Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

Another Adam · External Since: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 4

Moe Trin wrote:
> If it helps, I'm showing the following totals:
>
> 2H04 1H05 2H05 1H06 2H06 1H07
> a.o.l.mandrake 25698 27063 16388 7516 5067 1259
> a.o.l.mandriva 3181 7579 8254 5287
>
> That's up to 15:00 UTC on 6 June 2007.

[I've been posting in a.o.l.mandriva and elsewhere as Adam, but I see
someone else using that name here. So:]

I can understand the number of posts in a.o.l.mandrake going down as
users switch from Mandrake to Mandriva and a.o.l.mandriva. I'm a little
concerned that a.o.l.mandriva isn't increasing proportionately, and that
the total number of posts to both groups is decreasing.

Here are some possible reasons for the decline. Anyone want to
speculate on which ones are correct?

1) People are switching to some other distribution instead of
Mandrake/Mandriva.
2) People are tired of Usenet and are either posting to web-based
message boards instead or not posting at all.
3) Mandriva is so easy to use that there's less need to ask questions.
4) Usenet readership overall is declining. (How do numbers for other
newsgroups compare?)
5) ???

Any ideas, anybody?

Another Adam

Dan C · External Since: Nov 26, 2006 Posts: 657

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 18:30:09 -0400, Another Adam wrote:

> I can understand the number of posts in a.o.l.mandrake going down as
> users switch from Mandrake to Mandriva and a.o.l.mandriva. I'm a little
> concerned that a.o.l.mandriva isn't increasing proportionately, and that
> the total number of posts to both groups is decreasing.
>
> Here are some possible reasons for the decline. Anyone want to
> speculate on which ones are correct?
>
> 1) People are switching to some other distribution instead of
> Mandrake/Mandriva.

No doubt this is true. Mandr*'s business practices and sloppy work on the
distro since the name change have driven folks off. Also due to the
amazing rise in popularity of Ubuntu.

> 2) People are tired of Usenet and are either posting to web-based
> message boards instead or not posting at all.

Probably some truth there. Most noobs have never heard of Usenet, and
will never use it. Forums/boards are all they know.

> 3) Mandriva is so easy to use that there's less need to ask questions.

Don't think it's any easier than it ever was. Maybe some, but not enough
to make much difference.

> 4) Usenet readership overall is declining. (How do numbers for other
> newsgroups compare?)

Certainly true. See #2 above. I've seen some decrease in other NG's,
although some others have remained as active as ever.

> 5) ???

Many of the biggest blabber-mouths of recent years appear to have left the
NG. These include names like: Aragorn, James J. Dines, and "matt left
coast". Those three alone accounted for probably half the traffic on the
Mandr* newsgroups and it's nice that they're gone, IMHO.

--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

Moe Trin · External Since: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1732

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
<136jli44m01gtb5.DeleteThis@corp.supernews.com>, Another Adam wrote:

>Moe Trin wrote:

>> 2H04 1H05 2H05 1H06 2H06 1H07
> a.o.l.mandrake 25698 27063 16388 7516 5067 1259
> a.o.l.mandriva 3181 7579 8254 5287
>
> That's up to 15:00 UTC on 6 June 2007.
>
>[I've been posting in a.o.l.mandriva and elsewhere as Adam, but I see
>someone else using that name here. So:]

Adam <look.DeleteThis@bottom.for.address>
Adam <nospam.DeleteThis@example.com>

pretty easy to spot the difference

>I can understand the number of posts in a.o.l.mandrake going down as
>users switch from Mandrake to Mandriva and a.o.l.mandriva. I'm a little
>concerned that a.o.l.mandriva isn't increasing proportionately, and that
>the total number of posts to both groups is decreasing.

OK

>1) People are switching to some other distribution instead of
>Mandrake/Mandriva.

