Discussion:
Booster For "alt.xyzzy"
(too old to reply)
Glenn P.,
2004-01-13 00:38:40 UTC
Permalink
Booster Posted: Mon., 12-Jan-2004, at 07:20:05pm EST (-0500 GMT).

I've just posted a Booster Message for this pre-existing newsgroup,
"alt.xyzzy". I am this newsgroup's original creator. See the
"CREATION" heading below for further information.

PURPOSE: The purposes of this newsgroup are twofold:

1. To serve as a test newsgroup, relieving some of the massive
traffic on alt.test and misc.test; and

2. Secondarily, to serve as a repository for miscellaneous,
low-importance, temporary, or ephemeral traffic.

Two advantages to using "alt.xyzzy" for the posting of test
messages instead of, for example, "misc.test", is that (1)
traffic is much less on "alt.xyzzy", making one's test message
much easier to locate; and (2) "alt.xyzzy" is unmonitored,
meaning one can safely post a test message here without fear
of getting E-Mail autoresponses from South Africa (among
several other weird places) in return.

HISTORY: The term "xyzzy" was originally used as a magic word
in the world's first interactive fiction program, "Adventure"
(a.k.a. "Colossal Cave") by Crowther & Woods. It was since
employed as an ad hoc filename for low-importance, temporary,
or ephemeral files. The use of this word in the name of this
newsgroup therefore accomplishes two things:

1. It does homage to "Adventure", of which this newsgroup's
creator was (and still is) a great fan; and

2. To the computer-savvy, it serves as an indicator of the
general nature of this newsgroup.

CREATION: This newsgroup was created approximately ten years
ago. I have changed ISP's since then, and my E-Mail address is
now slightly different:

OLD ADDRESS: ***@GTI.Net

NEW ADDRESS: ***@FVI.Net

NEWSGROUP CHARTER FOR "ALT.XYZZY":
==================================

Things Prohibited:
------------------
The posting of commercial messages of any kind is prohibited.

The posting of pornographic or sexually-oriented material is prohibited.

Posting material without the permission of the copyright owner is prohibited.

Posting raw 8-bit binary is prohibited (see below).

Things Permitted:
-----------------
Just about anything else is permitted, in keeping with this newsgroup's
catch-all "miscellaneous" character.

The posting of binary attachments is permitted here, on the premise that
a legitimate need exists to test the posting, propagation, and recovery
of binary programs. That said,

1. The posting of copyrighted programs without the permission of
the copyright owner is prohibited; and

2. As binary messages consume massive quantities of bandwidth, it
is strongly requested that binary attachments exceeding 100K in
size not be posted here.

Attachments should be posted using Base64 (e.g., MIME), UUcode,
hexadecimal, or other similar encoding. Any process which reduces
original binary material to 7-bit US-ASCII characters is acceptable.
The posting of raw 8-bit material is NOT allowed.

---End---



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tyaginator
2004-01-13 09:08:33 UTC
Permalink
hi Glenn!

"Glenn P.," <***@FVI.Net>:
# HISTORY: The term "xyzzy" was originally used as a magic word
# in the world's first interactive fiction program, "Adventure"
# (a.k.a. "Colossal Cave") by Crowther & Woods. It was since
# employed as an ad hoc filename for low-importance, temporary,
# or ephemeral files.

nice.

# The use of this word in the name of this newsgroup therefore
# accomplishes two things:
# 1. It does homage to "Adventure", of which this newsgroup's
# creator was (and still is) a great fan; and

marvellous.

# 2. To the computer-savvy, it serves as an indicator of the
# general nature of this newsgroup.

and to the esoterically-savvy, it conveys a rather magical word.

# NEWSGROUP CHARTER FOR "ALT.XYZZY":
# ==================================

LOL!
<snipped bunches>

# Things Prohibited:
# ------------------
# Posting material without the permission of the copyright
# owner is prohibited.

LOL! you missed some very interesting arguments about this.

# Things Permitted:
# -----------------
# Just about anything else is permitted....
# ---End---

whew!

replay from Wed, 02 May 2001 02:31:46 PDT
quoting ***@someother.isp (Anubis) initiated the game:
# Welcome to the New Church of Technomantic Occultism, the A...A...
# of the twenty-first century....

level playing field. anarchistic internetworking. here or elsewhere
in the same form. multiplying concepts.

# Perhaps classic adventure-gaming is viewed as a technological vision
# quest, or a computerized training ground for the rote and rule that
# goes with occultism.

presumed routes. magic words. secret keys. eventual success.

# Perhaps it's numerology - XYZZY boils down to 24+25+26+26+25, or 126,
# or 1+2+6=9....
3 x 42
# Three is a holy number....

not to mention 42, 21, 14, 7 or 6, (factored XYZZY = 2 x 3 x 3 x 7).

