Web Fed News Yearbooks - January 2000

THE MONTH IN BRIEF

The year 2000 dawned, and we were all still here. The Y2K bug didn't bite in Fed. Spacehips didn't fall out of the sky, teleporters, still functioned, and the Imperial Navy didn't bomb anyone by mistake. Huge stockpiles of weapons, ammo and soya were quietly put on the market at bargain prices.

Fed was free for the first few weeks of the year, and then on January 14 the billing clock was turned on again... and flat-rate Fed began! The first person to subscribe under the new system was Zexus.

I advertised for new writers for the Fed Chronicle, to write articles for the Inside Scoop section, and to review planets and hand out the Walrus of Merit and the Carpenter award for excellence and planetary design.

Of interest to those who know about programming, Alan wrote an article for his web site about C++ Class Design. Read it at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/technicalclassdesign.html.

WARNING ON TRIGGERS AND AUTO-RESPONDERS

With the return of people who haven't played Fed for quite a while, we're seeing the return of some bad old habits too. Quite a few people are using ZMud or other programs that have triggers and auto-responders in them, which is getting some of them into trouble.

Please be very careful about triggers. Check what your triggers are set up to do and make sure they are not going to be fired off unexpectedly under circumstances which might be embarrassing or damaging. Be particularly careful about triggers which move you in response to certain words - if they happen when you didn't expect them to, because of something another player says to you, they could send you to your death.

If your character dies DD because of your triggers, we won't do anything to help - it's your responsibility.

Make sure your triggers don't do anything that breaks the rules. Sending scrolling messages to the comm channels or sending multiple TBs is not allowed, and you will not be excused if your triggers were doing it by accident. You are responsible for your triggers!

And finally, as a courtesy, if you want to ask me a question and you TB me and expect me to TB you in return - please turn off the stupid triggers that send an auto-response telling me you are AFK! If you don't you are likely to suffer the wrath of an irritated demi-goddess.

FROM THE POSTBAG: EARTH'S WORKTHINGS

A letter received at the Federation Chronicle office recently posed the following question:

"The workthingie population on Earth is only 5000. What happened to all the other 5,999,995,000 people?"

Well of course that 5,000 is only the people who are available to work in factories that happen to be built on the planet. The fact that no factories can be built on the planet is neither here nor there; the workthings are available should it ever become possible for factories to operate on Earth. Meanwhile those 5,000 are lying around doing nothing, being housed and fed at the taxpayer's expense.

The other 5,999,995,000 people who live on Earth are not available for work because they are busy doing other things. Some of them run their own businesses, or work for private companies. An example is the spotty, greasy-haired youth who works in Hagar's Music Shop. You have probably never seen him because he always seems to be off sick. Or there's the typist in the Office Block typing pool, who is so dedicated she is never away from her desk.

The marines in the Naval Base are obviously not available to go and run the production lines in factories, since they are busy defending Earth against attack from the Martians, polishing the brass on ships, and practicing their formation marching.

A large segment of the people on Earth are transients - tourists seeing the sights, businessmen attending meetings, travelers simply passing through the spaceport as they change ships on the way to somewhere more interesting. Obviously they wouldn't want to go and work in factories. They have homes to go to.

But the vast majority of those 5,999,995,000 people - probably something in the region of 5,999,994,000 of them - are not available to work in factories because they are employed by the Galactic Administration. Earth is teeming with bureaucrats and paper-pushers, shuffling forms and memos from one pile to another, tying red-tape into ever-tighter knots. You wouldn't expect civil servants to go and work in a factory, would you? They might get their hands dirty. Or be expected to wake up. Or - heaven forbid - have to do an honest day's work!