From sokay@cyclone.mitre.org Sat May  1 01:27:14 1993
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 10:49:53 EDT
From: "Stephen J. Okay" <sokay@cyclone.mitre.org>
To: pauls@css.itd.umich.edu
Subject: Armadillo Culture #5




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			Virtual Surreality
                             No. 5 
"Armadillos....those are the meanest suckers you're ever gonna wanna see...
But you gotta kill 'em the first time, otherwise they get this revenge thing
 in their heads and they come lookin' for ya......."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

			In this issue:
		   ------------------------
                        Editorial:
                  Control Freaks ---a guest essay
                 ------------------------------
		   Short Fiction/Humor/Prose/Poetry
                   And the CURVE CD survived...
                      Art vs. Therapy 
                       The PC Creed
                       Zen Topology 
		   ------------------------
			   Music
          Simple Machines Inclined Plane
		         Hoover
                        Thumper
		        Superchunk
                       Pietasters 
                       Pop Licks!
                         FAPS 
                       Fine Day
                       Seaweed 
                       Speeding 
                   ------------------------
	                Geek Culture 
		   The Sitterson VR Lab @ UNC	
                   Pop Tarts: A user's guide
         	   ------------------------
		      .....Newsfroups:
		     alt.suicide.holiday
		     alt.music.hardcore
                     alt.housing.nontrad
              Indie-L indie rock mailing list
     		       Unplastic News 
			Scream Baby	
			  Leri-L 
                           SOAE
                     Black Leather Times
        ...and more than I have time to type in here
                  ------------------------


-------------------------A brief word from your sponsor--------------------

Well, I managed to slog through YetAnotherWinterInVirginia, mostly
because I slept most of the time, and on the occasion or two that I
did open my eyes, I was usually out skiing or working on this.

Winter around here is damn,damn depressing. All it ever does is rain,
and stay dark. Its not cold enough for the rain to turn into snow, of
course, so it just stays wet and cold and it sucks and I hate it.
IMHO this whole weather thing is just debugging code that God forgot to
take out when he did the build on the planet a couple of billion years
ago. He probably bet somebody you could affect climate by twiddling with
axial tilt and won, but then forgot to comment out the part of things that
perform that function and so  -DWINTER got left in the makefile just like
-DPLATYPUS and a couple other things that weren't supposed to go into
the final release. I guess it just goes to show that even Omnipotent deities
have project deadlines...

So, anyways, I think I'll stop blathering here and go back planning my
terrorist strike against the '70s preservation society and turn this over
to the people who did stuff for me...

--------------------------Guest Editorial----------------------------------
			Control Freaks by Debbie Martinson/Sine Nominae
					  (llama@pooh.ccwf.utexas.edu)


how do you write about control without getting stuck in a morass of
self-reference? the act of writing, especially for me, is an exercise
in control, of control. all these abstract thoughts float around until
i snatch them from the air, put them in order, align them in rows on a
screen. then they're *mine*. i own them. are all writers the same?

people have been talking about personal angst versus universal angst
as if the two concepts had no overlap at all, as if one were somehow
"purer" than the other. i think looking at control issues is a way to
reconcile the two.  the debate on here seems to ignore that both are
rooted in the same feelings of alienation and fear, of anxiety at
living in a world beyond control, beyond comprehension. the metaphor
of rules comes up a lot here, interestingly. as humans, in the face of
what looks like noise, we try to find ways to *make* things make sense,
to see a gestalt in what looks like random chaos.

the lack of any objective reality throws us off-balance. even if an
absolute exists, the myriad filters that stand between us and it make
approaching it in a meaningful way impossible. we have no way to tell
if what we think we see really exists and no real way to be sure how
much those perceptions are distorted by the glass of individual
belief, predilection, desire. we mutate situations until they resemble
what we want to see and read our own meanings into the words and
actions of those around us.  but eventually we find ourselves at
decision-points and fervently hope our data is accurate and when it
isn't we fall down again, then get up and circle warily around
reality; it's become an adversary and, in a strange way, a rival.

so we live our lives as attempts to impose control and order on a
world that won't give up any. our lives are a search for edges; we
want boundaries and handles. if we can figure out where we stop and
reality starts, we'll have a lever with which we can move at least our
part of the world. finding boundaries gives us the power to expand or
contract them at will. rules, hierarchies, governments -- all these
artificial layers of definition give us edges we can rearrange. and as
we play with them, we can forget about the basic wildness and chaos
that surrounds us. most people engross themselves in the game and
devote lifetimes to piling up counters, fiddling with obscure
regulations, or making up good reasons why they're not succeeding.
it's a pleasant distraction, and who's to say it's not a superior way
of life? they get rewards pleasing to them, live with a sense of
purpose and die with a sense of accomplishment.

people who see beyond the surface aren't so lucky. rejecting
conventional notions of boundaries leaves one wondering who does have
control of reality, which leads to the problem at the core of angst:
no evidence exists that anyone does.  all the interactions of all the
people who've ever existed have created this chemical reaction and
we're all helpless as we watch it proceed to equilibrium. and people
keep throwing new things into the mix and trying to change the lab
conditions, but it's just inexorably going onward and no one knows if
we'll have a miracle potion or a high explosive when it's done. but
it's not the uncertainty that tears at our souls, it's the drifting
helplessness and the realization that all we can do is wait.

so the reconciliation between personal and universal angst. the
personal is merely a reflection of the global. the situation-specific
fear and pain and anxiety expressed here so often are merely
reports of individual battles in a larger war.

--
sine | deb
or we're all just insane.

-------------------Short Fiction/Humor/Prose-------------------------------
                     
------------------------And the Curve CD survived-------------------------------
                               Alpha 

I listened to the new cd "DOPPELGANGER" by Curve. Softly at first,
and then increasingly louder until the air volume in my car was 
vibrating with the same frequency as my quantized heart beat.

I pulled off the road and drove into an all night convenience store.

As I backed my ruined car out of the glass and spilled milk, I yelled at
the clerk through my broken window, "Give me a pack of filterless Gaulois
you swine!"

Back on the road, with Curve blasting through my increasingly inadequate
speakers, I realized that highway signs, lane dividers, and speed limits
were a source of slavery and oppresion. For the first time in my life I was
driving as a free man.

I was pulled over by a cop, a pig, a fuzzball, daddy-g, johnny law, a
g-man, a narc, a fed, an enforcer.  I refused to turn down the music.  He
attempted to wrest my key from the ignition but it was bent and wouldn't
come out.  I bit him on the arm, drawing blood, and I started screaming
at him in a generalized european accent, "Revel in your maskenfreiheit
you overstuffed blood sausage, you wannabe brown shirt, you
nomenklatura, you swine, you vampire, you loch ness slimeball, you KGB
reject, you death monger, you badge toting murderous crook!"

He left quickly and I resumed my sonic voyage.

I decided to race to the airport and buy a one way ticket to Berlin.  I
suddenly felt compelled to find the connection between beauty and dogma
by running naked on a winter's night along KarlMarxStrasse singing arias
from Wagner.  My spirtual quest would be answered in a strip joint near
the Brandenburg gate that was frequented by former nuns and Stasi
informers.

Curve was blasting an aural mine shaft through my head.

