Date: Sat, 21 Aug 93 15:32:31 PDT Reply-To: Return-Path: Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain From: surfpunk@osc.versant.com (obqvrf qernzf naq grpuabybtvrf) To: surfpunk@osc.versant.com (SURFPUNK Technical Journal) Subject: [surfpunk-0095] SOURCES: PERFORATIONS 5; Drum; SCREAM BABY; Legal Net News @ I've lost 10 minutes of work because of the nVIR virus @ on the copy of CricketGraph I once used. I lost one @ whole week of work (2400 minutes) helping figure out @ why Windows, Novell, and Dr Dos wouldn't work @ together. Files were lost, machines crashed, device @ drivers kept stomping one another. The problems were @ fixed in bug patches from the manufacturers. @ @ -- Karl Lui Barrus @ [from a long cypherpunks posting] You may remember, I have great respect for the Public Domain group in Atlant that publishes PERFORATIONS. Drum is new to me. I've enjoyed past issues of SCREAM BABY; the evolution of their copyright policy is a major thread, if not the raison d'etre, for the zine. Legal Net News is nicely done, and references a lot of other internet resources. -- strick ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ From: Mike Mitten From: Chea Prince CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: PERFORATIONS 5, "bodies, dreams & technologies" The word "virtual" has been the subject of such a large degree of hype that it is difficult to use the term without cringing at the trendiness of its sound, and yet, despite its status as the premier buzzword of the nineties, it continues to suggest a relationship between consciousness and electronic space that is rich and descriptive. Just beneath the term's slick corporate gloss is a leaky matrix of nested meanings that invoke key dimensions of the emerging culture of the 21st century: artificiality, simulation, representation, mimesis, prosthesis, multi-dimensionality, multiplicity, hyperness, velocity, otherness, the mechanical, the machinic, high technology, and, by extension, digitalization, fractal scaling, transpositionality, and networking. A close reading of this complex system of semiotic flows reveals a thoroughly mapped, but unstable network of faults along which the domains of the human and the machine are collapsing into each other with increasing speed. Taken together these faults constitute the "new edge" of U.S. culture where separate consciousnesses are continually merging into an ever more sexed, violent, hallucinogenic, and media-saturated conflation of mindscapes. This evolving, networked collectivity is marked by a growing obsession with the traces of the transformation of the human into the cyborg, and seems enthralled by recycled transfiguration myths often overwritten on the electronic skin of the textual/cultural body with the neon intensity of transient, kaleidoscopic tattoos. Easily distracted, the individual elements of the collective gaze hypnotically surf available information channels grabbing frames in real-time from first one, then another, of the latest technetronic updates to the new suit of animated tribal scarrings. Fixation on new and improved, bigger and better, longer-living bodies facillitates acceptance of devices first constructed as attachments to the body, then redesigned for incorporation into the body via implantation, or nerve/machine integration (e.g., artificial hearts, prosthetic limbs, hearing aids, etc.), as a welcome blurring of the boundary between humans and machines. As the boundary becomes more blurred, the domains begin to blend. It is easy to imagine a future in which implantation follows a (plastic) surgical model in which purely corrective measures become the foundation for supplemental, elective procedures. With the aid of future developments in present technologies--artificial intelligence, bio-chips, synthetic neurons, nanotechnology, artificial life-- the body's rate of absorption of the machine will only increase causing rapid advancements in cyborgization. How will these fields re-define already complicated issues of embodiment? How will cyborgization affect changes in social/cultural orientations toward real and virtual phenomena? Which is the metaphor--the body or the machine? PERFORATIONS 5, "bodies, dreams & technologies", will collect and assemble memories, stories and fantasies exploring the relationship between the human and the machine, and the impact of this relationship on the creation of present and near-future cultures. We value noise, chaos, fluxus, anarchy, dada-streams, nonhierarchalization, improvisation, conflict, discontinuity, experimentation, invention and wild speculation. (We also tolerate more reasonned presentations as long as they avoid being too priggish.) We are looking for material--drawings, photography, text, hypertext, computer graphics, animation, audio and video--that is explicitly experimental in the approach taken toward these themes. ALL SUBMITTALS SHOULD INCLUDE: the author(s) name address and phone number ADDRESS INQUIRIES AND SUBMISSIONS TO: PERFORATIONS 5 c/o Public Domain, Inc. P.O. Box 8899 Atlanta, Georgia, USA 30306-0899 NOTE: SUBMISSION MATERIALS ARE NOT RETURNABLE UNLESS ACCOMPANIED BY A SASE. CONTACT: Chea