---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 16:03:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Erich Schulman (KTN4CA) Team OS/2 <acme_at_use.usit.net>
To: Sonic Post <sonic_at_lists.mv.net>
Subject: I've returned ...
... to what?!
When it rains, it pours. First, I am forced to move to a new apartment
with little notice. Then my computer is damaged in the move and I had to
get a new motherboard. Then my video card's ROM chip is found to be
dead, so it's new video card time. All shipped expensively overnight.
And now that I've rejoined the net, I come home to 700 waiting messages
and the shock of discovering that the list is being dissolved. After
informing Ratman by voice of my equipment problems, the last thing I
expected was to come back to nothing.
You are not going to see me very much in the a.f.s-h newsgroup. This is
because posts from pine on this provider rarely get out, and my US
Internet either doesn't know how to fix nn (it's been broken 11 months)
or they refuse to. As for #sonic, IRC has proven to be more grief than I
can deal with so I'm deleting mIRC and giving up. I will probably ask
Alexei on FurToonia if I can have a second character in case anyone wants
to correspond with me that way; very few people know who my present FT
character is and I intend to keep it that way. I will keep my
acme_at_use.usit.net address until and if a better ISP that offers shell
access opens in my community.
Though I cannot achieve the level of automation possible with majordomo,
it is possible for me to run a replacement list on this account. I have
enough knowledge of pine and shell scripts to make this reasonably
practical. I also have a friend on FurToonia whose provider offers
mailing lists; I don't know what their fees are. Some long-time members
of this list may recall that my original intention was to run this list
off my Delphi account, with the aid of software I would write myself. I
am no longer on Delphi, but I still can write software, and writing shell
scripts to use with pine is a better solution than trying to write a
dedicated mailing list manager for my own PC.
I can port the Merchandise List to my personal Webspace without much
difficulty, but there is no possibility I can offer even 10% of all the
files now stored on rat.org in this way. At least I had downloaded a lot
of them while I had the chance. I've also maintained my own list
archives since Day 1.
Over its 16 month life, I've seen this list through good times and bad:
from the hard work and dedication of our faq-dd keeper (Dan Drazen) to
the ill-will of a bitter netizen who never did subscribe (name
intentionally omitted), from Archie Comics and Sega establishing their
presence on the list to dealing with 2 mailbombing threats :(, and from
our first story posting and the spawning of Bookshire's page to dealing
with our first and only net.spam attack.
And to Ratman, I owe a great debt of gratitude, and not just for no-cost
use of the majordomo server, a shell account, and ftp site, but also for
those things you can't place price tags on: experience in people
administration and management, a taste of the day to day grit you deal
with on the "supply" side of an information system, a reason to read RFC
821 (g), and a small yet permanent part of Internet history. I even owe
the creation of my FurToonia character to the encouragement of one-time
list member Craig Moore and list member Alessandro Sanasi.
I don't know how many tens of on and offline hours I have put into this list
since its planning stages in January 1995. Losing this will be more
burden than relief, for I have lost not just a job but a part of myself --
the part fueling 1.5 lines of my .signature. I am deeply disappointed
this is all coming to an end so soon and so suddenly -- and that I had to
find out the way that I did.
Though we didn't always see eye-to-eye on administrative and technical
issues (and certainly not on operating systems (g)), Ratman is a fine man
to work for, and I knew I could always count on him to help whenever I
was in over my head. It is absolutely no understatement or exaggeration
that he has helped me more for free than US Internet's help desk has for
fee. Though I may be several years his senior (and maybe the #2 or #3
oldest on the list), his knowledge and experience outpace mine by such
leaps and bounds I am left not worthy to touch his floppy disks. Without
reservation, I wish Ratman and Scratchwood all the best personally and
professionally as we go our seperate ways.
Finally, to all present and former subscribers, thank you for helping
make the Sonic list a success. We certainly could not have been the
group we were without you.
Erich Schulman (KTN4CA)
Member of Team OS/2
Manager, "Sonic the Hedgehog" mailing list [02/95-06/96]
Erich Schulman (KTN4CA) [Team OS/2] A net.freedom-fighter for Mobius!
"Freedom Fighters are #1!" -- Sonic the Hedgehog
StH JJ1 Son+ Sal++ Tal++++t Nic+i Rot+i Lup+ P++ Dopw $+++ E25 Ay68
Mail: acme_at_use.usit.net | WWW: temporarily unavailable
Received on Wed Jun 05 1996 - 18:16:28 PDT