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authorNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
committerNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
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+\title{Malcolm's Gleanings}
+\author{Malcolm Clark}
+\begin{Article}
+\section{Spivaking anyone?}
+
+Cybernauts will be familiar with LambdaMOO, one of the information
+superhighway's more recherche laybys. For those with both feet in
+reality, a MOO is an object oriented MUD, and a MUD used to be a
+multi-user dungeon, but has achieved respectibility by becoming a
+dimension or discussion (depending on whose acronym cracker you
+use). When it was a MUD it was just an on-line game for propellor
+heads (usually male, usually adolescent), without the benefit of
+graphics. Just a text based dungeon and dragons game. The sort of
+thing your average \TeX\ head would enjoy. In its new incarnation it
+has become a useful conferencing tool (as well as a virtual world for
+role players). Xerox PARC (the guys who brought you the first usable
+graphic user interface while the Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, were still
+cadging chips from Mr Hewlett and Mr Packard) is the home of the
+LambdaMOO, where you can register to have your own room which you
+organise as you wish and to which you may invite whomever, or maybe
+even whatever, you choose. A plausible version of what this might
+become is contained in Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk novel `Snow Crash'.
+What has this to do with the world of \TeX, apart from its similar
+single-mindedness? Just that `to spivak' is a way of describing one
+sort of role-playing. More research needs to be done to establish the
+full implication of this. A prize for the first entertaining (if
+inaccurate) definition: LambdaMOO may be found at the URL:
+\texttt{telnet://lambda.parc.xerox.com:8888} (that's enough to separate
+the kids from the lambs).
+
+\section{Stability or statis}
+
+The latest round of `corrections' to the \TeX\ suite has just been
+released by Donald Knuth. It includes adjustments to \TeX, Metafont
+and the Computer Modern fonts. The bumper cheques (top amount this
+time, \$327.68) went to the legendary (if elusive) Chris Thompson and
+Bogus\l aw Jackowski. This takes \TeX\ to version 3.14159, and
+Metafont to 2.718. The announcement was accompanied by the statement
+that the next and successive rounds would occur in February ``1998,
+2002, 2007, etc!''. In line with all best laid plans, no sooner had
+the toner on my laser printer fused than another bug was found and
+corrected. The numbers remain the same though.
+
+\section{\TUB}
+
+\TUB\ has arrived. At least, volume 15, number 3, the conference
+edition has made it to our shores (coincidentally at the same time as
+it turned up in Santa Barbara). It's a reasonably thick compendium,
+despite omitting a few of the papers which were presented. The
+omissions are either because the articles were very similar to already
+published material (like Rowley \& Mittelbach, and Bigelow), or
+because it will appear in a future issue (like Hosek, Haralambous, and
+Laugier \& Haralambous), or, rather oddly and without explanation,
+withdrawl (Haralambous). It's better and more cohesive than I remember
+at the conference. The major innovation is the inclusion of several
+pages in colour, appropriate at a meeting where so much attention was
+directed at the use of colour. In contrast to the edition of Cahiers
+GUTenberg which used colour integrated with the text, all the colour
+examples are included in an Appendix. Many of the new extensions to
+\LaTeX\ reflect or anticipate the widespread adoption of colour. This
+volume may be a timely summary of many of the issues and
+consequences. But there is much else there.
+
+\section{A few last words}
+I continue to be surprised by the attention that this column
+attracts. In my view it is a filler which helps the editor to pad out
+a few columns and the only balance it achieves is purely in those
+column terms. It is not to be taken seriously.
+%To do so would be sad
+%evidence of naivety and an inability to separate wheat and chaff. But
+%one of the consistent sadnesses of the \TeX\ world are those who take
+%themselves all too seriously.
+\end{Article}
+\endinput
+\section{More arcana}
+
+It has never been made especially clear whether the AMS actually did
+take the step of protecting the \TeX\ logo, although Addison Wesley
+certainly do claim to have done so for Metafont. As far as the best
+informed can say, the trademark office in the US rejected the
+registration attempt, in part because of the confusion which might
+have occured between \TeX\ and TEX, a now forgotton Honeywell text
+editor. On the other hand, Richard Kinch has registered True\TeX. At
+this late date, and with \TeX's place in the world assured it's
+probably past worrying about, isn't it?
+