INFO-VAX Mon, 16 Jun 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 334 Contents: Re: ampersand in DCL script Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Re: Does anyone know if and how VMS figured in this? Re: Does anyone know if and how VMS figured in this? Re: newsreader client for VMS Re: newsreader client for VMS Re: PCL and PDF support in DCPS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:02:47 -0700 (PDT) From: AEF Subject: Re: ampersand in DCL script Message-ID: Uses for the ampersand (&): 1. Simulate 1-D arrays. 2. Perform up to three iterations of symbol substitution in a single expression. 3. Comment processing (symbol substitution within comments). 4. Avoid having to use quotation marks and apostrophes to perform symbol substitution for a qualifier keyword containing a space. 5. Hide unprintable characters from SYS$OUTPUT (when command verification is enabled) while at the same time avoiding the use of quotation marks. 6. Implement "delayed-evaluation error labels". 7. Special use in PIPE command to facilitate the passing of the value of a symbol from a PIPE subprocess back to the main process. 8. Can be used to make symbol substitution more secure in captive command procedures. Details forthcoming. Stay tuned. AEF ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 2008 17:46:15 -0500 From: BEGINcornelius@decuserve.orgEND (George Cornelius) Subject: Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Message-ID: In article <4852bec3$0$20616$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei writes: > ultradwc@gmail.com wrote: > >> few days worth of oil? a spokesman from exxon just did >> an interview on fox > > Fox is a republican entertainment network. Its onwer has publically > admitted to meddling in editorial content and instructing its various > media to not discuss global warming in a positive way. > > >> and said 68 BILLION barrels of oil are >> sitting in the gulf, alaska and the west ... that is hardly a >> few days worth > > From: > > https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html > > Oil - production: > 8.322 million bbl/day (2005 est.) > Oil - consumption: > 20.8 million bbl/day (2005 est.) > > Ok, so I'll concede... more than 3 days. It is 3.26 days. Um, JF, I always assumed you were capable of simple arithmetic: bash$ echo 68000/20.8 | bc -l # In days 3269.23076923076923076923 bash$ echo 68000/20.8/365.25 | bc -l # In years 8.95066603485494655925 Methinks you lost track of the decimal point. Not that a mere 9 years of U.S. production means that much when you consider that it is a global market, but it's perhaps 9 trillion dollars that we would not have to ship overseas. If the U.S. Govt got all of it, minus production cost, it might even pay off the debt. > OK, lets discuss how ships fail. The oil was going to come into port on ships somewhere anyway. I see, the risk to that great Canadian resource, Alaska, is vastly important but not the ongoiing risk to highly populated areas with heavily used ports and actual humans present instead of seagulls. I suppose a Canadian route for a pipeline is out of the question. Thought so. You're just another of a whole cadre of obstructionists. By the way, if the USA doesn't have oil, who do they buy it from? Mexico and Canada first. Canada benefits by being obstructionist with regard to US oil production. Meanwhile, I hear that nasty work of extracting oil sands in Alberta is going great guns, so Canada will have lots of oil to sell us and to that vast majority of Canadians who are not so environmentally conscious as you and actually use motor vehicles for everyday life. -- George Cornelius cornelius A T eisner D O T decus D O T org cornelius A T mayo D O T edu ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 2008 18:34:57 -0500 From: BEGINcornelius@decuserve.orgEND (George Cornelius) Subject: Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Message-ID: In article , I wrote: > Not that a mere 9 years of U.S. production means that much when ^^^^^^^^^^ consumption -- George Cornelius cornelius A T eisner D O T decus D O T org cornelius A T mayo D O T edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:54:20 -0700 (PDT) From: AEF Subject: Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Message-ID: On Jun 14, 9:41 pm, AEF wrote: > On Jun 13, 2:49 pm, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob > > Koehler) wrote: > > In article <820d9f14-9ab1-4120-8e46-8911cd92d...@r66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, ultra...