Distribution preferences certainly do change. You don't see many people
using Yggdrasil, SLS, or MCC distributions any more. Red Hat used to be
the dominant distribution between roughly 1996 and 2003 (Mandrake
started as a clone of RH with KDE in 1998). Slackware, SuSE and Debian
were also key players. But let's see what the logs say:

Distro groups 2H04 1H05 2H05 1H06 2H06 1H07
Mandr* 2 25698 27063 19569 15095 13321 6546
Redhat 6 9922 8336 5339 4940 3323 2203
SuSE 2 - 20799 20096 17002 15209 7263
Ununtu 1 460 2334 4862 11915

I wasn't following the SuSE group in 2004, and the Ubuntu group started
in late 2005. Debian really doesn't use newsgroups that much, and I
dropped the Slackware groups because most of the posts were useless noise
by s00per el33t h4x0r d00ds who prefer to insult new posters rather than
make ANY attempt to help (regrettable, because the distribution is pretty
good). But the proliferation of distributions (and subsequent increase
in the number of alt.os.linux.* groups - giganews has 45+, 20 of which
are semi-legit and 8 are distributions like Caldera, Corel, Storm, and
TurboLinux that no longer exist) isn't helping.

>2) People are tired of Usenet and are either posting to web-based
>message boards instead or not posting at all.

This has some merit as a reason. News servers are adding "groups" that
are mirrors of mailing list, blogs, and semi-private groups. Giganews
added some 210 new groups to their offering in the past ten days,
bringing the number to 679 so far this year (for a grand total of
107124). Ignoring the 327 'uw.*' groups (basically local groups from
uwash.edu). I see what looks to be about 70 binary groups, perhaps 100
semi-private groups, and the rest look like blog mirrors. None looked
at all interesting to me. YMMV.

Blogs seem to be the current rage. Part of it is local language support.
The "LJ Index" column for July 2007 (in that Linux Journal issue)
forwards a report from Technorati saying that the top four languages
used are Japanese, English, Chinese, and Italian. Another factor is the
ease that blogs can be created (whether anyone _reads_ them is completely
irrelevant). Minor problem with blogs is that a lot of them are nothing
but spam. Another problem is finding the d4mn things. A search engine
like google will help here, but a lot of people haven't figured out how
to use a search engine efficiently.

>3) Mandriva is so easy to use that there's less need to ask questions.

Uhuh.

>4) Usenet readership overall is declining. (How do numbers for other
>newsgroups compare?)

2H04 1H05 2H05 1H06 2H06 1H07
c.o.l.hardware 4511 4211 3019 3410 3323 2239
c.o.l.misc 15349 15236 18409 18265 14150 11016
c.o.l.networking 6072 7717 5179 4716 4110 2615
c.o.l.security 2253 2289 1901 1549 1463 670
c.o.l.setup 4479 4586 4263 3467 2669 1863
alt.linux 3163 2920 2643 2271 1303 1019
alt.os.linux 10018 8834 8668 5084 4674 5114

Again, these figures are up to 15:00 UTC on 6 June 2007. I think this
is probably the major factor, as I'm seeing similar reductions in
article numbers in the non-computer related groups I try to follow. If
you scan posts in 'news.announce.newgroups' (or the recently created
'news.groups.proposals'), you'll see (mainly moderated) groups being
proposed for removal from the sanctioned 'Big Eight' hierarchies,
mainly for inactivity. On the 15th of each month, there is a posting to
news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, and news.lists.misc with the
subject "List of Big Eight Newsgroups". Last month, it listed just 2280
groups in the comp.*, humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*,
soc.*, and talk.* hierarchies, which is down roughly a hundred from
January. (giganews carries those, and 2350 unsanctioned groups in those
hierarchies, such as 'comp.os.linux.admin' or 'comp.os.linux.help' that
were renamed or replaced back in December 1993.)

Old guy

Adam · External Since: Jan 16, 2005 Posts: 99

> Any ideas, anybody?
>
> Another Adam

Well, you got me.

I discounted the conspiracy thing. And noted that
a.o.l.mandriva is not amongst my feeds just now.

Perplexing a little, isn't it?

I just love these guys here - its a great place.
Whereas I shan't mention the small list of noisy,
unhelpful or abusive newsgroups - of which there
are a few.

Adam.