# ...Note also that XYZZY is a five-letter "word".

the Law of Fives? *both* XYZZY and PLUGH are five-lettered.
magic = 5. pentagrams are often associated specifically with
magic. and so are other forms.

THE BENEFICENT SUPERPASSWORD:

X

#
# #
# #
# #
# #
# #
# #
# #
# #
Y ###################################################################### Y
### # # ###
#### # # ####
#### # # ####
#### # # ####
#### # # ####
###### #####
#### ####
# ##### ##### #
# #### #### #
# ### ### #
# ############### #
# #### #### #
# #### #### #
# #### #### #
# ### #### #
###### ######
#### ####
## ##

Z Z

note well its symmetry and initiatic splendour.

# If you take this one step further and analyze the word PLUGH,
# you will see that it, too, is five letters long - in this case,
# consisting of 16+12+21+7+8, or 64.

2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64 > 6 + 4 = 10 > 1 + 0 = 1.
64, binary, I Ching.

THE MALEFICENT SUPERPASSWORD:

U G

## ##
#### ####
###### ######
# ### #### #
# #### #### #
# #### #### #
# #### #### #
# ############### #
# ### ### #
# #### #### #
# ##### ##### #
#### ####
###### #####
#### # # ####
#### # # ####
#### # # ####
#### # # ####
### # # ###
L ###################################################################### H
# #
# #
# #
# #
# #
# #
# #
# #
#

P

note well its assymetry, its ugliness.

# ...XYZZY and PLUGH are intermarried on this newsgroup,
# providing a perfect blend of technology and magic, or
# technomancy.

XYZZY PLUGH
2 vowels, 1 vowel
2 consonants, 4 consonants
1 (the last) repeated 0 repeated
gematria: 126 (42 + 42 + 42) gematria: 64 (2^6, 4^3, 8^2)

14x9;18x7;21x6;42x3;63x2 32x2;16x4;

# Or perhaps I may be lying. You decide. :)

I don't see any decide here.

replay from Wed, 02 May 2001 09:51:30 GMT
quoting sri catyananda <***@luckymojo.com> asking about XYZZY and PLUGH:
# ...Have you tried analyzing these words in Hebrew yet? :-)

consulting Liber Tahuti...

Peh - 80 X (koph? 20; samech? 60)
Lamed - 30 Yod - 10
Vav - 6 Zayin - 7
Gimel - 3 Zayin - 7
He - 5 Yod - 10
----------------------------------------------------
124 54 94

and of course the skinny incited by Scott Franklin 1999 (party on!):

Scott Franklin:
# Why do you post here? This Newsgroup has no relation to the occult
# yet every so often threads pop up related to the occult. Don't you
# have your own Newsgroup for your posts?

The alt.xyzzy newsgroup has been empty of substantive on-topic threads
for years (i have subbed to it since 1994 and know it well). Since late
1999, the rare posts about Adventure have been sharing space/time with
posts from a bunch of archivists who maintin online libraries of occult
materials. Most of us also used to play Adventure, which, as you will
recall, contains embedded magical premises as well as a grounding in
material-world cave exploration.

Our traffic here is minimal, but using this ng is simpler and more
time-efficient for us than creating a new group specifically for our
recondite interests and getting the backbone to carry it. We do not post
general occult threads here, nor do we post about our archival interests
in the usual occult newsgrups because although the subject of our
research is occult studies, the topics we discuss here are those of
storage, formatting, copyright issues, and the like -- not matters of
interest to most practical occultists.

Should Adventure ever make a comeback and this ng pile up with droves of
teenaged gaming fanatics, we would decamp for quieter pastures, such as
alt.fan.ceiling, which is even quieter than alt.xyzzy.

Cordially,

cat yronwode
========================================================================

good thing everything is welcome here!!

tyaginator
Glenn P.,
2004-01-14 18:18:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by tyaginator
# ==================================
# ...
# -----------------
# Just about anything else is permitted....
# ---End---
whew!
good thing everything is welcome here!!
Yes, your post is perfectly proper here -- but I doubt the groups you
cross-posted to will be as appreciative of your humor! Please try to
be more considerate.

-- _____ "Glenn P.," <C128UserDELETE-***@FVI.Net> _____
{~._.~} ------------------------------------------ {~._.~}
_( Y )_ "Uncle Glenn, your shoe's untied." _( Y )_
(:_~*~_:) "Well now, that's a nice try, Jay, (:_~*~_:)
(_)-(_) but my shoes use Velcro." (_)-(_)
========= ------------------------------------------ =========
========= %%%%% Conversation Of April 01, 2000 %%%%% =========

:: Take Note Of The Spam Block On My E-Mail Address! ::


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