The next few songs are a blur. I woke up in  a cold sweat.

I had been dreaming that my mother, who I've always hated for having
been sedated at my birth, was dancing with Josef Stalin at a reception for
Idi Amin. She was radient as I'd never seen her. My father, who I've
always hated for having been responsible for my birth, was doing vodka
slammers with Yuri Andropov's haberdasher. My younger sister, who I've
always hated for having been absent at my birth, was singing "Lili Marlene"
with a Eric Hoeneker's honor guard, while my brother, who I've always
hated for his indifference to my birth, was strangely absent.

I was in my garage.  The cd player was silent and the air was foul.  the
gas guage was on empty and my left turn signal was clicking
senselessly.I stumbled choking, spitting, cursing, and crying out into
the night, tripping over an opposum who had fallen asleep in the carbon
monoxide warmth by the door.

I stared up into the cosmos and became full of self loathing when I realized
that I was matter when the majority of the universe was nothingness. I
became convinced that the edge of the void was wall-to-wall carpeted with
the constant volume sonic barrage of Curve.

I was out of filterless Gaulois. I was ashamed of my whiteness.

I ran into my bathroom hoping to splash some cold water onto my face in a
desperate attempt to recover my former simple life when I looked into the
mirror and realized that I had no face. All I could see was the pure vapor
of my own angst and mal-du-siecle.  

At that moment I realized that I had to either join the foreign legion and
kill other people, or face the ultimate truth and kill myself. Instead, I
decided to shave off my eyebrows and dress in black for the rest of my
life. I jammed the disposable plastic handle of my razor into the electric
socket and started a chain of events that left my home in ash and cinders.

Fortunately, the Curve cd survived.   





---------------------------The PC Creed-----------------------------------------
                       The Hejirah Society
 
 The New Age Apostle's Creed of the year 10 (New Era)
 
 1. I recognize two categories of people: A) Oppressors: all white, male 
 heterosexuals who are able-bodied and of sound mind, with some partial, 
 concessionary exceptions for white, able-bodied, sound-minded, male 
 heterosexuals of Marxist leanings; and B) Victims: all those, human or 
 otherwise, who do not fit into category A, with the exclusion of unborn 
 potential human victims.
 
 2. If am of category B, in order to promote a diverse and pluralistic society, 
 I will devote my life to expressing my indignation at being a victim and to 
 pressuring those of category A to confess their guilt.
     If I am of category A, I will confess my guilt, grovel on the ground and be
 constantly sensitive to those of category B, all of whom I have oppressed.
 
 3. I will use inclusive language at all times, and I shall moan and express my 
 indignation at all the linguistic noninclusiveness and insensitivity that I 
 hear or read without regard of the age or culture in which a text has been 
 written.
 
 4. I will be careful not to use any insensitive, ethnocentric or phallocentric 
 imagery or metaphors in my language that may offend the sensitivities of any 
 member of category B, such as the use of the generic 'he, black and white 
 imagery, male, patriarchal metaphors, female metaphors that are not suitable 
 for New Age ideals, or the use of ethnic terms such as 'American Indian', 
 'black', etc., which have been expired for more than 24 hours.
 
 5. While maintaining the sensitivity and inclusiveness, which are described in 
 points three and four, I will construct my language, arguments and thoughts 
 entirely with euphemisms, buzzwords, cliches, emotive interjections, and 
 ejaculations of discontent that adhere to the thought guidelines of the 
 consensus of category B.
 
 6. If I am a member of category B, I will not do or say anything that might 
 brand me a sexist, racist, homophobe, ablist or a category A sympathizer (i.e. 
 anything that two or more members of the consensus of category B deem as 
 thought crimes).
      If I am a member of category A, I will confess my sexism, racism and 
 homophobia and do penitence for these sins until I die or change my sexual 
 orientation.
 
 7. If I should involuntarily think any thoughts that the consensus of category 
 B have not approved, I will not express them and I will look forward to the day
 when the consensus acquires the technological ability to rescue me from the 
 evil thoughts that I am too weak to control.
 
 8. I will be completely critical of the entire history of Western civilization 
 and all Judeo-Christian  values, morals, and traditions, and replace them with 
 ________________ (fill in anything that is a deviation from Old Era values that
 fits the guidelines of this creed).
 
 9. I will persecute, censor and shun any member of category A who fails to 
 comply with the benevolent dictates of this creed, if evidence - i.e. any 
 accusation by a member of category B - is presented against him, or any member 
 of category B who conspires with a member of category A in any manner that may 
 be perceived as insensitive, sexist, racist, ablist or homophobic.
 
 10. I will submit all my thoughts, words and deeds to the scrutiny of the 
 consensus of category B, without questioning or qualification, and accept any 
 reprimands that I may warrant in the event that the consensus should find me 
 guilty of any infraction of the forgoing points of this creed - real or 
 imagined - of which I cannot prove my innocence.
           SO HELP ME DEITY OF UNSPECIFIED GENDER THAT IS PROBABLY A FEMALE


--------------------------------Zen Topology-----------------------------------
                        bena@dec21.cs.monash.edu.au

        There have been multiple discussions as to the nature of the teapot!

        It was stated that a teapot is the topoligical equivalent of a
        donut with a handle (or two donuts kind mashed together).

        Much debate ensued.  Finally it was agreed that, truly, a teapot is the
        topological equivalent of a donut with a handle  EXCEPT!!!

        There was doubt!

        There was uncertainty!

        For, it was stated, some teapots have a little mesh on the inside of the
        spout to catch the tealeaves!

        Further, there have been indefinable mutterings about suits.

        We are Bemused!

        And, it has been suggested, confused!


        the teapot with a nice blue floral pattern.  What should we do?  The
        very existence of the teapot and the basis of the universe has been
        called into question!

Lin Dar Pen spoke to Con Wei: "Master does the teapot have a buddha nature?"

Con Wei turned and pointed to the mountain, replying, "Devi-sen met the
seventy-seven sages on the road to Vo Li-Bal and challenged them to debate the
teachings of Gautama with him. They argued for eight days and eight nights
without cease. Finally the least of the sages, Ro-Dee, took a whip and beat
Devi-sen, crying "You're a teapot! You're a teapot!"

An passing priest took the the wounded Devi-sen to an inn and tended his
wounds. The next morning Devi-sen went to wash in a nearby pool. As he gazed
into the still waters,  he noticed that his bruises had taken the appearance of
a garland of flowers. At this he was enlightened."

"But, master," persisted the puzzled Lin Dar Pen, "what does this tell us about
the nature of a teapot?"

"Consider the taunts of Ro-Dee." replied the teacher enigmatically, "Devi-sen
had a nice blue floral pattern, but he had no mesh! Yet was he not still a
teapot?"

...............................................................................
This post comes without warantee, either implict or explict.
...............................................................................



