Ksyriums

Carl Fogel <[email hidden]> wrote:
: Why is something almost devoid of news called a newsgroup?

mostly 'cause warezgroup and porngroup didn't wash well w/ the government types back in the day.
here are some sobering statistics. roughly 1/3 of usenet reads are pornographic in nature.

most popular groups by articles read:

rank group reads percentage 1 alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.asian 38091 9.501 2
alt.binaries.erotica.vcd 24400 6.086 3 alt.binaries.erotica.fetish 14723 3.672 4
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pornstars 13778 3.437 5 alt.binaries.pictures.lingerie 10902 2.719 6
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish 9703 2.420 7 alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica 7759 1.935 8
alt.binaries.pictures.pantyhose 6873 1.714 9 alt.binaries.mp3.audiobooks.highspeed 6523 1.627 10
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.gothic 6479 1.616 11 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish.hair 6322
1.577 12 alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.male 6020 1.502 13 alt.binaries.erotica.pornstars.80s 5833
1.455 14 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish.latex 5793 1.445 15 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica 5390
1.344 16 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.thigh-highs 4119 1.027 17 alt.binaries.nospam.amateur.female
3896 0.972 18 alt.binaries.fitness.centerfolds 3797 0.947 19 alt.binaries.erotic.senior-citizens
3671 0.916 20 alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.lesbians 3361 0.838
--
david reuteler [email hidden]

[email hidden] wrote:
: Long live TIN, emacs and UNIX!

there's hope for you yet, jobst.
--
david reuteler [email hidden]

(Carl Fogel) said:

Why is something almost devoid of news called a newsgroup?

Because the system as originally designed was intended to carry (strictly local) news. Like Topsy,
it has grown, and mutated strangely.

Quoted message said:

As I recall, you're using a trn3 newsreader from a Linux system. Can you double-post a reply here,
explaining how you'll cancel one copy? I couldn't see a way to do this when things went haywire
last Sunday from my aged Windows system through however I'm connecting.

In theory you can, but in practice you can't. Although the protocol allows for cancel messages,
these were at one time commonly forged, and so now they are usually not honoured.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) jasmine.org.uk~simonOpen ↗

;; I'll have a proper rant later, when I get the time.

A Muzi <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Carl Fogel said:

More seriously, I still long for some way to cancel a doubled post, even though I know that
allowing deletions would throw the forum into chaos.

Usenet does allow cancellation of a post by the writer.

I've done it and I've noticed at least one other (from Jobst). The header then appears in
strikethrough letters (in my display, at least).

Dear Andrew,

Aha! This deviltry is possible, but what incantation do you use? Unlike Hotspur, I believe that you
and Jobst Brandt and David Damerell elsewhere in this thread can call spirits from the vasty deep to
delete your doubled posts.

In less Shakespearean terms, how'd ya do it? I need my cloak for to go invisible.

Carl Fogel

(Carl Fogel) said:

A Muzi <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Carl Fogel said:

More seriously, I still long for some way to cancel a doubled post, even though I know that
allowing deletions would throw the forum into chaos.

Usenet does allow cancellation of a post by the writer.

I've done it and I've noticed at least one other (from Jobst). The header then appears in
strikethrough letters (in my display, at least).

Dear Andrew,

Aha! This deviltry is possible, but what incantation do you use? Unlike Hotspur, I believe that
you and Jobst Brandt and David Damerell elsewhere in this thread can call spirits from the vasty
deep to delete your doubled posts.

In less Shakespearean terms, how'd ya do it? I need my cloak for to go invisible.

Carl Fogel

Well, in Emacs, choose the 'Post' menu, select 'Cancel article', done. But

(a) Emacs is Generally Not Used Except by Middle Aged Computer Scientists, and

(b) As I seppafore, most servers these days don't honour cancels.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) jasmine.org.uk~simonOpen ↗

;; I'll have a proper rant later, when I get the time.

Carl Fogel said:

David Damerell said:

Quoted message said:

Are you aware that;

1) This is not a "forum", "board", "area", or anything else like that. This is a Usenet newsgroup.
2) Google Groups is simply one of a great many news servers that carry the group.
3) There are cancel messages, which are honoured by many news servers.

Why is something almost devoid of news called a newsgroup?

If a train station is where trains stop, what is a workstation?

Quoted message said:

I'm guessing that you are distinguishing the hideous entities 'twixt your quote-marks (singular,
self-contained, and utterly infra-dig)

Dunno about infra-dig, although most Web forums have fairly vile interfaces, but the other two
points are fairly important.

Quoted message said:

But I bet that you can give a better explanation of the difference and that it would be
worth reading.

