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December 23, 1998
For all of you who have been waiting desperately for the fourth issue of AMSTIGER, here it is. We hope you are satisfied with it, and in the unlikely circumstance that you aren't, e-mail is or give to Mrs. Smith your mail, complaining about it, so future issues will be towards your enjoyment.
We delayed the release date of this issue of AMSTIGER so it would be even greater (if that's possible) than the rest of the issues. This issue has the theme of the holidays, and the year of 1998, so read this issue thinking about those things.
Every week, we get more and more webpage hits, and as you read this, we are going into the 600's, meaning 600 people have been to our site. There's no time like the present to go to the AMSTIGER webpage: right now, run to the computer center, grab a computer, go on the internet, and type in www.angelfire.com/ny/AMSTIGER. Since the AMSTIGER webpage has so much to do, you will most likely be late to your class, but no need to worry: just tell the teacher that you were at the AMSTIGER webpage, and they'll understand. Now at the AMSTIGER webpage, there is interactive games for you to play.
Have a great holiday season, and enjoy this issue of AMSTIGER.
Sincerely,
Nick Baer,
Editor In Chief of AMSTIGER
MAIL!
"AMSTIGER is cool!"
-Dan Riciglio, 7th Grader
"Good luck AMS!"
-Travis Lepicier, Florida
"Good luck!"
-Megan Myers, Orlando, Florida
"AMSTIGER is very cool!"
-Jill, Massachusetts
"I go to AMS, and let me say: GOOD JOB!"
-Anonymous, student at AMS
We are continuing last issue's survey question of, Do you think the Buffalo Zoo should be moved?
E-mail us or give to Mrs. Smith your response in a simple "yes" or "no."
NEWS & COMMENTARY-
Ring In The Holiday Season
By Khrista Trerotola
It's time for the holiday season whether you are celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, and everyone is excited. The malls are packed and the presents are being wrapped. The cards are being sent out and the cookies are baking in the ovens. But one part of everyone's holiday dreams is missing…the snow!!!!!! The snow was supposed to be here a long time ago, but it keeps being postponed.
As I open the doors to Christmas each day, the holidays get near, but no one seems in the mood. Sure, I see lights out, all over, but there is no snow for the spotlights to shine on, no icicles hanging from the rooftops (except for the icicle lights). The end of school for "this year" Is near…but hardly anyone notices. Is it the snow that affects our holiday excitement? Will this be a green holiday season?
-I hope everyone has a great holiday season and a happy new year-
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Is It Just A Coincidence?
By Nick Baer
Earlier this year, a great film came out starring Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, and Anne Heche. The name of the film is "Wag The Dog," and it's plot seems unusually similar to the Clinton Scandal and the bombing of Iraq.
"Wag The Dog's" plot is that a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman), and a Washington Spin-Doctor (Robert DeNiro) get together to make a fake war with Albania, and release it to the press, in order to cover up the United States' president's scandal.
Last Thursday, President Clinton bombed Baghdad, Iraq, in the midst of the afternoon, with the House's impeachment decision to be made two days later. The movie and the scandal seem incredibly similar. Clinton could have bombed Iraq any time in the last couple weeks, but he chose two day before his impeachment decision to bomb, maybe hoping to postpone the House's decision a week.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter anymore. Last Saturday, Clinton was impeached, to the approval of many Republicans, and to the disapproval of many Democrats. The Senate will hold a trial to see if President Clinton is innocent or guilty of impeachment.
Here is an excerpt from an E! Online News Article on the coincidence…
"Wag the Dog"--a $20 million production that grabbed a respectable $18 million in its first four weeks--will get the most immediate boost, if any. Few media types this week have failed to note similarities in the crisis facing President Clinton and the crisis facing a fictional, unnamed president in "Wag the Dog."
'I was watching [Clinton strategist] James Carville, and I thought I was watching Wag the Dog," film producer Lionel Chetwynd tells Los Angeles Times. 'If he could be De Niro, he'd be De Niro. He's a fixer."