------------------------Re:Art vs. Therapy-------------------------------------
        	   Debbie Martinson|Sine Nomine


oh baby look i'm so hip listening to bands no one's ever heard of on
my digital walkman and the book in my hand is sufficiently obscure so
why do you even bother, you're doomed to fail, i'm too hip for you.

it's only 4.10 and i can't believe it's not later but that's okay
because there are things here, things around and the music pounds into
my brain, being part of me and i crawl inside it and the rhythms rock
me to sleep and i'm safe, for a while anyway.

i'm walking down the street and it occurs to me that every man i pass
has a cock and i wonder what they all look like hard, velvet over
steel, wonder what it would feel like to writhe above, grind into,
slide down, and what if they knew what i was thinking?

everything is processed, i feed the cheese, blended words, making them
shredded and safe for consumption. liquefied prose, babyfood-bland.
safety-check my buffer, make sure nothing offends, nothing too
strange, nothing to let them see, make them wonder.

giant shadow cast by tiny woman hiding behind a tree.

i brush these words on paper in acid. eat my story, hold it under your
tongue, wait for it to hit, everything will become very clear, edges
all around before they all fall away. then you'll know and understand.
eat my story, eat my life, consume my soul as you peer into myworld,
make judgments, then saunter away smugly, not knowing that you're
carrying seeds now, thought eggs, that i'm inside your skull like a
snake, tracing paths as neurons spark around. soft gray mush that
decides who you are feeds me, processed brain, processed soul, but
inescapably mine for at least now. you cannibalize me but i'm using you
to reproduce. i win.

and halftime comes, we rush the field, carry off the drum major on our
shoulders only to dump him in a puddle, squish. their skirts are
short, bare blue legs in gray november wind by choice. the smell of
wet leathermudsweatbloodpopcornbeer. we drink them, eat them, satiate
your lust, have another coughdrop.


---
----------------------------Geek Culture----------------------------------------

-------------------------UNC Sitterson VR Lab--------------------------------

Guanine oozed out from the can in his hand, splurting and wobbling in
a vaguely straight line(well, straight in at least two dimensions) for
the opposite rail, where it finally connected. Then the same with
adenosine, C? , another adenosine, another, and....shit what was
supposed to go at this turn?

He looked around in the cube, and turned off to the left and walked
over to the list that was hanging there in the air and began to go
down it.  Sequence 1316286179301-A5E4, base pair 17:".....GGTAGCA, no
that wasn't it. He looked up and saw the immense helix spread above
him, twisty,knotty, foamy features, rickety, pretzel stick-like rungs
joining the ladder in their simple multi-colored repetitions. Far
above, the helix itself twisted and coiled over and through itself in
up to infinity.

ACACAAGAGCT....ACAAAAGAGCT, there it was, right above him, hidden in
the last spiral, an extra cytosine that had thrown off his sequence,
putting him 4 base pair off track.

He reached blindly off to the side and pulled. The tool menu landed in
front of him, a small twist so it was facing him straight on instead
of nearly edge-on, a positional artifact from his last bit of work.
Grabbed the select, grabbed the plane and hopped on.

He kicked the plane upwards and hit the fire button on the control
stick, the menu bar existed in his axis system, so didn't speed
away as the rest of the world did -- so it stayed at his elbow within
easy reach when he needed it, following him up and he climbed towards
his error.  He raced through the helix, kicked up harder on the plane
 so he was almost ballistic now, the helix
turning into this long coily rainbow tunnel that was racing up to him
ahead, falling and gyrating away below. He zipped past the exact
point, kicked the plane down and to the right little bit, and then
kicked up and back to the left almost immediately again, riding it
like some airborne skateboard. The plane traveled at a constant fast
acceleration, which made it great for getting across entire sequences,
but was way too fast for base-pair travel.  He settled for ending up
right next to the guanine at the start of the sequence and figured
he'd walk the rest of the way. 'Nother blind grab brought the
ever-attendant menu around to the front, pulled the selector, dropped
the plane,and touched the offending rung. It gridded obediently, and
he went back to the menu, grabbed the scissors and

*Click*, blackout,
"Damn..."
"hey Cyn, do you think you could reset it for me?" I begged, popping
up the HMD, dropping back into the real world for a minute, startled
by how bright things were even in the low track lighting of the
Sitterson VR lab at UNC, Chapel Hill.  This was the first time I'd
spent more than just a few minutes with a headmount on, save for a few
brief furtive $$ blown on Virtuality a few months back when my wallet
finally talked some sense into my head, so jacking out, as it were,
was a bit of a shock.

 After an hour, the preset timer the headtracker was hooked to expired
and shut off the output to the twin monitors embedded in the helmet,
leaving me in the dark. So, I pulled the visor that had the screens in
them up, and was confronted with reality again.

Damn!..a total change in perspective, environment and object location.
Your eye instantly starts sending you back spatial data, but your
brain is still inside whats being projected off to the side on the
huge 24+" monitor, still using the sockets of the world it just
exited, not yet ready to handle the whole new series of file
descriptors its being handed. It catches up fully in about 10-20
seconds, but there's some lag between when your eyes start feeding you
a new datastream and your brain decides to deal with it....

So there I was, staring at the huge DNA helix I'd spent the afternoon
creating with the Pixel Planes 3D paint package. Think of a color
MacPaint with your usual tools, but applied to VR and everything
translated into 3D.  Stuff the software inside one of the most
screamingist, bitchin' massively parallel processors I've ever seen
and you've got it.  Instead of a spray paint tool that spits out
little dots on the screen, this one burbles out chunky spheroids that
bubble out from the can icon like shaving cream out of a can.  When
you go to draw a polygon, make sure you do the back side first, 'cause
otherwise you'll block your viewpoint for the other 6 sides you have
to do. And if you do, you can always turn the world around. Just reach
off to the side and grab the menu bar that always follows you and grab
the world icon, a 3D icon of an arrow curved downward and give it a twist
'till things line up with your point of view. The whole virtual space rotates
around your control, using the stick in your hand as the gimbal to rotate
around.

I came down here at the invite of Cynthia Pettit, a really cool geek
friend I met on alt.geek only a month before my visit. We started
talking on the net and pretty soon she's gushing about the lab and
constantly nudging me "You've gotta come down here!!!, You'll be
totally hooked!, it's just so cool".

So I split work early one Friday and took the 5 hr jaunt from DC down
to Chapel Hill, NC to check out the place. She was right.  I was, I
am.  If they'd been recruiting for for some geek army, I'd have
enlisted on the spot...

So I got down there and she buzzes me in and I sit there waiting, and
she comes down the hallway,tie-dyed shirt, black skirt, black hat
set rakishly back against her head.  We share greets and typical
net.friend stuff that you do when you first meet somebody in the
flesh  and we head straight off to the lab.

We get there and she goes right away to the Pixel Planes system.  and
tries to set up the headmount w/Polhemus Tracker. Its not responding,
so she gives up and goes over to set up another demo, a linked,
effective Madelbrot/Julia Set demo, all the while chatting amiably
about her work, school, the lab, generic geekisms, clearly a woman who
loves her work.  And how couldn't you?---God, the Pixel Planes machine
was totally awesome!

 The Mandelbrot set appears on the screen and Cyn slides at the top
of a two handled joystick -- one handle for Mandelbrot zoom,
one for Julia set.  The Mandelbrot set shrinks to rest about a fifth
of it's size in the corner of the screen to reveal the Julia set below it.
She steers one of the joysticks around on the Mandelbrot set, explaining
that for every point on the Mandelbrot set there's a corresponding Julia
set -- and as she steers across the Mandelbrot set, sure enough,
the Julia set, deforms and blobs into another shape.  She races on at
a dizzying pace, talking calmly. I'm standing there waiting for 
it to start showing update lag, and its not. We've gone through 64
iterations, and its still an almost instaneous update, even
though the 'brots and the Julia set are being recomputed for every new
magnification. 128 iterations, 256, 512,1024, and still not a blink. 

