Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake

The Last Adam · External Since: Jun 13, 2007 Posts: 1

Another Adam wrote:
> 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.

Amen.

--
The Last Adam

Moe Trin · External Since: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1731

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
<V4Ibi.6125$pd5.2084@trnddc02>, Another Adam wrote:

>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.

It's certainly not an uncommon situation, but it really does depend on
what the user is doing. All of my systems at home are "working" systems,
meaning I do little to no experimenting on them. I have been using the
same install we use at work, both for a common standard, and the fact
that it simplifies support issues. When it is time to upgrade to a new
distribution, we've been running it on test boxes in the lab for at
least eight weeks searching for problems before it gets unleashed onto
the poor users.

>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!)

The limited experience I have using browsers as a news tool would agree
to some extent, but it's no where near like learning a completely new
application.

>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.

which is why my replies have that "On $DATE, in the Usenet newsgroup
$NEWSGROUP, in article $ARTICLE_NUMBER, $NAME wrote:" line at the top.
Some Usenet posters have gone so far as to put .sig lines (and sometimes
an extra header) prohibiting including their posts in ripe-off web based
discussion forums. I know a couple of individuals who included copyright
notices, and threatened legal action against at least a couple of forums
for violating it. Haven't seen anything like that recently.

>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

Given that there are only ~2300 groups in the Big Eight list, I don't
suppose that 30 or 40K shouldn't be enough. though I thought that
Supernews was carrying more than that.

>but I figured that if it didn't include Usenet, I could find a decent
>newsserver for a low price.

There's a newsgroup 'alt.free.newsservers' you could check. A problem
I've seen with them is that they tend to be abused by trolls and other
clueless fools, and some wind up on killfiles..

>I'm surprised to see SDSU in there.

Universities are still a major player in news distributions, and I've
seen dozens of US universities in the bang path. Our feed at work comes
from a Pac-ten school.

>I think I'm now posting from trndny09, or maybe gnilink.net.

Looks like gnilink.net to me.

>The "Path:" header reminds me of my college days, when we had to
>explicitly route email through the gateways connecting one network to
>another.

Don't forget that news was originally distributed using UUCP, and that
demanded a bang path environment. Actually if you look for the Usenet
Recipe Book (ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/usenet-recipes) you'll
see many of the recipes are signed by people using the old style
addresses

Old guy

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

Moe Trin wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
> <V4Ibi.6125$pd5.2084@trnddc02>, Another Adam wrote:
>> 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.
>
> which is why my replies have that "On $DATE, in the Usenet newsgroup
> $NEWSGROUP, in article $ARTICLE_NUMBER, $NAME wrote:" line at the top.
> Some Usenet posters have gone so far as to put .sig lines (and sometimes
> an extra header) prohibiting including their posts in rip-off web based
> discussion forums. I know a couple of individuals who included copyright
> notices, and threatened legal action against at least a couple of forums
> for violating it. Haven't seen anything like that recently.

I was wondering about that. I imagine that posting to my newsserver
implies permission for it to be copied to other newsservers, but putting
it in a message board sounds a bit much. I know that if someone
published a collection of my posts, or even one of my posts, without my
permission, I could sue. OTOH I suppose with Linux and the FSF and OSS
and so on, getting the information out there is the most important thing.

>> 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
>
> Given that there are only ~2300 groups in the Big Eight list, I don't
> suppose that 30 or 40K shouldn't be enough. though I thought that
> Supernews was carrying more than that.

Maybe it does with an individual subscription to Supernews... maybe ISPs
have a choice of plans with varying numbers of NGs. So far I've only
noticed one NG that my old ISP carried that my new one doesn't, and it
was one I'd unsubscribed from anyway.

To my slight surprise, my new ISP, which is Verizon DSL (no complaints
so far), carries 19 NGs starting with "0.verizon", presumably so they'll
be at the top of the list. One of them is 0.verizon.linux which Verizon
does NOT participate in, but at least they acknowledge its existence.
It seems to deal with all sorts of Linux questions, not just ones
relating to connectivity. Another one is 0.verizon.newsgroup.requests.

>> but I figured that if it didn't include Usenet, I could find a decent
>> newsserver for a low price.
>
> There's a newsgroup 'alt.free.newsservers' you could check. A problem
> I've seen with them is that they tend to be abused by trolls and other
> clueless fools, and some wind up on killfiles.

