What's hot on The Spring?

Allo, allo--please come sharpen your conversational French skills, no matter how basic, in the French topic (parlons francais) of the Cultures conference. Allons-y! Tout de suite!

Lo siento, pero yo no hablo frances. The philosophy conference is picking up momentum these days, also. And who knows what you'll find going on in the food and restaurant conferences...

I'll definitely pop into the French topic, autumn!

Tres bien, Mike! Je vous attends.....

Femme le bouche?!?! That's the extent c'est vous ple! LOL (at my own ignorance and illiteracy in a foreign language!)

actually, i think you just said, "woman, the mouth, " which does possess a certain symmetry of meaning, when you think about it... should be, i believe, "fermez le bouche" (a phrase which shall ring in my ears forever, courtesy of my french teacher- the lovely, terminally unamused mde. allen)...

I love my high school French class. Seven kids in it. Me and 5 of the prettiest girls in school.

yeah, that was the coolest thing about french class (3 girls to every guy)... if i only could've solved mde. allen, would've been choice... (Napoleon! Silence!...Napoleon! En le vestibule!... Napoleon! FERMEZ LE BOUCHE!) it bordered on child abuse, frankly...

oh, yeah... napoleon was my french class name (probably figured that out though, huh?)

Wow, that's a heck of a monniker to put on a kid--or did you get to choose your own name? We were assigned ours. Terry, you should have followed thru with it in college; there were 22 French majors, 20 beautiful girls and 2 gay guys. We were wasted on them...

yeah, i chose it (actually, entire french class name was napoleon giscard-d'estaing de gaulle)... figured that if i had to have a norman name, might as well go whole hog...

Well, if I ever go back i'm calling myself Mme. de Pompadour!!

does possess une timbre plaisant...

Not Mme. Sader-Masoch?

*cackle* (catching my breath!) and you WER? Any childhood monikers to stick with? Ghengis?

None to discuss...

just ones that have haunted you internally for years?

Howse come you already know me so well?

It's the tenor of your type...

Oh, same way I notice yours...

and just what have you noticed?

Enough to keep playing...

And what would you like to play with?

Everything that I haven't gotten to with yet...

Ooooh! My toes!!!! They're curling!

Nothing restrictive on today, either...

Got panties on today. sorry to ruin the visual. They're mighty nice though.

Sometimes that's nicer than the other way... Don't forget I'm gonna check when we meet, so wear your best if that's what ya want to do. And, on the public issue from earlier, I look at it as there's nothing to hide, so why not?

can i get an amen?!?! (tommy, where are you when I need your services?!?) AMEN.

Verily, verily...

New Years Day jan 1 1998 s pm till bring familty and friends, snaks, pot luck byob, games music, insturmentes, lawn charis pot luck 5 pm tv/game room volley ball dominoes *** BONFIRE *** at Cidneye's Hwy 71 East to Bastrop Hwy 969 3.3 miles turn right at yin yang sign 303-4000 if you get lost

Thanks for the invitation, Terry, but I don't want to drive back to Maryland from Texas with all those drunks on the road. ;)

There's a new conference called farm. And already a couple of new folks have posted introductions. I just put the word out earlier tonight. It's about The Farm, a legendary community in Tennessee where everyone was vegetarian, peace loving and out to save the world. I sent out an email to the folks who signed the guestbook at http://www.theform.org to join the discussion. Let's see who comes out of the woodwork!

sounds interesting...

That url should have read: http://www.thefarm.org ... not "theform"

ooh, I'm checking it out!

State of the Union tonight and there's more interest than usual. Bill Mahrer's Politically Incorrect should be interesting and I'm sure there will be upteen post-speech shows. Talk about this in politics.

no doubt! Is the farm before my time?

Oh, Terry, what's up with the date/time...have we like hyperspaced somewhere?

Cool! Maybe you could explain to the federal govt how you bypassed that millenium thing....

LOL

We're back from the future now. Hope you enjoyed the ride.

Damn, it was great to think I'd kept my girlish figure into my granny years. Gee, thanks, terry *wink*

The Farm topic is getting a small but hopeful response. Folks are starting to check in.

OK, people, get your keyboards ready! Soon the Spring will have on-line bios, a feature which is utterly essential in any community! The mechanics are yet to be finalised, but the most important thing is that you all create your own little biography, aboutme, ".plan", whatever you want to call it, and e-mail them to me at mikeg@well.com, making the subject line "bio", so that I can easily sort them into a folder. Cheers!

Great work Mike! I'm not sure how this is going to happen, but it's one feature that would be really useful for folks to get to know each other.

Argh! Zerr 'ave beeeen no reponse, as you say.... Come on people, who are you? We exchange postings, but most of us don't know each other! Everyone should have a .plan file for others to read - even if the file only gives your real name! And on that note, I'm gonna post mine below. I've pasted it straight from The WELL, since I'm doing the same things there as here, and I'm kinda the same person, too, which is fairly usual I guess ;)

I'm Mike, and I'm based in Brighton, England. I'm a second-year physics undergraduate, so I spend a lot of time immersed in equations and such like. Happily, I get a small amount of time to indulge in liberal arts, which I think is probably where my heart is. Last term, I took a course in religious psychology, which was incredibly good. This term, I am taking "Critical Studies in Art", so I'm going to be wandering in a black roll-neck jumper, and "pontificating" about the "meaning" of the "abstraction" in that "piece" *wink*. However, my main outside interest is in virtual communities, and I am involved in establishing a community/conferencing system in Brighton, in conjuction with Virtual Brighton (http://www.brighton.co.uk/). Therefore, I am looking for people to discuss the ups and downs of community life with - our project needs inspiration! I am also helping develop a social structure for a new on-line project called "Farrawae". There is a Farrawae conference on the Spring, to which you are all most welcome to check out. It's a bit quiet at the moment, but precisely what it needs is - people! - and input!