Dan C · External Since: Nov 26, 2006 Posts: 657

On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 19:51:55 -0500, Moe Trin wrote:

> I dropped the Slackware groups because most of the posts were useless
> noise by s00per el33t h4x0r d00ds who prefer to insult new posters
> rather than make ANY attempt to help (regrettable, because the
> distribution is pretty good).

Wuss.

--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

Another Adam · External Since: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 4

Adam wrote:
> I discounted the conspiracy thing. And noted that
> a.o.l.mandriva is not amongst my feeds just now.
>
> Perplexing a little, isn't it?
>
> I just love these guys here - its a great place.
> Whereas I shan't mention the small list of noisy,
> unhelpful or abusive newsgroups - of which there
> are a few.

From my point of view, a.o.l.mandrake has slowed down to almost
nothing, and once this thread is over, and I deal with all the messages
in it that I marked as "might come in handy some day," I'll probably
unsubscribe from a.o.l.mandrake and just stick with a.o.l.mandriva. I
started a.o.l.mandriva's current thread "Broadband Security" (I'm
switching ISPs and from dialup to DSL), and the folks there have been
incredibly helpful.

I think you're being polite when you say that there are a few "noisy,
unhelpful, or abusive newsgroups." There are a LOT more than a few. I
think that's one reason why Usenet readership has been falling.

Another Adam

Another Adam · External Since: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 4

Dan C wrote:
>> Here are some possible reasons for the decline. Anyone want to
>> speculate on which ones are correct?
>>
>> 1) People are switching to some other distribution instead of
>> Mandrake/Mandriva.
>
> No doubt this is true. Mandr*'s business practices and sloppy work on the
> distro since the name change have driven folks off. Also due to the
> amazing rise in popularity of Ubuntu.

I looked at distrowatch's "hits per day" list, and Ubuntu is in the
lead, over 40% ahead of the #2 distro. Mandriva is down to #8. Why is
Ubuntu suddenly so popular?

>> 2) People are tired of Usenet and are either posting to web-based
>> message boards instead or not posting at all.
>
> Probably some truth there. Most noobs have never heard of Usenet, and
> will never use it. Forums/boards are all they know.

That, and also I think some have given up on Usenet after encountering
an unfriendly newsgroup. I also think there's a sort of attitude out
there that "Usenet is for geeks," because it means learning to use a new
program (newsreader).

>> 4) Usenet readership overall is declining. (How do numbers for other
>> newsgroups compare?)
>
> Certainly true. See #2 above. I've seen some decrease in other NG's,
> although some others have remained as active as ever.

Also see #2 above. There's one non-computer-related NG that I've been
in since it was created by a split around 1996, and I think that, on the
whole, traffic in it is definitely down.

I've also found several web sites that basically are just GUI front ends
for particular NGs. Some sites even try to give the impression that
it's *their* message board. I've found my posts on web pages that I
didn't even know existed.

Another Adam

Dan C · External Since: Nov 26, 2006 Posts: 657

On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 20:42:58 -0400, Another Adam wrote:

>>> 1) People are switching to some other distribution instead of
>>> Mandrake/Mandriva.

>> No doubt this is true. Mandr*'s business practices and sloppy work on the
>> distro since the name change have driven folks off. Also due to the
>> amazing rise in popularity of Ubuntu.

> I looked at distrowatch's "hits per day" list, and Ubuntu is in the
> lead, over 40% ahead of the #2 distro. Mandriva is down to #8. Why is
> Ubuntu suddenly so popular?

It's not really so "sudden", been happening for a couple of years... I
think Ubuntu is popular because they've "dumbed down" most things to where
the drooling Win-droids can manage things. Most things just
work, right out of the box. Personally I'm not sure that's such a good
thing, to be honest.

