Diana the Valkyrie's Newsletter - July 2001
A hard man is good to beat
Flaming June! It's been such great weather this month, I've been taking a book into the garden, and sitting by the duckpond, listening to the splish-splash of water and reading while toasting the parts that don't usually get toasted.
Galleries added this month.
Stories added this month.
Movies added this month.
Video 31 is 90 minutes of the Femsport Valkyrie Festival, showing the various strength and endurance events. At $30, that's pretty good value!
Ziggy has taken over from Hilda; Ziggy is my first Valkyrie Mark 4 server (very thin, only 1 3/4 inches). She seems to be running fine. But Yenta, who is supposed to be the backup for Xenia (older news) is running very poorly. I've summoned her back to Valkyrie Central for a bit of re-education, meanwhile Abbie is going to be gotten ready, and is on her way to Maryland now.
This month, there weren't any server problems. The password file on Joan got splatted, but the automatic repair system fixed it within minutes.
Woo hoo! Maxtor have announced 100 gb drives for $300 each. The next generation of Mark 2s will have 1209 gb (Xenia is 969, and the oldest Mark 2s were 649).
I've sent a camcorder out to Kandor, so he can get himself Krushed more often. Kandor writes a great script, and also plays well in a video. And Blaster holds the camera well. I'm hoping for great things from that duo. The first output will be "Credit Card Crunch", which is currently being duplicated. Kandor has been overspending on his cards again, and Sonia Fernandes is very displeased. She wants him to cut all his cards up, and her vice-like scissors is her way of persuading him.
There's also a digital camera going to Larisa Hakobyan.
Working fine.
Which one to choose? How about:
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Thanks to all the spammers who send me entries for the spam-of-the-month competition. Your efforts are appreciated. By the way, if you're wondering why they bother, here's an extract from a court case ...
In 1997, Heckel developed a 46- page on-line booklet entitled 'How to Profit from the Internet.' The booklet described how to set up an on-line promotional business, acquire free e-mail accounts, and obtain software for sending bulk e-mail. From June 1998, Heckel marketed the booklet by sending between 100,000 and 1,000,000 UCE messages per week. To acquire the large volume of e-mail addresses,2 Heckel used the Extractor Pro software program, which harvests e-mail addresses from various on-line sources and enables a spammer to direct a bulk-mail message to those addresses by entering a simple command. The Extractor Pro program requires the spammer to enter a return e-mail address, a subject line,3 and the text of the message to be sent. The text of Heckel's UCE was a lengthy sales pitch that included testimonials from satisfied purchasers and culminated in an order form that the recipient could download and print. The order form included the Salem, Oregon, mailing address for Natural Instincts. Charging $39.95 for the booklet, Heckel made 30 to 50 sales per month.
That's $1600 per month. Proving that if you send out 4 million emails, you'll find 40 suckers.
And finally ...
"There is absolutely NO WAY for the average person to make money on the Internet!" "They are ALL SCAMS and only STUPID people fall for them!" Or so I thought.... Those "really were" my exact words just 10 months ago, after spending more than a year working dozens of MLM and affiliate programs. And you know what? I was absolutely wrong!
And you know what? You were absolutely right!
New sponsorship! Michelle Tuggle, based in Hawaii, who will be competing in the NPC Nationals in Vegas in July.
We currently have ten running; Nicole Bass, Andrulla Blanchette, Sheila Burgess, Christine Envall, Marilyn Perret, Julia Santana, Peggy Schoolcraft, Gaily, Larisa Hakobyan and Michelle Tuggle.
Go get these cups or these Valkyrie cups
Then add this helmet for $6 or this better helmet or this de luxe helmet
Or, if you don't have braids, this rather plastic-looking helmet
And the rest is just chain mail (optional), leather jackets (easier) and robes.
A flame is the closest you can come to thumping someone over the net. But there's flames, and there's *flames*. Calling someone a "limpwit" is kind of unsatisfying, yet many people content themselves with pusillanimous flames like that. Much better is to be creative in your flaming.
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries." is one of the simplest. And you move on from there, all the way up to here.
On my message boards, flaming is encouraged - provided it is done on the "Abuse and flames" Message Board. When an abusive of flaming message is misposted to any other board, I move it to there.
Rules? There's rules?
Yes, actually. It's considered to be bad form to go to your opponents house and lay into him with a baseball bat. That isn't flaming, that's assault. Nor should you write to their mother to complain about her son's use of rude words. Nor should you write to their employer, in the hope that this will get them into trouble at work.
A flame should be conducted entirely on the internet. That doesn't rule out using parts of the internet that weren't in the original flame, so if someone is flaming on a Message Board and then moves to a newsgroup, that's fine.
The best flames leave the target filleted like a kipper. Any flame that the target doesn't understand is good, but only if most of the audience do understand it. Long words (pusillanimous, boondoggle) are good, Latin words and phrases even better. I've never seen a flame in the form of a sonnet, but that would rate pretty high up (unless the target were capable of writing a better sonnet in response).
Always remember that the audience for your flame isn't the person you're flaming. The audience is everyone else.
Do an internet search on your opponent. You're looking for ammunition. Maybe he posted something rash on another newsgroup or message board "You're calling me a hypocrite, but here's what you posted on ....". Google is a good search engine for the web and for newsgroups. I was once in a flamewar with someone, did a search, and came up with a delightful posting of his on alt.sex.oral, which I was able to use like a baseball bat on his head.
If your opponent is likely to be unpopular (maybe a habitual bully) then ask publicly for useful dirt to be emailed to you. This could suggest to you all sorts of useful attacks.
Claiming that you've "won" is always bad form. Only losers claim that they've "won". Winners know when they've won, and don't need to tell the world.
