              Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 4

Y O U R  G U I D E  T O  T H E  B E S T  O F  T H E  W E B
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I'm always on the lookout for a new computer to replace my current one when it
 becomes obsolete, which usually happens before I can get it all the way out of
                                    the box.

    I can do "multi-tasking," which means I have the ability to run several
  programs to the same time, which means that I can waste time faster than ever
                                    before.

Part 1 of 14


                          A BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPUTING
                          FROM CAVE WALLS TO WINDOWS 95
                      Not That This Is Necessarily Progress

                                Early Mathematics

The first human beings didn't need computers, because they had no numbers.
This was a big problem for parents, because they had no way to control their
children ("You kids stop that!  I mean it!  I'm going to count to. . . um. . .
to. . . YOU KIDS STOP THAT!").

By the Paleolithic Era, humans had discovered numbers; however, as we see from
the cave writing reproduced below, they had no idea what the numbers meant:

As you can imagine, these people sometimes took months to balance their
checkbooks.

It was the ancient Egyptians who first figured out that numbers could, if you
added and subtracted them, be used to form mathematics; this made it possible,
for the first time, to build the pyramids as well as keep score in bowling.

From there mathematics spread throughout the civilized world via camel,
eventually reaching the ancient Greeks, who invented the cosine.  The Greeks
also produced the great thinker Pythagoras, who discovered that the tip equals
15 percent.

From there it was only a short step to the invention of trigonometry, although
not all of us view this as a good thing.

                              Very Early Computers

Some archeologists believe that Stonehenge - the mysterious arrangement of
enormous elongated stones in England - is actually a crude effort by the Druids
to build a computing device.  This theory is based on the fact that the stones,
when viewed from above, form a distinct pattern, as we see in the following
aerial photograph:

Around the same time  the Chinese invented the abacus, a wooden frame with
colored beads on strings that can be used to perform rapid mathematical
computations.  In the first practical use of the new technology, a Chinese
merchant totaled up a sale on an abacus, which indicated that the customer owed
the equivalent of $297 million for a pound of rice.  This led to the invention
of two key data-processing expressions that are still widely used by businesses
today:

  * "We haven't worked out all the bugs."

  * "Can you come back later?  Our abacus is down."

Over the ensuing centuries, inventors continued to tinker with computing
machines.  In 1593 the brilliant German mathematician Klaus Von Fochenstrudel
built a device that employed two knobs, which activated a series of gears and
levers, which in turn controlled a stylus that left a record of its movements
in the form of marks drawn in a tray of sand; after each session these marks
could be erased by simply shaking the tray to smooth the sand.  This invention
turned out to be completely useless for computing, but it ultimately led to the
Etch-a-Sketch.


              Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 6

Part 2 of 14


                          A BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPUTING
                       Part II: The First Modern Computer

It should come as no surprise that the person who first conceived of the
modern electronic computer was Leonardo da Vinci, the brilliant Renaissance
thinker who also had the original idea for virtually every other mechanical
device we use today, including the helicopter, the ATM machine, Velcro, and the
Thighmaster.

But it was not until  the Industrial Revolution, that Da Vinci's vision became
a reality.  The man responsible was inventor Elias Smurton, who in 1807 built
his revolutionary steam-powered computer, the Data Belle, which featured a
14-ton floppy diskette that required 40 men and a team of horses to insert.

Seeking to publicize his invention, Smurton staged a computing contest between
his machine and one of the leading mathematicians of the day, John "Henry"
LaFromage.  In a dramatic demonstration of the awesome potential of automated
data-processing, the human competition was literally "blown away" when the Data
Belle, attempting to add 2 and 7, exploded with such force that what was
believed to be LaFromage's pancreas was found nearly four miles away.

As you would expect, when the federal income tax was enacted in 1913, the
Internal Revenue Service quickly embraced the computer.  The model used by the
IRS was a simple yet effective device that employed a bank of electrically
charged nails and a series of cardboard cards with various patterns of holes
punched in them; when the nails were pressed down onto a card, they passed
through the holes and formed a complete electrical circuit by piercing the
naked bodies of taxpayers who had been summoned for audits.

              Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 9

Part 3 of 14

                          A BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPUTING
                        Part III: Computers On The March

I It was not until World War II that the U.S. government began to unleash the
true power of this technology, when our intelligence forces first employed
computers to break enemy codes.  Probably the most famous example concerns a
top-secret cable sent from the Japanese military high command to Japan's
ambassador in Washington on December 3, 1941.  The cable, intercepted by U.S.
agents, read:

E-WAY ILL-WAY ATTACK-AY EARL-PAY ARBOR-HAY
- TOKYO

This cable was immediately fed into the U.S. War Department's top-secret
code-breaking computer, code-named CODEBREAKER, which consisted of thousands of
interconnected electronic switches, or "relays." Unlike human intelligence
analysts, CODEBREAKER was able to work on the problem non-stop, 24 hours a day,
never taking a coffee break;, until finally, in March of 1944, it gave up.
Before it quit, however, CODEBREAKER was able to correctly identify "Tokyo" as
"a city in Asia" -- information that was to prove vital in the war effort.