--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

Another Adam · External Since: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 4

Moe Trin wrote:
>> 1) People are switching to some other distribution instead of
>> Mandrake/Mandriva.
>
> Distribution preferences certainly do change. You don't see many people
> using Yggdrasil, SLS, or MCC distributions any more. Red Hat used to be
> the dominant distribution between roughly 1996 and 2003 (Mandrake
> started as a clone of RH with KDE in 1998). Slackware, SuSE and Debian
> were also key players. But let's see what the logs say:
>
> Distro groups 2H04 1H05 2H05 1H06 2H06 1H07
> Mandr* 2 25698 27063 19569 15095 13321 6546
> Redhat 6 9922 8336 5339 4940 3323 2203
> SuSE 2 - 20799 20096 17002 15209 7263
> Ubuntu 1 460 2334 4862 11915

That's interesting. Readership in all of those has been dropping,
except for Ubuntu which has REALLY taken off. Do you think that's due
to Ubuntu's quality, or ease of use, or their marketing, or what? At
the last LUG meeting, they were giving out Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" CDs, and
I may even install it on an unused partition to see what all the hoopla
is about.

>> 2) People are tired of Usenet and are either posting to web-based
>> message boards instead or not posting at all.
>
> This has some merit as a reason. News servers are adding "groups" that
> are mirrors of mailing list, blogs, and semi-private groups.

I think that some people have left Usenet due to unpleasantness in
various NGs. Also, I think that NGs have a bit of a reputation as
"geeky" because you can't access them with your web browser but actually
have to learn a new program.

There are web-based boards that are actually mirrors of NGs. Some of
those web sites try to give the impression that it's their own "message
board."

>> 4) Usenet readership overall is declining. (How do numbers for other
>> newsgroups compare?)
> 2H04 1H05 2H05 1H06 2H06 1H07
> c.o.l.hardware 4511 4211 3019 3410 3323 2239
> c.o.l.misc 15349 15236 18409 18265 14150 11016
> c.o.l.networking 6072 7717 5179 4716 4110 2615
> c.o.l.security 2253 2289 1901 1549 1463 670
> c.o.l.setup 4479 4586 4263 3467 2669 1863
> alt.linux 3163 2920 2643 2271 1303 1019
> alt.os.linux 10018 8834 8668 5084 4674 5114
>
> Again, these figures are up to 15:00 UTC on 6 June 2007. I think this
> is probably the major factor, as I'm seeing similar reductions in
> article numbers in the non-computer related groups I try to follow.

ALL of those seem to be declining overall. I think we may just have to
accept that Usenet is becoming less popular. Of course, as Linux users
we are already used to being in a minority, and we are used to working
with things that might be considered "too geeky" by many.

Back in 1987 there was a major flame war about one of the university's
message boards, and the articles about it had a hard time just trying to
explain to the general public what a message board was.

Another Adam

Christopher Hunter · External Since: Oct 12, 2006 Posts: 136

Dan C wrote:

> On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 20:42:58 -0400, Another Adam wrote:
>
>>>> 1) People are switching to some other distribution instead of
>>>> Mandrake/Mandriva.
>
>>> No doubt this is true. Mandr*'s business practices and sloppy work on
>>> the
>>> distro since the name change have driven folks off. Also due to the
>>> amazing rise in popularity of Ubuntu.
>
>> I looked at distrowatch's "hits per day" list, and Ubuntu is in the
>> lead, over 40% ahead of the #2 distro. Mandriva is down to #8. Why is
>> Ubuntu suddenly so popular?
>
> It's not really so "sudden", been happening for a couple of years... I
> think Ubuntu is popular because they've "dumbed down" most things to where
> the drooling Win-droids can manage things. Most things just
> work, right out of the box. Personally I'm not sure that's such a good
> thing, to be honest.

I think it's actually a /very/ good thing. Joe Sixpack can now buy his Dell
preloaded with Ubuntu - it "just works" and doesn't take much effort to
keep it going. /Anything/ that gets the clueless masses away from the
clutches of Microsoft has /got/ to be good!

C.

Grimble · External Since: May 04, 2005 Posts: 15

Another Adam wrote:
> Dan C wrote:
>>> Here are some possible reasons for the decline. Anyone want to
>>> speculate on which ones are correct?
>>>
>>> 1) People are switching to some other distribution instead of
>>> Mandrake/Mandriva.
>>
>> No doubt this is true. Mandr*'s business practices and sloppy work on
>> the
>> distro since the name change have driven folks off. Also due to the
>> amazing rise in popularity of Ubuntu.
>
> I looked at distrowatch's "hits per day" list, and Ubuntu is in the
> lead, over 40% ahead of the #2 distro. Mandriva is down to #8. Why is
> Ubuntu suddenly so popular?
> <snip>
I read the British "Personal Computer World" magazine. It doesn't
contain much about Linux, but what there has been over the last six
months or so has used Ubuntu for examples/illustrations.