Usenet is distributed between very many servers; a given server has a number of relationships with
other servers who compare notes with it on which articles (based on the unique (we hope) Message-ID)
they possess and exchange them as needed.

Google run a news server that is unusual in two respects; it has a Web interface for posting and
reading, and it does not ordinarily expire old articles.

Quoted message said:

As I recall, you're using a trn3 newsreader from a Linux system. Can you double-post a reply here,
explaining how you'll cancel one copy?

No, I could not. Owing to a local oddity, I cannot cancel or supersede (like a cancel, but with a
replacement article) using the single keystroke commands in the newsreader; I must manually
construct cancels or supersedes when I want to use them. This is equivalent to knowing how to forge
them in order to cancel or supersede the articles of others, and while this is not complicated I
think it is best to leave people to work that one out for themselves. In any case knowing the single
keystroke I would use would not be of any use to you.

[Simon is correct that many news servers no longer honour cancels, but many do; and Supersedes is
still quite widely honoured - which is just as well given the frequent use Brandt makes of it.]
--
David Damerell <[email hidden]> Distortion Field!

jobst brandt said:

My ISP - SONIC.NET just put up the latest version of TIN and it works like a charm. I haven't used
the built in newsreader, having used TIN and before that more primitive readers with great
facility. I doubt that emacs has all the features that TIN offers or TIN wouldn't be there.

TIN is much older than the Gnus newsreader in emacs; there are also many people who use unix but
wouldn't touch emacs with a 10 metre pole. I'd be surprised if TIN has features not in Gnus/emacs,
and I know that Gnus has many features that TIN lacks. You might like it if you're already an emacs
fan, but I would only recommend trying it if you have a few hours of free time to set it up and get
used to it.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. -- Walt Kelly

David Reuteler said:

most popular groups by articles read:

rank group reads percentage 1 alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.asian 38091 9.501 2
alt.binaries.erotica.vcd 24400 6.086 3 alt.binaries.erotica.fetish 14723 3.672 ...

"Honest, I just read them for the articles!"

--
Benjamin Lewis

Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. -- Walt Kelly

jobst brandt said:

Oh, by the way, those who post here using emacs should make use of the ESC-q function more often
for cleaning up paragraphs. I am often told by users that thy do not know about ESC-q and the
legibility of some postings give evidence of not using it.

If you like that, you'd love this built-in Gnus function:

,----[ gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article ]
| gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `deuglify'.
| (gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article)
|
| Deuglify broken Outlook (Express) articles and redisplay.
`----

--
Benjamin Lewis

Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. -- Walt Kelly

David Reuteler <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Carl Fogel <[email hidden]> wrote:
: Why is something almost devoid of news called a newsgroup?

mostly 'cause warezgroup and porngroup didn't wash well w/ the government types back in the day.
here are some sobering statistics. roughly 1/3 of usenet reads are pornographic in nature.

[snip list and certainly not paste for reference]

Dear David,

More and more I enjoy the responses on this newsgroup!

The popularity of pornographic sites is, indeed, sobering--

Just a moment while I jot something down--

Yes, sobering indeed--

What, no sites featuring ladies with a weakness for aging bicyclists?

Sobering and disgraceful!

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

My ISP - SONIC.NET just put up the latest version of TIN and it works like a charm. I haven't used
the built in newsreader, having used TIN and before that more primitive readers with great
facility. I doubt that emacs has all the features that TIN offers or TIN wouldn't be there.

I'd guess it was the other way 'round. Gnus has so many features, and can be such a pain to get
right that people use tin (or whatever).

Quoted message said:

Mailing articles automatically fetches my mailreader MUTT.

Gnus is also a mailreader. Of course, that has something of a downside unless you like treating
mail as news.

Joe

[email hidden] wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

[snip]

Dear Jobst and Tim,

There's been a bit of posting about what newsreaders are being used, with some interesting
statistics from Simon Brooke and a few tips and tricks for newbies like me. If you missed the
threads, here are two of them.

One 12-post thread was started by:

Jamie ([email hidden])

and rejoices in the unlikely name of:

Headers posted months ahead of time this is [censored]??

I'm pleased to say that it can be easily found by searching for fogel and [censored].

Another longer thread was started by:

TJ Poseno ([email hidden])

and is titled:

OT Newsreader?

I noticed that Tim posted once in the latter thread.

Carl Fogel

Tim McNamara said:

Quoted message said:

Long live TIN, emacs and UNIX!