The next major advance came soon after the war, with the construction of the
first commercially available electronic digital computer, UNIVAC.  This
device, which contained 20,000 vacuum tubes, occupied 1,500 square feet and
weighed 40 tons; there was also a laptop version weighing 27 tons.  UNIVAC was
capable of performing 5,000 mathematical calculations per second;, which,
although slow by today's standards, meant it was now possible for a single
corporate employee to do something that formerly was impossible: play Solitaire
on the computer screen.  The modern electronic office was born.

             Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 11

Part 4 of 14

                          A BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPUTING
                      Part IIII: The American Way Of Life

Over the next two decades, computer usage became widespread in the commercial
world, radically transforming the way business was done.  Nowhere was the
change more striking than in the area of paper.  In the pre-computer days,
virtually every business activity, no matter how trivial, resulted in the
generation of a piece of paper; now, thanks to electronic data processing,
every activity, including office birth announcements, resulted in hundreds,
sometimes thousands of pieces of paper.  Every serious business had a bank of
industrial printers cranking away day and night, churning out endless rivers of
perforated paper covered with detailed reports consisting of lengthy columns of
numbers that no actual person would ever look at.  These reports were aged in
huge warehouses in New Jersey, then converted into mulch, which was in turn
used to grow new trees needed to meet the ever-expanding need for computer
paper.

But as important as these advances were, they were limited to the business
community; ordinary citizens had no direct contact with computers, and thus no
way to personally experience the benefits of the new technology.  All of this
changed in the early 1970s with the introduction of the first truly practical
personal data-processing device: the Pong machine.  Suddenly, people in bars
who used to fritter away most of  their time watching Hollywood Squares could -
without knowing anything about programming - use little electronic paddles to
bat an electronic dot back and forth across the screen. Once Americans began to
grasp the extent to which this invention had increased their personal
productivity, it was only a matter of time before they demanded -- and got --
Pac-Man.

Americans were becoming hooked on computers; the only problem was that these
computers were found mainly in bars, required a quarter to operate, had very
simple controls, and were useful mainly for playing games. Clearly what was
needed was a home-based computer that cost thousands of dollars, had complex
controls, and would be useful mainly for playing games. And thus the personal
computer, or "PC," was born.

             Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 13

Part 5 of 14
                          A BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPUTING
                        Part V: The Evil Genius of MS-DOS

In the early days, different brands of computers used different operating
systems, which meant that people switching from one computer to another would
have to learn a completely new set of instructions.  This was obviously
inefficient, so in the early 1980s most major computer manufacturers agreed to
stop forcing people to learn a bunch of different operating systems, and
instead adopt a single, uniform, standardized operating system so absurdly
non-intuitive that nobody  could learn it.  This system was called MS-DOS.

 The MS, of course, stood for Microsoft, the company that was started by the
brilliant software genius Bill Gates. Gates is a very rich man today -- Forbes
magazine estimates that he's worth more than the entire O.J. Simpson defense
team combined  -- and do you want to know why? The answer is one word: versions.

To understand what I mean by versions, let's consider an analogy involving
cars.  Suppose you've purchased a new car, and you notice that, although it
does move, it goes very slowly, is extremely hard to steer, and makes a loud
scraping sound.  You study this problem for a while, and you conclude that the
most likely cause is that the car does not have any front wheels.  So you
mention this to the salesperson, and he tells you that you have Version 1.0 of
the car, but that Version 1.1 will be out shortly, and it will feature wheels
in front as well as back.  So when Version 1.1 comes out, you upgrade, which
means you pay money.  But you're happy, because now you have a car with a
complete set of wheels, and you're totally satisfied with it from the moment
that you pull out of the dealer's lot to the moment, about 90 seconds later,
when you drive into a public fountain.  This is when find out that brakes are
not scheduled to appear until Version 1.3.

This is very much the way MS-DOS worked. The original version, 1.0, did
virtually nothing except cause the computer screen to say:

  A:>

That was it. Really. Ask anybody who used MS-DOS computers back then. You'd
turn them on, and there'd be this A: staring back at you.  What did it mean?
Why A:? Why not some other letter, or even an actual word? And what was the
little pointy > thing for? We will never know the answer. It's one of the many
mysteries of MS-DOS.