Yes, I've heard that the free ones have limitations or other
disadvantages. I figured I'd be better off paying a small fee for a
decent one. I even checked out Supernews's prices, because they've done
a good job as a newsserver for my old ISP, and they start at $4/month.
See https://www.supernews.com/signup/ if you're curious.

> Looks like gnilink.net to me.

I'll look into that, out of curiosity.

> Don't forget that news was originally distributed using UUCP, and that
> demanded a bang path environment.

I tend to associate bang paths with BBSs, as all my student accounts
have been .bitnet or .edu. I wish I'd kept my ca. 1985 network
addressing handbook, written by the college sysadmin, which covered
naming, network paths, and gateways. I do remember in 1986, sending
email from my college account to a friend at RPI, and getting it bounced
back with the explanation "Students are not allowed to receive network
messages."

Another Adam

Moe Trin · External Since: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1731

On Thu, 14 Jun 2007in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
<Jvkci.19116$%M5.6325@trndny02>, Another Adam wrote:

>Moe Trin wrote:

>I was wondering about that. I imagine that posting to my newsserver
>implies permission for it to be copied to other newsservers, but
>putting it in a message board sounds a bit much.

It's an extremely muddy situation. Your posting is probably on several
hundred news servers around the world - did you give them permission to
distribute it? Wink

>I know that if someone published a collection of my posts, or even one
>of my posts, without my permission, I could sue.

Well, then you get into the fun and games called jurisdictions. You
could file suit in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
but would that really impress someone in East Spamistan? More
importantly, would it have the slightest effect on them? Would it be
worth the expenses you'd have doing so? It's bad enough getting a
judgment against someone in a different state thanks to differing
laws in the various jurisdictions, but it's substantially more
difficult in another county even assuming reciprocal agreements.

>OTOH I suppose with Linux and the FSF and OSS and so on, getting the
>information out there is the most important thing.

Laws still apply, and copyright is one of the more universal laws
around the world. In some countries you don't have to declare that
material is copyrighted - while others may make it easier to effect
legal action if a claim to such rights are part of the document in
question. Look at the HOWTOs. or one of the "COPYING" files you are
likely to have squirreled away on your system:

[compton ~]$ locate COPYING | wc -l
149
[compton ~]$

>> I thought that Supernews was carrying more than [30-40k newsgroups]

>Maybe it does with an individual subscription to Supernews... maybe
>ISPs have a choice of plans with varying numbers of NGs. So far I've
>only noticed one NG that my old ISP carried that my new one doesn't,
>and it was one I'd unsubscribed from anyway.

I've always accessed Supernews as part of some ISPs package of services
and the last time I looked at their .newsrc file, it was 33k of groups.

>To my slight surprise, my new ISP, which is Verizon DSL (no complaints
>so far)

You might have mail problems - they often do a Sender Verification (try
to connect to the sending mail server and _open_ an SMTP dialog to see
if the envelope sender is a valid username) which most people consider
to be abuse, and that has Verizon on some block lists. Their mail
servers are also using some form of block list such that they refuse
connections to some (quite large) ISPs - t-online.net (Deutsche Telekom
AG) being one. Google for Verizon in the Usenet newsgroup
news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting.

>carries 19 NGs starting with "0.verizon", presumably so they'll be at
>the top of the list.

I've not looked at the reason, but the newsgroup list from giganews
starts with 157 groups that begin with 'alt.test*', then five classic
"important" groups (news.announce.newusers, news.answers,
news.groups.questions, news.newusers.questions, news.software.readers)
before starting with "0.akita-inu" and "0.alaskan-malamute" and so on.
In a rather stupid default, those 157 test groups and five "news.*"
show up as if you had subscribed to them. (One or two test groups I
could agree with, but 157???). Oh, and I only see 9 of the 0.verizon.*
groups here Wink

>One of them is 0.verizon.linux which Verizon does NOT participate in,
>but at least they acknowledge its existence. It seems to deal with all
>sorts of Linux questions, not just ones relating to connectivity.

I've seen a number of providers that have at least some information
about how to connect a *nix box. One of the earliest I recall was a
fairly extensive page from Worldnet.att (att.net) back in 1995. If
you were lucky, the helldesk klown remembered the URL, but that was
the total extent of their support of Linux (and in reality the page
had been created by one of their users). Support is generally limited
to a droid reading from a script (customer says "this", corrective
action is to do "that") and possibly punishing the staff that go
beyond what's in the scripts. This is reasonable given the positively
miniscule technical knowledge the front line staff is expected to have.
I occasionally run into this problem with one of the ISPs I have (I
love to hear their branes hit the floor when I answer their "when did
you last reboot?" question with "lessee, 'uptime' says the system has
been up for 140 days six hours and seventeen minutes, but what has
that got to do with the fact that your perimeter router is dropping
half the traffic").