Prince 404.633.8022 Anne Balsamo 404.894.8923 Robert Cheatham 404.377.5114 or Email queries to perf5@pd.org PERFORATIONS is a publication of Public Domain, Inc., an Atlanta based non-profit arts organization. Partial funding of PERFORATIONS is provided by the Fulton County Arts Council, corporate and individual sponsors. ________________________________________________________________________ To: surfpunk@versant.com (Squiggle Rot Thirteen ;) From: Justin Mason Subject: Scream Baby -- The Hum Drum Issue Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 17:23:42 BST In case you don't know, Scream Baby is the output of one BladeX, based somewhere in Texas. I think a few SB backissues are to be found in the eff.org gopher area; they're very intermittent, but they're very cool stuff, one of the best e-zines on this here net... just hard to get. Check out the licensing! -- justin. [forwarded from FringeWare -- see below for sub details] From: dh644@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (R. Patrick Jones) Subject: Drum. Volume 1. Number 1. Date: 22 May 1993 18:33:11 GMT ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| || |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||| ||| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||| |||| | || || | || |||||||| |||| |||| || || || |||| |||| || || ||||||| |||| |||| || |||||| |||| |||| || || ||||||| |||| ||| ||| |||||| |||| |||| || || ||||||| |||| ||| |||| |||||| |||| |||| || || || || || ||||| ||||| | | | | || ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| =Drum= D we're talking about transfor- edited by rpj R mation here, the line by line grafik concept st. witch U by edit endless unrepentant online translation doomboy M charge up and out through the d self to society becoming as special thanks: hipriestess - r large as society and enacting a asexual guru of love - john b. u physiochemicalspiritual change - brunette dreamr - kozmik tryb m so cataclysmic that it ruptures - disciples of RAM - books & D all the old organs out and co. - peirce & barb - doomboy - R regenerates raging. m.t. capone - U M our generation was raised with xtra peace 2:: eris - yvonne s. d icons of bugs bunny, speed - t. macneeley - annye camara r racer, battle of the planets (dreams into action) - my folks u and now in our early twenties a - mr. gabbard - judy y. - m presentation of a technological D myth that touches the very core xtra props: william lee - brain R of our spirit. within an age cell possee - nova mob - pax to U where warfare is fought through all! M the stamping over of under- d developed countries; whipped up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . r into a jihad fever to take oil, u the lifeblood of our mechanical m society. or perhaps warfare as feature "acid house" music and D the assumption that there on has been growing in europe ( R truly are no rules. planting the united kingdom) and in some U bombs in baby carriages; in called "rave" features synthesi M international flights, assuming also been very popular in the g d that anyone who doesn't take a number of years after its intro r side is expendable, that there substance. it became illegal w u are no innocents left in the that it caused permanent damage m world & that the object is to research has failed to support D become terrifying technological illegal, and strange stories ci R specters hiding out and using causes the spinal cord to lique U the same guerrilla tactics that stories, but both mda and mdma M the viet cong used. the same some people snort them or (rare d tactics the revolutionary intensifying their action and p r americans used in their war of drugs with alcohol or other dep u independence. lity or adverse effects. as se m the pleasure of touching, but t D if revolution engenders the with orgasm in both men and wom R emergence of a force that is have been reported; they resemb U more repressive than the almost identical to serotonin, M previous then it's that force different hallucinogenic state d elemental that can't be in ayahuasca, where it is combi r destroyed. which leaves one to make the dmt orally active. in u conclude that this destruction injected or smoked to manifest m of rule is impossible. within seconds, and the trip la D dose. one distinctive characte R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tendency to produce visions of U terence mckenna has written and M TOWARD THE INFINITE . . . .* ordinary phenomenology of the d d + .. .* . reports we have had from others r .. . . + . .. .. . + "elf" contacts. mckenna was al u + .... . .. + . :. : he called "visible language," o m .... + . : ... colored modalities that have li D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . U once looped she could use them. M surprisingly beautiful; the mel 10111001101.\ .| / 01011010000 d being into hybrid instruments. 001011000000.\.| /.001111110111 r the presence an underground str 0110010000111... 1011110100111 u 110000000111 / | \.100000100111 m know that the seven spheres mus 10100110000 / | .