@gmail.com writes: > > > > an interview on fox > > > You get your information from Fox and you listen to an actor for > > environmental advice? > > > Q.E.D. > > My dad used to work for Exxon and just today he said that if we > allowed drilling in and near the U.S. we may well have more oil than > Saudi Arabia. (I don't recall the exact details.) OK, I checked and he said that its the shale oil in the U.S. that amounts to that much. Unfortunately, it's very hard to extract it. If you're upset about fuel prices, you should be upset with OPEC. They're the ones making the big bucks, very much more than the oil companies. And you should favor ending the current bans on drilling in places in which bans are in effect. Also, you should favor turning coal into oil. The U.S. has plenty of coal. If you're worried about global warming, then you should heavily favor a carbon tax. OTOH, if global warming is really as bad as some say it is, then there is no hope unless some major breakthrough in technology occurs. With current technology it would be economically devastating for the world. Either way it's a catastrophe. Still, I think a carbon tax would be the best strategy, or best hope (based on the aforementioned assumption, of course). JMO AEF AEF [...] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:59:29 -0700 (PDT) From: AEF Subject: Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Message-ID: <5203a98a-f17d-40e5-abba-0ded7d60f815@c58g2000hsc.googlegroups.com> On Jun 15, 6:46 pm, BEGINcornel...@decuserve.orgEND (George Cornelius) wrote: > In article <4852bec3$0$20616$c3e8...@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei writes: > > > > > ultra...@gmail.com wrote: > > >> few days worth of oil? a spokesman from exxon just did > >> an interview on fox > > > Fox is a republican entertainment network. Its onwer has publically > > admitted to meddling in editorial content and instructing its various > > media to not discuss global warming in a positive way. > > >> and said 68 BILLION barrels of oil are > >> sitting in the gulf, alaska and the west ... that is hardly a > >> few days worth > > > From: > > >https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.... > > > Oil - production: > > 8.322 million bbl/day (2005 est.) > > Oil - consumption: > > 20.8 million bbl/day (2005 est.) > > > Ok, so I'll concede... more than 3 days. It is 3.26 days. > > Um, JF, I always assumed you were capable of simple > arithmetic: > > bash$ echo 68000/20.8 | bc -l # In days > 3269.23076923076923076923 > bash$ echo 68000/20.8/365.25 | bc -l # In years > 8.95066603485494655925 > > Methinks you lost track of the decimal point. > > Not that a mere 9 years of U.S. production means that much when > you consider that it is a global market, but it's perhaps 9 > trillion dollars that we would not have to ship overseas. If > the U.S. Govt got all of it, minus production cost, it might > even pay off the debt. > > > OK, lets discuss how ships fail. > > The oil was going to come into port on ships somewhere anyway. I see, > the risk to that great Canadian resource, Alaska, is vastly important > but not the ongoiing risk to highly populated areas with heavily used > ports and actual humans present instead of seagulls. > > I suppose a Canadian route for a pipeline is out of the question. > > Thought so. > > You're just another of a whole cadre of obstructionists. By the > way, if the USA doesn't have oil, who do they buy it from? Mexico > and Canada first. Canada benefits by being obstructionist with > regard to US oil production. Meanwhile, I hear that nasty work > of extracting oil sands in Alberta is going great guns, so > Canada will have lots of oil to sell us and to that vast majority > of Canadians who are not so environmentally conscious as you and > actually use motor vehicles for everyday life. > > -- > George Cornelius cornelius A T eisner D O T decus D O T org > cornelius A T mayo D O T edu Yes, I always thought it was kind of "funny" how Americans are perfectly happy to buy oil products as long as the risk of drilling was only to others and not in "their backyards". (And yes, I am an American saying this.) AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:40:16 -0600 From: Dan O'Reilly Subject: Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080615212532.023b0788@raptor.psccos.com> At 06:54 PM 6/15/2008, AEF wrote: >OTOH, if global warming is really as bad as some say it is, then there >is no hope unless some major breakthrough in technology occurs. With >current technology it would be economically devastating for the world. >Either way it's a catastrophe. Still, I think a carbon tax would be >the best strategy, or best hope (based on the aforementioned >assumption, of course). Of course, the basic assuming you're making is that there's even a problem to begin with. Heck, the scientific community can't even agree on the idea that there has even been global warming in the last 10 years, nor can they say with any kind of certainty that man has anything to do with it, or that there's anything that can be done that man could actually do to "fix" it (assuming it's broken in the first place). Furthermore, who's to say that the current state of the climate is even the optimum (i.e., "natural") one? There is vast amounts of evidence that points to continual