Who's out tomorrow then?

Tony W

"dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers" <wafflycathcs@aol.compomcom> wrote in
message news:20041225082329.16224.00002433@mb-m02.aol.com...
> Well, Mr. Frosty has been metaphorically baptised :-)
>
> He is fun! He is a smilemobile!

<snip>

I trust you know what you are doing, my girl. This is a most dangerous game
you are playing -- and I am not referring to the danger to your soul of
going over to the Dark Side.

Bringing this new paramour into your life may have awful consequences.
Somehow you already share your life with those two highly strung Mafiosi
Gino and Luigi. How you have managed to keep both happy or managed to play
one off against the other is, frankly, a mystery -- but it is not ours to
judge.

Giving your new paramour a 'joke' name -- Mr Frosty, surely a clown's
moniker if ever there was one -- might deflect Gino and Luigi for a while.
They may, with a name like Frosty, even dismiss him as a winter hack, a
dalliance of no importance -- after all they seem remarkably liberal in
their willingness to tolerate each other. But they will expect your
undivided attention come the summer. Can you give such a promise? I
suspect, given your girlish excitement and infatuation that, if 'Mr Frosty'
is still around then you will not be able to.

What will happen when Gino and Luigi find out about Frosty? He is a
foreigner, not 'family' (whisper it quietly, it might not be PC, but he is a
bloody TRIKE -- a mobile deck chair -- not even of good honest bike stock).

Believe me -- there will be trouble.

Worse, if they ever get wind that he is actually the infamous 'Ice T' Gino
and Luigi are going to be very worried. Given their 'family' background I
predict they will get their retaliation in first. They will get the 'boys'
round. There will be dirty work in the bike shed. Wheels will be bent,
frames broken and seats slashed. There may even be a crudely severed
horse's/////// A-head stem in the bed.

Repent now. Go back to Gino and Luigi. Play the mobster's moll for all you
are worth. It is your only hope.

Send 'Mr Frosty' to me -- I will provide him with a safe house until the mob
lose interest (he will even have better hills to rollercoaster down).

Your Uncle Antonio.

dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers

>Bringing this new paramour into your life may have awful consequences.
>Somehow you already share your life with those two highly strung Mafiosi
>Gino and Luigi. How you have managed to keep both happy or managed to play
>one off against the other is, frankly, a mystery -- but it is not ours to
>judge.

That is because, Uncle Antonio, you are a simple bloke, and as such, cannot
multi-task. We women, on the other hand, can ;-)

snippity..

>Send 'Mr Frosty' to me -- I will provide him with a safe house until the mob
>lose interest (he will even have better hills to rollercoaster down).
>
>Your Uncle Antonio.

Pah! Like I'd fall for that one. Good try though ;-)

Festive cheers, helen s

--This is an invalid email address to avoid spam--
to get correct one remove fame & fortune
h*$el*$$e*nd**$o$ts**i*$*$m*m$o*n*s@$*a$o*l.c**$om$

--Due to financial crisis the light at the end of the tunnel is switched off--

Kendall K. Down

In message <1jy5mdad5zfg$.1g78bve4ch7fx$.dlg@40tude.net>
Chris Street <venus.ngfb@chris-street.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Must be OK. I saw the Primate of England arrive at York Minster for his
> service by motor car. Think he left by car as well.....

Is that evidence that the canon is no longer valid or that the Primate has
apostasised?

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

--
================ ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIGGINGS ===============
| Australia's premiere archaeological magazine |
| http://www.diggingsonline.com |
========================================================

Tony W

"dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers" <wafflycathcs@aol.compomcom> wrote in
message news:20041226142728.23249.00002764@mb-m03.aol.com...
>
> That is because, Uncle Antonio, you are a simple bloke, and as such,
cannot
> multi-task. We women, on the other hand, can ;-)

I wasn't having an affair sweetness -- I was just multi-tasking.

Yeah -- tell the judge!!

