Hanging from the web without a net

HANGING FROM THE WEB

WITHOUT A NET

by sonya hammond

[NOTE: The following is for advanced students who have absorbed this author's completely unreliable article on the Internet [and if you haven't, why not?], and those who, in spite of that, have managed to acquire a PPP Account [See Chapter 26, Acronyms No One Understands] and have Downloaded [See Chapter 48, Stuff You Should Never Do] the 59 pieces of software required before their network Server will give them the time of day, let alone 'serve' them. Only those who have completed rehab should proceed to the next step.]

Once you have conceded that unless you have no future plans to engage in the less time-consuming activities of eating, sleeping and sex [not necessarily in that order], there is no way you will ever successfully consummate internet mating with your Server. You have two options:

Ply every Internet Support Group still speaking to you with questions so stupid that everyone assumes you are putting them on. This will be humiliating, but if you aren't accustomed to that by now, it's time to give your computer to the nearest expert, such as a small child. OR...

Look up the Nerd you were too cheap to hire prior to your first nervous breakdown. In approximately 4 seconds, this genius will make nice with your Server and demonstrate many colorful graphics available for your viewing pleasure providing you have the patience to wait several days for each of them to appear. In other words, you are finally on the Web.

YOU COULD HAVE JUST SAID NO

This is a critical moment in electronic education, and the student accustomed to moments of sanity may wish to consider a pertinent question:

If, when you still had all your marbles, you had wallowed around by mistake in an enormous web without first investigating the motives of its spinner, would you really return to wallow further after extracting 4 gallons of black widow venom from various body parts of which you are particularly fond?

For reasons that will enrich psychiatrists for generations, it is the rare victim of the Web who can find time to respond to this query, since the majority have already accepted invitations to join total strangers in areas designated 'alt.sex.fetish.lint' or 'rec.aliens.umars.edu'.

There are no rational explanations for diving enthusiastically into an unchartered web with the unfounded optimism and misguided lust of the male trapdoor spider who actually thinks there is such a thing as a free lunch. We may never know how many poor sods have paid the ultimate price for surrendering to their uncontrollable appetites for cyberstuff, but never assume it can't happen to you. Once you are on the Web, you are a User.

TEN-STEP PROGRAM TO CORRUPTION

Afflictions associated with Web Use are numerous, but in deference to any Republican Congresspersons and/or Sensitive German readers, many cannot be described in detail here. Web Alerts have, however, been issued on the following:

Link Addiction: Acquired through mouse contact with any brightly lit text beckoning from computer screen. Symptoms include uncontrollable urge to 'Click here', followed by rationalizations analogous to admissions that although you puffed, you didn't inhale. Eventually satisfaction can only be obtained by further clicking of Links.

Joining Obsession: Repetitive behavior involving the loss of all sense of discrimination in the pursuit of groups organized by persons convinced that what they have to say is of actual importance.

Victims may hang out with the paranormal founders of the Church of Walter, or subscribe to newsgroups dedicated to spelunking, Pink Floyd, and digital imaging. In the final stages of depravity, they have been known to collect addresses for Stewart Brand, Brother Jed, and the U.S. Navy, claiming the need for pen pals.

Eventually they will stoop to downloading reams of information on ozone therapy, biorhythms, remote sensing applications, and Groucho Marx, thus attaining the status of 'Webheads'.

PULP FAQTION

Even Webheads do occasionally go off-line, usually during power failures. During these periods of relative lucidity, they are often surprised to find that Non-Users are bored comatose with accounts of adventures in cognitive science, Vedic civilizations and the merits of a subscription to a radiocarbon-dating mailing list that the inattentive may assume can lead to a meaningful personal relationship.

Ignoring pleas to seek help from AAAA [alt.ascii.addicts.anon.org], the incurable will be unable to give up the security blanket of a full-service alternative life. Their Browsers enable them to waste hours of time in full color, bringing worthless information from many, many people they probably wouldn't want their mothers to meet, and allowing them to look up practically anything except how to make their Browsers stop freezing in discussion groups on how to calculate joist spans.

HAVE GOPHER ... WILL TRAVEL

Internet mail services, for some reason named Eudora, deliver tons of mail with attachments that can be read by those who can find where Eudora put them, providing they also own another program that can read them since Eudora can't.

Occasionally, when she is in the mood, Eudora also permits mail to be sent out. It would probably speed up Eudora's service if she could ever find anyone's 'Mail Hosts' who are usually off doing something else, possibly trying to find Gopher.

As a 'Newbie', a status retained until the User learns UNIX by heart and can write entire novels in HTML, there is a temptation to become a Lurker. You should be warned, however, that even this passive mode has its dangers. Signs of Lurking Syndrome include following more than 20,000 links without active participation.

In order to avoid this and other web-limiting disorders [Fear of No E-Mail, Attachment Anxiety, and Flame Fantasies, among others], experts suggest using in complete sentences at least 3 esoteric computer terms a day, and memorizing creative ways in which your Server can be blamed when anything goes wrong ... and it will.

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