>Yes, I've heard that the free ones have limitations or other
>disadvantages. I figured I'd be better off paying a small fee for a
>decent one. I even checked out Supernews's prices, because they've done
>a good job as a newsserver for my old ISP, and they start at $4/month.

Supernews has a _very_ good reputation for keeping their spool clean.
Only reason I'm not using them is that my primary ISP provides a
different server.

>I tend to associate bang paths with BBSs, as all my student accounts
>have been .bitnet or .edu. I wish I'd kept my ca. 1985 network
>addressing handbook, written by the college sysadmin, which covered
>naming, network paths, and gateways.

I long since lost my copies, and can barely remember who our peers were.

>I do remember in 1986, sending email from my college account to a friend
>at RPI, and getting it bounced back with the explanation "Students are
>not allowed to receive network messages."

At RPI? ARIN says they didn't get their /16 until 2/27/86, but I've
got notes and an RFC that says it was mid 1985. Somewhat surprised
about the prohibition, as I know some who were students at several
West Coast universities, as well as Cornell and MIT back then and
had no difficulty sending/receiving mail.

Old guy

Adam · External Since: Feb 10, 2005 Posts: 11

Moe Trin wrote:
> It's an extremely muddy situation. Your posting is probably on several
> hundred news servers around the world - did you give them permission to
> distribute it? Wink

IMO posting it to a newsgroup means that it will be distributed
throughout Usenet, just like sending a letter to the editor has always
meant that it might get printed and distributed.

>> I know that if someone published a collection of my posts, or even one
>> of my posts, without my permission, I could sue.
>
> Well, then you get into the fun and games called jurisdictions.

Back in the '80s I subscribed to a computer-specific small magazine, and
some of its content was taken from the publisher's CompuServe Forum, of
which I was one of the more active members. So (a) my posts were being
redistributed beyond that Forum, and (b) I was paying money to read
stuff I'd written myself. Point (a) didn't bother me -- I wrote then,
as now, not just for the intended recipient but also for the other
readers out there who might find it helpful. Point (b) bothered me, but
I was out of luck on that one.

But I think we're getting too far off topic here.

> I've always accessed Supernews as part of some ISPs package of services
> and the last time I looked at their .newsrc file, it was 33k of groups.

[adam@ozymandias News]$ wc -l */hostinfo.dat
30232 news.verizon.net/hostinfo.dat
31562 nntp.bestweb.net/hostinfo.dat

That's one line per group. Subtract ten lines from each for the headers.

>> Verizon DSL
>
> You might have mail problems - they often do a Sender Verification (try
> to connect to the sending mail server and _open_ an SMTP dialog to see
> if the envelope sender is a valid username) which most people consider
> to be abuse, and that has Verizon on some block lists. Their mail
> servers are also using some form of block list such that they refuse
> connections to some (quite large) ISPs - t-online.net (Deutsche Telekom
> AG) being one. Google for Verizon in the Usenet newsgroup
> news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting.

Okay, I looked, and it does indeed seem that Verizon doesn't have the
best reputation, but it seems they're improving. However, I looked at
one site (dslreports?) that had reviews of DSL providers, and BestWeb's
DSL got only extreme reviews -- either five stars or no stars. And
*everybody* said it took three to four months to get it hooked up. I
needed to free up my phone line sooner than that. Also, I figured that
with Verizon DSL I wouldn't have the ISP blaming the telco and vice
versa. I asked, and members of the local LUG had no particular negative
comments about Verizon DSL. (Actually I might have considered their
Fios (fiber optic) service if it was available where I live.)

BestWeb's dialup service (they are a local ISP) has gone downhill since
I started with them in 1999. Recently there have been mornings where
I'd spend literally half an hour redialing just to get any kind of
connection, and have to give up. On better days, it would take several
attempts to get a "fast" dialup connection, "fast" meaning > 33.6 kbps.
And many days, my connection would get dropped at random intervals.
We discussed this one for a long time in a.o.l.mandriva. At least now
getting online, and staying online, isn't a game of chance.