\.00101101001 D their seasons, one at a time, a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R know that the four beasts of th U iniate, each in their own time =NOTES TOWARD A MANIFESTO= M ever to rise to the stars, and d then a new age will come of ear the fact that technology is r whole, and the waters will be a here should never in any way u not been named. remember to pr limit our soul and spirit. we m the family. the elder sign and have within our grasp the D watcher too if they be slow. a seedlings of machinations that R that time, for the blood will b can alter the future of the U and will call them. beware of homo sapiens. we must coalesce M cult of the dog, the cult of th our apocalyptic surroundings d they are worshippers of the anc into a unified myth to rescript r in for they have a formula of w this rape of our souls. we u these cults are not strong, sav have been molested not by m open up to them and unto their technology but by the mentality D behind it, which offers nothing R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . but a narrow faddish view of U our consumed selves. we have M Rearrange these six matchsticks been bred to be perfect para- d to make "nothing." No match- sites, cogs in a machine that r sticks may be bent, broken or gave us the persian gulf, h- u placed over each other. bombs, vietnam, a.i.d.s., m george bush, holes in the ozone D o o o o o o & on & on ad nauseam. R | | | | | | U | | | | | | majik is the act of manipu- M | | | | | | lating media, to wrap words, d images, sounds, lectures & tv r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . into a whirlwind. to defeat u the "rational" mind and teach m mescaline was isolated from pey and re-educate humanity's D only naturally occurring psyche collective unconscious. to R related drugs. throughout the re-introduce ritual, to show U philosophers, and psychologists the path of urban shamanism or M but there was no general demand techno-paganism, to perform the d adrenaline a few artists with Great Work. r revolution of the 1960s. then u appear. however, since the dru each piece, each artistic m many dealers sold lsd as mescal endeavor is a spell which D needlelike white crystals; half presents another petition, R drug may cause initial nausea, another suit to mother nuit for U its effects last up to twelve h a healing flood and a doorway M the whole cactus. once again to angels & demons. d to once again unify our minds r mdma (methylenedioxymethampheta within our bodies, to transmute u a new drug, mdma (usually calle the concept of being human into m mdm, and adam), gives the same a glorious being filled with D hours instead of ten to twelve. light. R action, it is gentler on the bo U by mouth in reasonable doses (1 and to bring a final fuckin' M mdma rarely causes bad trips. end to "civil"ization as we d an enhancer of empathy between know it in seducing the goddess r counseling. in other circles i to come back home. u reputation as a party drug, bei m "the price we pay for obtaining D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . information is scrambling up R the world somewhere.... in our U . . . study of statistical mechanics M . . we learned it is not possible d . . . to obtain information without r . . . . . . increasing entropy" [cosmic u . .. code] m . . . . . D . it is accepted that 90% of our R . . . . .. . .. . . . . perceptions come via sight. we U . . . seek visual overload to disrupt M . . . . . .. that. information is the d . . . . . . subatomic particle of our r . . . . . perception- seek constructs u . . . . . that divorce perceptions from m . . . . actualities thereby making D . . . . . .. divination easier to be R . . . . . . . realized- our thinking patterns U . . . are chemical and the specters M . . . of "moral decency" & self d . appointed vanguards of r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "reality" limit our chemical u m processes via laws and "common . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D sense" doctrines- 20th century R humyns are stunted in their produces the most profoundly U mythmaking abilities due to dmt is the active ingredient M these empirical constructs h beta-carboline alkaloids to d which having done away with ynthetic form, dmt must be r classical deities are left to ects. when smoked, it comes on u make potholes of language or 4-30 minutes, depending on m reside in the arms of 18th and of the tryptamines is their D 19th century morality- one is unters with hon-human entities. R not allowed visions per se- extensively on the extraord- U as sark says in [inspiration rience. our experiences, plus M sandwich], "have wild imagin- porate mckenna's descriptions d ings" which means see elvis in first to report on a phenomenon r your revco if you like only e puts it, "three-dimensional u convince @ least 2 others that c content" m you did. D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . U THIS YOUR SPACE- Leave notes, p M oems, xcetera, send on to others- Drum. is not an isolate d d event but an ongoing process. r u "Slide your longhorn between these m towers and pump up a guyser of joy D juice! Ya-hoo buckaroo!" R U -- ad copy for "Texas Towers" M Private Entertainment mailing babybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybaby babybaby