Volume 1, Number 5, November 13, 2001
From The Editor:
It's been a busy week! The first AIH Scavenger Hunt went off quite well except
for a tiny typo in
one of the items. Congratulations and 200 A-Bucks go out to Drastic_Dreamer!
Kudos go to
everyone who participated. Next month's Hunt will be posted at a different
time to accomodate our
members overseas and down under. AIH's first Tech Chat was held on Monday
hosted by Linden
Rathan and StRobocop and it went off quite well! Unfortunately, the AIH
server chose that particular time to
go down thus preventing some members from being able to participate. Not to
worry - the next Tech Chat
is already in the works so stayed tuned.
Dilbert's Corner:
I have seen several questions about how many active users we have. It's a
very hard statistic to come up because we don't track that information, but
it would appear that on any given day there are between 300 and 600
registered members logging on.
This time last week we had 3333 members. Today, we have 3443. We have gained
over 100 members in a week where we weren't mentioned anywhere and didn't
have any one point where we got a lot of people. The new people came from
everywhere. With that in mind, I would like to suggest that members watch the
membership number and when it goes up, go to Who's Online and see who is new
here. Send them an email welcoming them to the site. There is nothing better
than getting a warm greeting when you go to a new site. I try to do it a lot,
but I miss a lot of people. I know that a lot of you already do this, but I
would like to encourage others to be an impromptu welcoming committee. It's a
great way of making new friendships and adding loyal users to the
site.
AIH Membership Committee: LANA9 Kanthume MSaligned, psykomom, Snowdemon,
GreyEyes,
truckcop,
Damsel, Evilai, AngelSong, pilvikki, JC, Apollo, DaisyDewbs, IMBizze and
Ethmer.
The purpose of the Committee is to provide input about site issues that
affect the entire site.
They
will meet and make recommendations to the administration. They were selected
because
they are representative of a cross-section of the entire membership.
Amy's Corner - On The Tech Front
Hey everyone. I'm sure you've all noticed
the downtime we were suffering from this past week.
And the slow speed of the site. I've been in contact with our hosting provider
and we've come to the
conclusion that it's a problem with UUNet, our internet backbone. They
suggested keeping an eye on
the site for the next day and contacting them if the slowness keeps up, then
we'll deal with it from
there.
As
for the scheduled site downage, this has been postponed, while I restructure
some of the documents to
make the code even more efficient. Hopefully this will help a little with the
load times as
well.
Till next week, this is tech corner, signing off.
Great Quotes?
Which AIHer uttered this 'great quote'?
"I would never want to be a doctor. I think you probably would get sued for
puking during
surgery, eh?"
Useful Freebie
This week's Useful Freebie is for those who use a Palm Pilot.
ICQ
for the Palm OS allows you to
chat with your Net buddies from your Palm device. This Palm OS version of the
popular chat client
lets you send and receive instant messages when you are away from your PC. You
can use existing
ICQ numbers, and you can also build buddy lists.
Opinion:
Politics on
Ask-It-Here
Ed "Silverback" Delgado
As many of you know politics is something I am very much into. My politics at
times has been
called controversial, extreme, and over the deep end many times. And I do
little to refute any of
these claims so I would guess that does not help much with regards to these
labels.
My politics and how I very things comes from a conservative background. It
also stems from a
former liberal background of which I was at one time. I am not sure how many
people of
conservative political ideology would admit to this but I will. I think this
gives me, and others like
me, a unique look at issues that we all face locally, nationally, and around
the world. I mean we
have been on both sides of the fence so in that sense we should have an idea
how the otherside
would
think.
Here on Ask-It-Here.Com we have many people of various political backgrounds.
These
backgrounds come from all kinds of belief systems, educational levels, social,
economic, different
parts of the world, cultural influences, and how each of our own value systems
work. This is what
shapes us as to how be believe one way or the other in a political
ideology.