> I've not looked at the reason, but the newsgroup list from giganews
> starts with 157 groups that begin with 'alt.test*', then five classic
> "important" groups (news.announce.newusers, news.answers,
> news.groups.questions, news.newusers.questions, news.software.readers)
> before starting with "0.akita-inu" and "0.alaskan-malamute" and so on.

My guess is that they put the 'test' groups first so that people who
don't know what they're doing will wind up there instead of disrupting a
"real" newsgroup, and they put those 'news.*' next because they felt
they were important. Just my guess, but it makes sense to me, kind of.

> In a rather stupid default, those 157 test groups and five "news.*"
> show up as if you had subscribed to them.

What?! Well, that's bound to scare some people away from Usenet, which
could be either a good or a bad thing, depending.

> Oh, and I only see 9 of the 0.verizon.* groups here Wink

0.verizon.adsl, 0.verizon.announce, 0.verizon.binaries,
0.verizon.discussion-general, 0.verizon.email.discussion-general,
0.verizon.email.spam, 0.verizon.fios, 0.verizon.flame, 0.verizon.linux,
0.verizon.mac, 0.verizon.newsgroup.requests, 0.verizon.security,
0.verizon.suggestion.box, 0.verizon.test, 0.verizon.wi-fi,
0.verizon.windows2000, 0.verizon.windows9x, 0.verizon.windowsvista,
0.verizon.windowsxp

> Support is generally limited
> to a droid reading from a script (customer says "this", corrective
> action is to do "that") and possibly punishing the staff that go
> beyond what's in the scripts. This is reasonable given the positively
> miniscule technical knowledge the front line staff is expected to have.

I'm unofficial "tech support" for my parents, so I need some version of
Windows installed. I figure if anyone at a help desk asks what OS, or
what version of Windows, I'm running, I can give them one of the answers
they can handle.

>> I do remember in 1986, sending email from my college account to a friend
>> at RPI, and getting it bounced back with the explanation "Students are
>> not allowed to receive network messages."
>
> At RPI? ARIN says they didn't get their /16 until 2/27/86, but I've
> got notes and an RFC that says it was mid 1985. Somewhat surprised
> about the prohibition, as I know some who were students at several
> West Coast universities, as well as Cornell and MIT back then and
> had no difficulty sending/receiving mail.

Obviously my college let us send network mail. They just asked us to be
nice about it. In '89 I tried emailing the same friend still at RPI,
and by then he was allowed to receive network mail.

Adam

Moe Trin · External Since: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1731

On Sun, 17 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
<Rd2di.1062$jb5.242@trndny09>, Adam wrote:

>Moe Trin wrote:

>>> Verizon DSL
>>
>> You might have mail problems

>Okay, I looked, and it does indeed seem that Verizon doesn't have the
>best reputation, but it seems they're improving. However, I looked at
>one site (dslreports?) that had reviews of DSL providers, and BestWeb's
>DSL got only extreme reviews -- either five stars or no stars.

You're looking at it from a completely different perspective. I'm
referring to how other ISPs on the Internet feel about them, not how
their customers feel.

>BestWeb's dialup service (they are a local ISP) has gone downhill since
>I started with them in 1999. Recently there have been mornings where
>I'd spend literally half an hour redialing just to get any kind of
>connection, and have to give up. On better days, it would take several
>attempts to get a "fast" dialup connection, "fast" meaning > 33.6 kbps.
> And many days, my connection would get dropped at random intervals.
>We discussed this one for a long time in a.o.l.mandriva.

I thought that replacing the phone cable fixed this. Oh, well.

>My guess is that they put the 'test' groups first so that people who
>don't know what they're doing will wind up there instead of disrupting a
>"real" newsgroup, and they put those 'news.*' next because they felt
>they were important. Just my guess, but it makes sense to me, kind of.

Well, yes but...

>> In a rather stupid default, those 157 test groups and five "news.*"
>> show up as if you had subscribed to them.
>
>What?! Well, that's bound to scare some people away from Usenet, which
>could be either a good or a bad thing, depending.

Like I said - two or three would be OK, but 157??? For most people,
that is like five or six screens full of names. Definitely a bad idea.

>> Oh, and I only see 9 of the 0.verizon.* groups here Wink

[snip list of 0.verizon.*]

[compton ~]$ grep 0.verizon ../newsrc | column
0.verizon.adsl 0.verizon.newsgroup.requests
0.verizon.discussion-general 0.verizon.security
0.verizon.email.spam 0.verizon.test
0.verizon.flame 0.verizon.windowsxp
0.verizon.linux
[compton ~]$

>I'm unofficial "tech support" for my parents, so I need some version of
>Windows installed. I figure if anyone at a help desk asks what OS, or
>what version of Windows, I'm running, I can give them one of the answers
>they can handle.