Hmmm...I changed some stuff, and it feels more "positive" than the WELL one...I wonder why that is...?

How is farrawae doing these days? Remind where that name came from.

Farrawae is ticking over. Andy is struggling to find time to code at the moment, I think, but the best things come to those who wait. As for the name, I'm not entirely sure where it came from to be honest! I'll ask andy :)

Where are we to post our bios?

if you e-mail them to me, at mikeg@well.com, then I'm going to work out a temporary primitive way of getting them on-line. Hopefully terry/i/others can come up with something fully integrated into the Spring eventually, but until now I feel like we just need to get *something* up and running.

Done, check your mail *smile*

I've got it :)

cool!!

Thanks for you bios, everyone! Some things are coming to light with their arrival, so this post will hopefully streamline the operation a little more. Firstly, it would be really, really nice if you could include your real-name at the start of the file. For example, perhaps each bio should have a standard header, thus: Real Name: Michael Griggs User ID : mikeg E-mail address: mikeg@well.com ...and then follow with your personal description type stuff. Those people who have already sent me bios, I shall try and piece together the relevant information for those fields, but if I can't then I'll get back in touch. Remember, keep sendin' em guys an' gals!

OK, things are coming along nicely! I have a basic outline of a default page that I can fill in by hand (for now), and a graphic header which I knocked up quickly. Hopefully within the next hour I will have the first few bios online at www.griggs.demon.co.uk/spring/ If you have e-mailed me a bio, then it will hopefully be at that address. If you haven't sent me a copy yet, what are you waiting for?!

Darn, the URL went a bit screwy there - my fault. OK, the URL to visit for your bio is: www.griggs.demon.co.uk/spring/[-insert-your-userid-here].html There, hopefully that will work better :)

OK, there seems to be a slight problem meaning bios won't go on-line tonight. My homepage FTP server doesn't seem to want to let anyone in, which is obviously a bit of a problem as far as getting pages on-line. Perhaps these bios should be stored locally at the Spring anyway, terry?

Maybe that's a big hint, learning our bios IRL can be a scary proposition! *giggle* For some of us at least (might find that we're really not all that interesting)....

Wahey....the FTP server finally decided that I had a good enough haircut to upload my webpages ;)) There are two bios up at present, Autumn and Wolf, with mine shortly to follow, and everyone else's when they finally get around to it. This slow trickle is probably a good thing until we get a more automated system in place...

Wanna change my email, how do i do it?

On your bio. Ahh...now there comes the problem. If you want to change anything on there at the moment, you have to e-mail the change to me, and wait for me to do it by hand. Hence the need for an automated system...

K, no problemo!!

Mike, check the mail *grin*

changed it :)

Good work, Mike--especially considering it's, what, 1 a.m. there! Ah, the life of a college student...(vague recollection stirring)... Wolf, I liked your bio; it's so concise I feel mine is cumbersome and wordy. I've never written one before and it seems awfully chatty...

On the contrary Autumn, I was tempted to change mine so it doesn't sound so sterile!! Thanks Mike!!

Ha, ha! Guess there's no right or wrong way to do it! :-)

we'll see, I haven't done mine yet...

I tend to like the chatty ones, myself - I get more of a feel for people if I can see how they write about who they are, rather than just give a list of points. Let's face it, we're more than just lists of skills and experiences, and perhaps bios should reflect that...?

I don't know...I like the differences in bios as much as the differences in responses here...gotta take both into account when your forming your image of who they are...in fact, I'd kinda like it if Stacey or Wolf wrote mine...might find out more about myself...

LOL!!! You really don't want me to write anything chatty, Mike...I could go on and on about stuff. Better that I abbreviate my thoughts, saves everybody else the boredom *wink*

not going to bite, huh, Wolf?

what? And get myself into trouble with you too? *wink*

but I trusted you!

yeah, but people go on and on forever in real life. summarising oneself down to a few key points is something left only for CVs, IMHO.

CV??? Wer: you trustED me?? what did i do this time *wink*

CV: curriculum vitae erm...oh yeah, sorry - - "Resume"

thanks *grin* (and for remember to speak in layman's terms for folks like me)

uh.....rememberING.....that's what I meant, see, can't even spell *wink*

the only way for ya to get in trouble with me, Wolf, would be to repeat stuff from our chat session... therefore, if'n you are afraid to get in trouble with me, it would be because you might spill your guts... anyway, I was only teasing..... (yeah, I know, imagine that)

CFP98 (computers, freedom and privacy) on http://www.spring.com, video clips every 30 seconds accompanied by audio clips. And there's a big party at Bruce Sterling's place in Hyde Park tonight. Call me for details.

not planning on spilling any guts, wer. and i knew you was a teasin' lil ole me :)

I gotta work, damnit!!! I would love to go to that one...

Move your comments to topic 8 in this conference or one of the other linked conferences. This is being relegated to the frozen tundra.