October 31

What Really Matters

by Faith Hunter

G’day mates. How’s it goin’? Last we commu- nicated (albeit one-way communication), I told you about some UPEI stresses and how to avoid and/or reduce them. This time, let me change the pace a bit. Instead of trying to enlighten you with my usual charm and wit, I decided to give you a chance to enlighten yourselves, by giving you some questions to ponder in your spare time (yeah, I know, it’s a nonexistent entity). Here’s food for thought:

Questions Perhaps (But Not Likely) Worth Thinking About

1. How do we know for sure that the Earth is round? After all, scientists change their minds about smaller things, like whether apples and oatmeal are good for you -- couldn’t they have messed this up too? (And don’t say that the astronauts would know; money talks, and moonmen walk.) 2. There has been much talk about a UPEI Vice- President lately. Regardless of the benefits of hiring another staff member, can we really afford it? We are already paying to park on campus (what would happen if we all refused to pay and parked at Burger King?). Who do you think will foot the bill for new position? I have a sneaky suspicion it might be us. 3. Children are young and run around to the point that their parents can’t keep up. Mean- while, we students are so tired most of the time that we walk around in a semi-comatose state rehearsing lines from Chaucer or mercilessly memorizing formulas for physics. Maybe we

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should change things: Let’s allow young children to run around straight from morning until night, and let’s give students the nap-time. Sounds good, eh? Seriously, though, if we were given a few minutes rest in the middle of each class, we would all be much more productive, professors included.

4. Although it’s true that time management is important at UPEI, how can we budget our time if there isn’t enough time to begin with? Forget Daylight Savings Time and Standard Time. What we need is a third time category -- Student Savings Time (giving, say, a few extra hours to promote regular eating habits instead of junkfood snacks which must be eaten in 10 minutes while running from the RL to the Barn). 5. What does the ‘‘T’’ in T-shirt stand for? And how about V-neck?

6. Why is it that women rally around ladies rooms the way men rally around the television set for Monday Night Football?

7. If Quebec separates, will new Islanders (from Quebec) have to earn Canadian Citizenship?

8. What is the definition of birdbrain?

9. If you put a professor’s workload together with malnutrition, mononucleosis, and ulcers, don’t you end up with a student?

10. Why is it that people who fall in love *‘at first sight’’ never take that second look until they’re married? e

Okay, enough -- time to go do something productive, like challenge the status quo, rally for world peace, or devour a Mars bar. Until we meet again, may all of you wear your shoes on the right feet -- unless of course it’s the left shoe!

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The Nicer Side Of The Net

By Jonathan Davis

Anyone who has been using the internet for any amount of time will have run into some of the arcane incantations and symbols that appear from time to time in error messages and peoples messages. I have been asked to explain these weird and wonderful secret codes, so without wasting any more time, I shall.

NNTP -- A news server. A computer that stores internet newsgroup messages for Trumpet or any other newsreading program. Two frequent errors invoving NNTP are a ‘‘cannot connect’’ error, and a ‘‘access denied’’ error. The former can often occur on campus when the network is experiencing a heavy load. You start Trumpet, but because the network is operating so slowly, Trumpet cannot contact the news server, and reports an error message. You can only exit the program and try again. The latter error occurs when you are trying to access a non- default news server. Most news servers are private, that means that only people at specific internet addresses are allowed to communicate with the server. If you are not at one of those addresses, you will not be allowed to read the messages on that particular server.

SMTP -- A mail server. The computer that stores and delivers your private email. SMTP errors only occur if the server itself is down (not working), or if your mailreading program is not set up properly.

DNS -- Domestic Name Server. The address book of all the computers on the Internet. Every computer has a number code of some kind, such as ‘*158.137.7.15’’. It is always four numbers, each one anywhere between 0 and 255. This is the postal code, if you will, for the computer you are on. The DNS server is for the word address, such as ‘‘stul.cs.upei.ca’’. There is no rule on how many words there are in the name address, I have seen anywhere from two to six. It is the name address that many pro- grams use to find you on the internet, a good example is Netscape. When you attempt to access a Web page with Netscape, regardless of what you type in, it will always compare it to the information on the local DNS server in order to find its destination in the physical world. DNS errors are most commonly found in Netscape, and can mean either of two things. First -- the address you typed in is wrong, or invalid (doesn’t exist). Second -- your computer has lost its connection with the internet (can happen on dial-up services like PEInet and ISN).

URL -- basically just a file address, usually in reference to the World Wide Web. An example would be ‘‘www.home.com/pub/usr/ home.htm!’’.

Questions and comments are welcome at

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