OCEANIA ORACLE

ISSUE #18- 01/04/95
No Nonsense New Nation News - © 1995

INDEX

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Passport discussion is at passport-L.
Sea Structures business plan discussion is at seacell-L.
A version of this newsletter for the blind is available.
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CATHY WOODGOLD DAY

Cathy Woodgold made some improvements in the ASCII logo which is finally being used with this issue. She also created a smaller logo for us which proved what many people had told me -- that a smaller logo would be unrecognizable.

WEB SITE

Our Web-Master, Bob Bickford, has figured out why some users were having problems with the Web site while others with identical software were not. Briefly, the problem is a combination of buggy software (Lynx 2.2) and improper URLs (lacking a trailing slash and/or filename). For future reference, the official URL to our Web site, until and unless we change it, will be http://unicycle.cs.tulane.edu/oceania/index.html. Actually, I am going to experiment for awhile with http://unicycle.cs.tulane.edu/oceania/ because the only use of index.html is to indicate that you need a "/" after oceania for some software, Lynx 2.2 in particular.

Note that our mall and Sea Structure Inc. areas have been dramatically improved recently. Thanks to Vern Hart for improving the Sea Structure Inc. area and to Greg Griffin for improving the mall.

PASSPORTS

The price of passports will be $100.00 throughout the month of January and will rise to $150.00 by February 1st as we are getting very close to the printing date. I am working on the Oceania Pioneer's Journal and have the current table of contents: Does anyone wish to do either of the first two articles? It would look stupid if I did three out of four articles.

CHICAGO E-MAIL ACCESS

Having recently set up accounts in Las Vegas and Houston, I now need to set up an account in Chicago. Can anyone recommend a good SLIP provider in Chicago?

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

>From Arthur Torrey: 
 I prefer the larger size, but either is acceptable.  I am not sure
that trying to make things any smaller would give a recognizeable
result.

 The primary reason I am responding though is with a suggestion for a
very minor change in the designs.  I am on a different list with a
participant that is blind.  He uses a "talking terminal" and has
commented many times that ascii graphics can be quite difficult for
him and slow his reading considerably.  This is because his terminal
trys to read the picture to him one symbol at a time.

 According to Dan, the standard settings for "talking terminals"
include ignoring any line that contains an "@" symbol, which means
that the rest of us can still use graphics without bothering him if
we put an @ on each line so that his terminal will ignore them.  We
have adopted this convention on the other list even to the point of
including it with the "Welcome" message and guidlines for posting to
the list.  It has worked well and seems to keep everyone happy.  It
looks to me like it would be a simple process to put a border of @
signs on one edge of the graphic logo without harming its artistic
merits.

 I know there has been a certain amount of resentment of the ADA and
some of the more extreme cases of requiring accomodations for the
handicapped, and I certainly agree.  OTOH, I feel that while demands
for accomodations that far exceed the returns they will produce, or
that cause extreme inconvenience for the non-handicapped are possibly
innapropriate, it is only polite to include those accomodations that
are easy and no-cost.  IMHO, this is one of those cases, so I would
suggest that Giles may wish to modify his artwork appropriately.

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Arthur Torrey
Editor's Reply: For now I am offering to create special issues for the blind if there is any demand for this. I believe that not only the ASCII graphics, but the lines of "-"s and other miscellaneous symbols should be removed in such issues.

NEW MUTUAL LINKS

The following links are mutual links that have been established but never confirmed before in the Oceania Oracle. They mention us, we mention them. More mutual links are being established every day.

OCEANIA SECRET .SIG SOCIETY

Lee Crocker has joined this society which adds the follow .sig to all their messages: 
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Oceania: A New Country In Development ->  oceania@terminus.intermind.net |
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CONTACT INFO

     FTP:        oceania.org/pub/oceania
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     BOOK:       The Atlantis Papers from After Dark Publications/
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