I don't bother calling them when the problem might be on my end. In most
cases, it only takes a minute or so to isolate that out - so when I _do_
call them, I know the problem is on their side, and can provide enough
details in the initial statement for them to grok the problem. (I don't
say "hello, the internet is down").

>> Somewhat surprised about the prohibition, as I know some who were
>> students at several West Coast universities, as well as Cornell and
>> MIT back then and had no difficulty sending/receiving mail.
>
>Obviously my college let us send network mail. They just asked us to
>be nice about it. In '89 I tried emailing the same friend still at
>RPI, and by then he was allowed to receive network mail.

In the 1980s, the schools had the ultimate disciplinary action. If you
screwed up, you lost access. and that probably meant flunking the course
as a minimum. Now they don't have that clout, because everyone has a
computer and Internet access elsewhere.

Old guy

Adam · External Since: Feb 10, 2005 Posts: 11

Moe Trin wrote:
>> it does indeed seem that Verizon doesn't have the
>> best reputation, but it seems they're improving.
>
> You're looking at it from a completely different perspective. I'm
> referring to how other ISPs on the Internet feel about them, not how
> their customers feel.

Oh, okay. Like how I (used to) look down on anything posted from an AOL
account. I see how some other ISPs don't like Verizon, but pretty much
put up with it because VZ has so many customers. Is there any sort of
reputation that goes with being a Verizon customer?

>> BestWeb's dialup service (they are a local ISP) has gone downhill since
>> I started with them in 1999. [etc]
>
> I thought that replacing the phone cable fixed this. Oh, well.

No, I just replaced the phone cable a few days ago. Today I tried
accessing them via dialup. I had no problem getting a connection at a
fast ( > 45 kbps) speed, but effective throughput was practically zero.
I wonder if they'll notice that one of their dialup customers is
accessing their servers at DSL speeds. Btw I am going to keep my dialup
modem connected, even after my dialup service runs out. As someone
pointed out, they can be used to send faxes, which a DSL modem can't do.

> [compton ~]$ grep 0.verizon ../newsrc | column
[snip]

I wasn't aware that ANY of 0.verizon.* could be accessed through anyone
else's server.

[ISP help desk]
> I don't bother calling them when the problem might be on my end.

Yes, I've picked up on the Linux attitude of "try to do it yourself, if
at all possible."

Adam

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

Adam wrote:
> Moe Trin wrote:
>>> it does indeed seem that Verizon doesn't have the
>>> best reputation, but it seems they're improving.
>>
>> You're looking at it from a completely different perspective. I'm
>> referring to how other ISPs on the Internet feel about them, not how
>> their customers feel.
>
> Oh, okay. Like how I (used to) look down on anything posted from an AOL
> account.

Be of good cheer. Now you have Google Groups posters to look down at
with the dame disdain.

(And in fact when AOHell dropped Usenet it advised their users to move
to Google Groups.)

See my sig (and link) for a personal solution.

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

Moe Trin · External Since: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1731

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
<vBHdi.7132$M%4.5061@trndny08>, Adam wrote:

>Moe Trin wrote:

>> You're looking at it from a completely different perspective. I'm
>> referring to how other ISPs on the Internet feel about them, not how
>> their customers feel.
>
>Oh, okay. Like how I (used to) look down on anything posted from an
>AOL account.

From rec.arts.sf.written, in a thread entitled "What is AOL?"
> An organization set up to give Internetters someone to make ethnic
> jokes about.
-- (repeated in rec.humor.funny, rec.humor.funny.reruns)

In the nineties, it seemed that half if my nephews were using AOL as
their "ISP" in spite of my scathing comments. They've since moved on
to other providers, but retain the habit of hitting the "forward this
to every person I've ever received mail from" button (I dunno, it
might be a default in their browser) and never think about trimming
the garbage off. I finally fixed the problem by using dynamic email
usernames that expire every Sunday (can you say "cron-job"? I thought
you could).

>I see how some other ISPs don't like Verizon, but pretty much put up
>with it because VZ has so many customers. Is there any sort of
>reputation that goes with being a Verizon customer?

I don't _know_ of any problems with the customers - I think the anger
is directed at Verizon itself.