yba aby byba abyb byba babybaby babybaby bybabyba babybaby byb yba babybaby byb yba ba ba babybaby babybaby yba babybaby yba aby yba ba ba babybaby babybabybabyb yba babybaby byb yba babybaby byb yba ba ba babybaby babybaby yba aby byb yba aby byb yba ba ba babybaby babybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybaby The Hum-Drum Issue __________________________________________________________________________ | | | Cyberlicious | Editor : Blade X | "Did you know that wixer | | No more PO BoX! | bladex@wixer.bga.com | is German slang for a | | No more BBS! | Neo-Wobblie Node # 269 | penis?" -- Pacoid | |__________________________________________________________________________| "With the advent of digital writing and digital text reproduction, will literature -- and the culture based on respectful care for the word -- be eroded?" Michael Heim, p. 3, "Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing", 1987. SCREAM BABY POLICIES "Some people just don't get it" DISTRIBUTION : Permission is granted to freely re-distribute this publication via digital means. You are allowed to, but not limited to, forwarding copies to your cyber-buddies; posting to newsgroups, message bases and mailing lists; making available for file transfer on ftp sites and BBSs; and, the SPA, you can even copy that floppy. No registration or shareware fees or any other charges by Cyberlicious will apply to issues distributed in this fashion. However, the license to create hard copy print-outs remains restricted. Despite my previous protests, objections, and explicit denial of permission, many have confessed to printing hard copy versions. So, recognizing the indaubtable will of the people, I am amending the restrictions......again. <*sigh*> You may print hard copies of each issue of Scream Baby, if and *ONLY* if an annual donation of $5 (or more) is made to an organization that plants trees in your communites. In Austin, I endorse Tree Folks / 1710 Eva St. / Austin, TX 78704. You may send money here, if there is no similar organization in your community. A suitable substitute would be an organization which buys plots of South American rain forests in order to create a preserve. Nothing else qualifies. Donations to the charity-of-your-choice do not count, nor do they negate you of your responsibilities under this legally binding contract. Just because I don't have any way of checking doesn't mean that the God-of-your-choice ain't watching. Contributions to Whale Watcher's Quarterly don't count either, no matter how cute you think those dorsal fins look. The only reason I mention them is to inform you that my cat Mao Tse-Teung, is now a fierce protector of a large humpback whale named Fringe. I told Mao this was ok, as long as Fringe didn't come to visit. We have the certificate suitable for framing on our refrigerator door, for those who don't believe. SUBSCRIPTIONS A subscription mailing list is available, so that readers may get copies delivered *directly* to their e-mail box. To be added to the mailing list, answer this essay question, "What does the post-cyberpunk scene look like?" Send answers (<20,000 words) to bladex@wixer.bga.com. * * * "The point about technology is that it has to be a function of some imaginative life, otherwise it's just a tool, only a tool. Some of the most boring people on the face of the earth are the people obsessed with technology, the computer obsessive who wants to tell you what his computer can do but doesn't really want to tell you what he can do with his computer" -- Clive Barker interview, May 1993 issue of Sin Magazine * * * An idea I've been kicking around is offering advice, tips, hints, and maybe eventually a FAQ for those who write, publish, and produce e-zinesters. Become an advocate for the scene, help people out, etc. etc. Perhaps people can even learn from my mistakes, and avoid repeating them. TIPS for WANNA-BE E-zinesters One of the first mistakes I made was that I started writing and collecting material to be published in the first issue of Scream N *me*me. What I should have done was write and collect material to be placed in the *announcement*. I.e. "Hey, I'm starting a way new cool e-zine that's better than the rest of this Internet slag heap; send me submissions". But no, I wasted my time actually doing stuff instead of just talking about it. The inexperience of youth, I guess. Some of you are now thinking, hey, I'd like to write an e-zine, but what should I write about? Fret no more, here are some ideas/titles that you are free to use! "Music That No One Else But Me Listens To" "I Hate Camille" (Paglia) [ala BID's I Hate Brenda newsletter] "The Baroque Aesthetics of Mexican-American low-rider artmobiles" "Hackers v. Crackers" -- the raging debate continues "1001 Ways to Kill Rush Limbaugh" "Why Everyone Else on the Internet Sucks" "How to Make Big $$$$$ Exploiting the Internet" Uh oh, that last one has just triggered a side rant, involving the issue of privatizing the Internet. The future of the internet is "money talks". Corporations and governments rule the world. So to all the stuck pigs, whining crybabies, and academics accustomed to a lifestyle