So, anyway, people would turn on their computers, and stare at the

  A:>

for awhile, scratching their heads, and then finally they'd try typing
something after the A:>, perhaps something like:

  A:> HELLO

But here was the crucial thing about MS-DOS Version 1.0: No matter what you
typed in, it would respond as follows:

  BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME

Then, with no further explanation, it would go back to:

  A:>

There were rumors -- never verified -- that if you typed in certain secret code
words, you could get some response other than A:> or BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME,
but if there were such code words, only Bill Gates ever knew what they were.
So mainly what this version of the MS-DOS was used for -- millions of
person-hours were spent on this -- was trying to get it to do something,
anything. If you were to travel back in time and look at the average person's
computer screen during that era, you'd see what looked like a conversation
between the computer user and an unusually hostile employee of the Department
of Motor Vehicles:

  A:> HELLO
   BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
  A:> HELP
   BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
  A:> DO SOMETHING!
   BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
  A:>RUN A PROGRAM, DAMMIT!
   BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
  A:>**** YOU
   BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME, ***HOLE

This was pretty much all people did with MS-DOS  Version 1.0.  So you can
imagine how excited everybody was when Microsoft came out with Version 1.1,
which had a whole new capability.  In addition to doing this:

  A:>

It would sometimes also do this:

  C:>

A new letter! This was very, very exciting news for those of us in the computer
geek world.  We all immediately upgraded to Version 1.1.  Of course, no matter
what we typed, it still answered BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME. But we felt renewed
hope.

Over the next few years, Microsoft continued to come out with new improved,
versions of MS-DOS, featuring a constantly expanding repertoire of
incomprehensible and/or scary screen messages, including:

  B:>
  NON-SYSTEM DISK OR DISK ERROR
  INVALID SWITCH
  PATH NOT FOUND
  WARNING! ALL DATA WILL BE LOST!

And just about everybody's all-time favorite:

  ABORT,  RETRY,  FAIL?

We loyal Microgeeks faithfully upgraded every time a new version came out,
until finally, somewhere around Version 3.7, we had reached the point where we
could use MS-DOS to actually run programs on our computers, and Bill Gates had
reached the point where he had approximately 217 personal jet airplanes.

             Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 16

Part 6 of 14
                          A BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPUTING
                      Part VI: Apple's Alternate Universe

I should point out that, while all this [MS-DOS masochism] was going on, there
was another kind of computer developing, in a parallel universe.  This was the
Apple, and it operated on an entirely different concept, which was: A regular
human could use it.  You simply turned it on, and immediately, just like that,
you could do stuff with it.  It had little pictures on the screen, and a little
mouse that made a pointer move to the picture you wanted; even a child could
understand this.  For many years, while we MS-DOS people were typing insanely
obscure instructions like:

  dir c:\abcproj\docs\lttrs\sales\apr\*.*

the Apple people were simply aiming their little mouse pointers at little
pictures and going click.

In short, the Apple was far easier to use.  So the vast majority of us serious
computer users rejected it.  As I noted in the introduction, the main reason we
have computers is so we can be tormented by them.  We don't want some wussy
user-friendly computer: We want a challenge.

That's why, to this very day, Apple is not considered by us cyberwonks to be a
truly serious computer.  It is viewed as a computer that is popular mainly with
your flaky or artsy-fartsy type of individual -- your artist, your poet, your
beatnik, your flower-arranger, your heroin addict, your Barry Manilow. We
serious users pride ourselves on wrestling with openly hostile computers that
are running on an operating system from the proud, incomprehensible Microsoft
tradition.  That operating system, of course, is Windows.

As I write these words;,, the computer world is still reverberating with
the excitement surrounding the introduction of Windows 95, which replaced
Windows Version 3.11, which replaced Windows 3.1, which replaced Windows
Version 3.0, and so on backward to the original Windows Version 1.0, which did
nothing except put a colorful Windows logo on the screen along with a message
that said OUT OF MEMORY.

Windows 95 represented a major step forward in the sense that it was virtually
nothing like any of the earlier Windows versions and nobody had any idea how to
use it. Naturally it was hugely popular. Everybody wanted it; Microsoft was
getting bulk orders from rainforest-dwelling tribes that didnt even have
electricity.

Inevitably, people began to figure out how to use Windows 95 to actually do
things; thus the challenge facing software designers, once again, is to develop
some creative new way to thwart users.  And rest assured, they will do it. Even
now they're working on experimental programs that will spontaneously mutate
into new, 100 percent incompatible versions while they're running. And let's
not forget the hardware manufacturers, who are constantly coming out with
faster and more powerful computers they talked you into buying last month.

Yes, we have come a long, long way from the days when prehistoric humans would
write crude numbers on cave walls.  How would these ancient ancestors react if
we were to show them a modern computer? Probably they would beat it into
submission with rocks. They were a lot smarter than we realize.

             Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 18

Part 7 of 14
                              LIVING WITH COMPUTERS
                            Part I: Words For Nerds

The computer world has a language all its own, just like Hungary, the
difference being that if you hang around with Hungarians long enough, you
eventually start to understand what they're talking about; whereas the language
used in the computer world is specifically designed to prevent this from
happening.

Nevertheless, there are certain basic computer terms that you need to try to
familiarize yourself with, so that when you go to purchase a computer, you
don't sound like just some random putz. Instead, you'll sound like a specific
putz who memorized some terms out of a book.

                              BASIC COMPUTER TERMS

HARDWARE
This is the part of the computer that stops working when you spill beer on it.