T

Sniper8052(L96A1)

Tony W wrote:
> "dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers" <wafflycathcs@aol.compomcom> wrote in
> message news:20041226142728.23249.00002764@mb-m03.aol.com...
>
>>That is because, Uncle Antonio, you are a simple bloke, and as such,
>
> cannot
>
>>multi-task. We women, on the other hand, can ;-)
>
>
> I wasn't having an affair sweetness -- I was just multi-tasking.
>
> Yeah -- tell the judge!!
>
> T
>
>
Beware Helen,

Only Macs are truly multi-tasking, others just peer through windows
darkly and mutter incantations.

Sniper8052

Simon Brooke

in message <Q4_zd.63376$ef5.35146@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, Sniper805
(L96A1) ('sniper8052@yahoo.co.uk') wrote:

> Tony W wrote:
>> "dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers" <wafflycathcs@aol.compomcom>
>> wrote in message news:20041226142728.23249.00002764@mb-m03.aol.com...
>>
>>>That is because, Uncle Antonio, you are a simple bloke, and as such,
>>
>> cannot
>>
>>>multi-task. We women, on the other hand, can ;-)
>>
>>
>> I wasn't having an affair sweetness -- I was just multi-tasking.
>>
>> Yeah -- tell the judge!!
>
> Only Macs are truly multi-tasking, others just peer through windows
> darkly and mutter incantations.

Beware of the technically illiterate. Current generation Macs are
essentially similar the the NeXT boxes of fifteen years ago - they use
a Mach kernel inside a broadly BSD based shell, with a pretty
proprietary graphical skin on top of that. The kernel 'multitasks' by
time slicing. This is similar to any other UN*X, or to any Windows NT
or XP.

--
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

[ This mind intentionally left blank ]

David Martin

Simon Brooke wrote:
> in message <Q4_zd.63376$ef5.35146@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, Sniper805
> (L96A1) ('sniper8052@yahoo.co.uk') wrote:

>>Only Macs are truly multi-tasking, others just peer through windows
>>darkly and mutter incantations.


> Beware of the technically illiterate. Current generation Macs are
> essentially similar the the NeXT boxes of fifteen years ago - they use
> a Mach kernel inside a broadly BSD based shell, with a pretty
> proprietary graphical skin on top of that. The kernel 'multitasks' by
> time slicing. This is similar to any other UN*X, or to any Windows NT
> or XP.

Except that you can log out and leave processes running on a Unix. XP
(IME) seems to suspend desktop processes if you log out.

And I thought the comment was quite funny, even if it was not strictly
correct (or even non-strictly correct).

...d

...d

Dave Kahn

David Martin wrote:
> Simon Brooke wrote:

>> Beware of the technically illiterate. Current generation Macs are
>> essentially similar the the NeXT boxes of fifteen years ago - they use
>> a Mach kernel inside a broadly BSD based shell, with a pretty
>> proprietary graphical skin on top of that. The kernel 'multitasks' by
>> time slicing. This is similar to any other UN*X, or to any Windows NT
>> or XP.
>
> Except that you can log out and leave processes running on a Unix. XP
> (IME) seems to suspend desktop processes if you log out.

With XP Home Edition you can use the Switch User function without
actually logging on another profile and the desktop processes apparently
continue to run. If you actually log off all your active programs are
closed.

--
Dave...

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the
future of the human race. - H. G. Wells

David Martin

Dave Kahn wrote:

> With XP Home Edition you can use the Switch User function without
> actually logging on another profile and the desktop processes apparently
> continue to run. If you actually log off all your active programs are
> closed.

The key word is apparently. When you switch the processes are suspended.
WHen you switch back they resume.

I found this when doing something that would take a little time and the
progress meter was progressing slowly. Another person in the lab wanted
to use the machine so we switched user. I was expecting in my naive
Linux and mac user kind of way that my desk top tasks would be
backgrounded. I was wrong. Switch back a while later and the progress
bar picks up from where it had left off..

...d

Richard Bates

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 20:57:37 +0000, David Martin
<martin-family@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>I found this when doing something that would take a little time and the
>progress meter was progressing slowly. Another person in the lab wanted
>to use the machine so we switched user. I was expecting in my naive
>Linux and mac user kind of way that my desk top tasks would be
>backgrounded. I was wrong. Switch back a while later and the progress
>bar picks up from where it had left off..

Maybe it depends on the program being used.

