con- nectivity!! after much ramblings about my psi confusion -- the question at hand: what sites can be in a domain?? .ls.com was formed in the days of stargate and at that time it was a fee of $150/yr (i think ... it has been some time since i thought about stargate) for a second level domain -- but it was yours. you controlled routing, site memberships, domain parks ... the works. i still treat .ls.com in this fasion although there is no fee as i am no a uunet subsciber. but i'd be interested in knowing what the current rules are -- and if they have tightened (or been restricted), who's going to enforce them?? psi?? if so, get a different service. -- Phil Eschallier | E-Mail to: US Mail to: | INET: phil@ls.com 248B Union Street Lagniappe Systems | UUCP: ...!uunet!lgnp1!phil Doylestown, PA 18901 Computer Services | CIS: 71076,1576 VOICE: +1 215 348 9721
stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) (03/19/91)
peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: > > I wish those who know what the intent of PSI is would tell the rest > > of us how they found that out! > > I asked them. And they sent me a letter which seems to contradict what they told you. Which bears more weight -- what they say to you or what they write in their contracts?
peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (03/20/91)
jpr@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) writes: > I've got a domain: which sites may or not be IN my domain, and by what > criteria? This is like the "what is a business" discussions people have about phone companies and BBSes. Some insist that if the IRS says it's a business, it is. The basic problem is that PSInet and the NIC have different requirements: PSInet is selling service to a "single site", and is regarding a single site as either (a) a single location, or (b) a single machine. They need to clarify this point (one hopes that they mean a single site, since there are over 40 machines on the premises at "ferranti.com"), and remove the confusing language about domains. Domains are an administrative convention not necessarily related to sites. -- (peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com) `-_-' 'U`
peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (03/20/91)
stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: > peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > > stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: > > > I wish those who know what the intent of PSI is would tell the rest > > > of us how they found that out! > > I asked them. > And they sent me a letter which seems to contradict what they told you. Only if you choose to read the letter like a computer program. Hey, did you hear about the computer programmer who died in the shower? The instructions read "lather, rinse, repeat"... and he died of a stack overflow. > Which bears more weight -- what they say to you or what they write > in their contracts? That's up to you to decide. You always have the option of not doing business with them. I'm reserving judgement. -- (peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com) `-_-' 'U`
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (03/20/91)
In article <TTG2RDB@taronga.hackercorp.com> peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >The basic problem is that PSInet and the NIC have different requirements: >PSInet is selling service to a "single site", and is regarding a single >site as either (a) a single location, or (b) a single machine. They need >to clarify this point (one hopes that they mean a single site, since >there are over 40 machines on the premises at "ferranti.com"), and remove >the confusing language about domains. Domains are an administrative >convention not necessarily related to sites. If PSI refuses to support true RFC1034 domains, they should not falsely register cut-rate leaf sites with the NIC as full domains. It is ludicrous to go ahead and post a wildcard record, then browbeat the customer for having the audacity to use it. The irony is that by aggressively segregating traffic to these cut-rate leaf sites, PSI not only ensures maximum wastage of its own disk and telecommunications resources per users served (thus shoving the population/performance dropoff point as far forward as possible), but also keeps the alternative option -- geographically proximate sites banding together to share the costs of a nonrestrictive joint feed from some other supplier -- perpetually attractive.
horne-scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) (03/21/91)
In article <5XG2Z8C@taronga.hackercorp.com> peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
<
<Hey, did
<you hear about the computer programmer who died in the shower? The
<instructions read "lather, rinse, repeat"... and he died of a stack
<overflow.
He needs a compiler which supports tail recursion. :-)
--Scott
--
Scott Horne ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne
horne@cs.Yale.edu SnailMail: Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520
203 436-1817 Residence: Rm 1817 Silliman College, Yale Univ
"Pi4 nai3 ren2 shen1 zhi1 qi4, qi3 you3 bu2 fang4 zhi1 li3." --Mao Zedongxanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (03/21/91)
jpr@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) writes: > When I first subscribed to the $75/mo service, one of the first > telephone conversations they had with me concerned what I wished for a > domain name, which they obtained for me quite efficiently and rapidly. > Part of their objections to my current use of their service involves > what PSI says is inappropriate adherence to my domain. > If you don't recall from earlier in this thread, John Eldredge is > PSI's Director of Sales & Marketing. In a letter just now received, he > writes: > "[you're paid through 5/8/91, etc.] "It is also clear that you are > including other people's machines under your domain which is not > consistent with the use of the '.com' domain." > After suggesting that I might want to consider switching to the UUPSI > Redistribution Service, at a higher tariff, he continues: > "[re-execute new verion of old contract, or sign the higher-rate > contract, for service beyond 4/15/91, etc.] "However, if the current > domain issue is not cleared up, we may have to settle this situation > sooner." > I don't have here any of the documents which define domains. Simple > question, net-folk: > I've got a domain: which sites may or not be IN my domain, and by what > criteria? Sure does sound like, under the accepted definition of "domain", UUPSI has indeed, as mentioned in an earlier posting, pulled a classic "bait and switch" confidence game on you. This is highly illegal, and district prosecuting attorneys love these cases; because they're a lead pipe cinch to prosecute (judges _detest_ business scams); look like one on the side of the angels, defending the little guy; and up the "win" column score for the guy/gal handling the case. Keep every scrap of paper, record your phone conversations, and save your email and any replies to your news postings from UUPSI representatives. If you have the time for the court appearances, you can have a lot of fun with this one. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
rissa@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Patricia O Tuama) (03/22/91)
In article <1991Mar21.054111.5962@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >This is highly illegal, and district prosecuting attorneys love these >cases; because they're a lead pipe cinch to prosecute (judges _detest_ >business scams); look like one on the side of the angels, defending the >little guy; and up the "win" column score for the guy/gal handling the >case. Over time, he enters more and more kill files, and really has created his own private little newsgroup-for-one, in, but not a part of, talk.bizarre, in which his incredible cleverness, wonderful sense of humor, and great creative writing skill go completely unnoticed except by him; really, not that much of a change when you think about it. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> -- Of course, in a sense, I have partially accomplished that for myself throughout a large part of the net. Oh, well, another day, another interminable posting from Casa Xanth. K*nt Dolan <1991Mar21.070429.7540@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>