It's conventionally accepted that the first person in a flame-war to accuse the opponent of being like Hitler, is the loser. Also avoid near-misses, such as Himmler, Goering, or "a Nazi".
Simple abuse (fuckhead) isn't flaming. It can be a component of a flame, but on it's own, it is not a flame. You have to do a lot more work than that.
Some flames are so hackneyed as to be useless. The "did you take your pills this morning", for example, or "I see you mother let you use the computer again". But other well-used flames are good partly by virtue of their being heavily used, such as the "elderberries" flame.
Beware of making your flame too short (one phrase is a retort, not a flame) or too long (no-one is actually going to read a 2000 word flame).
Do not attempt to rebut your opponents flames. When he calls you "weak-minded", don't cite your educational achievements in rebuttal. Instead, discuss his ancestors, his siblings, and his offspring, his personal odour, his taste in clothes and his dog. A flame is not a debate, it's a contest to fill your opponents boots.
Keep a sharp eye out for any weaknesses. If your opponent vehemently rebuts any of your flame attacks, that means you've found a weak point. Home in on it.
Spelling and grammar - it can be awfully tempting to hold up your opponent's inability with the English language as proof of their general incompetence. Don't. A) it looks lame, and B) it can backfire on you, badly. There's a lot of ways it can backfire. If you make a spelling, grammar or typographical mistake in a spelling flame, then you've just made yourself look awfully dumb. Secondly, this is the internet, and your opponent might not be a native speaker of the language you're flaming in. If, for example, your opponent is German, and uses a slightly Germanic word-order in his postings, and you pull him up on that, you'll look very foolish unless your German is at least as fluent as his English. Thirdly - what you think is an incorrect spelling, might actually be correct. I was once involved in a flame war, and my opponent went for my spelling of the word "authorise". He, of course, was American and spelled it "authorize". I, of course, spell it the British way. Neither of those are wrong.
It's easy to walk away from a fight when you opponent is unconscious. But how do you walk away from a fight while your opponent is still swinging (however feebly) without appearing to concede? That's why you so often see the lame claim "I won". And that's why you see so many flames continuing long past the point where either side really wants them to. Some people don't know how to avoid having the last word.
Really, all you have to do is announce that careful calculation reveals that you now have better uses for your time that this particular flame, and you will no longer participate, and will be ignoring all posts by the opponent. And then you have to do the really hard part, and actually ignore all his claims of victory, further flames, and other postings. But it's worth while, because it means that his blows all fall on empty air.
Gaily has Named the Day. It's going to be November 10. She's already clearing out a drawer for LPD. I wonder what she's going to file him under?
Member | Posts |
| shanice19 | 5281 |
| gaily304 | 4781 |
| mit19237 | 4228 |
| gee1407 | 4027 |
| tre1313 | 3885 |
| ginny2442 | 3704 |
| jabb6328 | 3407 |
| Diana the Valkyrie | 3289 |
| rdhdpwr150 | 2766 |
| bad2thebone | 2661 |
| 000wlt | 2580 |
| TomNine | 2344 |
| xxx999 | 2298 |
| 4632jh | 2195 |
| boomer444 | 1988 |
| bro5252 | 1713 |
| nubod2000 | 1713 |
| dark246 | 1609 |
| quadruple1999 | 1381 |
| jen888 | 1279 |
Shanice has displaced Gaily down to second place.
Most posted Board of the month | Poster of the month | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The politics folks are discussing who caused the current US recession. If there is one. The chess colony has departed to a new place. Although it's strange - I went there to see how they were getting on, and I couldn't find them. | Jabber regains the top slot. Truthinmedia isn't far behind, although a lot of his posts are just reposts of news items. |
Mavis is counting the number of times the message list is checked for each board, and the number of times that a posting is read. This gives a very different picture from the one above.
Most listed Board of the month |
Most read Board of the month | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Fistissimo is still numero uno. Who is that masked man? | The Grinch got the stats. |
How to give a cat a pill
1) Pick cat up and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat's mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.
2) Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.
3) Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.
4) Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.
5) Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.
6) Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat's throat vigorously.
7) Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.
8) Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.
9) Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans. Drink a beer to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse's forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.
10) Retrieve cat from neighbour's shed. Get another pill. Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard, and close door onto neck, to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.
11) Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink another beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour shot, drink. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus jab. Apply whiskey compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw Tee shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.
12) Ring fire brigade to retrieve the f------ cat from tree across the road. Apologise to neighbour who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil-wrap.
13) Tie the little bastard's front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table, find heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of fillet steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour 2 litres of water down throat to wash pill down.
14) Consume remainder of Scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the emergency room, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way home to order new table.
How To Give A Dog A Pill...
1) Wrap it in bacon
I checked the site statistics that Sandra counts up each night.
At the end of June 2001, there were about 382,000 pictures (19.4 gigabytes), 52 gigabytes of video, 4800 text files (mostly stories) and a total of about 72 gigabytes.
On Vnews, the Current Newsthumbs server, there's the NewsThumbs, which is 6.5 million pictures in 454 gigabytes and 9.6 million text files, a total of 478 gigabytes.
There's now three newsthumbs servers.
| server | Million pictures | gigabytes | Million Text files | gigabytes | Million total files | gigabytes |
| Latest | 6.4 | 454 | 9.6 | 22 | 16.4 | 478 |
| Older | 7.7 | 471 | 11.6 | 29 | 19.6 | 545 |
| Oldest | 7.5 | 497 | 11.2 | 25 | 18.7 | 522 |
| Total | 21.7 | 1422 | 32.4 | 76 | 54.7 | 1545 |