"Can you just keep zooming continuously?" I ask, figuring this
would get her.  "Sure", she replies, touches a button and we're
falling, falling at the rate of GodKnowsHowManyIterations per second
through the WHOLE Mandelbrot set, until finally after about a minute I
am just totally cracking up in disbelief and the Julia set window is
updating too and she's just about ready to burst from the expression
on my face..And its all just so cool. I could live here, really. I
notice there's some space over in a back corner that looks like it
could hold a sleeping bag and later on discover showers down the hall
and I'm set to just squat here with what few meager belongings I
brought with me...  And she knows it and just laughs, 'cause its what
she said would happen and what she wanted to happen, mission
accomplished, another mind brought into the geek sphere of influence.

The lab itself is one of those weird places thats stuck somewhere in
between a real computer lab--- wires, cables, machines,
experimental board level stuff all over the place--- and a really
slick, green-marble edged conference room.

Most graphics labs are like this, an accomodation between the need to get
work done and to make the place look slick for the execudroids and university
brass that probably poured a couple meg into the place. 
There's the low-intensity track lighting and the stereo system, and then
there 's the pair of biker's cutoffs with the RJ-11s and microswitches
sewn into the palms, a kind of DIY dataglove. I try it on and find that
it would work quite well. Its a hack, but its a comfortable hack.

Next to this is a fishtank and a couple Mac Quadras on a long table,
which goes about 10 ft over to another fish tank, except this one
isn't occupied by fish, but by a submerged doll and various other
items. A thing that looks like a hand-scanner hangs in a mouse holster
off to the side of the tank. Its a sonogram imager...And next to this
is the Pixel planes display and the timer and the HMD grid, probably
about 5x5, maybe a little bigger, masking tape marking off the area
controlled by the Polhemus tracker mounted on the HMD....
Space is not wasted here, there are as many experiments as there are
boxes crammed into a roughly 30x30 room, with several areas cordoned
off for maneuvering room for HMD or manipulator experiments, so things
appear to be a little tight, but work out to be not too bad after all

[Ed. note, Cyn wrote me recently and said that they're converting a 
whole ROOM to be HMD space instead of just the little floor square
they had when I was there..]

So after a while we're both checking our mail, and I talk her and managed
between then and a couple weeks ago to snag the following interview:

Armadillo Culture:Why graphics?
Cynthia Pettit:-Well, I've been an artist most of my life -- drawing in class,
as usual...
I took to computers when I was around 13 and the graphics just seemed
to be the thing for me.

AC:yeah....I did that kind of stuff a lot too. Got into major trouble
in a lot of my classes....

CP: ;) CP:Also, when I worked for this little graphics firm in
Greenville SC, I did a lot of graphics programming, and really loved
it!  I like the hard, low-level stuff, and also the graphics, and
making pictures.  It's the same as drawing -- trying to translate
what you see into something else.
 
AC:Cool!...so are ...Programming, like on what kind of machines?

CP:We programmed on IBMs [286 & 386's) both with "Targa" boards, a
very large 16 bit graphics board.  Nice stuff!  It had 16 bits per
pixel -- not color mapped!  It was loads of fun!  :) [we just got a
color scanner for the glab -- and I can't *wait* to scan some cool
stuff in!!!]
 
AC:Yeah, I know those; I worked with them when I was at Mason. (GMU).
A bunch of us in the lab brought in model planes and used GIF
backdrops to make digitized dogfight pictures and stuff..it was pretty
cool.

AC:So, are you there for the graphics, as in like algorithms or
the VR or because its all just so cool and neat to play around with?
 
CP:Welllllll, actually, I'm sorta just *here* you know?  I was lucky
that this school was such a hot-spot for graphics...  Otherwise, I
might as well just have gone somewhere else.  I'm not much into
school.  Kinda a bum... :) I had no idea what I was getting myself
into when I came back to UNC...  [My mom was the one who originally
filled out my admissions form...  I wasn't into school at all when I
graduated... as you know -- I took 5 years off!] :)
 
AC:Yeah...I can deal with that...I was extremely burned out when I
graduated I'm not even sure I want to go back now, but its either that
or up the corproat e ladder, which I'm DEFINITELY not into, so.......

CP:Yeah, after programmer, then what?!  MANAGER??  I think not...

AC:you just kind of fell into it then?

CP:yeah.  Total luck! :)
And it really is, because I doubt I'd've gotten to be at a place where
I could work on research and have a login and play with the graduate
stuff and take graduate classes and make friends with faculty and
generally have a great environment for someone who is an undergrad
*and* who's a woman too boot.  The people here are unequalled of all
people I know... *sigh*

AC:You said you work there..Is it work, I mean really work? It seems
to me that there is just so much cool stuff and so many neat toys,
that even if its something you HAVE to get done or its a REQUIREMENT,
it'd be hard to call work...

CP: :) I would agree with that!  Though there's *so* much stuff I want
to do that stopping something, anything, is a hard thing to do...  As
the old saying goes, there's just not enough hours in the day... :)
Remember, I'm learning about X and UNIX and all sorts of other cool
stuff besides the Pixel Planes stuff!  I have yet to learn "P-PHIGS",
the Pixel Planes graphics library...

AC:Lets talk about the Pixel Planes machine for a minute if you don't
mind, 'cause I had a hard time desc.'ing it 'cause its so custom. What
kind of hardware is it ? Speed, OS?--the usual geek measurements?

CP:Pixel Planes was designed here at UNC.  No other machines exist in
the world like it.  The basic idea of how it runs is semi-parallel --
it has two main parts in a pipeline.  The Graphics renderers are
responsible for doing the matrix algebra -- the translations of the
points to the "world coords".  Since eveything is described by
polygons, or more specifically triangles, this is easier than
transferring a mess of points, or voxels.  Next is the renderers.
They basically trasfer the points to a flat screen, check them against
a Z-buffer [to see who's in front] and color the pixels in the frame
buffer.  Pixel Planes, the way it's built, has a hard time doing
bitmaps, but can do procedural textures extremely fast... so we would
have a hard time putting up a photograph, but we can tile an enitre
room with Julia sets or woodgrain...  The front end to the system is a
Sun [don't remember what kind].  It holds the display list -- and
becasue Pixel Planes is so fast, deleting things and adding things to
the display list is slow...  [Note: in 3DM, the 3D paint program, Drew
Davidson, one of the writers of the program told me, that any polygons
"removed" from 3DM, are really shrunk down small and moved to about 10
km away!  He said if you "fly" for those 10 km in the right direction
you'd find a big pool of "dead" polygons! <giggle> *** [(I forgot to
say this...) This was easier than removing them!]

AC:Heheheh!!!....sounds like a real programmers approach to things :)

CP: Programming on Pixel Planes is still quite low-level.  You kinda
need to know what's going on -- but as I said, there is a library
built for it so it's not *so* hard.