sponsored by federal subsidy.........get a grip. The thing that grates me most is this holy glorification of the net as some vital educational tool that will save us from America's downward slide into ignorance, decadence, and decay. I don't know if the phrase "signal-to-noise ratio" means anything. I'm not quite sure which corner of cyberspace these people have been hanging out on. But from what I can tell, most people who use the Internet are JUST FUCKING AROUND! Oh well, enough ediborial. For now. * * * C: Are techno-nerds like cyber-punks? B: Yeah, but aren't cyber-punks supposed to be cool? C: In a geeky, Elvis Costello kinda way. "Interview in Seattle" Chris Estey and Bob Black p. 230 _Friendly Fire_ * * * FCGSSZ files Frequently Claimed Gonna-Subscribe-Someday Zines Ad Busters Quarterly Ben Is Dead Boing-Boing Details (so sue me) Fact Sheet Five Gray Areas Mondo 2000 SF Eye Sin (no, this one I'm *really* gonna subscribe to someday) Wired Your Flesh * * * An issue of Scream Baby wouldn't be complete without some reviews. These get the SBSOA (Scream Baby Seal Of Approval) RESERVOIR DOGS -- best fucking movie....*ever*. Walked around like a tough guy for 12 minutes going, fuck you, ya looking at me? yeah fuck you, too. what, ya wanna piece of me? yeah fuck you. That the film demands such intense and active participation by the viewer that you *actually* become a cheap, yet professional, hit man. The film's most violent scenes occur off-screen. For example, what Mr. Blonde did in the jewelry store is never shown, but is created in your own mind based on the other characters reactions. What would make professional criminals coil in such disgust? *Bam* *Bam* *Bam* He's a fucking psychopath. Fuck you. Where can I get one of those suits? FRINGEWARE REVIEW -- One of my previous experiments was a WWIV message base called the Cyberspace News Network, a collection of original texts as well as documents appropriated from the Internet. Information was mainly about the cyberscene, i.e., all that Mondo and Wired stuff. Far as I'm concerned, the Fringeware mailing list is the Cyberspace News Network of the cyberscene. Besides keeping me informed of what's going on, and how I can participate in this that or the other, Don Webb, regular contributor, is simply the *weirdest*, hippest thing I've seen in a while. The guy ain't from this planet. Subscribe now, fringeware-request@wixer.bga.com. [I've said that last issue, so what ya waiting for, special engraved invitation?] I was going to write all about the physical you can touch paper catalog, but then remembered that I promised Paco an article for this issue and then never turned it in. I better go start now. * * * "The main things holding people back from doing amazing and interesting things are lack of imagination and unjustifiable fear of authority figures or of the opinions of other people. Realizing that most authority figures and most other people really don't give a shit about you or what you do blesses you with the freedom to do whatever you have the courage to do." -- John Trubee, p.28 of the Summer 1993 Gray Areas d r u m So it's like I saw the Drum e-zi D already experimented with my ver R liked it enough to be able to st U Rather than slag something I don M I do. Does that make me weird? d now? Andy Hawks....wish ya the r crashed. Want all my cyberbuddi u bladex@wixer.bga.com. m D R U M d r u m D R U M d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . r u coming soon- --- --- m letters from you --- --- D more rants --- --- R ht mak bathtub napalm ------- U --- --- M RPJ/-ka- ------- ________________________________________________________________________ To: strick@versant.com From: Mail Server Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:23:59 CST6CDT Subject: Subscription information [ the LNN lists *lots* of other legal elists and sources. --strick ] Thanks for subscribibg to Legal Net News. Legal Net Newsletter is dedicated to providing information on the legal issues of computing and networking in the 1990's and into the future. LNN is compiled and released approximately once every two to three weeks. How to get it- To subscribe, send a message to , with the following text in the body of the message: SUBSCRIBE LNN To unsubscribe send the message text: UNSUBSCRIBE LNN Or subsitute "UNSUB LNN" or "SIGNOFF LNN" instead of "UNSUBSCRIBE, if you like. The mail server has no facility for requesting help at this time, however, when you join the list you will be sent a "WELCOME" message describing Legal Net News in more detail, i.e. what Legal Net News is about, and how to handle unsubscribing from the list. Please send any admin mail (problems with the mailserver, etc.) to: postmaster@tstc.edu Back issues of Legal Net News can be obtained by anonymous FTP at: tstc.edu (161.109.128.2) Directory: /pub/legal-net-news An index file, containing a list of Legal Net News files and their contents, is availble on the FTP server as LNN.NDX. The information contained in this Legal Net Newsletter is not to be misconstrued as a bona fide legal document, nor is it to be taken as an advocacy forum for topics discussed and presented therein. "Legal Net News", "Legal Net Newsletter" and the Legal Net News logo are Copyright (c) 1993 Paul Ferguson -- All rights reserved. Legal Net Newsletter may be freely copied and distributed in its entirety. Legal Net News can be found at the following locations: Publicly Accessible BBS's ------------------------- The SENTRY Net BBS Arlington Software Exchange Centreville, Virginia USA Arlington, Virginia USA +1-703-815-3244 +1-703-532-7143 To 9,600 bps To 14,400 bps The Internet ------------ tstc.edu (161.109.128.2) Directory: /pub/legal-net-news Login as ANONYMOUS and use your net ID (for example: fergp@sytex.com) as the password. Or send e-mail to postmaster@tstc.edu E-mail submissions, comments and editorials to: fergp@sytex.