 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group "East" Goes West Gary Taylor |
It was March, but June was there. This dashingly delicate young damsel had
none of June's wintry attributes; she was warmth itself. However, hard drive hardened male members shrugged
off such distractions and tallyhoed into food, snacks and meals ... the while, lavishing loud smacks of their
chops around stubbies and other such addictive comforters. You groan "What has this to do with
computing?"
It was the Ides of March, 2002. Hordes of Melb PC members were drawn to Manyung at Mt. Eliza. In fact, 18
members plus two visitors escaped their usual marital and domestic bliss for a weekend of socialising under
the excuse of network computing. There was a preponderance of males. Every year the East SIG figuratively
lets its hair down - not that many have a bounteous thatch - and dares to compute and redefine science and
quantum theory. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle was put to rout by Murphy's Law on the first evening.
However, I digress...
The following contains portions of a Word document salvaged from a dud hard drive rescued from the Manyung
Dumpster bin. The file contained embedded .AVI and .WAV plus assorted MP3 and other incriminating evidence.
It seems to be part of the diary of one Lord HubCap de Hallam? The dumped drive had been wiped clean
but a legal copy of a recovery program revealed all, even the Message of the Day. Small gaps due to damaged
sectors are no hindrance to a vivid imagination, so go for it!
Friday.
Ides of March. Cracked and lost half a tooth yesterday. Gum swollen. Last Tuesday, Swingem's van was a write
off after a semi-trailer nudged it. Lord Whoobee has to leave tomorrow to work an extra shift - hope the
server doesn't go down. Plenty of computer problems tonight. We've installed network cards but some computers
did not display the neighbourhood network after we'd connected everything via RJ-45 cables. Got three
switched 10x100 hubs, total of 18 ports. El Keitho is drinking red wine to quieten his angst. He's going to
flash his BIOS. Gave up on networks ... drat ... re-installed Win 98SE but still no network icons. Formatted
C and re-installed Win 98SE. Eureka ... drank 20 ml of red wine. Backed up everything yesterday, must have
been psychic. Network symbols now visible. Could not get in until I killed ZoneAlarm. El Keitho has mugged
the wine cask and now it is quietly leaking into a water dispenser. Funny how slowly wine comes through the
tap. Tastes good.
Downloading goodies from Whoobee's server. Red wine tasting better. Keitho has won at FreeCell. The bearded
nymph, Lord Lanolin, has forgotten video connection for monitor. El Tulip has a spare in his portmanteau.
Lord Weatherman has a fabulous screensaver - people still use them! This one is avant garde, mustn't
castigate him. Red wine tastes weaker; toothache quieter. He has a large rectangle moving around the
wallpaper. It's a protein site? Yup, definitely an hetero-cyclic compound as an isometric image. Changed
spectacles and read the text:
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/curecancer.html.
Anyone, anywhere with access to a personal computer, could help find a cure for cancer by giving screensaver
time from their computers to the world's largest ever computational project, which will screen 3.5 billion
molecules for cancer-fighting potential. The project is being carried out by Oxford University's Centre for
Computational Drug Discovery...
I'll be hornswoggled! Old Weatherman is helping science by using his spare processor capacity! Similar to
SETI that's searching for aliens in space. Mind you, they haven't looked at us yet. Stopped the download and
started to burn a disc. Red wine cures toothache. Keitho on a high and has flashed his BIOS. Drank his health
and we swooned over June's statistics: a 1.2 GHz CPU with 40 GB hard drive and 528 MB RAM. El Swingem
conscientiously stared at his adult pictures and tried to increase his pixels and colours. Midnight was nigh
and a DVD player launched its violence-torn images. Cars and bullets and gore kept the children amused while
the Elders perused intellectual pursuits such as Genealogy, Solitaire and Word. Snippets of conversation
melded to fantasy: "Most extraordinary building in the world is one that has only four rooms."
'Fair dinkum?'
"Each room is entered through doors 140 metres high."
'Garn!' The red wine must be affecting my hearing?
"True. It is the Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The tall doors had to accommodate
the Saturn V rockets in an upright position, and these measured 110 metres from the rocket nozzle to the
escape tower. A fully loaded Saturn V weighed more than 7,000 tons. The radioastronomy satellite, Explorer
49, had antennae that spanned more than 400 metres..."