AC:So, its really not a very user-friendly system?  Its not a true
user system in the normal sense of the word but a large rendering and
reality engine?

CP:(garbled)
AC:I guess what I meant to say ask was, could it be considered a solitary,
can-stand-on-its-own-feet-and-be-logged-into type machine, or is it a very  
specialized algorithmic engine?

.Oh, no, not at all.  it's just a device -- you would log into hugin
or jason, our two suns, if you want to run anything on it.

AC:Okay.....thats what I was getting at...

AC:So, is there a VR program at UNC? Can you get a degree in visualization or
is it all attached to the CS deptr and its a CS degree?
 
CP:It's all attached to the CS department -- we do lots of other things here 
besides VR!  There's a strong Neural Nets groups here, and of course the
hardware guys who design Pixel Planes, plus the Medical Imagery people
the vision people [who are studying the human eye and finding ways to correct
vision and have computers calculate laser surgery...] etc...  This department 
is quite big.  Stefan said once over a hundred people more or less...  [and 
he's on the HMD group, finding better head mounted displays...] 


AC: Lets get a little more philosphical:
    What do you consider yourself more of?
    Citizen of the US
    Citizen of the world
    Citizen of the net

CP:Hmmm... that's an interesting question.  I would say I feel most like
a citizen of the world.  Next a citizen of the Net.  Only last do I
feel a citizen of the US.  So much bad stuff is going on in this
country, it's over-load.  It's like you're mom saying "Clean up your
room by this evening because we have people coming over..." and
there's NO WAY to get it done -- it's so far gone there's no place to
start...  So I lock my room door and log in...

AC:  In "Ender's Game", there was a global net which was woven into the
story's society as a public forum and method of gov't by the people
as well as just a communications medium, how much of that do you see the net becoming?

CP:I had a hard time after reading that book to not looking for a public
"desk" to log in on...  and I really want to "answer the table" when
someone rings... :)  [PS, they had public terminals at SIGgraph!  It
was WONDERFUL!!]

AC: One thing Clinton says he really wants to do is put in place the 
 equipment and technology to make such a thing possible, i.e., hve
 net access as available to the common person as a phone is now.
 Do you think this would help or hurt the net?
 As in, should such a thing come to pass, do you think that it would
 do more as a way of linking everybody on the planet together, or would
 it simply be another thing that the gov't is regulating and controlling.
 Will it open communication or hinder it?

CP:This is something I've been thinking about for a while now and I still
have no ultimate answer for that one...

I want the world to be connected.  I think it will be easier to have
peace when it will be this easy to make friends from all over the world
-- and we'll have *nothing* to tell races, nationalities, and
sometimes even sex to prejudge a person for.  We will be clean and
human again...

On the other hand, the people on the Net have an ethic about them
[contrary to popular belief... :) ] You wouldn't see harsh words in,
say, alt.bonsai, and except for flames, people seem to be quite
harmless.  I feel comfortable putting my address in my .plan file...
What will happen when the "rest of the world" gets in?  Will that
ethic fall down?  The smaller the community, the more an individual is
an individual.  If this thing gets big, what will happen?  We'll lose
our individuality...

Closer yet farther apart...

Who's to say what will happen?  We're just going to have to find out
because it's coming...  I guess my ultimate feeling is I *want* it to
happen, it *will* happen even if I didn't want it, and it won't be the
same when it does...

AC:I guess I'm trying to come up with a sense of how much you or
others there have integrated the net into your lives...Is it a tool?
Is it just a toy, or is it a whole different life/lifestyle?
 
I definitely think the Net is a world in itself -- it's more than
phones, it's more than TV it's more than newspapers...  It's a way to
socialize, which shapes your environment.
 
The world will change drastically when the Net comes on line for all.
I await that day with anxious anticipation! :)

AC: So what else is going on in the lab, aside from Pixel Planes and
VR and stuff?

Quite a number of projects are going on in this department, but I can
hardly keep up with the VR stuff!  Like Neural Nets, hyper text and so
many other things...  I wish I could tell you more, but I hang out
with the graphics types...

4. Could you give me a little more info on the ARM...that was the one
thing I didn't get to play around with down there...

The ARM is the "other half" to the Argon Remote Manipulator system
that was used in a hazardous radioactive environment.  The first half
is buried in the desert somewhere out west...  It is a force feedback
ARM, which means it can "press back" so you feel forces as if
something were there.  It's used right now for the molecule docking
project to simulate molecule bonds, and also with the scanning
tunneling microscope to keep the tip away from the surface.

AC:people have been making an awfully big deal about VR and graphics
and how virtual sex and all that crap is just around the corner...How
much of that is Mondo hyping itself and how much of it is really going
to happen, in say, 5 years. And how much of it is really going to be
helpful and or useful stuff and how much of it is going to let the
entertainment line their pockets even more?

CP:For one thing, the whole VR-sex thing is total hype.  We're so far
from having a total environment immersion, that I can't see "Virtual
sex" in our lifetimes...

At the same time, the entertainment industry got us a lot of the
computer industry.  People pay a lot for entertainment.  Already
there's a VR game that has come to some of the bars down here and if
anything is going to be the driving force to getting VR in our homes,
it will be the entertainment industry.  Notice that "PowerGloves" came
out before video phones...

Video came out strictly for entertainment, but now it serves many
useful purposes -- like filming drunk drivers, saving a medical scan,
making peace negotiations across the world...  But video or computers
would not have been pushed so hard if it hadn't been for their
entertainment value.

So I think it will be the entertainment industry that will get VR into
homes [and yes, I think they will be in the home one day -- at the
vary least the office place.]

One thing that seems pretty apparent is that total immersion is way
beyond our capabilities at this point, since force feedback is a very
difficult problem.  Perhaps we'll hook directly up to our nerves so we
"think" we're feeling something, but for now the skin is a big surface
to try to control.

AC: These all probably seem kind of strange, just picking a student
such as yourself out, but I figured that somebody in the labs would
know a lot more about whats going on that the so-called "experts" that
seem to pop up on this subject. Like if you ask me how long it will be
before you can just telnet somewhere from your seat on a plane, I'd
say probably about another 7-10 years.

Definitely.  Most of us scoff at a lot of the hype around VR.  There
are still a lot of difficult problems with VR -- like display devices.
If you put your eyeball two or three inches from the screen -- even a
hi-res screen, you can *see* the pixels.  One system I've heard of
uses fiber optics -- one fiber per pixel -- and this system is
$million per *foot* of cable...  Getting high enough resolution for 2"
away from your eye is a hard problem.

AC: Now for a geek question:Can you ever have too many toys? :)

:)  I feel lucky that computer programming is a well paying field! :) 

AC:I guess I'm trying to come up with a sense of how much
you or others there have integrated the net into your lives...Is it a tool?
Is it just a toy, or is it a whole different life/lifestyle?

CP:I definitely think the Net is a world in itself -- it's more than
phones, it's more than TV it's more than newspapers...  It's a way to
socialize, which shapes your environment.
The world will change drastically when the Net comes on line for all.
I await that day with anxious anticipation! :)



-----------------------Pop Tarts:A user's guide--------------------------------



After months of extensive study and intense research by member faculty
around the country, we, the Center for Advanced Breakfast Technology 
Research are proud to present:
		The Pop Tart Reference
Compiled by yours truly and the staff of the CABTR, we have downed more than
our share of the little slabs to come up with a guide to Pop Tart consumption.