You use Emacs with TIN rather than Emacs's built-in newsreader, Gnus? How come? I don't have the
capacity to compile a version of TIN for Mac OS X 10.1.5, so I haven't been able to try it. I've
had the opportunity to try slrn which is pretty good, but currently am vacillating between
Emacs/Gnus and MT-NewWatcher. Emacs/Gnus is far more configurable for personal preference than any
software I have ever seen...

I used to use Emacs for everything. These days I've switched to using a gooey 'integrated
development environment' for writing software, and a whizzywig word processor for writing letters...
but I still read the gnine o'clock gnus, because I've never found a news client to better
it. For me, Emacs still rules, at least on Usenet.

AI .sig generator seems to be right on the money this morning...

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) jasmine.org.uk~simonOpen ↗

my other car is #<Subr-Car: #5d480> ;; This joke is not funny in emacs.

"Carl Fogel" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

More and more I enjoy the responses on this newsgroup!

The popularity of pornographic sites is, indeed, sobering--

Just a moment while I jot something down--

Yes, sobering indeed--

What, no sites featuring ladies with a weakness for aging bicyclists?

alt.binaries.fetish.bicycles?

:-)

Matt O.

"Simon Brooke" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Tim McNamara said:

Quoted message said:

Long live TIN, emacs and UNIX!

You use Emacs with TIN rather than Emacs's built-in newsreader, Gnus? How come? I don't have the
capacity to compile a version of TIN for Mac OS X 10.1.5, so I haven't been able to try it. I've
had the opportunity to try slrn which is pretty good, but currently am vacillating between
Emacs/Gnus and MT-NewWatcher. Emacs/Gnus is far more configurable for personal preference than
any software I have ever seen...

I used to use Emacs for everything. These days I've switched to using a gooey 'integrated
development environment' for writing software, and a whizzywig word processor for writing
letters... but I still read the gnine o'clock gnus, because I've never found a news client
to better
it. For me, Emacs still rules, at least on Usenet.

emacs is awesome, but a real PITA to learn. I've tried several times, made New Years' resolutions,
given up GUIs for Lent, etc., but every time I've started playing with emacs I've forgotten all the
commands from the last time.

I envy those who are comfortable with emacs, in the same way I envy those who developed good
handwriting in their youth. Kids, take notice...

I've gotten so used to GUI stuff it's my default mode now. And now that I use a laptop with a little
joystick in the middle of the keyboard, having to reach for the mouse doesn't slow me down at all.
Not that I'm much of a typist or anything... Anyway, it's GUI IDEs, Textpad, vi, and Outlook Express
for me. Yeah, I know Outlook Express sucks, but others suck worse in other ways. The KDE newsreader
(Knode?) is fine, but I use Windows most of the time.

BTW, I didn't know news message cancellations propagated through the system. I always thought you
could only cancel a message on your immediate server, but if you were quick enough you could get it
before it propagated.

Matt O.

Matt O'Toole said:

BTW, I didn't know news message cancellations propagated through the system. I always thought you
could only cancel a message on your immediate server, but if you were quick enough you could get
it before it propagated.

Well let's see. I just posted an edited version of my last posting "The Stability of the Bicycle".

Jobst Brandt [email hidden]

Benjamin Lewis <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

jobst brandt said:

Oh, by the way, those who post here using emacs should make use of the ESC-q function more often
for cleaning up paragraphs. I am often told by users that thy do not know about ESC-q and the
legibility of some postings give evidence of not using it.

If you like that, you'd love this built-in Gnus function:

,----[ gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article ]
| gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `deuglify'.
| (gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article)
|
| Deuglify broken Outlook (Express) articles and redisplay.
`----

Dear Benjamin,

Deuglify!

So many computer terms are dull or jargon--thanks for this delightful word. I plan to slip it into a
conversation as soon as possible.

Carl Fogel

Matt O'Toole <[email hidden]> wrote:
: alt.binaries.fetish.bicycles?

i wish. closest i know of are the galleries over at drunkcyclist.com.
--
david reuteler [email hidden]

"Matt O'Toole" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

"Carl Fogel" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

More and more I enjoy the responses on this newsgroup!

The popularity of pornographic sites is, indeed, sobering--

Just a moment while I jot something down--

Yes, sobering indeed--

What, no sites featuring ladies with a weakness for aging bicyclists?

alt.binaries.fetish.bicycles?

:-)

Quoted message said:

Matt O.

Dear Matt,

I have it on good authority that it's NOT about the bike.

Carl Fogel

<[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Carl Fogel writes:

Long live TIN, emacs and UNIX!

Jobst Brandt [email hidden]

Motto #1: "If it don't 'awk', it aint worth 'sed'"

Motto #2: "Microsoft supports Open Sores..."

Joe