Google announced yesterday that they have completed their project of archiving the entire Usenet, back to 1981 (excluding those who set “X-no-archive” on their posts, of course), a project that began with their acquisition of DejaNews last February and then, like Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, “just growed.”. Aside from being an absolute historical trip, it means the world has better than 700,000,000 Usenet articles available, covering just about anything under the sun. Check out the timeline; it’s a mind-blower to see when things like Kibo’s first post to alt.religion.kibology (1991), Linus Torvalds’ first announcement of Linux (1991), first mention of PC-DOS (1981), the Oldest Article in the Archive (a post to net.periphs about Versatec V-80 performance, in May 1981) . . . well hell, if I list it all out here, it takes all the fun out of reading the page.
The other thing the completion of this project allows you to do is to ego-surf to see when you, personally, first appeared on the ’Net—and that’s what I did this afternoon. The first mention of me was in an article in rec.food.cooking, in 1991, concerning availability of the QuikBook recipe database program (I used to maintain a list of Fidonet BBSs where it could be downloaded). The first post by me showed up on October 16, 1993, again in rec.food.cooking, talking about jelly-making using Certo (a brand of liquid pectin).
From: Sam@f125.n102.z1.calcom.socal.com (Sam)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: Jelly making w/Certo
Message-ID: <750734392.AA02444@calcom.socal.com>
Date: 16 Oct 93 04:43:22 GMT
Lines: 34
X-FTN-To: All
SR> I have a recipe for Spiced Apple Cider jelly that calls for a bottle
SR> of Certo (which I assume is the jellying agent).
SR> I know that sugar amount is important to the jellying but if you’re
SR> putting in a bottle of stuff that takes care of that, why can’t I cut
SR> the sugar from 7.5 cups to 3 or 4 cups.
SR> This is also made with apple cider which is incredibly sweet already
SR> and I assume is loaded with pectin which also firms up the jelly.
SR> Any experience with using this Certo ™ stuff?
Yes. Certo, like most other jellying agents, is an extract of pectin (principally extracted from the skins of apples), and is meant to encourage jellies to set up (particularly those that aren’t naturally rich in pectin). The sugar is not, by itself, gonna be up to making the jelly set.
Now there’s a couple of things you haven’t told us here, like whether your recipe is old enough that it assumes you’re using non-commercial (i.e., unsweetened) cider. If so, then you just might have to cut back on the sugar some to compensate. Failing that, though, don’t fiddle with a recipe the first time you make it unless you’re fantastically confident. If you make changes the first time and it does fail, then you’re not gonna know whether it was the recipe or your changes that made it bomb. Therefore, Ol’ Voice of Experience here says don’t screw around with sugar amounts until you’ve made it once by the recipe to make sure.
Sam
. . . That’s my first wife up there, and this is the present Mrs. Harris.
* Origin: Salata * Redondo Beach, CA * 310-543-0439 V.32bis (1:102/125)
You must meet Nero Wolfe at [not allowed at your clearance] and get the [text suppressed]. Fnord.
