The Official Executive Commission for Studies in a Foreign Country of the
Ecole Superieure d'Electricite has taken the following decisions after ample
deliberations:
1) Mr Eric Thomas is exceptionally authorized to apply for studies in the
United States of America, considering the interest he has shown in this
and the unusual relationship he has with American Universities through the
EARNET network.
2) However, this authorization can be withdrawn by the (zzzZZZ) at any time,
especially if it is found that Mr Thomas would give a bad impression of the
school. Under normal circumstances, only the best students in the school
are allowed to (zzZZZzzz), and in the present circumstances it is only by an
exceptional (zzzZZZZzz) that (zzzZZZZZ).
3) Of all the Universities proposed by Mr Thomas, only the following two were
found to (1) meet the prestige requirements for Supelec -- low-level univer-
sities are not suitable and would not help raising the Prestige and Glamour
of the school and (2) meet the general political orientation of the school,
which includes studying programs, et al (read: if you don't think you fall
in category (1), doooon't be vexed, category (2) is here to rescue your
prestige!! *sigh*)
The approved universities are: Notre Dame University (IRISHVM)
Univ of Illinois at Urbana (UIUCVMD)
No other university is permitted.
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Note that the above nonsense applied to three of the 'chosen' students (with
item (3) applying only to me, of course -- the other three were forced into
Santa Barbara and Georgia Tech). I am sorry for the time you may have spent
finding docs and phoning people for me, I'm just not allowed to apply for any
school except IRISHVM and UIUCVMD. Period. I'd like to thank the 'dismissed'
people for their kind help... does any of you have an unused bomb? :-)
Nick, Phil: that does NOT mean that I don't intend to come over to the states
of course, just that I'm disappointed to see such an arbitrary and despotic
selection imposed upon me. There was also an item (4) which stated that any
communication between me and the US univ should go through the school, but I
have of course decided that this does NOT apply to electronic mail!! :-)
(hmm... that 4th point actually reminded me of someone else... hmmm... ;-) )
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Some more nonsense. The technical services of the school just informed us that:
1) The stairflight is not strong enough to bear the weight of a 4381. There are
four identical stairflights so it just means the 4381 will have to be trans-
ported 'by air', which would not be so much of a problem, but...
2) The window (none of the windows in the corridor) is not large enough to let
the 4381 in. Some smart-head suggested that we remove the aluminium stuff
around the window frame to give more space, and said that there would even
be 2 millimeters left each side!!! We did manage to explain to this person
that maneuvering something heavier than 1 ton with a millimeter-precision
requires very sophisticated and therefore very expensive devices... The
official position is that "it's IBM's problem" and "they should split the
4381 into 2-3 pieces, bring them separately and re-assemble them later".
So far no reply from IBM on the feasibility of this. How's about a Teleport
spell from the local Wizard? ;-)
3) Even assuming that the 4381 DOES get into the machines room, we were infor-
med that the floor is not strong enough to bear it. The 4341 was the limit
and the 4381 is taller and therefore more weight/sq meter. They're conside-
ring rebuilding part of the room to fix that problem...
I'm just wondering what will happen when they've taken the 4341 back if we
can't manage to get the 4381 in... *sigh* Organization....
Eric
PS: I'm still installing SP4 (actually trying to (1) convince the IBMers that
we don't have to re-install all the RSCS, DIRMAINT &co since *they're the
same*, (2) that it doesn't HAVE to be loaded and genned in VM/VM while we
still want to TEST in VM/VM and (3) that we did NOT receive the sources
which we had said we want and that we'd like them shipped, please, thanks,
yes, we KNOW you said you had included them in the package but we just do
NOT have the tapes and anyway the package was too small to contain more
than 4 tapes so it can't be that we've lost them), and have very little
time to spend on LISTSERV (and even answering mail), so 1.5c will have to
wait (again...)
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