To read the whole article, visit the webpage URL of www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,2422,00.html.
PLUS!-
BY: TRISTIN ELLIOTT (pen name)
What is it? Is it a real threat? What will it mean for you?
The 2000 bug-real-threatening. And the time between it and us is closing way too fast. If you don't prepare, experts say the results can mean serious problems.
Here's a quick run-down for those of you who don't know what it means:
What happened was, when humans started to make computers, they made it so they would function by using time (years, days, minutes, seconds) to keep track of what it is doing and when it's performing this task. So if you tell your computer to open a file at 11:46 and 32 seconds, it will register that it will have to pick up that file at 11:46 and 33 seconds because all computers register to an action immediately. But without a clock, the problem is the computer wouldn't know when immediately is. A machine experiences no passage of time, so without this clock, two days from now would still be immediately. You see, the time clock inside a computer will register when it is to do something. And the problem is, the computer is totally dependent on this internal clock, not to give it information, but to tell it when this information is to be used. So supposing you didn't have this internal clock inside your computer, it could open that file now or five hours, days, years from now. The computer just wouldn't know when. And since the average person doesn't like to wait several years for a file to open, computer engineers created them so that without this internal clock, the entire system wouldn't run. That's part of it. The next part answers the question, "What would happen if all of these internal clocks inside computers couldn't run?" Read on.
What the 2000 bug is, is an error that man absentmindedly created in all computers. As you can probably already guess, the error was to forget to make his computers function in a year that began with a two. Get it? Can't function in a years that begins with two? 2000 bug? Big computer shut down? Yeah. That would be the 2000 bug.
What can this mean for you? Well, it can mean one of two things. You see, there's a whole different factor in this whole 2000 deal. Recently made computers. Most computers made in the last ten years or so have had the Magic Bill Gates treatment that erases the whole bug. That would probably be your home computer, so your Pentium wouldn't shut down. The other side of this factor is that most computers that run machinery, or handle information for huge businesses haven't been upgraded recently. Mostly because of the cost to do something like that. Partly because they feel their old stuff works fine. But that kind of computer equipment probably would be infected. So let's see, what if all the dairy plants couldn't run because their computers shut down? There goes one section of the grocery store. And what if all your meat factories shut down for the same reason? There goes another. What if the Flutie Flakes factory shut down? There goes my entire reason to even go to the grocery store. Basically, what I'm saying is, if all these factories shut down at the same time, electric, heat and power, food, electronic communication, etc., we wouldn't have a lot to go on. As in for surviving.
The other side is that maybe the thousands of people working on this bug will finally find a solution just in time after ten years of attempts. The experts say that if they can find the mistake they made when they first invented computers, they'd be able to go back and fix it in all computers infected. If they can do that before 2000 hits, they say that there won't be anything to worry about. They say that they can blow this whole thing off.
99%, they're saying wrong.
I actually met one of those people who was working that job of looking for the glitch in their system. I actually asked him what he thought about it. If it were really possible to find that tiny glitch that's eluded experts for ten years in the next 1 ¼. He told me the scoop. The glitch is so tiny, he told me, and the system that they're looking through is so big, and the amount of time they have is so small that, put it this way, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack when you have only enough time to look through a few straws of hay.
Good luck world.
If they ever do get through and find this needle, I'd call it a miracle. If, I might as well say when, they don't, all I can do is hope.
Do you have any questions about the 2000 bug? Look it up on the net or write a note and leave it for me with Mrs. Smith. Thanks.
COVER STORY-by Nick Baer
Before giving you the best movies of 1998, you should know the following:
I have not seen every movie that came out this year. Therefore, this may not be 100% accurate. However, I decide to see movies based on their reviews from better-known critics, so I have seen most of the good movies that came out this year. Also, normally in this paper, we try not to review R-rated movies, but, we had to make an exception for this article because some R-rated movies were some of the best films of the year. if you do not agree with what movies I thought were the best of 1998, e-mail us or write to us what you think the best movies of 1998 were.