I knew I was beaten. I thought I was an expert but this one was a professional bullduster. It was 1.00 am and
sleep beckoned. The children sat transfixed before the movie: cops and robbers morphed and digitised until
reality was suspended. The movie buffs went to dreamland at 2.00 am, just to be different. Lord Whoobee
curled up on the settee for some deep rest - he had to be up before the crack of dawn to get to work. His
three hours of sleep would see him through...
Saturday
Strange noises, taps running, showers sissing. It was nearly 8.30 am and human shapes were grazing quietly on
toast and cereals. They were exercising their palates - the only exercise they ever do with gusto! Everyone
was subdued, some barely having the strength to turn on their computers. A miraculous being drifted in
bearing a huge tray the size of a camp bed. It was laden with platters of bacon, mounds of thick-fried eggs.
These morsels tempted the delicate digestive sytems and were followed by bananas and apples and cookies. Tea
and coffee soon washed away their inhibitions. However, the server was down and Whoobee was at work.
Undismayed, the mob set about fitting new cards and equipment into their cases. Flushed with flashed BIOS
success, Keitho tamed a 40 GB hard drive. A burner was fitted into a monstrous tower owned by Lord
Norman:
"Call me triple L, please."
'Eh?'
"Just like WWW, only I'm Little Lord Liverpool!"
He has lots of memory - and will need it for his Cadkey program. He brought up one of his designs for a small
farming cherry-bin turner. "It can handle 2.5 tonnes of cherries an hour." Elevenses interrupted us,
more cookies and tea.
We'd hardly attempted the video capture card plus more memory when lunch arrived. Spaghetti bolognaise and
garlic bread, AND red wine. This upset our third re-installation of Windows ME on Weatherman's machine, and
almost hindered the backup copies of CD-ROMs. Chivalry flourished and Lady Hippie was toasted ... er, that is
she was feted by the gentlemen who went out of their way to appear human again. "What's the point of being
a woman if you don't accept help all the time?" she muttered to a dubious screensaver.
The cerebral calm was shattered by the cacophonous twittering of a huge blue hawg that had stopped just
outside the cabin windows. It was Lord Whom, known lovingly to his friends as Lord Hoon. His monstrous
motorcycle glittered with chrome, and the petrol bowser on tow revealed just how frugal it was with petrol.
Lord Whom boasted that he cleaned it easily: a good dollop of truckwash and then hose it down. What didn't
wash off ... stayed. The speakers? Took two days to dry out - at least the two front ones still worked. His
entry was spectacular: off with his helmet, into the beer fridge, and out with his laptop. He was into the
network in seconds.
Another visitor staggered in: El Stew, with his apartment sized tower and slick presentation of "How to
use Paint Shop Pro." The audience was mesmerised as he deftly cajoled his cursor into morphingly
difficult manoeuvres. Loud applause, and then the poor lad was fed with lunch's leftovers. Bonhomie increased
as Weatherman coaxed Windows ME onto his computer yet again. Lord Shame dragged off his minder, Lady Mayoree,
to an evening get together with friends in Kilsyth. He serenaded her in ASCII and quoted sonnets from Woody's
newsletter. Meanwhile, back in the cabin, small crises such as lack of beer were soon overcome as a genuinely
sober victim was despatched with cash to a nearby watering hole. The TV capture card was almost working. An
emergency gulp of red wine helped the operator in visualising the perfect receiving aerial: twin lead taped
to a cardboard cross cut from a box and tied to the support beam of the cabin. Soon be Easter. Success ran
rampant.
El Snifter the software snooper finished proof reading Lord Tulip's report for the AIGS. It had all been
written, typed in and corrected in less time than Weatherman's fourth installation of Windows ME. The AIGS
genealogical exhibition was soon to be graced by Melb PC's finest con artists . intending to sign up millions
of members and spread goodwill amongst all computers. Still no access to the network. Lord Whoobee drifted
in, eyes glazed, a sack of Coke on his back. Two nanoseconds later he had sorted out the server, finished
half a litre of Coke, and started downloading to his laptop. Cheers and tears flowed from the adulating
sycophants who watched his faster than Einstein keyboard clicks.
"You know, he often takes his laptop shopping."
"Eh, he whats?'"
"He balances it on the shopping trolley and computes as he shops!"
Soon the quiet purring of hard drives was surpassed by the entrance of the Commandant, bearing a camel train
of food called dinner.
Snags, meat pies, beetroot, rabbit food, coleslaw ... and for afters, apple crumble with sultanas and cream.
