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This article was posted to the Usenet group alt.hackers in 1995; any technical information is probably outdated.

Bicycles and perculiarities of System V's "mesg."


Article: 8985 of alt.hackers
From: cantrick@rintintin.Colorado.EDU (Ben Cantrick (alias Macky Stingray))
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Bicycles and perculiarities of System V's "mesg."
Date: 3 Nov 1995 23:45:27 GMT
Organization: Silky Doll Women's Lingerie, MegaTokyo, JP
Lines: 40
Approved: mstingray@silky-doll.megatokyo.co.jp (Macky Stingray)
Message-ID: 47e9in$q5s@peabody.colorado.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: rintintin.colorado.edu
Status: RO

  I've been hard on my bike lately; I crashed twice in the past weekend.
The second time I crashed, I actually did damage to the bike! Nothing
serious, just a brake assembly piece popping off. Still, I had to fix it.

  The way my bike brakes work is as follows: The cable travels from the
brake lever down through the handlebars and terminates in a triangular
shaped piece of metal that holds the "loop" running between the
two brake
arms that press the brake pads into the wheel rim. Pull on the handle, the
cable is pulled up, which pulls up the triangular piece, which pulls
the loop upward, which forces the brake arms inward.

(And you stop... unless the little triangular piece slips off the cable.
In which case the loop is pulled downward by the springs attached to the
brake arms and catches in the treads of your tire, causing you to rather
gracefully flip head-over. ;] [Don't try this at home, kids!])

  Problem: To fix it, I needed to pass the cable back through a small
hold drilled in a bolt that screws into the triangular metal piece; but
the cable is frayed badly at the end and won't go into the small hole.

  ObHack: Scotch tape! Wrap a layer around the end of the cable, so all
the strands are held together. The tape is smooth and helps the cable
thread easily through the hole, and comes off easily when it's through.
(And it's thin enough so it doesn't jam up the hole.)


 ObHack2: When you set your mesg status on the local Sun, mesg automatically
sets your biff to 'n,' even if you want to be biffed. This is rather obnoxious
as I like to turn on and off talk/write permissions but always want to
see incoming email.

  ObHack2:
alias mesg 'set biff_state=`biff|sed s/"is "//`;\mesg \!*;biff
"$biff_state"'

          -Ben
--
     "BGC: Because some of us believe women over 14 are still sexy."
=--------------http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~cantrick/home.html------------------=
*Ben Cantrick, diehard BGC otaku and Priss fan.  ---> THE BGC DUBS
SUCK! <---*
*Why Mac? "When I want to spend 50% of my time fighting an OS, I'll
use VMS."*



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