That being said, we all know that because political ideology is based on a
belief system it is very
easy for people to take things personally. I know I do each and every time I
go up against someone
who clashes with me. After all, they are clashing against what I believe and I
am clashing against
what they
believe.
And we all know that on Ask-It-Here, politics is a hot topic as many of us
talk about American,
British, and Austrilan politics, world events, and issues that affect us all
in one way or another.
And the talks here do get heated with debate, some opinions based on logic and
some on feeling
are stated, and sometimes toes get stepped
on.
Through out all of this of this I have made one very clear observation: Most
of us handle these
debates and talks like mature adults. Oh, sure there are times we some of us
might throw a slur out
there or two. And we might get mad with the person we are talking to. And
perhaps we may lose a
little respect for that person for believing the way that they do. But the one
thing I have noticed is
that we still deal with this as adults (even you teens out there) with respect
for one anothers
opinion, their point of view, and in the conversations we
have.
How can I say this when I have openly made statements like "I do not
particularlly care of liberals"
or "Moderates are worse then liberals"? Simple, I have had many conversation
with liberals,
moderates, and conservatives I do not agree with. Furthermore, the ratings
that we give one
another speak volumes. It would be very easy to say "No I do not agree with
you so you get one
star". But we do
not.
In fact, what I have noticed is that three stars is the norm for these types
of questions usally
followed up with some debate via A-Mail. I have found this to be very
constructive and refreshing.
Things could be a lot worse in terms of the climate here at AIH.
For those of you who remember WHQuestion and KnowPost, you know well what I am
talking
about. We will talk about politics and out ideological beliefs and a slam fest
may begin going back
and forth. At times some of it was warrented. Other times it was not. And for
the most part it
produced very little.
Probably the best example I can think of is Tailgunner from KnowPost. I have
nothing but respect
for him and his beliefs as they were very much akin to my own. The only
problem was that he
would go on a personal assault tangent and often that would over shadow his
very important
message. This would create more strife then is needed to get a point across
and thus kill his
arguement.
This is not to say that we cannot and should not take personal shots at people
who do not agree
with us. By the very nature of political beliefs any agruement we have with
another on an
ideological basis is a personal shot at them. However, we can do this with
tact, honor to ourselves
and their opinions, and with the understanding that each of us in entitled to
our own opinion even
if it is wrong. And we are also entitled to attempt to get other people to
think the way that we do.
But this must be done in a manner that is as I noted a few sentences ago.
The internet has been used in many ways since its inception. Political speach
is just one of the
many ways and Ask-It-Here is just one of the newest forums in which it is
done. The manner in
which we choose to carry out our talks and debates on politics is entirely up
to us. And in my
opinion, we are going a good job at it even when we are at odds with one
another.
The
Target:
This
weeks targets are Millard Fillmore and
Apollo! Millard lives in Sherwood Forest, has asked 61
questions and answered 194. Apollo calls Grey's North Country his home, has
asked 92 questions
and answered 737.
Apollo
Hi,
I’m Travis, screen name "Apollo," a fifteen-year-old male from northeastern Tennessee. I’m
about six feet tall, two hundred and fourteen pounds, with brownish blond hair
and blue-green
eyes. I live with my entire immediate family, consisting of father, marmoset -
– I mean sister , and
myself. We have three dogs, two cats and a fish.
I spend more time with Tara’s mother, eleven-year-old pigmy, my fiancée, than
anyone else. She’s
seventeen years old, and, as a member here (DaisyDewbs), was the first person
targeted for a bio in
this Newsletter’s history. I’m a pool shark… Not too shabby with a deck of
cards either. With
interests like astronomy, algebra, computers, and particularly talking to Tara
(who lives too far
away right now to visit regularly) online, I’m close to home often. That means
plenty of time for
Ask-it-here– lucky you. :-D
I’m friendly, but a little shy; mostly introverted, even online. I value my
honesty and judgment
most in relationships with others. My most commonly complimented feature is my
maturity. Go
figure. If you were to meet me face to face, I don’t think your initial mental
impression would be
much different than it is on AIH. Quiet, opinionated, sometimes witty, and
overall kind. My worst
characteristic is jealousy, which doesn’t typically show itself unless I know
someone pretty well;
I’m working on it.