>> I thought that replacing the phone cable fixed this. Oh, well.
>
>No, I just replaced the phone cable a few days ago. Today I tried
>accessing them via dialup. I had no problem getting a connection at a
>fast ( > 45 kbps) speed, but effective throughput was practically zero.

I take it you are giving up on dialin. Were I to look further at this
problem, I'd be looking at a tcpdump output to see WTF.

>I wonder if they'll notice that one of their dialup customers is
>accessing their servers at DSL speeds.

Highly unlikely that they'd notice the speed, but they certainly should
notice the "remote" IP address.

>Btw I am going to keep my dialup modem connected, even after my dialup
>service runs out. As someone pointed out, they can be used to send
>faxes, which a DSL modem can't do.

I have dialup as a backup, and to access two other ISPs. Sending Faxes?
I wasn't aware of any problem, but on the rare occasion when I do need
to send a fax, I'll dig our the fax that's in the garage and connect it
to the (analog) phone line.

>I wasn't aware that ANY of 0.verizon.* could be accessed through anyone
>else's server.

Some commercial news server like to advertise having more groups than
anyone else as a gimmick to get customers. giganews is one of those,
which is why they have over 107000 newsgroups. Looking for Polish
language groups? They have 300 pl.* as well as 697 Italian (it.*),
450 French (fr.*), and so on.

>[ISP help desk]
>> I don't bother calling them when the problem might be on my end.
>
>Yes, I've picked up on the Linux attitude of "try to do it yourself,
>if at all possible."

Main reason I don't bother is that I already know that the helldesk
staff can't even _spell_ Linux, never mind having the faintest clue
how it operates. (Actually, I'm not to sure they have a good idea
how windoze operates either.)

Old guy

Adam · External Since: Feb 10, 2005 Posts: 11

Blinky the Shark wrote:
>> Oh, okay. Like how I (used to) look down on anything posted from an AOL
>> account.
>
> Be of good cheer. Now you have Google Groups posters to look down at
> with the dame disdain.

Plus, of course, as Linux users we can look down on Windows users!

> (And in fact when AOHell dropped Usenet it advised their users to move
> to Google Groups.)

I must have missed the news about AOL dropping Usenet. I did wonder why
there didn't seem to be any posts from AOL addresses any more!

Adam

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

Adam wrote:
> Blinky the Shark wrote:
>>> Oh, okay. Like how I (used to) look down on anything posted from an AOL
>>> account.
>>
>> Be of good cheer. Now you have Google Groups posters to look down at
>> with the dame disdain.
>
> Plus, of course, as Linux users we can look down on Windows users!

Do you know about The Last Man Theory? Somewhere in the whole chain of
looking down at (pointing at and laughing; whatever) is one guy that
there's nobody lower than. There's nobody in any worse shape than he
is. He has nobody to point at and laugh, nobody to hold in disdain.
He's The Last Man. Aren't you glad you're not him?

>> (And in fact when AOHell dropped Usenet it advised their users to move
>> to Google Groups.)
>
> I must have missed the news about AOL dropping Usenet. I did wonder why
> there didn't seem to be any posts from AOL addresses any more!

That was...oh, two or three years ago. Probably more like three.

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

Adam · External Since: Feb 10, 2005 Posts: 11

Robert M. Riches Jr. wrote:
>> ... (Is it possible to be in a dead
>> zone for one cell provider, yet be accessible to another provider?)
>
> Assuming that wasn't a rhetorical question, the answer is a
> big _YES_. Each cell phone provider has its own network of
> cell sites and 'partner' companies with their cell sites,
> etc. I have seen a situation where a cell phone from one
> provider had service but a phone from a different provider
> did not.

Thanks, Robert! No, not a rhetorical question at all. I'm in a
basement apartment at the bottom of a slope, in a town already known for
spotty cell phone coverage. When I'm home, anyone who calls my cell
number usually gets my voicemail because my phone's unreachable.

Since the answer is "yes," this brings me to my next question: is it
possible to determine which cell providers' service extends to anywhere
in my apartment? I could ask my neighbors, but none of them lives
exactly where I do -- they're upstairs (where my current cell phone DOES
work), or slightly east or west, and so on. If I could be sure that,
say, Foobar Cellular would cover all of my apartment, I'd seriously
consider switching. Thanks again for your help with this!