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ The SURFPUNK Technical Journal is a dangerous multinational hacker zine originating near BARRNET in the fashionable western arm of the northern California matrix. Quantum Californians appear in one of two states, spin surf or spin punk. Undetected, we are both, or might be neither. ________________________________________________________________________ Send postings to , subscription requests to . WWW Archive at ``http://www.acns.nwu.edu/surfpunk/''. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ one of the things i had wanted to do in the beginning was for SURPUNK to merely "index" other lists ... to hyperlink and crossreference other articles. WWW and GOPHER do that with varying degrees of success, but with the diverse SURFPUNK subscribers that isn't possible via email (yet). MIME has the potential to help, but again, the SURFPUNK readership in general doesn't have MIME or the ability to ftp an External-Body block. here Andy Hawks speaks of the problem I had hoped SURFPUNK would help to solve, instead of make worse ;-) -- strick Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 11:49:30 -0600 From: andy Subject: Re: sub ezines futurec To: Multiple recipients of list FUTUREC [...excerpt...] - the idea of metalists needs to be explored more...a big bitch-n-moan i've had with the net lately (as i continue to spend less and less time on the piece of s---) is the now-dominating (in my mind anyway) "dung pile" atmosphere....a lot of newsgroups, elists, gopher and ftp sites seem to overlap mroe and more than i've ever noticed in the past, it never seems to stop....people keep spreading the same shit all over the place... here's a typical example....: a CFP related to cyber-research gets posted to alt.cyberpunk, sci.vorld [new meme, virtual world], mabe comp.org.eff.talk and some other places...so, Joan average FCer reads the same post maybe 6 times, conceivably, in the same day...so then Joan goes to reads er email and finds that three people have forwarded the post to fc: "i saw this on alt.cp.." "snagged this off sci.vorlds" "grepped through alt.soc.futures and found this"... now Joan has seen it 9 times...so then Joan goes to gopher for similar stuph, and encounters thirty entries for it, some on ftp.... now Joan decides to go over to the WELL and MindVox, and finds the post has made it's way over there in a few different places on each site... Joan reads the rest of her email -- in her private box, ehr friend Bob sent her a copy: "thought you might wanna see this"...she finds it's made it to a Fringeware post, a Surfpunks post, maybe a library list or two.... i know this is a core aspect of the net, decentralized spread of information, but I think there's a big difference between decentralized spread (kinda reminds me of "i can't believe it's not butter" for some reason =) and and spreading too far, wide, and thin... this is the wrong direction to venture into, imho. i don't know why it happens - i could easily guess it's jsut an outcome or extension of too-subjective environments is what it comes down to in the end...it seems to me people feel they're filling a hole with information, but they're not - they're filling a pile. if you've seen it once, the hole is filled...if you've seen it twice, you've built a pile.... now if you take a decentralized atmosphere and try and combine it all together to make a central location for disseminating information (like having all these zines on the fc list), you're jsut piling shit on top of shit. if only information were a true commodity...... then this wouldn't be a problem in our self-oriented world ..... i really do worry about the possible end results of the meta-* and surf-* approaches to e-information. I think Surfpunks was, for some/most of us, initially viewed as like this harmless neat e-zine... but, i dunno now....it's dangerous...and a lot of e-punks and info-punks see that word and cheer, which i think is ignorant... surfpunks is groovy and all...but... here's a pretty easy analogy....there's a 7-11 on every street corner....what in the fucking good is building a mega-7-11 in the middle of iowa, kansas, colorado, whatever? it's useless, so why waste resources on building that mega-7-11 when you could use them to build a regular 7-11 in africa, or wherever else there isn't one where people want one... [...excerpt...] _______._.__._.... . . . . . . ..._.__.____.... . .andy.