When I want some peace and quiet, I go one of two places. First is where I am
right now, and
where I am almost every time you see me online– my new room. It’s a renovated
basement with a
bedroom, den, bathroom and kitchenette. I moved here because I get a lot more
living space, plenty
of peace and quiet, privacy, a convenient place to run the line for the cable
modem to my laptop,
and my own door leading outside.
I especially like the door, because on any given night, I’ll be found sneaking
out for a date or
party… a dance with Dubhe, a chat with Aldebaran, and
a laugh with Lyra. You may have
guessed:
my second place for peace and quiet is lying under the stars. Can’t be
beat.
Millard
Fillmore
The
world according to Millard Fillmore, USMC
retired
I was born on December 25th, 1948 in Jackson, Mississippi. I've had a
varied and hard life that has
left me living in a basement apartment in Alabama with a scenic view of the
back of Alafia Package
Liquors. I have a slight drinking problem but I'm in counseling. I have a
slight drug problem but I'm
in counseling. I have a slight delusional problem but I'm on haldol for it. I
have a slight problem
with obsessing about girls I meet on the Internet, please mail me your picture
and home address
and we can discuss it. I first showed up on Point Ask and fell in love with
that horrible
Snowdemon, the 6 foot blonde ski bunny. She left me in the street with nothing
but a recipe for fish
sticks, spurning all the ear wax sculptures I made for her. I then came to AIH
and fell in love with
AussieMike. I love him, best sex I ever had despite the fact that we are both
straight men. But he
rejected me, so I'm making a voodoo doll out of used nylon stockings and
bellybutton lint. He's
going to be sorry when I skewer it with knitting needles. GreyEyes is an old
friend of mine. She was
a cocktail waitress in Jackson, Mississippi and her derriere distracted me so
much I lost $400 in a
hand of poker. Which means she has a $400 ass. For those of you who think I'm
incapable of
forming decent relationships, I'd like you to know that my beloved tortoise
Persephone and I get
on just fine. I had tried keeping gerbils but found they made handy snacks
when I'd spent all the
food money on Jack Daniels,
and they just couldn't breed fast enough to keep up with the
numerous occassions when that happened. My therapist suggested I might find a
tortoise a little
less digestible. I've customised Persephone so that I'll never lose her; if
you check my profile you
can see pictures of her go-faster stripes and the bull bars I made her from
the wire off a champagne
cork. I'm saving up for fog lights and a spoiler. Persephone recently gave
birth to four lovely
tortillas (koala/tortoise crossbreeds) fathered by Cuddles, AussieMike's
koala. Cuddles has also
rejected his true love so Persphone and I are now raising the tortillas alone.
They are called Inky,
Blinky, Pinky and Irving, and are getting a very well-rounded upbringing.
I'm misunderstood and mostly harmless. Let me clear up a few things:
1. The British Consulate didn't take away my passport. They
just suggested I'd like to visit other
countries like Botswana or France.
2. I never slept with a potato shaped like Snowdemon on the
pillow beside me. It liked to sit on the
nightstand and watch me sleep.
C. I'm not gay.
8 -b. I like to eat fishsticks.
4. I was mention twice in Simpsons episodes.
AIH Tips & Tricks:
Many of you have been wondering why some of your question titles remain red
after you've rated
all your answers. If you've blocked another member, that member can still
answer your questions
but you won't see them. The question titles will remain red until those
answers are rated.
Remember to keep your mail box clear and your image files to a minimum!
Thanks
for tuning into The Arrow! See you next week. Sincerely, The Editorial Staff
of AIH's The
Arrow.
Copyright
© 2001
TheArrow.
queenceline uttered this week's Great
Quote!
Welcome back home
god!
:)