Adam

Robert M. Riches Jr. · External Since: Apr 19, 2004 Posts: 1289

On 2007-06-20, Adam <look DeleteThis @bottom.for.address> wrote:
>
> Since the answer is "yes," this brings me to my next question: is it
> possible to determine which cell providers' service extends to anywhere
> in my apartment? I could ask my neighbors, but none of them lives
> exactly where I do -- they're upstairs (where my current cell phone DOES
> work), or slightly east or west, and so on. If I could be sure that,
> say, Foobar Cellular would cover all of my apartment, I'd seriously
> consider switching. Thanks again for your help with this!

You could ask some of your friends what provider they use
and invite at least one friend per provider _to_ your
_apartment_ for a party or contest or something that would
involve making or receiving a cell phone call. Keep track
of who uses which provider and who got through.

HTH

--
Robert Riches
spamtrap42 DeleteThis @verizon.net
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)

Adam · External Since: Feb 10, 2005 Posts: 11

Robert M. Riches Jr. wrote:
>> is it possible to determine which cell providers'
>> service extends to anywhere in my apartment?
>
> You could ask some of your friends what provider they use
> and invite at least one friend per provider _to_ your
> _apartment_ for a party or contest or something that would
> involve making or receiving a cell phone call. Keep track
> of who uses which provider and who got through.

Thanks for a great idea! Or I could just come right out and ask my
friends to come over to see if their cell phones work in my place. My
concern is, what if service is intermittent with a certain provider, and
it works when my friend is here, but not necessarily all the time?
Occasionally I can even call my cell phone from my POTS line and it will
ring, but sometimes that doesn't work too. Hmmm...

Adam

davidwhodgins · External Since: Jul 01, 2007 Posts: 1

I'm replying to everyone in this thread, via google groups, as
leafnode is dropping the messagees,
with errors such as
Jul 2 00:58:02 hodgins fetchnews[29969]: article /var/spool/news/alt/
os/linux/mandrake/39093 contained illegal headers: References: does
not end with ">"

Looking at the original, of the article I'm replying to shows
References:
<KoSh62X4wjEYNTCAUxpSQaAp-00001.TakeThisOut@faure.chezmarshall.freeserve.co.uk>
<slrnf6e4ve.d88.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us> <f47flu
$pn8$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <slrnf6eqt2.sq0.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us>
<136jli44m01gtb5.TakeThisOut@corp.supernews.com>
<slrnf6mip7.jlu.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us>
<136p62kna0lqrb9.TakeThisOut@corp.supernews.com>
<slrnf6s0se.k3d.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us> <V4Ibi.
6125$pd5.2084@trnddc02> <slrnf715bt.mqa.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us>
<Jvkci.19116$%M5.6325@trndny02
<slrnf76bb4.8e5.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us> <Rd2di.
1062$jb5.242@trndny09> <slrnf7bnfr.t1c.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us>
<vBHdi.7132$M%4.5061@trndny08>
<slrnf7h4r0.j1.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us> <eGcei.
9673$jb5.6943@trndny09> <slrnf7lms2.nje.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us>
<xLEei.8227$u65.7165@trndny07> <slrnf7p0vg.
6la.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us> <9yxfi.3860$G85.1749@trndny08>
<slrnf80sqm.qvq.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us>
<138ahtqn532lo86.TakeThisOut@corp.supernews.com>
<slrnf8b9im.vcm.ibuprofin.TakeThisOut@compton.phx.az.us>

Note the <Jvkci.19116$%M5.6325@trndny02 reference, does not end witth
>, but the
messageid in the original article did.

Please be carefull with messageids, and reference headers, as they get
posts dropped,
from many servers, when they're not valid.

One of these days, I'll get the fetchnews source, and make a modified
copy that ignores
invalid headers, but that may take a while.

Thanks, Dave Hodgins

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

Just back on-topic for moment.

Below is the header from a recent automatic Statistics post, with its
intriguing originating path.

The message seems to be out of the UK, looking at the From:

I expect this doesn't help me establish at what point the
alt.os.linux.mandriva newsgroup is being non-included.

But does it suggest who upstream I should first direct an inquiry about
including a.o.l.mandriva to ? Or a mail list order for subsequent requests?

(original) Adam.

