Chaos Corner V03 N04 30 June 1993

Copyright 1993 by Robert D. Cowles; Ithaca, NY 14850.  Permission is
hereby granted to republish complete issues in unaltered form.
Republication of partial issues must reference the source and state
that subscriptions to Chaos Corner are available (free) by sending
electronic mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.

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OS/2 2.1

Well, it looks like IBM managed to learn something about marketing in
the past year since shipping OS/2 2.0.  It took us almost a month to
get the 2.0 release after it became available ... 2.1 arrived exactly
on June 14, the "official" date for general availability.  Except for
a few minor glitches (IBM has already distributed patches for several
of the problems ... the patches are available on well-known Internet
sites as well as CompuServe and the IBM OS/2 Support BBS) the system
appears to be very solid ... running applications like Word for
Windows in a window with only the color of the mouse pointer to
indicate if you are running a Windows application (white pointer) or
an OS/2 application (black pointer).  David Bolen's freeware slip code
still works wonders in providing fast and easy connection to our Annex
terminal servers.  As an example, I was just able to ftp a 200K
compressed (zip) binary file from a machine on the Internet to the
home machine in less than 140 seconds -- better than 1400 characters
per second!  Dr Chaos points out that it doesn't make file transfers
any faster, it just increases the number of files that you're willing
to wait on --- it still takes nearly 30 minutes to transfer the
equivalent of a high-density floppy disk. (Did you ever calculate the
bandwidth of your shirtpocket?)

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Jurassic Park, the movie

Dr. Chaos had me go to the movie several times, just because he was so
enamored with the character of the mathematician who was an expert in
chaos theory.  Aside from the special effects (the chase scene through
the kitchen is especially good), the scene in the control room was the
last straw as the girl was stroking the mouse over the mouse pad in an
attempt to locate the correct file.  We immediately went out and
replaced our rodents with trackballs (you never know when a raptor is
going to look in your window).  Last but not least, the flight of
pelicans at the end of the movie is a beautiful tribute to a majestic
bird (at least, we here in Chaos Corner think so).

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X-based program for new German Postal Codes

The new German Postal Codes (Postleitzahlen) go into effect tomorrow,
1. Juli.  For those wanting a free X-windows based utility to search
the database (available online, of course) can retrieve xplz 3.1 from
ftp.germany.eu.net in the file /pub/X11/misc/xplz/xplz-3.3.tar.gz (as
of 28. Juni).  (Was ist 'gz', .... ganz Z?).

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Fermat's Last Theorem

The big news is that someone has finally figured out a proof for
Fermat's Last Theorem (the one where he said the margin of the book
was too small to record it).  In response to the news, Jamie Kline at
Simon Fraser University posted the following quote:

     "If I could come back after five hundred years and find
     that the Riemann hypothesis or Fermat's last 'theorem' was
     proved, I would be disappointed, because I would be pretty
     sure, in view of the history of attempts to prove these
     conjectures, that an enormous amount of time had been spent
     on proving theorems that are unimportant to the life of man."

-- Morris Kline, from an interview in _Mathematical People_
   (eds. Donald J. Albers and G. L. Alexanderson, Contemporary, 1985.)

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Legal News -- Windows browser for the Net

Since necessity is the mother of invention, where else would you
expect a Microsoft Windows Network browser to be implemented than at
the Cornell Law School.  Here is a slightly edited version of the
original beta announcement:

  This is an announcement of the Beta Release of Cello, a multipurpose
  Net browser for Microsoft Windows 3.1

  Features:

  --WWW(HTTP/HTML) browser, with user-configurable colors
    and fonts.
  --Full-featured Gopher (though unfortunately not yet Gopher+)
    client, including a hyper-ized CSO which permits (sorta dumb)
    SMTP mailing.
  --Transparent access (via WWW) to FTP, HyTelNet, Telnet, etc.
    etc. ad infinitum.
  --Graphics and PostScript viewing and sound playing via
    MSWindows Associations...feature, using add-on, shareware
    viewers such as SNDTOOL, GV057, and the Windows version of
    GhostScript.
  --Ad-hoc Telnet, FTP, and Gopher sessions.
  --SLIP/PPP support with dialup scripting language.
  --Supports wide range of LAN configurations via Distinct
    TCP/IP runtime stack.