Adam · External Since: Jan 16, 2005 Posts: 99

Another Adam wrote:

[ snip ]

> I think you're being polite when you say that there are a few "noisy,
> unhelpful, or abusive newsgroups." There are a LOT more than a few. I
> think that's one reason why Usenet readership has been falling.

That strikes me as a little counter-intuitive.

Like, some noise applies to ALL groups, and
some groups attract HIGH noise. Readers are
attracted to SUBJECTS or specific-groups, first
and foremost surely.

So its still perplexing why a.o.l.mandrake may
be drying up - apart from the possible and incomplete
migration to a.o.l.mandriva, where available.

Yes, polite or naive, well-spotted. I do persist
with some NGs, but am less tempted to post or get
too involved with them - perhaps that's a pity.

Adam.

David W. Hodgins · External Since: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 277

On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 20:49:08 -0400, Adam <nospam.DeleteThis@example.com> wrote:

> So its still perplexing why a.o.l.mandrake may
> be drying up - apart from the possible and incomplete
> migration to a.o.l.mandriva, where available.

If your regular newsfeed doensn't include a.o.l.mandriva, and won't
add it, just register for a free account at a feed like
http://www.motzarella.org/

The newsfeed my isp uses is uunet, and messages posted through
them do not propagate. Their "support" doesn't seem to exist,
so I'm using leafnode to post via motzarella, and get messages
from both uunet, and motzarella.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)

The First Adam · External Since: Jun 11, 2007 Posts: 1

Adam wrote:
> Another Adam wrote:

<snip>

Jeez, how many Adams *are* there in here? Wink

--
The First Adam

Adam · External Since: Jan 16, 2005 Posts: 99

Thanks David. Understood.

Moe Trin · External Since: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1732

On 11 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
<slrnf6pg08.4ka.no.spam DeleteThis @thurston.blinkynet.net>, The First Adam wrote:

>Adam wrote:
>> Another Adam wrote:

>Jeez, how many Adams *are* there in here? Wink

Apparently more than a few

>The First Adam

Is that a dorsal fin I see...

WHOOP!!! WHOOP!!! WHOOP!!!

MAN THE DEPTH CHARGE RACKS! Wink

Old guy

Blinky the Shark · External Since: Sep 11, 2004 Posts: 286

Moe Trin wrote:
> On 11 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
><slrnf6pg08.4ka.no.spam RemoveThis @thurston.blinkynet.net>, The First Adam wrote:
>
>>Adam wrote:
>>> Another Adam wrote:
>
>>Jeez, how many Adams *are* there in here? Wink

>
> Apparently more than a few
>
>>The First Adam
>
> Is that a dorsal fin I see...
>
> WHOOP!!! WHOOP!!! WHOOP!!!
>
> MAN THE DEPTH CHARGE RACKS! Wink

--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html

Another Adam · External Since: Jun 13, 2007 Posts: 4

Adam wrote:
> Like, some noise applies to ALL groups, and
> some groups attract HIGH noise. Readers are
> attracted to SUBJECTS or specific-groups, first
> and foremost surely.

Yes, definitely. For example, a few months ago I subscribed to
rec.photo.equipment.35mm because I thought they'd discuss 35mm photo
equipment. After a week or two I unsubscribed because so few of the
posts had to do with the supposed topic.

> So its still perplexing why a.o.l.mandrake may
> be drying up - apart from the possible and incomplete
> migration to a.o.l.mandriva, where available.

I can understand why a.o.l.mandrake is losing readers, as older users
switch from some version of Mandrake to some version of Mandriva 2007.
Newer users may not realize that Mandriva was ever known as anything
else. What I'm worried about is that I'd expect that people who used to
post to a.o.l.mandrake would now post to a.o.l.mandriva, and I'd expect
the sum of the posts to both groups would stay about the same or
increase slightly.