Flavor			Raw Taste 	Cooked Taste	  Comments:
Brown Sugar Cinnamon    Good		Excellent 	  An armadillo favorite

Blueberry		Okay		Good		The new sprinkles
							on top are a nice
							added feature, but
							non-veterans tend
							to confuse them
							with the strawberry
						        ones, which were the
                                                        only ones with sprinkles
							on them until now.

Strawberry		okay		Good      	  The classic!

Raspberry		ehhhh		okay		  taste can be
							  confused with
							  cherry..somebody
							  needs to do some
							  work here. 

Cherry			poor 		okay              no real distinct
							  flavor, boring.

Dutch Apple		yuck!		bleah		  Have they discontinued
							  this one?--they should

S'mores			poor		okay-to-good      Weird..marshmallows
						  	  in PopTarts is a
							  concept I'm still
							  trying to deal with.

Apple-Cinnamon		Good		Excellent         Cool!, a green-apple
							  like taste and a 
							  cinnamon topping
							  makes for a great
							  2nd stab at the
							  Apple flavor....

Chocolate/Chocolate    okay		okay		  Zoom!...major sugar
						          rush
Cooking methods:
When employed, varied from the traditional toaster, to microwave, to leaving
on top of a Metheus disk unit's ventilation slats for a few minutes to open
fire cooking.

Toaster:
Pros:
The traditional heating implement. Provides good overall cooking in and out
of the unit via convection. Parallel capacities of most toasters allows for
quick prep of several at a time. 
Cons:
Analog, mechanical nature of the beast leads to wide variances among units
as to what light/vs. dark means and can require multiple iterations of the
the toast() process.

Microwave:
Pros:
Heats them a lot quicker than other methods. Unlike most microwaved foods,
they tend to be heated evenly throughout. Nice, soft texture when wrapped
in paper/cloth napkins. Favored method of experienced users.
Cons:
Easy to burn beyond recognition, esp. for novices who aren't used to
this method and its timing constraints. Like most bread/pastry foodstuffs,
tends to collect moisture when heated unless wrapped in paper towels or napkins.
Overheating can lead to napalm effect. 
 
Disk/CPU:
Pros:
Your food's ready right there in the machine room. None of this having to
'BRB' on your MUD/IRC channel or phone or whatever to step outside the
room. Convection from heat vents warms them thoroughly and evenly.
Cons:
Net heat produced by even a really fast,active system doesn't quite get
you there. Takes much too long to heat to a suitable temperature.

Open flame:
Pros:
Flames imbue them with that natural rustic, smoky flavor that only natural
combustants can.
Cons:
Burn too easily...frosting carmelizes too quickly. 
That natural rustic flavor isn't too good with green apple, strawberry, etc.


----------------------------Music-----------------------------------------



Thumper

Boston ska-metal with definite Bosstones influences. Ska continues to impress
me with the number of different styles of music you can blend into it and
still have it sound good. I usually hate metal, but I like these guys.
Their latest is called "Rabbit Wreaking Havoc" and has a couple pretty
cool tracks like the opening "Life Slips Away" and closing "All you can be".
In between they jam out some pretty cool skankin' tunes with songs like
"Do it" and "Show Up You".  Lyrics range from talk about suicide to the
usual anti-racism topics as well as slackers, alcoholism and general
life stuff.  I like it!
On Thumper Tunes on CD.
Thumper Tunes:
62 Powder House Blvd. #1
Somerville MA. 02144


Hoover
"Side Car Freddie" "Cable"

I first saw these guys at St. Stephens back in November along with Smooch
and Circus Lupus and they were great!!----just the best, most energetic,
coolest band there..
So, I jumped at their new single(Their first I think...they didn't have
anything out @ the time of the show according to the guy I talked to there)
and was not disappointed. Hoover is like getting caught in a thunderstorm
outside and getting wrapped up in all the power and ease and loudness and
violence and beauty of it all. "Side Car Freddie" is the best of the two
cuts, starting out acoustic and slow, peaceful, cool and working up into
faster, much more powerful and loud. 
Get it, get it, get it...


Slant 6

Good, driving, kind of hyperactive female powercore. Grrly, but with some
talent for once. They definitely have some stuff out, but I don't have
any of it, 'cause there wasn't any of it there when I was at the Fugazi
show a couple weeks ago that they played at. I'd pick it up though if I
saw it.

Inclined Plane

The 6th and final "Simple Machine" from the SM label, concluding the
project they started a couple years back with Screw, Wedge, Wheel, etc.
This one has cuts from Tsunami("Beauty pt. II"), Superchunk("Baxter"),
Rodan("Darjeeling") and Unrest("Winona Ryder"). A quick look: Tsunami
is their usual punk-fading-to-folk selves, pretty good, but not their
best. "Baxter", by Superchunk is the most energetic and IMHO the best
of the four. The Unrest trib to Winona rounds things out pretty well.

A word problem on the back cover involving Kristen and Jenny's attempt to get
to a Nothing Painted Blue show at Khyber in Philly makes for an amusing way to
eat up some processor time, with a promise to award something to those who can
come up with the answer("...we will award extra points for creativity" 
says the jacket blurb on the inside)
Info:
Simple Machines
N. 8th St. 
Arlington, Va. 


Superchunk
"The question is how fast"

Neat single thats been out for a while now, but I finally got around to
snagging a copy recently. The title track is pretty cool, but my absolute
total favorite on this one is their cover of "100,000 Fireflies", originally
done by The Magnetic Fields as a neat, mockingly cheerful emopop song, which
the 'chunk has turned into a really cool grunge track while not just noise-
ifying and destroying the impact of the original.They really sound like they
enjoyed the original as much as I did. Defintely an identity song
for my whole psycho-depressive suicidalness last winter.. Cute bird/penguin/
whatever on the cover too.


Magnetic Fields
"Lonesome Vermont Roads"

And speaking of whom, I got this one in the same buying spree that I got the
Superchunk single above,although I like it less I have to say. Meandering,
semi-depressive, angstful, and served up in a light sauce of ennui and pathos,
these tracks remind me kind of a cross between Franklin Bruno and The Pastels.
Which isn't really that bad, at least for me, I just have to be in the mood
for it.  
The last track "At The Beach" is a kind of neat, catchy, '50s style poke at
beach movie culture that still persists today. "I'm gonna get me a beautiful
tan....so's I can get me a beautiful man" sums it up pretty well IMHO.
Sticker too..

Pop Licks!

If anybody tries to tell me the indie-pop scene ISN'T incestuous, I'll
just show them this, and then a copy of the Simple Machine's Neopolitan
Metropolitan...The cover of this 6-disc 45 package is a series of 6
popsicles with the band names on it and happy, dimpled 1950's "Log"
-like faces looking hungrily at the dripping confections..
When you pull the wrapper off you find 6 different 45s featuring the likes
of Whorl, Helicopter, Veronica Lake, Fudge and a couple others.
I probably would have picked it up if it hadn't been for the fact that it
was $23 and the Neo-Metro was only $10. Somehow I just couldn't rationalize
another $15 once you throw in tax for just a few more songs, so I passed.
Sorry Spin Art...