Here's the guidelines that I used to choose the best movies of 1998:
Movies had to have come out in Buffalo, NY between January 1, 1998, and December 5, 1998. They needed to be rated R, PG-13, PG, or G. Movies could not have been remakes or reproductions, and finally, I needed to have seen them.
OK, here it is, the top 10 movies of 1998. Movies are in order from 1-10, 10 being the worst of the best, and 1 being the best of the best.
10) "Wag The Dog"
9) "What Dreams May Come"
8) "The Mighty"
7) "Simon Birch"
5) tie: "Beyond Silence" and "Smoke Signals"
4) "Beloved"
3) "Pleasantville"
1) tie- "Pi" and "The Truman Show"
THE BEST QUOTES OF THE YEAR-by Nick Baer
"Good Morning,
And If I Don't See You Later,
Good Afternoon,
Good Evening,
And Goodnight."
-Jim Carrey,
in "The Truman Show"
"And I Wonder,
Who's Gonna Be President,
Tweedle-Dum
Or Tweedle-Dummer."
-
Ani DiFranco,
From Her Song "Fuel"
OLD LADY- by Megan Smith
What went wrong
Is really unknown,
The house set up fire
Leaving the old lady alone.
The old woman screams,
"Help me, please do!"
"But hold on lady wait,
We're trying to help you!"
She screams and hollers,
Calls out our names,
Wishes we could hear her
Through all the flames.
The fire is burning
Quietly but fast,
And the old lady simmers down
To think of her past.
The children she had,
They turned out all right
Until that one dreaded day,
When they got in a fight.
They threw many objects,
Broke many things,
Shattered the family,
Acted like pompous Kings.
They ransacked the house,
Yelled they were mad,
Pretended they were children,
Spoiled and bad.
Then came her husband.
The man of her dreams.
High school sweethearts,
Or so they seemed.
But inside the house
The rages went on
The beatings never stopped
And so she forlonged:
A house with bushes
A picket fence; white
And 4 little children
Who played until night.
They ate their dinner
All of their peas,
Then they headed for bed
While the waves rolled on the seas.
But that never happened
As she had wished,
And she sat here burning
Like roast beef on a dish.
But soon she quieted
Then the people realized
That the poor old lady
Had just died.
----------
TITANIC -By Tristin elliott (pen name)
From my bobbing position I could see the ship.
I could see the beauty half sunk, lights flickering, rousing screams.
I saw the mighty name written along the bow,
waiting in despair like a real human, waiting for eternity.
Inevitable eternity.
I'd rather be blind of the picture,
But I saw people hanging,
like a frozen portrait where the expressions on their faces seem to come up, and slap you,
for they no longer hope for that extra lifeboat to be found,
where they no longer hope at all.
I saw it all in one breathtaking moment.
I heard the fries of mothers,
Who's children rushed onto the boats without them.
I heard the bells ringing s.o.s. through the night,
like soldiers crying for their wounds,
in an empty battlefield.
I heard the british crew men trying to calm down the rioting crowd,
Though they too knew that hope is a dead thing.
And at last I felt,
Not the salty spray on my skin,
For that feeling left my numb body a long time ago,
But the emotional part of my feeling consciousness,
The part that cried with the mothers of lost children,
The part that felt the emptiness of those dead bells,
Ringing through the night.
I felt what the people felt onboard,
And at the same time I felt for them.
I felt the saddened ship sinking,
And I felt the boldness of a new vessel melt into the meekness of a disgraced one..
And now I feel all the emotion swirling together through that cold night in the ocean,
Where thousands of souls died,
And too many kept their lives,
But lost their reason to live.
I know that I felt all of that.
ONE instant,
One ship.
Titanic.