  --Hardware:
    Cello needs a Windows 3.1-capable machine with enhanced mode
    and (preferably) swapping enabled.  It is hungry for extended RAM.

  --Software:
    Cello depends (for now; we're working on a Winsock version) on the
    Distinct TCP/IP runtime stack.  The LII has licensed the use of a
    runtime of this software for use by US academic institutions
    for a period of one year, starting June 1, after which we will
    renegotiate the license.  All non-USA-academic users are strongly
    urged to contact Distinct directly at mktg.distinct.com.

  --How to get it:

    FTP to fatty.law.cornell.edu, the /pub/LII/Cello subdirectory.
    The distribution is in multiple files.  At a minimum, you will
    need:

    README.1ST,    which contains unpacking instructions.
    CELLO.ZIP,     which contains the executable and Help application
    DIS.ZIP,       which contains the runtime stack.

It is requested that you get the optional packages like VIEWERS.ZIP
and GSWIN.ZIP from other ftp sites (like ftp.cica.indiana.edu or
oak.oakland.edu) to keep the load down on fatty. (GSWIN.ZIP is over
2MB ... you are going to need a LOT of free space to play around with
this stuff, especially when you get started with sound files).

  Installation is performed by following the instructions in
  README.1ST, then using the online help.  Additional support is
  available from a listserv list called appropriately enough CELLO-L.
  To subscribe, send a message to listserv@fatty.law.cornell.edu with
  the one-liner:

         sub cello-l your full name

  in the body of the message.  cello-l is watched by the developer and
  by a few folks who graciously assisted in alpha testing and who
  know more about the software's treacherous behavior than its
  author; the listowner is Will Sadler at Indiana University Law
  School
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Mailbag - Antarctica

Thanks to Greg Earle, Christian Smith (aka Blackplague), David Camp
and Nick Gimbrone who responded to the query about Antarctica being on
the net.  It appears that the research installation at McMurdo Sound
at least has  electronic mail access routed through New Zealand.

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Mailbag - Access to US Government Information

Joe Ahlgren (author of GeoClock -- thanks for sending me the new
version, Joe) says there is a BBS at 703-321-8020 named FedWorld in
the Washington DC metro area that has the White House info mentioned
in V03N03.  Anyone know if FedWorld is accessible on the Internet?
Joe is teaming up with CNN to produce a product like GeoClock (look
for WorldClock in a store nearby) ... he's still waiting for the
invitation to the party with Jane Fonda.

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Everything you wanted to know about Gopher

The latest Gopher Guide, a revised version from June 15, is now
available for anonymous ftp from the source of gopher things ...
boombox.micro,umn.edu.  Look for the file GopherGuide_Jun15b.ps in the
/pub/gopher/docs directory.  It's over a megabyte in length, so make
sure you have plenty of room on your disk (and lots of paper in your
printer).

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Object Oriented Database results

Mike Carey, David DeWitt and Jeff Naughton at the University of
Wisconsin have developed a set of benchmarks for Object Oriented
Database systems.  They reported the results of running a number of
the benchmarks at the 1993 SIGMOD conference, but you can get copies
of the paper presented at the conference (in PostScript form) and an
expanded version that contains more information from more tests.  This
information is from the README file in the OO7 (that's uppercase oh-
oh-seven, not zero-zero-seven) directory on ftp.cs.wisc.edu:

  1) sigmod.ps - the postscript file corresponding to the OO7 paper
     that will appear at the 1993 SIGMOD conference.

  2) implementations - directory containing implementations of the OO7
     benchmark for E/Exodus, Objectivity, Ontos and ODI.  An O2
     implementation is in the works.   The implementations directory
     contains tar files for the four systems.

  3) techreport.ps - a postscript file that is the "full version" of
     the sigmod paper.  This is an expanded version of the sigmod
     paper with some more tests and a more thorough description of the
     benchmark and its motivation.

Dr. Chaos points out that you shouldn't miss the README file; it
contains a fascinating description of the actions of one of the
database vendors (ODI) and why the results of their benchmark tests
are not reported.

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Wrapup of V03 N04

For your own *free* subscription to Chaos Corner, send electronic mail
to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.

Dr. Chaos (I have a master's degree ...)

.