Fucking Asshole Pieces of Shit(FAPS)

"Little Man/Human Being" and "Bambulance"
Local Negativland-type abstract anarcho-collage-rock group whose work consists
of NL-like samples, clips and bastardizations of pirate radio broadcasts
,  FBI wiretaps, policeband and 911 traffic among other things as well as
the seemingly ubiquitous semi-late Raymond and Peter set to appropriate,
yet fairly standard keyboard work. I was falling out of my seat listening to
this. It wasn't clear if any of these had actually been released yet, but if you
bug them enough or fling money their way, they'd probably oblige you 'cause
then they'd have $ to buy more beer.

Info:
Zingin' Records:
PO Box 3547
Fairfax, Va. 22038-3547

Pietasters

"All You Can Eat"

First tape out by this local ska group who used to be the Slugs isn't a bad
effort, but it didn't really psych me.  Songs are typically bouncy and
catchy but more toned down than I like for my ska. Maybe I've just gotten
spoiled on the The Pickles or Operation Ivy, 'cause there are some cool
club-like Specials-esque tracks on here. 

Info:
Slugtone! Records
3323 Wessynton Way  
Alexandria, Va. 1309


Nation of Ulysses

Nothing much here to report except that recent zine blurbs and talk in the
halls at various shows has put them in the pseudo-spotlight of beings
Washington's Favorite Dead Band, unseating AutoClave, who'd previously
held the title for almost several years...


Other stuff to pick up if you get the chance:
Some new, some old, either way, its two claws up! 

Fine Day--Extinct single
on Sunspot


Seaweed--Don't know the name of it, but its a sepia-colored cover, with
this kid on the front of it.
on Sub-Pop


Operation Ivy --Hectic  Skank yer ass off to this! Definitely not for the
pale and decaffeinated.
on Lookout!


Skankin' Pickle --Pickle Fever single
More Punk Pickle energy and on green vinyl too! Cool!
Has 'I missed the bus', 'Ice Cube, Korea wants a word
with you', 'David Duke is running for president' and more.
on Dill

Speeding

No, its not a band, but rather a simple request to the bands and/or their
labels. And it is: Could you PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEEEEEEASE speed label your 
damn singles! 
I am getting REALLY tired of grabbing something in the middle of a radio
show and starting up a 45 at 33 or vice versa and then having to switch it
to the proper speed ON AIR, just 'cause nobody took
the extra 30 seconds to put the speed into the label artwork,
Its not like you have to illuminate it or anything, just two little 
chicken scratches that say '45' or '33' would do quite nicely.. 
It makes me look stupid and wary of playing anything or (HINT) buying
anything that doesn't say what it is. end_soapbox();

Shows:The number of shows I've been to has dropped down to next to 0
since I started back into school.

But I did catch Hoover a couple times and they were very cool. I also
saw Circus Lupus a couple times too and it was weird...how can a group
who is so cool live suck so much on their vinyl?---I dunno
Also caught Tsunami @ 15 minutes in January...they still put out some  
pretty cool music, although they've raised aloofness and detachment to
an artform. 

Eric and I harassed Archie Moore and the rest of the Velocity Girl gang
at a couple shows at the 9:30 club and elsewhere. There have been varying
reactions to the show back in Dec. which saw VGs first pit form in the
middle of "My Forgotten Favorite" but the way I look at is like this,
when a cat brings you a dead smelly thing, its an expression of love.

I wanted  really bad to see Lilys and Small Factory and Pitchblende but I
wasn't here when the show happened, so I missed out. 
Oh yeah, and Rain Like the Sound of Trains is cool too, I saw them at St.
Stephens a while back with smooch and Hoover and some others..

And I also went to this really lame Toasters show a couple months back too.
I've had fun at their previous ones, and it certainly wasn't for any lack of
their trying, but people at 9:30 just have no concept of space or capacity
or anything and it was totally totally totally way too crowded and people
were trying to skank and mosh when you couldn't even move for all the people
around you and I spent the whole show trying to keep from being knocked
down that I couldn't even concentrate on the music, which, as anyone who
knows me will tell you makes the whole thing a total wash, I don't care
WHO'S playing. 

Superchunk/Tsunami/Betty Serveert Show
by Steve Runge (stever@starbase.mitre.org)


I went to the Superchunk show last night.  I was feeling pretty sick,
but I didn't want to waste the $ we spent on the tickets.  Tsunami was
very good and pretty personable.  They talked alot onstage and seemed
pretty comfortable.  I picked up the "Inclined Plane" single while I
was there, but haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.

Bettie Serveert(sp?) were great.  Good melodic power-pop.  They
reminded me of a New Zealand(I think) band called the Bats.  This was
their first show of a six week tour of America and if they come back
and hopefully headline, it's a must see.  They played most songs from
the "Palomine" album and sound much better live than they do on
record.

I don't know if you've seen Superchunk before, but every time I have
seen them they have been great.  Last night was no exception.  They
were very energetic and tight.  I think they are one of the best live
bands I have ever seen.  If they could capture half of the energy of
one of their live shows on record, it would be an incredible record.
So far I don't think they have been able to capture that energy and
their records have been good, but not great.  They played alot of
songs from the new album.  People kept yelling for different songs and
Mac commented that everyone seemed to have their own set list.  Of
course people were yelling for "Slack Motherfucker" and "Skip Steps 1
and 3", but alot of people were yelling for "100,000 Fireflies".  The
people didn't get "Slack Motherfucker", but the encore consisted of
the latter two.  After the show I looked for "The Question is How
Fast" single but didn't see it.  I definitely want to pick that up
now.  I have the new album which has "The Question is How Fast" but
not "100,000 Fireflies".  It really is a good song and I want to get
it before it becomes impossible to find.

Oh yeah, the crowd was very cool too.  Mostly D.C. type "scenesters"
and alot of area luminaries like some guys from Fugazi, Mark Robinson
of Unrest, a few Nation of Ulysses members(or make that ex-members),
etc.  The last time I saw Superchunk, it was on a Saturday night, and
alot of beer-guzzling, frat-jock neanderthals were there.  I suppose
since this show was during the week and close to spring break, they
couldn't make it.  Oh well, I'm definitely not complaining.

See Ya,

---Steve
--------------------Newsfroups--------------------------------------------

Alt.suicide.holiday

*sigh* This one, one of my faves, has really gone down hill. A bunch
of the more twisted regulars(yours truly included) got sick of constantly
having to beat back the warm fuzzies and gave up and since then the
whole group has really gone to seed. A lurker offed himself a couple
months back and of course this threw the current residents and they've
just been mumbling to themselves about how much the group will miss him
and sounding a lot like the guidance counselor in Heathers...
Ollie, Andrea and I have left the Obsidian Palace for Darker climes...

alt.music.hardcore

Newgrouped a couple months ago, its already well above the 2K mark for 
articles. Initial opening traffic had piled up over 400 messages in
the first week and a half but has since tapered off down to about 30
or so a week. Mixture of hardcore music reviews, scene reports and
the usual holy wars. I'm actually kind of disappointed. With the 
{cheap|free}ness of net.connections and a good number of them from
nonexplotive sources, I'd have thought more people really
in the scene would be on here, but I guess not. A healthy bleedover of
ska and other punk forms lacking their own group show up here too.

alt.housing.nontrad
Brand new group(they hadn't cleared 100 last I checked, but are no doubt
well over it now) for discussing alternative housing methods, such as
group housing, group marriages,car living and other communal/semi-communal
living arrangements.Ideas ranging from '60s-sounding communes to
more conservative group-buys of large estates abound here.
Some pretty cool ideas, esp. when $300K+ for a 'burbial stake is sounding
more and more ridiculous all the time for just 2-3 people.
I remember the semi-group sitch I was in a couple years back and it
was pretty cool, so this has proved to be interesting as well as
semi-nostalgic.