SOFTWARE
These are the PROGRAMS that you put on the HARD DRIVE by sticking them through
the little SLOT.  The function of the software is to give instructions to the
CPU, which is a set of three initials inside the computer that rapidly
processes billions of tiny facts, called BYTES, and within a fraction of a
second sends you an ERROR MESSAGE that requires you to call the CUSTOMER
SUPPORT HOTLINE and be placed on HOLD for approximately the life span of a
CARIBOU. Software is usually accompanied by DOCUMENTATION in the form of big
fat scary MANUALS that nobody ever reads. In fact, for the past five years most
of the "manuals" shipped with software products have actually been copies of
Stephen King's THE STAND with new covers pasted on.

MEGAHERTZ
This is a really, really big hertz.

RAM
This is a shorthand way of referring to "ROM." The unit of measurement for RAM
is the "MEG," which stands for a certain amount of RAM." The function of RAM is
to give guys a way of deciding whose computer has the biggest, studliest, most
tumescent MEMORY.  This is important, because with today's complex software,
the more memory a computer has, the faster it can produce error messages. So
the bottom line is, if you're a guy, you cannot have enough RAM. BILL GATES
currently has over 743 billion "megs" of RAM, and he still routinely feels the
need to stuff a ZUCCHINI in his UNDERWEAR.

You should use the preceding terms whenever you have to "interface" with
computer experts. For example, if you're purchasing a new computer, you want to
use as many of these terms as possible, so that store personnel will realize
that they're dealing with a person who has a high level of technical expertise:

  STORE PERSONNEL: May I help you?
  YOU: I'm looking for a "hard drive" with plenty of "RAM" in the "megahertz."
  STORE PERSONNEL: You want the computer store next door.  This is a
supermarket.
  YOU: Let me see your "zucchini."

             Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 20

Part 8 of 14

                              LIVING WITH COMPUTERS
                         Part II: How To Buy A Computer

If you're a novice in cyberspace, you may think that buying a computer is a
scary and confusing process. But the truth is that if you take a little time to
learn a few basic principles and some of the technical lingo, buying the right
computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a
nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth.
So let's get started!

                        WHAT KIND OF COMPUTER DO I NEED?

Experts agree that the best type of computer for your individual needs is one
that comes on the market about two days after you actually purchase some other
computer.  Computer manufacturers have agents monitoring your home at all
times; the instant you come home with a newly purchased computer, these agents
use their wrist radios to contact the manufacturer and say: (YOUR NAME) just
bought a computer! It's time to come out with a much better one with way more
features for the same price, so that (YOUR NAME) will feel like a great big
consumer bonerhead! I know! They've done this to me dozens of times!

(NOTE: Perhaps you think you can trick them by bringing home an empty computer
box and remarking to yourself, out loud: Here I am, bringing home a new
computer that I just purchased! Perhaps you are a fool: They have X-ray
glasses.)

And then we have software. I regularly read Internet user groups filled with
messages from people trying to solve software incompatibility problems that, in
terms of complexity, make the U.S. Tax Code look like Dr. Seuss. A typical
exchange of messages goes like this:

WINDOWS PROBLEM
I'm wondering if anybody can help me with a problem I'm having on my computer
at work. I recently upgraded to Windows 95 from Windows 3.1416, and I've
noticed that when I running WordWanker Version 2.0.9.4 (which I upgraded from
1.8.4.7) in conjunction with FaxBuddy! Version 4.2.4.3.7857, everything works
fine for about the first 25 minutes, but then if I try to type a subordinating
conjunction followed by any form of the verb foment, the keyboard locks up
permanently and the hard drive makes a whimpering sound and all current data is
erased, including data in computers several cubicles away.  I have tried
everything, including reformatting my hard drive and exorcism. Please help!

REPLY TO: WINDOWS PROBLEM
I had exactly the same problem, and after a lot of trial and error I found out
that if you click on the Windows Control Panel, then on Command Center, then on
Reset Variables, then on Establish New Parameters, then on Define Standards,
then on Modify Criteria, then on Effectuate Paradigms, then on the little icon
that says Do Not Ever Click On This Little Icon, then go down to the box that
says Enter New Value, and type in 2038, you will still have the same problem.
This is why I started using heroin.

And so it goes in the user groups, endless, increasingly poignant discussions
of problems that the human mind was never designed to grapple with. Of course,
your experience could be totally different; you might find that everything
works exactly the way it's supposed to, no problems, no glitches, nothing, in
which case whatever you do, don't wake up.

             Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 23

Part 9 of 14
                              LIVING WITH COMPUTERS
                  Part III: Real Computer Terms For Real People

Once you get your computer home, of course, you no longer need to use technical
terms. But you will want familiarize yourself with the following:

  COMPUTER TERMS THAT YOU WILL ACTUALLY USE ONCE YOU GET THE COMPUTER HOME FROM
                                    THE STORE

"UH-oh."

"What the hell happened to my REPORT?"

"I NEED THAT REPORT!!"

