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From: pdt@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Peter David THOMPSON)
Subject: Charles J. Lasner's 15 Antipodean minutes of fame
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 03:44:02 GMT

From the 28th September edition of "The Age", Melbourne, page 27, "Lost Clusters" (Charles Wright) column. Charles Wright edits the Computer Age section, in which this column appears.

Urban Myths

Those of us who've been unable to approach a high-rise building without wearing a hard hat ever since we heard that a 20 cent coin tossed from the top story would drill a neat hole right through a pedestrian's skull, will love the Internet news group, 'alf[sic]. folklore.urban, or AFU.
AFU allows you to pose a query about urban myth, that peculiarly enduring blend of fact and fiction that has produced the alarming images of alligators in the New York sewer system, or just the suggestion that down here, water drains through the plughole in the opposite direction from the northen hemisphere. According to the 'Wall Street Journal', computer consultants like Charles Lasner, comb through textbooks and faded newspaper clippings to keep the Internet user - usually a person of serious academic bent - at a superior distance from fallacy. Other users confirm or refine the information, or occasionally enter the odd quibble or two.
AFU says that the tumbling coin doesn't gather enough momentum to dent a hard object, although it might give you a sore head.

Peter "The wonderment of it all!" Thompson.