In my case I started in a.o.l.mandrake, then added a.o.l.mandriva when
my server carried it. By now it looks like most folks are hanging out
at a.o.l.mandriva, so when I have a question (which is often!), I post
it to a.o.l.mandriva because more people are likely to see it there.

Another Adam

Another Adam · External Since: Jun 13, 2007 Posts: 4

The First Adam wrote:
> Adam wrote:
>> Another Adam wrote:
>
> Jeez, how many Adams *are* there in here? Wink

I think the number's going to increase. The name got more popular in
the 1970s. I'm from the end of the baby boom, and in my whole life I've
only met two or three Adams who were around my age, and never met one
who was older. ("Adam West" is the stage name of William West Anderson,
born 1928.) If you hear of someone named Adam, chances are good that
he's mid-thirties or younger.

Another Adam

Another Adam · External Since: Jun 13, 2007 Posts: 4

Moe Trin wrote:
> "Feisty Fawn" is release 7.04 (year 7, month 4, or April 2007). They
> seem to be releasing twice a year, with the next one tentatively named
> Gutsy Gibbon. It is claimed that the names are meaningless. I looked at
> the first two releases (Warty Warthog or 4.10, and Hoary Hedgehog or
> 5.04) and decided they were aimed at a different user.

Thanks for explaining their numbering scheme. That's why my system's
partitioned to allow more than one distro. I get the impression that a
lot of Linux users have at least one "experimental" distro installed, in
addition to the one used for everyday work.

>> Also, I think that NGs have a bit of a reputation as "geeky" because
>> you can't access them with your web browser but actually have to learn
>> a new program.
>
> ]User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4)
> Gecko/20070509 SeaMonkey/1.1.2
>
> I dunno - what's that? Looking at headers in comp.os.linux.* and
> alt.os.linux.* I see a number of people using browsers in addition to
> real news tools like nn, pan, slrn, tin... who's the dinosaur using
> xrn? Some developer by the look of it - alt.os.linux.debian.

Okay, maybe it's the same program, but Usenet involves all sorts of new
commands and rules. It's sort of like a corner of the web that most
people don't know about, and some of the few who do are put off by
having to learn all sorts of new things to access it. (Yes, I know that
Usenet is not part of the Web!)

>> There are web-based boards that are actually mirrors of NGs. Some of
>> those web sites try to give the impression that it's their own "message
>> board."
>
> Well, yeah - http://groups.google.com is one notorious example, with a
> reputation for spam that has a lot of people killing any article with a
> "Message-ID:" ending in 'google.com' There's a shark here that does
> that and suggests how other can too.

I was thinking more of sites like
http://www.hostingforum.ca/mandrake.html where you will find this very
thread displayed as if we were members of a web-based board.

> I don't know if it's too geeky, or is something that ISPs are not telling
> their customers about. Usenet takes up an enormous amount of bandwidth
> on the wire, and a "proper" news server with perhaps 50-125K groups
> and retentivity (a week or two for binary groups, up to a year or so
> for text based groups) means a fair amount of disk space.

I'm switching ISPs, and I don't recall my new ISP mentioning anything at
all about Usenet newsgroups in their advertising. (My old ISP did
mention "over 40,000 newsgroups" in their ads.) It turns out that my
new ISP has about 30,000 newsgroups but I figured that if it didn't
include Usenet, I could find a decent newsserver for a low price.

> A lot of other
> providers are also dropping Usenet as a cost cutting development. The
> result is fewer people having "direct" access. You can see this if you
> look at the news headers, and parse out the "Path:' header. You see
> fewer and fewer organizations listed. (That header lists the servers
> between your news server, and the posting news server. You are posting
> from Supernews, and that's nine hops from me - six in Supernews, San
> Diego State University, and two in giganews.)

I'm surprised to see SDSU in there. I think I'm now posting from
trndny09, or maybe gnilink.net. The "Path:" header reminds me of my
college days, when we had to explicitly route email through the gateways
connecting one network to another.

Another Adam