(Pounding on the computer:) "GIVE ME BACK MY REPORT OR I'M GOING TO THROW YOUR
LITTLE FRIEND THE FAX MACHINE OUT THE WINDOW!"

"Wait! The screen is saying something:

  BIOS ROM AUTOCACHE FORMAT ERROR

'THAT'S helpful.

"I'll call Technical Support Hotline."

(After 173 minutes on hold listening to Tom Jones sing "What's New,
Pussycat?":) "I'll read the manual."

"Who wrote this thing? The Internal Revenue Service?"

"Okay, here it is, page 367:
A "BIOS ROM AUTOCACHE FORMAT ERROR" message indicates that there is an error in
the BIOS ROM automate format.

"That clears THAT up!"

"Jason, could you help Daddy, please? Daddy can't get the computer to give
Daddy back his report."
Yes, Jason, Daddy knows you're watching Power Rangers, but this is really,
really important."

"Jason!"

"DAMMIT, JASON, IF YOU DON'T HELP DADDY GET HIS REPORT OUT OF THIS COMPUTER
RIGHT NOW, DADDY IS GOING TO SPEND THE REST OF HIS CORPORATE LIFE CLEANING
URINALS!"

"No, Don't cry, Jason! Daddy's sorry! Listen, if you help Daddy get his report
back, Daddy will buy you a motorcycle, OK?"

"Yes! A real one!"

"That's right, Jason, it says 'BIOS ROM AUTOCACHE FORMAT ERROR.'"

"Haha! Yes, Jason, Daddy IS a big doodyhead to make an error like that! But how
can Daddy get his - What are you doing, Jason? Are you sure you know what
you're . . . HEY! THERE IT IS! DADDY'S REPORT! Thank you, Jason! Thank you
thank you thank you thank . . .

"OK. A red motorcycle. But you can't tell Mommy."

             Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 25

Part 10 of 14
                              LIVING WITH COMPUTERS
                    Part IIII: Reach Out And Touch Everyone

Why is the Internet so popular? For one thing, it enables you to communicate
quickly and easily with people all over the world -- even people you don't want
to communicate with. I know this for a fact, because one time several years
ago, when I was new to the Internet, I attempted to send an electronic message
to a writer who I know in England named Michael Bywater, whom I met when I was
in London. Michael and I really hit it off, in part because we share a common
philosophical outlook on important economic, social, and political issues, and
in part because we consumed an enormous quantity of beer.

So when I got back to the United States, I wrote Michael this chatty little
message, which was basically an inside joke that would make sense only to him.
It addressed Michael as "Mr. Chuckletrousers" -- a name I'd seen in a London
newspaper headline -- and it contained various sophisticated and extremely
subtle humor elements that could look, to the uninformed observer, like bad
words.

The was that, because of my limited grasp of how the Internet works, instead of
sending this message just to Michael, I somehow managed to send (or in
cyberlingo, "post") it to THE WHOLE ENTIRE INTERNET. It immediately became
semi-famous. People called it the Chuckletrousers Post and it spread like
wildfire around the Internet, as people made copies and sent them to their
friends, who made copies for their friends. As far as I can tell, thousands,
perhaps millions of people ended up seeing it. To this day, I am regularly
approached by total strangers who say, "Hi, Mr. Chuckletrousers!" and then walk
off, snickering. If there are in fact intelligent beings elsewhere in the
universe, I'm pretty sure that the first communication they will receive from
our civilization will be the Chuckletrousers Post.

The irony is, about a week after the original post, Michael Bywater -- remember
him? -- posted a message on the Internet saying that he'd heard there was some
message going around with his name in it, but he hadn't seen it, and could
somebody please send it to him? In other words, I had managed to send this
hideously embarrassing message to everybody in the world except the person who
was supposed to read it.

Yes, thanks to the awesome communications capabilities of the Internet, I was
able to make an intergalactic fool of myself, and there's no reason why you
can't do the same.

             Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 27

Part 11 of 14

                              LIVING WITH COMPUTERS
                         Part V: Making Sense On Usenet

As a new person - or "newbie" -- on the Internet, you'll probably be struck by
the fact that a lot of the messages contain odd-looking words and punctuation.
This is a kind of "shorthand" that Internet users have developed so they can
express certain thoughts and emotions without wasting valuable time typing them
out. You'll definitely want to learn to use Internet shorthand, so you won't
look like some random dork who doesn't know what's going on. Instead, you'll
look like the specific kind of dork who uses Internet shorthand.

Much of this shorthand takes the form of "acronyms," which are chemical
substances secreted by moths wishing to have sex.

No, wait, that's "pheromones." Acronyms are groups of initials - like
"r.s.v.p." (8) --  that stand for some commonly used phrase. Internet people
love acronyms because they make communication much more efficient, as we can
see from the following typical conversation:

Person A: What's up?
Person B: Not much.
Person A: LOL. HEFY?
Person B: ROTFL.
Person C: PMFJ, but IMHO, OJIOGBUOLSWMR
TJVAIFWNTMITSI
HDHGCOAC.

