The traffic on Cube-Lovers is highly variable.  We will sometimes go for
several months with no traffic at all.  Other times there will be five
messages a day for a week.  So don't expect to receive any mail anytime
soon, but don't be scared off if this greeting message is immediately
followed by a small flurry of mail.  You should also expect a fair amount
of mathematically sophisticated discussion -- but don't worry if you're not
a professional group theorist, we also talk about things like how to
lubricate your cube, how to make pretty patterns, and where to buy cubes
and related puzzles.

REMEMBER: Our addresses are Cube-Lovers@AI.MIT.EDU for submissions and
Cube-Lovers-Request@AI.MIT.EDU for administrivia.  Save this message
somewhere so you don't forget about Cube-Lovers-Request.  If you ever want
to be -removed- from Cube-Lovers, your request should be sent to
Cube-Lovers-Request.  If you forget, and send mail concerning your
subscription to the entire list, you should expect to be chastised -- that
mistake is considered particularly annoying by Internet old-timers.

Please note that Cube-Lovers-Request is processed by a human being, not a
computer program (such as LISTSERV or Majordomo).  If your request is not
instantly processed, it is because I don't spend my entire life reading my
electronic mail.  I do know how to interpret many of the commands typically
sent to such programs, but I would prefer it if instead you can remember to
address me in complete sentences.

If you are interested in the archives of the Cube-Lovers mailing list:

Using FTP, connect to FTP.AI.MIT.EDU, login as "anonymous" (any password),
and in the directory "pub/cube-lovers" you will find the sixteen
(compressed) files "cube-mail-0.gz" through "cube-mail-15.gz".  

Mail archive vital statistics (when uncompressed):

           File            From            To        Size (bytes)
           ----            ----            --        ------------
        cube-mail-0     12 Jul 80       23 Oct 80       185037
        cube-mail-1      3 Nov 80        9 Jan 81       135719
        cube-mail-2     10 Jan 81        3 Aug 81       138566
        cube-mail-3      3 Aug 81        3 May 82       137753
        cube-mail-4      4 May 82       11 Dec 82       139660
        cube-mail-5     11 Dec 82        6 Jan 87       173364
        cube-mail-6     10 Jan 87       13 Apr 90       216733
        cube-mail-7     12 Oct 90        9 Sep 91       137508
        cube-mail-8      1 Nov 91       25 May 92       171205
        cube-mail-9     28 May 92        7 Jan 93       155755
        cube-mail-10    20 Mar 93        6 Dec 93       171881
        cube-mail-11     6 Dec 93       18 Feb 94       349772
        cube-mail-12    24 Feb 94        5 Sep 94       181193
        cube-mail-13    12 Sep 94        8 Dec 94       282920
        cube-mail-14    10 Dec 94       12 Jan 95       278438
        cube-mail-15    14 Jan 95       19 May 95       325098

In addition, the file "recent-mail" contains a copy of the currently active
section of the mail archive.  (Unfortunately, due to the way mail works here
at the AI Lab, it is not possible to have new mail accumulate directly into
this file, so there may be some delay before a new message arrives here.)

There is also a sub-directory, "contrib", that contains software and other
goodies contributed by our readers.

Finally, the file "README" contains the information you are currently reading.

On the World Wide Web you can access this archive using the URL
"ftp://ftp.ai.mit.edu/pub/cube-lovers".  You can also find an indexed
database of the Cube-Lovers mail archives at:
"http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de:8000/~mschoene/Cube-Lovers/".

                                - Alan