[news.newusers.questions] Talk at Carnegie Mellon

ls2r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Lui Sieh) (08/01/89)

In article <43418@bbn.COM> dated 27-Jul-89, mesard@BBN.COM (Wayne
Mesard) asks:
> P.S.  I see this ":-)" a lot in mail messages on this bboard, what does
> it mean?

> P.P.S.  Can anyone tell me how to talk to my friend on his computer at
> Carnegie Mellon?

":-)" == Smile!  It's to denote humor or to show the readers that you're
not serious and is to be taken lightly.  I would advise all new netnews
users to use liberally when possible.  Things to need to be lightened up
a bit sometimes.

Secondly, is your friend on a CS account or on a standard ANDREW account
that most other people have.  I doubt he's on our VAX/VMS.

I believe that using standard (read Berkeley 4.3 Unix) unix talk should
work though I must admit that I've had nearly 0% success rate for
talking to other users on unix systems.  The command is /usr/ucbtalk
userid@domain name.  Note, talking to users on the BITNET nodes is not
possible unless you are on another BITNET node.

Good luck, and welcome to the wild and wacky world of USENET!


-Lui


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