The music software I use will continue to run when switching users.
Either that or there is a ghost sitting at my electric piano ...
--
Amazon: "If you are interested in 'Asimov's I-Robot',
you may also be interested in 'Garfield - The Movie'.
... erm, how do they figure that one out?

Dave Kahn

Richard Bates wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 20:57:37 +0000, David Martin
> <martin-family@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>I found this when doing something that would take a little time and the
>>progress meter was progressing slowly. Another person in the lab wanted
>>to use the machine so we switched user. I was expecting in my naive
>>Linux and mac user kind of way that my desk top tasks would be
>>backgrounded. I was wrong. Switch back a while later and the progress
>>bar picks up from where it had left off..
>
>
> Maybe it depends on the program being used.
>
> The music software I use will continue to run when switching users.
> Either that or there is a ghost sitting at my electric piano ...

I used the word "apparently" deliberately, not knowing much about what
goes on under the covers in XP. However, the Auction Sentry program will
place sniping bids on eBay at the specified time when someone else is
logged on even though it was started under my ID.

--
Dave...

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the
future of the human race. - H. G. Wells

Simon Brooke

in message <33dnjvF407ie9U1@individual.net>, David Martin
('martin-family@blueyonder.co.uk') wrote:

> Simon Brooke wrote:
>> in message <Q4_zd.63376$ef5.35146@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk>,
>> Sniper805 (L96A1) ('sniper8052@yahoo.co.uk') wrote:
>
>>>Only Macs are truly multi-tasking, others just peer through windows
>>>darkly and mutter incantations.
>
>> Beware of the technically illiterate. Current generation Macs are
>> essentially similar the the NeXT boxes of fifteen years ago - they
>> use a Mach kernel inside a broadly BSD based shell, with a pretty
>> proprietary graphical skin on top of that. The kernel 'multitasks' by
>> time slicing. This is similar to any other UN*X, or to any Windows NT
>> or XP.
>
> Except that you can log out and leave processes running on a Unix. XP
> (IME) seems to suspend desktop processes if you log out.

You _can_ under UN*X, but not by default; you have to nohup(1) the
process, and most ordinary users don't know how to do this. Otherwise
the process will receive SIGHUP when the parent process exits, and
should exit in turn.

Similarly there's a mechanism in Windows NT/XP which allows you to do
this, and shortly some Windows geek will be along to tell us how.

However, the dependence of processes on their parents is orthogonal to
the question of multitasking. Machines with a single processor core
cannot truly multitask because the core can only be executing one
command from one execution thread at a time. Multi-processor machines
can multitask but only up to the number of processors which they
actually have. In practice the vast majority of modern machines use
time-slicing to simulate multitasking. UN*X derivatives (including
MacOS X and Linux) and VMS derivatives (including Windows NT and XP) do
this in an essentially similar manner - a supervisor process allows
each active process so many cycles of the processor in turn, in a
system known as 'time slicing' or 'preemptive multitasking'. Older
multi-tasking systems including RISC-OS and earlier generations of
MacOS (and I think Windows 395/98/ME) used 'co-operative multitasking'
where each program is supposed to voluntarily yield control every so
often so that other processes could get a shot.

> And I thought the comment was quite funny, even if it was not strictly
> correct (or even non-strictly correct).

Well, it possibly was. I may be feeling unusually sour at present. It
is, as Noddy Holder would no doubt point out, Christmas.

--
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; better than your average performing pineapple

Jon is Away!

Simon Brooke wrote:
> You _can_ under UN*X, but not by default; you have to nohup(1) the
> process, and most ordinary users don't know how to do this. Otherwise
> the process will receive SIGHUP when the parent process exits, and
> should exit in turn.
>
> Similarly there's a mechanism in Windows NT/XP which allows you to do
> this, and shortly some Windows geek will be along to tell us how.

My Linux box[1] does this automagically. I only realised that you had
to do it when I was using Edinburgh uni machines.

Jon

[1] Boxes actually, both running Slackware 10. Impressively however, I
seem to have totalled my webserver while attempting to ftp some files
onto it. For no obvious reason it died, and with it... the route into
my workstation from my parents. Bugger!