This may look to you like a bunch of "gobbledygook," but these people are
actually having an extremely witty conversation, Internet style. To help you
decode it, here's a table of Internet acronyms:

  <g>  "Grin." The  is widely used on the Internet to indicate that the writer
   meant the preceding statement to be humorous. Interestingly, the preceding
  statement is almost never even remotely humorous. Internet people apparently
  believe they can make their statements humorous by putting "<g>"s after them.

                            EXAMPLES OF TYPICAL USAGE
                              I live in Akron. <g>
           The French poet Jean Baptiste Racine was born in 1639. <g>

                            LOL  "Laughing Out Loud"

  This indicates that the writer is laughing out loud. It is generally used in
               response to a statement that has a "<g>" after it.

                                    EXAMPLE
                    Person A: We had a rainy day today. <g>
                                  Person B: LOL

                     ROTFL  "Rolling On The Floor Laughing"

  This is used in response to a statement that is even funnier than one that is
        merely LOL. There is just no end to the hilarity on the Internet.

                                    EXAMPLE
          Person A: We had some rain today, but it turned to sleet. <g>
                                Person B: ROTFL

                          HEFY?  "Hot Enough For You?"

                This hilarious zinger always gets everybody ROTFL

                         PMFJ  "Pardon Me For Jumping In"

  This is often used in conjunction with another acronym IMHO, which stands for
  "In My Humble Opinion." These courteous acronyms help keep the Internet civil
                                  and polite.

                                    EXAMPLE
                            PMFJ, but IMHO, you suck.

                                  OJIOGBUOLSWMR
                                 TJVAIFWNTMITSI
                                    HDHGCOAC

    "O.J. Is Obviously Guilty, But Under Our Legal System We Must Respect The
Jury's Verdict, Although It Frankly Would Not Trouble Me In The Slightest If He
                        Drove His Golf Cart Off A Cliff."

The other popular form of Internet shorthand is the "emoticon." Emoticons are a
very clever use of standard punctuation marks to express a human emotion.
Here's how they work.

Suppose you're typing a statement such as:

                               I am feeling happy

The problem with this is, the reader cannot be absolutely, 100 percent sure
what emotion you're feeling when you type this. So at the end of the sentence,
you type a colon ( : ) followed by a closing parenthesis ()). Now your sentence
looks like this:

                             I am feeling happy  :)

See the difference? Instead of just a flat, emotionless statement, you now have
a flat, emotionless statement with a weird punctuation mark at the end. That's
because, to "read" the emoticon, you have to turn this page sideways, with the
right side (K) of the page pointing down, then look at the emoticon. Go ahead:
Turn the page sideways!

Through the miracle of modern technology, you can now experience this effect on
your computer. Click here to TURN YOUR MONITOR SIDEWAYS!

Did you notice what happened to the punctuation marks? That's right! They
formed a "smiley face"! Now your reader will know exactly  what your emotional
state was when you wrote the words; namely, a state of happiness.  But that's
only the beginning.  By using an opening parenthesis after the colon instead of
a closing one -- as in ":(" -- you can express the opposite emotion from
happiness; to wit, sadness. This can add a real "oomph" to an otherwise
"ho-hum" sentence. Consider:

Without emoticon:
  Over 7,000 men died at Gettysburg
With emoticon:
  Over 7,000 men died at Gettysburg :(

See the difference? The readers of the second sentence, merely by turning it
sideways, will immediately recognize that it is talking about a sad thing.

Of course emoticons have been around for hundreds of years, as we see from
these actual reproductions from original manuscripts:

Call me Ishmael :)

Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well :(

It was the best of times :) It was the worst of times :(

             Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: September 30

Part 12 of 14

                               SELECTED WEB SITES
            Part I: At Last, Proof That Civilization Is Doomed

A common criticism of the Internet is that it is dominated by the crude, the
uninformed, the immature, the smug, the untalented, the repetitious, the
pathetic, the hostile, the deluded, the self-righteous, and the shrill.  This
criticism overlooks the fact that the Internet also offers -- for the savvy
individual who knows where to look -- the tasteless and the borderline insane.

I am thinking here mainly of the World Wide Web.  Whereas much of the Internet
relies strictly on the text, the Web is multimedia; this means that if, for
example, you're setting up a Web site devoted to exploring the near-universal
fear that a Star Wars character wants to consume your gonads you can present
this issue in both words and pictures (I'll have more on this issue later
).  You can also greatly advance the frontiers of scientific knowledge
regarding Spam.

