  X-NEWS: spcvxb news.admin: 15225K Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.5; site spcvxb.spc.edu = Path: spcvxb.spc.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sdl!plts!tal Z Newsgroups: alt.culture.usenet,news.admin,comp.org.eff.talk,misc.legal.computing,rec.humor' Subject: Usenet Feeds Available By Fax!  Message-ID: <hotfax@plts.uucp>$ From: tal@plts.uucp (Tom Limoncelli) Date: 1 Aug 92 03:08:48 GMT & Sender: tal@plts.uucp (Tom Limoncelli) Followup-To: news.admin # Organization: Tom's Box of Ahedonia ] Summary: Another sarcastic statement about the state of Usenet, Tom's Friday night specialty. 	 Lines: 74 u Xref: spcvxb alt.culture.usenet:250 news.admin:15225 comp.org.eff.talk:9085 misc.legal.computing:1707 rec.humor:52454     2                    PLTS Announces "netnews by fax"2                    -------------------------------  E      "It's not vaporware anymore!", said Tom Limoncelli, President of D PLTS.  And with that PLTS announced their plans this week to provideG the first feed of Usenet news by fax.  Usenet is a network of more than C 5 computers that exchange over 200 messages a day on topics ranging F from which is the best text editor (vi or cat), to how to delete filesD with funny charactors in them, to jokes about Brad Templeton walking" into a bar and not being stringed.  F      The service, at a cost of just $50 per page, will fax you all theE messages that come across the Usenet bboard system.  There will be an B extra for certain "adult" newsgroups like comp.mail.sendmail.  "WeC don't believe in censorship", said Enrique Flaire, public relations B director of PLTS, "so we will not provide any filtering.  You take every message or nothing!"  F      Some Usenet regulars have complained that this was not how UsenetB was meant to be.  "This was not how Usenet was meant to be!", saidA Mathew Mantis, grand poohbah of the "news.admin" bboard.  "When I F created Usenet, oh so many years ago, it was so that people could comeB together and argue about just about nothing, and so far we've beenF arguing about nothing ever since!  Faxes are one-way.  Nobody can haveB a one-sided argument!"  Critics have challenged this statement andF called it "hypocritical".  They offer the fact that Mathew is the kingF of one-sided arguments himself as proof.  PLTS Spokesperson commented,G "Mathew needs to get a life, but as long as he sticks to news.admin and A doesn't post any of the newsgroups we read it's ok for him to say  anything he wants."   B      The "NewsFax" software can only be used in the United States,B since it uses special magical beans that if foreigners were to getG ahold of, could grow gigantic beanstalks capable of growing up into the F clouds to the castle of the giant with the Golden Goose who's eggs areG so valuable it would destroy the American economy at least according to = the NSA and ETARS (Engish Teachers Against Run-on Sentences).   @      The "sources" newsgroups will be faxed as are all the otherA newsgroups.  Sources are posted as examples for good programming, % nobody would actually use that stuff.   C      PLTS has placed certain restrictions on the NewsFax customers. D For example, they may not use OCR software to turn the messages intoA ASCII files.  Users also may not re-fax the pages to anyone else. D "Since each fax generation is more blury than the previous, we don'tB want our reputation to be ruined by people seeing third and fourth generation faxes."  C      Environmentalists have begged the company to only set up feeds C to people with computerized fax machines that display the incomming J faxes on a computer screen, rather than printing out every single message.F Rich Dollaraltz, product manager, responded, "Hey, those customers areH payINNg for the paper, what's you beef?  INN fact, we have a new serviceJ where you pay for a feed and give us the fax number of an environmentalistF that you really hate... and we send the newsfeed to them!  Best of allB we donate 10% of the money to either of the followINNg charities: D 'Wetlands?  Who Needs 'Em?', 'Kill The Spotted Owl, That's HOO HOO',E 'I Hate Trees', or the company's personal favorite, 'Anti-Abortionist @ Republican Carnivores For A Plant-Free, Over-Populated Planet'."  G     Customers also may not cancel their subscription.  "It would be too E much paperwork, and we don't want those environmentalists to have Yet  Another Complaint about us."  F      The service can be ordered by calling "1-800-FAX-NETS" and asking for department 23003bf9.   Tom    --G Tom Limoncelli       Makers of NewsFax, the ONLY Usenet-by-fax service!  -- tal@plts.uucp