climate change in cycles that last hundreds of years, raising the distinct possibility, if not probability, that this is simply one of those cycles, and nothing man has one or can do will alter that. However, the global warming (oops, sorry, the PC term now is "climate change") fanatics have blinders to anything outside of the "this MUST be man-made" postulate, and therefore the historic scientific evidence is simply to be ignored. This "carbon credit" or "carbon tax" thing is simply a MASSIVE money grab on behalf of the government and would do nothing more than to lay waste to the global economy - and specifically, that of the US. But of course, that's the idea. Let's penalize the US, but allow India/China/Russia/etc to pollute at will and damn the cost! After all, it's our fault for being a successful economy in the first place, so we deserve it! It's beyond my comprehension that anybody could actually believe the government could control the climate that occurs ****NATURALLY**** - let alone natural business cycles (see "USSR" and "five-year plans")! And, of course, it begs the question: who are they going to tax when the next Krakatoa/Vesuvius/Mount St Helens occurs - the largest polluters in history by a wide margin? And, of course, there are MASSIVE amounts of pollutants being released every day in the geysers of Yellowstone. Surely there must be a way to make somebody pay for that! Yep, that all sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But no more so than the government telling us how we can get around, what we can drive, how we use energy, how we produce energy, etc.. ------ +-------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Dan O'Reilly | "There are 10 types of people in this | | Principal Engineer | world: those who understand binary | | Process Software | and those who don't." | | http://www.process.com | | +-------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:23:57 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Chuck Norris says "Drill now in America for oil" Message-ID: <02a13bbf$0$25025$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Dan O'Reilly wrote: > Of course, the basic assuming you're making is that there's even a problem > to begin with. Heck, the scientific community can't even agree on the idea > that there has even been global warming in the last 10 years, nor can they > say with any kind of certainty that man has anything to do with it, or that > there's anything that can be done that man could actually do to "fix" it Are you aware that the Bush White House "filtered" all global warming related USA research papers to change wording from "is happening" to "might be happening" so that they could then claim that the scienmtific community didn't agree and didn't have conclusive edivence ? The people at white house doing this were former oil company execs now working at white house. Thsi was widely publisciced a few years ago outside of the USA. It is a shame that the USA media refused to cover this. You might still be able to try to convince americans that global warming is a hoax, but this won't work outside the USA. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:17:14 -0700 From: "Jeffrey H. Coffield" Subject: Re: Does anyone know if and how VMS figured in this? Message-ID: <_Ud5k.14035$co7.12367@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com> johnwallace4@gmail.com wrote: > Seems you can be hip, trendy, and cool, or you can be up 24x7. Put > another way (one that every engineer should know): good, fast, cheap: > which two do you want? which two (at most) do you want? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:25:37 +0000 (UTC) From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) Subject: Re: Does anyone know if and how VMS figured in this? Message-ID: johnwallace4@gmail.com writes: >SAXESS Trade is a client/server solution running on Windows platforms >a utilizing a MS SQL Server database. The demands on performance and >stability of the product are very high. Programming is done in C and C+ >+ in a Microsoft Visual Studio environment." >found at http://www.jobbank.dk/job/index.asp?act=3Dvis%7C58652 So VMS "figures into this" by not being selected for the job. I wonder exactly what happened, if some malware/virus caused the problem or if it was something more mundane. >Seems you can be hip, trendy, and cool, or you can be up 24x7. Put >another way (one that every engineer should know): good, fast, cheap: >which two do you want? ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 2008 14:30:05 -0500 From: BEGINcornelius@decuserve.orgEND (George Cornelius) Subject: Re: newsreader client for VMS Message-ID: In article , BEGINcornelius@decuserve.orgEND (George Cornelius) writes: > There are some Perl nntp modules as well. The following, by coincidence, > were just recently installed on my Debian (Sarge) Linux system: > > # apropos nntp > Net::NNTP (3perl) - NNTP Client class > Net::NNTP (3pm) - NNTP Client class > News::NNTPClient (3pm) - Perl 5 module to talk to NNTP (RFC977) server > I posted earlier two test programs using the News::NNTPClient module and mentioned that I had not tested them under VMS, partly because I did not have the module installed. I noticed that the other module (Net::NNTP) was present on eisner, though, and made the minor changes to the code necessary to use it instead. It seems to work OK. The only change between the Linux and the VMS version was that I substituted SYS$INPUT for /dev/stdin, which for some reason was failing with a permission violation even though it has worked in other contexts. Code appended below. > -- > George Cornelius cornelius A T eisner D O T decus D O T org > cornelius A T mayo D O T edu ==================================================================================== $create nn1chk.pl $deck #!/usr/bin/perl -w #!/usr/bin/perl # # nnchk.pl [group] [host] [port] [user] [pw] [debugflag] # # display all messages in a group # use Net::NNTP; #News::NNTPClient; ($grp,$host,$port,$user,$pw,$dbg)=@ARGV; $grp="vmsnet.test" unless $grp; $host="nntp.aioe.org" unless $host; $port=119 unless $port; $dbg=0 unless $dbg; # print "\nnew Net::NNTP\n"; $opt=( $dbg ? "Debug=$dbg" : ""); #$c = ( $dbg!=0?new Net::NNTP($host,"{Debug => $dbg}") : new Net::NNTP($host) ) or die $!; $c = new Net::NNTP($host) or die $!; $c->debug($dbg) if ($dbg); if ( $user ) { print "\n\$c->authinfo(\$user,\$pw)\n"; $c->authinfo($user,$pw) or die $!; } print "\n\$c->group(\$grp)\n"; ($tot,$nn,$nfinal)=($c->group($grp)) or die $!; print "\n\n==== Article numbers: $nn .. $nfinal ====\n\n"; print "\n"; for (;$nn<=$nfinal;$nn++) { print "\n\n >>> Article $nn >>>\n\n"; $art = $c->article($nn); print @$art; } $eod $create nn1post.pl $deck #!/usr/bin/perl -w #!/usr/bin/perl # # nn1post.pl [group] [host] [port] [user] [pw] [fname] [debugflag] # # Post message from file fname # use Net::NNTP; #News::NNTPClient; ($grp,$host,$port,$user,$pw,$fname,$dbg)=@ARGV; $grp="vmsnet.test" unless $grp; $host="nntp.aioe.org" unless $host; $port=119 unless $port; #$fname='/dev/stdin' unless $fname; $fname='SYS$INPUT' unless $fname; $dbg=0 unless $dbg; # open FHNDL,$fname or die $!; # print "\nnew News::NNTPClient\n"; $c = new Net::NNTP($host) or die $!; $c->debug($dbg) if ($dbg); if ( $user ) { print "\n\$c->authinfo(\$user,\$pw)\n"; $c->authinfo($user,$pw) or die $!; } print "\n\$c->group(\$grp)\n"; ($nn,$nn,$nfinal)=($c->group($grp)) or die $!; print "\n\n==== Group $grp has article numbers: $nn .. $nfinal ====\n\n"; print "\n"; print "\n\$c->post(\)\n"; @stuff=; $c->post(@stuff) or die $!; $c->quit; $eod ==================================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 2008 14:50:12 -0500 From: BEGINcornelius@decuserve.orgEND (George Cornelius) Subject: Re: newsreader client for VMS Message-ID: In article , BEGINcornelius@decuserve.orgEND (George Cornelius) writes: > In article , BEGINcornelius@decuserve.orgEND (George Cornelius) writes: > I noticed that the other module (Net::NNTP) was present on eisner, > though, and made the minor changes to the code necessary to use it > instead. It seems to work OK. The only change between the Linux > and the VMS version was that I substituted SYS$INPUT for /dev/stdin, > which for some reason was failing with a permission violation even > though it has worked in other contexts. > > Code appended below. Note that this version has a couple of oddities I did not clean up: In nn1chk.pl, there is an extraneous variable ($opt) related to my initial attempt to pass a debug param in via the second parameter of the constructor (new Net::NNTP) invocation; and in nn1post.pl, I still have at least one info print that refers to the NNTPClient module instead of the NNTP module. Of course, these are just hacks to try to make use of the Perl nntp support, something I had been planning on working on and was finally prodded into doing by Phillip's request. -- George Cornelius cornelius A T eisner D O T decus D O T org cornelius A T mayo D O T edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:07:44 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: PCL and PDF support in DCPS. Message-ID: <48556a8a$0$31232$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Perhaps DCPS should have "virtual printers" where a print queue points to software instead of a printer. So you could have a DCPS-symbiont that takes DCPS (that dialogue DCPS expects with a postscript printer), takes the postscript given by DCPS and then processes it in whatever way it wants, and then reports back the number of pages printed etc as DCPS excpect. Such a symbiont might take PS input, generate PDFs and mail it for instance. (using the various parameters passed as part of the job to define where it should be mailed). ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.334 ************************