Path:
lust.ihug.co.nz!newsfeeds.ihug.co.nz!ihug.co.nz!newsfeed.kamp.net!newsfeed.kamp.net!newsfeed.freenet.de!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news-in.ntli.net!newsrout1-win.ntli.net!ntli.net!news.highwinds-media.com!newspeer1-win.ntli.net!newsfe3-gui.ntli.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail
From: alt.os.linux.mandrake Stats <usenet RemoveThis @capuchin.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.os.linux.mandrake,alt.os.linux.mandriva
Subject: Statistics for alt.os.linux.mandrake
Message-ID:
<uVFklX0qFIre9RRUo54SwHI9-00001 RemoveThis @faure.chezmarshall.freeserve.co.uk>
Lines: 165
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:12:06 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: 86.3.159.236
X-Complaints-To: http://www.virginmedia.com/netreport
X-Trace: newsfe3-gui.ntli.net 1183147926 86.3.159.236 (Fri, 29 Jun 2007
21:12:06 BST)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 21:12:06 BST
Organization: ntl Cablemodem News Service
Xref: lust.ihug.co.nz alt.os.linux.mandrake:587270

Moe Trin · External Since: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1731

On Tue, 03 Jul 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article
<f6c5k7$ql2$1@lust.ihug.co.nz>, Adam wrote:

>Below is the header from a recent automatic Statistics post, with its
>intriguing originating path.
>
>The message seems to be out of the UK, looking at the From:

Yeah - looks that way

>I expect this doesn't help me establish at what point the
>alt.os.linux.mandriva newsgroup is being non-included.

Shifting gears - are you saying your ISP (ihug.co.nz) doesn't carry the
alt.os.linux.mandriva? If that's the case, you talk to them.

>But does it suggest who upstream I should first direct an inquiry about
>including a.o.l.mandriva to ? Or a mail list order for subsequent requests?

Lessee what you have there.

Path: lust.ihug.co.nz!newsfeeds.ihug.co.nz!ihug.co.nz!newsfeed.kamp.net
!newsfeed.kamp.net!newsfeed.freenet.de!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com
!nntp.giganews.com!news-in.ntli.net!newsrout1-win.ntli.net!ntli.net
!news.highwinds-media.com!newspeer1-win.ntli.net
!newsfe3-gui.ntli.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail

Boy, that really bounces around the world. Start at the end, and work
back - NTLI is in the UK, Giganews is in the US, but that looks like the
feeder in AMSterdam. Freenet.de and kamp.net are both German networks,
and then it hits the perimeter of ihug. Yeah, your only option (as
you don't have any standing with freenet.de or kamp.net) is to talk to
your ISP.

Old guy

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

Moe Trin wrote:

> Lessee what you have there.
>
> Path: lust.ihug.co.nz!newsfeeds.ihug.co.nz!ihug.co.nz!newsfeed.kamp.net
> !newsfeed.kamp.net!newsfeed.freenet.de!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com
> !nntp.giganews.com!news-in.ntli.net!newsrout1-win.ntli.net!ntli.net
> !news.highwinds-media.com!newspeer1-win.ntli.net
> !newsfe3-gui.ntli.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail
>
> Boy, that really bounces around the world. Start at the end, and work
> back - NTLI is in the UK, Giganews is in the US, but that looks like the
> feeder in AMSterdam. Freenet.de and kamp.net are both German networks,
> and then it hits the perimeter of ihug. Yeah, your only option (as
> you don't have any standing with freenet.de or kamp.net) is to talk to
> your ISP.

It was probably skipping off the F-layer. Wink

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

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

[snip]

>> and then it hits the perimeter of ihug.

ihug - Recently bought by Vodaphone. Apparently their main server HQ is in
Perth, western Australia.

> It was probably skipping off the F-layer. Wink

Precisely.
A query on a.o.l.mandriva lodged and pending.

Some quakes here,
http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html

In a recent big freeze down south, with the loss of mains power, 1st
peoples' cellphone batteries ran down and couldn't be recharged from the
mains, then for those with still-working cellphones the batteries in the
cellphone towers didn't last more than 2 days. Blame was cast on iced-up
microwave dishes etc etc, when really it was clearly lack of any real
backup battery capacity. The wired phone lines and old exchanges fared well
amongst all this.

Ads.

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

Adam wrote:

>
> [snip]
>
>>> and then it hits the perimeter of ihug.
>
> ihug - Recently bought by Vodaphone. Apparently their main
> server HQ is in Perth, western Australia.
>
>> It was probably skipping off the F-layer. Wink

>
> Precisely.
> A query on a.o.l.mandriva lodged and pending.
>
> Some quakes here,
> http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html

Nice site.

Here's ours for California USA.

http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/

Drill down by clicking an event on the map.

Then scroll down from *that* map for recent history table, and/or
click an event on that secondary map for full stats on that event.

--
Blinky
Killfiling all posts from Google Groups
Details: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html