diff options
author | Norbert Preining <norbert@preining.info> | 2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900 |
---|---|---|
committer | Norbert Preining <norbert@preining.info> | 2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900 |
commit | e0c6872cf40896c7be36b11dcc744620f10adf1d (patch) | |
tree | 60335e10d2f4354b0674ec22d7b53f0f8abee672 /usergrps/uktug/baskervi/5_2/clark.tex |
Initial commit
Diffstat (limited to 'usergrps/uktug/baskervi/5_2/clark.tex')
-rw-r--r-- | usergrps/uktug/baskervi/5_2/clark.tex | 86 |
1 files changed, 86 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/5_2/clark.tex b/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/5_2/clark.tex new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..18adad2fe0 --- /dev/null +++ b/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/5_2/clark.tex @@ -0,0 +1,86 @@ +\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? + |