In researching this chapter, I spent many, many hours exploring the World Wide
Web.  My time was divided as follows:

Activity: Typing insanely complex Web addresses
Time Spent: 2%

 Activity: Waiting for what seemed like at least two academic semesters per Web
page while the computer appeared to do absolutely nothing
Time Spent: 93%

 Activity: Reading snippy messages stating that there is no such Web address
 Time Spent: 2%

 Activity: Retyping insanely complex Web addresses
Time Spent: 2%

 Activity: Actually looking at Web pages
Time Spent: 1%

As you can see, it can take quite a while for a Web page to appear on your
screen.  The reason for the delay is that, when you type in a Web address, your
computer passes it along to another computer, which in turn passes it along to
another computer, and so on through as many as 5 computers before it finally
reaches the work station of a disgruntled U.S. Postal Service employee, who
throws it in the trash.  So when browsing the Web, you will almost certainly
encounter lengthy delays, which means that it's a good idea to have something
else to do while you're waiting, such as re-roof your house.

Anyway, by virtue of being diligent and not having a real job, I was eventually
able to get through to quite a few Web pages, and in this chapter I'm going to
describe some of the more memorable ones.  But before I do, I want to stress
three points:

  * All the pages described here are real; I did not make any of them up.

  * What you see here represents just a teensy-tiny fraction of the thousands
    upon thousands of Web pages, with new ones being created constantly.  Do
    not assume, from what you see in this chapter, that all Web pages are a
    total waste of time; the actual figure is only about 99.999997 percent.

  * By the time you read this, you may not be able to visit all of these pages.
    I visited most of them in mid-1996; some of them may have since gone out of
    existence for various reasons, such as that their creators were recalled to
    their home planets.

But this chapter is not intended as an exhaustive list:  I just want to give
you an idea of some of the stuff that's out there.  So fasten your seatbelt,
and let's visit some of the fascinating rest stops on the Information
Superhighway.  We'll start appropriately enough, with:

                      The Toilets of Melbourne, Australia

If you're thinking about taking a trip to Melbourne, Australia, the first
question you ask yourself is: "What will the toilets be like?"

 The answer can be found at this Web site, which offers detailed reviews of
selected Melbourne-area toilets.  Here are some actual excerpts:

  * "What a great day for a drive!  Mild weather.  A nice lunch.  A scenic
    walk.  First-rate toilets."

  * "The other notable thing about the toilets was the toilet paper holders.
    They were Bowscott continuous  toilet paper holders that were actually
    positioned up high enough."

  * "On the way we stopped at Eastland shopping centre -- home of the best
    public toilets I have seen so far.  They were clean, open, and the toilet
    roll holders were free moving.  As with the Lysterfield Lake  toilets, one
    of the basin-style urinals was positioned lower for kids.  The hand dryer
    was fantastic too.  It was a compact, automatic Mirage dryer.  Even though
    it was much smaller than other hand dryers, it blew out plenty of hot air."

And that is not all:  From this Web site, you can jump to some of the many,
many other toilet-related Web sites, including a Virtual Public Restroom ("The
Toilet of the Web"), where you can write a virtual message and leave a virtual
"poopie." (Don't ask.)


              Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: October 2

Part 13 of 14

                               SELECTED WEB SITES
                        Part II: Farther Down The Hotlist

Still more from the highways and byways of the Web:

                        Giant Collection of Viola Jokes

If you're like most people, you frequently remark to yourself:  "Darn it!  I
have an important business presentation to make today, and I would love to
'break the ice' by opening with a viola joke, but I don't know any fresh ones!"

Well, you will never have to make that statement again, not after you visit
this web page.  This is a huge collection of viola jokes.  I suppose it's
possible that somebody, somewhere, has compiled an even bigger collection of
viola jokes, but I seriously doubt that this could be done without the aid of
powerful illegal stimulants.

Much of the viola-joke humor appears to be based on the premise that viola
players are not the brightest or most talented members of the orchestra:

Q.  How can you tell when a violist is playing out of tune?
A.  The bow is moving.

Q.  What do you call a violist with two brain cells?
A.  Pregnant.

Some of the jokes are probably a lot more hilarious if you know something about
classical music.  I'm sure, for example, that many orchestra professionals slap
their thighs when they hear this one:

Q.  How do you get a violist to play a passage pianissimo tremolando?
A. Mark it "solo."

Ha ha!  "Mark it 'solo!'"  Whew!

Anyway, I was genuinely surprised by this web page.  I always thought of
classical orchestras as somber operations where most of the musicians are very
serious and hunched over to the point of bowel disorder.  I had no idea that
there was this level of wackiness, especially not in the string section.  (The
woodwinds, of course, are a different story; those dudes and dudettes are out
of control.)

                                  The Spam Cam

If you have the slightest doubt that the Internet is good for science, you
should look at this page, and then you will have much more serious doubts.

This page is billed as "The page that seeks to answer the question: IS SPAM
ORGANIC?"  It presents close-up photographs of scientific experiments showing
what happens when Spam and other types of food are left sitting out for long
periods of time.  What happens is - get ready for a major scientific
breakthrough - everything gets really disgusting.

For a while there was also a very popular Web site set up by college students
wishing to determine what happens to Twinkies when they are heated with
torches, dropped from tall buildings, etc., but when I tried to check it out,
it had been closed down by lawyers.  Perhaps by the time you read this, it will
be back in operation again.  Or perhaps the entire Internet will have been
closed down by lawyers.  Or perhaps college students will have started dropping
lawyers from tall buildings.  You never know, with the future.