Indie-L Indie Rock Mailing List

Run by three people from various parts of the country, Indie-L is basically
a review-zine a lot like what I'd like the music section of AC to be if I
had more people writing doing stuff for it(HINT!!).
No's 10 & 11 are stuffed with reviews of various things like the reviews of
the latest issuances from the IPUC folks, Lilys, Swirlies "Error", some
Simple Machines stuff, Pop Llama releases,  plus other news and rumors from
about and around the indie-rock scene. It comes out on a semi-regular
basis.(Meaning whenever their classes will let them tear away from them to
do it). No word as to hardcopy, although I'm sure its crossed their minds.

Format:Net
Info:
mcornick@delphi.com

Screams of Abel 

ChristianDeathMetalThrashCore 'zine posted frequently to alt.zines and
covering the Christian metal scene, which I could never really understand.
Paul, the editor, sounds more than just a little twisted, being devoted to 
violence and mayhem in the name of The Lord. Surprisingly little or
no proseltyizing/sermons despite the stated content/audience though makes
it palatable to those who aren't faith-shopping but just want to hear about
music. 1st issue in hardcopy due out soon. 

Format:Net and Hardcopy
Info: Phil.Powell@launchpad.unc.edu


ScreamBaby

Cyberpunk-oriented wrap-your-mind-around-a-telephone pole type 'zine
full of all sorts of cybertech shenanigans, stories, pranks, etc. as well
as commentary on cyberspace, living and working in, etc. Weird
application of a text-removal/overwrite program applied to the text
breaks into and slashes across the copy sometimes deleting letters, whole
words or part of sentences, leaving you to do the mental gymnastics to
fill in the spaces. Its all subjective, right?

Format: Net, possibly hardcopy
Info : redspread.css.itd.umich.edu look in /zines

USnail:
Cyberlicious
PO Box 4510
Austin, TX. 78765

Leri-L
*WARNING* High Volume (+100)

When the acid heads found out about the net and computers, they started
Leri-L. Hangout for those into pyschedelic and genuinely mind-warping
experiences both chemically and net-facilitated. Fave activity is the
'net-trip' where users trip and report back what they see to the list,
or go out into the world and do stuff and come back and dump it to the
list with the object being to relate ones experiences to the rest of the
list as quickly as they are happening. Very experentially oriented with 
an eye to cataloging experiences and seeing what happens when you let the
net in on your trip or when you stuff a bunch of people from around the
world in your pocket and take them with you on your daily rounds...
As with their namesake, there's also a fair amount of real science
stuff going on here.

Format:Net
Info: moore7004@iscsvax.uni.edu

Black Leather Times 

Goth/Industrial mischief 'zine. The couple issues I've seen have had stuff
in them covering suicide, skullfucking, drugs, moshing, knives,notices of
upcoming shows, music reviews, gothic & general shockart and more ways
to permanently alienate yourself from your family than you can shake a
studded riding crop at.

Format: hardcopy
Info: 3 Calabar Ct.
      Gaithersburg, MD. 20877 
      $2 per issue

Unplastic News

Interesting, bizarre high-weirdness type quotezine with quotes, sketches,
vignettes, blurbs and and other excremeditations organized around a 
theme in each issue. The spring one is said to be about pranks, tricks
and practical jokes. Very fertile ground for quoteheads or others who
happen to live a sort of performative, referential existence like I do.

Format: Net
Info: tibbetts@saturn.hsi.com

Vermont
(The state, not a 'zine or newsgroup)
Except for the skiing, I can't really think of a plus for this
place. Endless mountains of bare trees and cloudy, overcast weather
makes you wonder why they don't call it the "Nuclear wasteland state"
'cause thats what it looks like. I can understand a few cloudy days, but
a whole solid weeks worth, with a whole solid week before and even more
expected after I left, jeez! Oh yeah, seems to be the flannel capital of
the world. Alternateens take note....


---------------------------Roll Credits!----------------------------------
Once again, I thank you, I thank you and I......thank you for all you
below who agreed to participate in this little endeavour, I hope it at
least wasn't to your detriment if nothing else...

In particular, here's who did what:

some guy named Alpha did the Curve insanity

Debbie(Sine Nomine) llama@pooh.ccwf.utexas.edu, one of the coolest and
most lucid net.goddesses I've met so far, did the thing on Control Freaks
and the art. vs. therapy thingy. Thanks Deb! 

I did the music reviews, Newsfroups column and this bit right here.

The Hejirah Society beamed me the PC Creed from their guerilla annoyance
base somewhere in America.

Oh yeah, the cover is mine too, although I do admit to stealing the 
'dillo from the Dover Pictorial, a collection of 19th woodcuts. Hey, If its
good enough for Nutshell, its good enough for me....

------------------Submissions,Dominations, and other family fun-------------

Submissions: yes, have some. Send me stuff, pretty much anything really.
reviews, letters, opinion stuff, high-weirdness-by-mail type stuff, art,
shows you saw, scene reports, etc. I'll send you back a copy of the past
couple ones I've done including the one I put yours in.

Send to:
USnail:
Armadillo Culture
2857 Foxmill Rd. Herndon, Va. 22071

Net:
sokay@cyclone.mitre.org

If you're at a show in DC or thereabouts and you see a guy with long
brown hair wearing a photographer's vest(has about 20 pockets on it)
glasses(and possibly an AC t-shirt), thats probably me. Come up
and say hi, I don't bite. 

GIFS and FTP sites:
The FTP site has changed. Paul at the redspread political archives
has been kind enough to offer me space. The new address is:
redspread.css.itd.umich.edu.

I would especially like GIFS of some bands. If you are in a band or
know somebody who is, send me a uuencoded GIF to my net address or
mail me something that I could scan in.     

Shirts:

Its true!...now you can have your very own AC T-shirt,
lovingly silkscreened onto a 100% cotton shirt.
$8 covers the cost of the shirt and my getting it back to you.
Oh yeah, they're white..and don't forget to send me your size..

Logo is an armadillo surrounded by various 'zines, flyers,
CDs, 45s, empty caffeine units etc. hacking on his terminal
and the words "Armadillo Culture" across the bottom.

I also still have a few of the 'Cool Tunes, Fast Compilers, Cheap Caffeine'
ones left...same deal.

Wing your cash or checks(made out to Steve Okay) 
to:
Armadillo Headquarters
2857 Foxmill Rd. Herndon, Va. 22071 
Attn:The Toiling Masses in our sweatshop
