From: "Gary Jeffers" <CCGARY@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 94 18:50:35 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: CEB 5 - The Hangover
Message-ID: <9406020150.AA07477@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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       Cypherpunks' Electronic Book (CEB) part 5 - the hangover.

   Tim May writes on & on & on about my failure to write the CEB.
Hey, just where did I pick up GUILT? I had a really great idea for
Cypherpunks that I also felt was a glaring omission of Cypherpunks'.
I wrote up the idea as best as I could & tried to interest some com-
petent C'punk to do it. I thought I did a really good job of writing
up the idea. Unfortunately, I lack the skills to write the particular
code to do the idea. Its sort of like bringing home a rabbit for supper
& everybody dumps on you cause it wasn't a moose. What kind of guilt do
you dump on people who actually do bad things?
   Admittedly, implementing the idea is magnitudes more work that get-
ting the idea. However, it was a great idea & why should I suppress it
because I personally couldn't implement it? No doubt, great ideas fall
from Tim May like rain from the skies & he considers them cheap if not
nuisances. However, in most of the world, they are in short supply & are
considered valuable.
   I have discovered that the idea of bunches of creative, skilled
programmers with lots of time on their hands is a myth. I guess they
all manage to figure out something worth while to write. Originally, I
had thought that there would be at least one of them around looking
for something worthy to do.
   Myself, I am busy trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong in using
Turbo Debugger to examine the transient part of a TSR, debugging a new
version of my shareware program, & then I will be busy converting my
shareware program to a version that I can donate to the Cypherpunks.
And I have my regular 40 hour a week job. I don't have loads of spare
time for CEB either.
   I believe that I have described a very worthwhile project for anyone
who wants to do it. I have a lot of hope that someone will do it later.
I don't think its going to be forgotten. I would like to thank the
people who supported the idea. CEB doesn't look like it is going to
happen soon but if Cypherpunks grows, I think it is inevitable that it
will happen.
   As for Tim May's FAQ project, I have some suggestions. I've noticed
that since Majordomo was implemented we seem to have much fewer requests
to Cypherpunks to unsubscribe. This may just be an artifact of Major-
domo's having unsubscribed all the subscribers & only the determined
resubscribed. Or maybe people are using Majordomo to unsubscribe & to
subscribe. Anyway, if Majordomo could be slightly reprogrammed to
advertise your FAQ anytime a user used the default salutation to
Majordomo such as a blank file or whatever, it would help.
   By using Majordomo you could actually have lots of people aware of
your FAQ & using it rather than just having your accomplishment laying
around gathering dust. I would also suggest that Majordomo be programmed
to post its basic capabilities to the list at least every week so that
everybody would have the basic knowledge to explore the Cypherpunk FAQs
& know the basics that they are expected to know.
   But, Tim, if you decide you want this done - do it yourself. You
just have no idea how you get dumped on when you suggest others do
it for you! :-)

                                         Yours Truly,
                                         Gary Jeffers
                                     PUSH EM BACK! PUSH EM BACK!
                                     WWWAAAYYY  BBBAAACCCKK!
                                     BBBEEEAAATTTT  STATE !