The alternative to newsgroups as a mass-discussion medium are
e-mail mailing lists, which are organised ways of sending one mail to a
lot of people at one go. Generally, it's a lot more work to get onto a
mailing list than onto a newsgroup. This means that you tend to stick
to the topic rather more strictly. However, it means you end up with a
whole lot of mail - possibly more than you might be able to handle. That
said, if it's all on a subject you like, then that's not a problem.
	Frankly, if you like a topic (pretty much _any_ topic) and you
enjoy discussing that topic, then you'll enjoy what the Internet has to
offer. You can control the information that you get to a large (but not
perfect) extent; it's easy to spend too much time having too much fun
and learning about lots of fun things that you didn't know much about
before. Does anyone dare say that's why my maths degree is up the pan?
Ahem - tell me something I didn't know. My New Year's Resolution for 1997
is to give up USENET until after Finals, and that'll save me an hour and
quite possibly an hour and a half every day. I'm sure I'll find some way
to fill it up. I'm going to work more, of course. (Hmmmm...)
	The half'th reason of my three and a half could be one of maybe a
dozen things, but I'm going to go for wide availability of free software
(well, for free, read "the cost of the modem, and subscribing to an
access provider, and the cost of the 'phone call"... which isn't free at
all, but coming down at quite a rate; ballpark figures would be 150 pounds
one-off, 12 pounds a month and twenty minutes on the phone - which you can
do for about 15p with a tad of cunning - daily, making it a relatively
cheap hobby). Loads of useful and entertaining software, and ten times as
much useless software. Sorting the wheat from the chaff may be the biggest
expenditure here; it's just a time cost. As with anything, you'll get out
of it what you're prepared to put in, but you won't reach the limits of
what's available for you to get out of the Internet for a looooong time.
Convinced you yet? We'll see...
	Segueing from that, fast e-mail opens up a whole load of
possibilities for games that you can play by mail that would be completely
out of the question by the post - the one-turn-a-month schedule of 'zines
making games with any sort of sequential turn processing (as opposed to
simultaneous movement) rather an impossibility. I'm sure a good game of
Siedler by e-mail would not be difficult in the least, especially if you've
written a computer program which roughly plays Siedler, like a certain OMR
reader (not me!) who suffers from a cross between over-modesty and fear of
copyright laws has. I'm sure for postal Siedler you'd have to kludge it
with several turns at once like postal Acquire - or worse. Any takers...?
	Another game particularly suited for e-mail play which I have been
enjoyably throwing lots of time out of the window over the last 2 months on
is Nomic. This is the game of rules; a turn, or a play, in this game,
consists of a proposal to change (or enact or delete or add to) one of the
rules that already exist in the game. The entertainment in the game comes
from satisfying interplay of rules and the paradoxes that exist with rules
which apply to themselves or act on themselves - justifying your proposed
rules and saying why they would enhance the game. Matthew Barratt is in the
same game as me, and all credit to the lad, he's really added a lot to it
with the devious nature of his proposals. I have added a lot to the game in
other ways, like inscrutable, unfathomable rules which read "321 with Dusty
Bin". You had to be there, I guess.
	It's a game relying heavily on the fourth dimension; timescale is
crucial, and the game is played over weeks and months. A complete and utter
waste of time, but a thoroughly satisfying one. Like Mornington Crescent,
it's one of those games that you play for the smugness generated by being
clever and witty, and its complexity, though determined by the wills of the
game's players, is just enough to give you "the solemn intoxication which
comes of intricate ritual faultlessly performed", as Dorothy Sayers said
of bell-ringing, though much more recently it was a useful-looking phrase
popping its head up in U-Bend. Plagiarism, we love you.
	You shall be spared my views on extremism of weather and the
economy for at least another issue, and quite probably until I learn from
Pascal (of triangle fame); "I'm sorry for writing you a long letter. If I
had had more time, then I would have written you a shorter one."