There were seconds, then thirds, and - yes - fourths. Meet the Piranha people. The evening became a vague
memory as the food and cups of tea took their toll. El Swingem snuck off to his bunk bed. El Tulip vanished,
but was heard snoring and driving the cows home. The screensaver struck 11.00 pm, but not before Weatherman
gnashed his teeth at precisely 10.51 and quoth: "Geebers, it's a flipping VIRUS!"
"You're a bloody committee member, should know better!"
It was not Windows ME at fault, after all.
A truce was drawn and the first prize was prised from the winner of the East SIG's raffle, drawn the previous
Tuesday - a set of 2000 PMP boom boxes. We needed sound to accompany the film now being DVD'd and the
audience had that look of desperation in their eyes. As Whom said, "We do need to make sure we didn't give
you a faulty prize!" The prizewinner smiled coyly to herself and continued playing Hangman. Practice
makes perfect. Midnight came nigh and sleep overcame the red wine.
Sunday
Rough night - rumblings, staccato, perhaps a dream. Awoke to the usual chompings and ribaldry. What?
Flapjacks? Sure ... pancakes with Maple syrup, lemon juice, toast, cereals. El Coalswakker even
succumbed and had a plate of last night's apple crumble to sate his borborygmic cravings. Computers on and
downloads away, today was for real. I heard that rumbling again - El Tulip was playing a cassette ... with
the sounds of a hawg coming from it. "What ist?" I queried.
"I recorded Lord Whom at 7.45 am. Silly beggar was revving his steed to wake us all up. You didn't hear
it, you were snoring the Land of Nod into oblivion! Hoon tried to ride around the cabin and knocked over the
rubbish bin!"
I listened to the tape and sure enough, I had not been dreaming. The mighty hawg was breathing 110 decibels
of bliss as it crashed into the bin.
The mad Weatherman finished his formatting and fifth re-installation of Windows ME. "By the Lord, St.
Harry!" he cried into his mousemat, "The blooming network's there and working." Grown men wept,
Lord Whom put away his beer. This was serious stuff. El Keitho went into case removal mode, repeatedly
fussing over his network card. A small MPG was run on a laptop and the title was "Bin Laden
Olympics".
A quiet and subdued creature glared at his God. Must be the power supply, too much drain on it? I've only
got a burner, reader, DVD, two hard drives, two floppies, printer, scanner, cards for network, video capture,
SCSI, USB, and ... usual story. Advice came from all quarters and a dissertation began. "Of course, you must
turn your monitor off when not in use. Now, an ATX power supply has a switch on the front of the box, but it
doesn't turn off the mains. It goes to sleep - is still supplying the five watts needed to keep it
alive, allowing functions such as wake on LAN, etc. Even if you are not connected to a LAN these
computers sit there, consuming five watts. Switch off the computer and pull the plug out of the wall when not
in use."
A pregnant silence filled the room. We had been told! Guilt feelings soon vanished and we studiously began
reading the PC Update Online Web page that an addict had stored on his bloated computer. The relief
party crashed through the door, bearing platters of cookies ... big ones, an inch thick and five across,
loaded with chocolate chips. Perhaps they would taste as good in metric sizes? It was elevenses again, and
even Web authoring had to pause while we consumed and postulated. Web what? A genealogical Web page had been
created during the last 20 hours by a novice, and it was incredible - no spelling mistakes, pictures inserted
in the correct place. "Ahum, I followed the instructions in PC Update!" We were horrified ... she
could read as well!
Lunch intervened before our stalwart cyberphiles managed to finish eating all the cookies. One or two
cyberoos had even gone for a brisk walk around the cabin or to the nearby nudist beach, just to walk off a
few calories.
"See any?"
"Nope, too cold. Better views on my D drive!"
Time to go home, nearly 1.00 pm. Everyone mucked in to leave the cabin in a spotless condition. Cars were
loaded to the gunwales with computers and software.
"Heeee....lp!"
"Hey, Lord Whoobee's got a flat battery!"
Six thousand cars drew up alongside his gleaming dirt-covered wreckmobile, jumpers were connected by Lord
Swingem, and within two formats of a hard drive the dead motor was churning out pollution. So all's well that
ends well. Members were sworn to secrecy and all agreed to cross cables at next year's get together, at a new
venue. Where? Keep reading this magazine ... eventually someone will spill the beans.
Reprinted from the May 2002 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
   |