                                Guide to Crackers

This is one of those ideas that you never in a million years would have had
yourself, but as soon as you see it, you smack your forehead and say: "Huh?"

This page features photographs of various types of crackers -- Cheez-Its, Ritz
Bits, etc. -- actual size.  When you click on a cracker, you go to a page that
gives you packaging and nutritional information.  You are also encouraged to
donate crackers, especially "rare and unusual crackers."

I am sure there is a good reason.

                         World Record Barbecue Ignition

If this Web page doesn't make you proud to be an American, then I frankly don't
know what will.  This site presents the ultimate result of the effort by
members of the Purdue University engineering department to see how fast they
could get the barbecue charcoal ignited at their annual picnic.  They started
by blowing the charcoal with a hair dryer; then, in subsequent years, they
escalated to using a propane torch, an acetylene torch, and then compressed
pure oxygen.

At this point, they were lighting the charcoal very fast, but for these guys,
"very fast" was not good enough.  These guys had a dream, and that dream was to
ignite their charcoal faster than anybody had ever done before.  And thus they
hit upon the idea of using liquid oxygen, the kind used in rocket engines.  On
this Web page you can see photos and video of an engineer named George Goble
using long wooden handles to dump a bucket of liquid oxygen onto a grill
containing 60 pounds of charcoal; this is followed by a fireball that,
according to Goble, reached 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  The charcoal was ready
for cooking in three seconds.

Next time Oregon has a whale problem, maybe it should call these guys.

                          Flaming Pop-Tart Experiment

It is a well-known scientific fact that if you put a Kellogg's brand strawberry
Pop-Tart into a toaster and hold the toaster lever down so that it can't pop
up, after about five minutes, the Pop-Tart will turn into the Blowtorch Snack
Pastry from Hell, shooting dramatic blue flames as much as a foot out of the
toaster slots.

If you visit this Web page, you can see actual photos of an experiment
demonstrating this spectacular phenomenon.  I urge you, however, not to attempt
to duplicate this experiment unless you are a trained science professional
using somebody else's toaster, because we are talking about a powerful force
with the potential for great destruction.  We can only be grateful that the
Nazis never learned how to harness it, although historians strongly suspect
that they were working on it near the end.


              Y-Life Presents Dave Barry In Cyberspace: October 4

Part 14 of 14
                               SELECTED WEB SITES
                          Part III: The End Of The Line

Today's installment is our last excerpt from Dave Barry's new book, Dave Barry
In Cyberspace. You'll be able to read the entire collection for the next five
days -- until October 9, when we take them all off the Net and shoo you into
the bookstores to pick up one of those paper things with the covers. Thanks for
reading, and join Dave now while he makes one last spin through the Web:

                           Trojan Room Coffee Machine

If you go to this page, you can, merely by clicking your mouse, see, from
anywhere in the world, an up-to-the-second video image of the coffee machine in
the Trojan Room of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in England.
It would be virtually impossible to calculate the time that has been saved by
disseminating this information via the Web, as opposed to previous methods.

                        Captain and Tenille Appearances

This page lists upcoming personal appearances by the Captain and Tenille.
Using this information, you can find out exactly where this veteran duo will be
making their own special brand of musical magic, so that you can arrange to be
on the diametrically opposite side of the Earth when they perform "Muskrat
Love."

                           Dutch traffic signs

Without this site, I would never have known that the Dutch have a traffic sign
that means "squalls."

                          Federal Corpse Slice Photos

On this site you can see images taken from the government's Visible Human
Project, in which two actual deceased humans, one male and one female, were
frozen in gelatin and sliced into very thin slices for the benefit of science.
I know what you're wondering: You're wondering where the government got the
corpses.  You will be relieved to learn that the answer is: not from the
Internal Revenue Service Division of Taxpayer Compliance.
Or so they claim.

                              People with Toasters

This page features photographs of people with their toasters.

                                      Fabio

This page features photographs of the romantic superstar mega-hunk Fabio with
his toaster.

No, seriously, the photographs depict the romantic superstar mega-hunk posing
in a manner that reveals his deeply passionate sensitive innermost feelings
about what a stud-muffin he is.  What makes this site great is that you can
click on the photographs, and, if your computer has sound, Fabio will say
things to you, such as: "Your caress is my command."  Apparently he doesn't
realize that you're caressing him with a mouse pointer.

Let me repeat that the Web sites described in this chapter represent just a
tiny fraction of what's out there.  What you really need to do is get on the
Web and start poking around for yourself.  You'll quickly discover that
what you've read about here exemplifies some of the saner thinking going on.
So go ahead!  Get on the Web!  In my opinion, it's WAY more fun than
television, and what harm can it do?

OK, it can kill brain cells by the billions.  But you don't need brain cells.
You have a computer.


