On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:34:15 +0000, Guy Macon wrote:

<snip>

>>Har! What secret NASA newsreader are you using?

> It started out as WinVN, but I have made many modifications.

Ahhh... I was under the assumption that you were using Linux.

>>> Actually, people do need to be warned. They may not realize that they
>>> are being silently killfiled.

>>Do you think any of them care that you (or anyone else) is killfiling
>>them?

> Yes.

I think you're quite mistaken on that.

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

Guy Macon wrote:

> Deciding not to carry a group is a local decision. Deciding not to
> propagate it through your system effects the network.

Which is precisely why "junk" exists: to permit netnews admins who do
not wish to carry certain newsgroups, but who CHOOSE to propagate groups
they don't carry to news peers. There is no legitimate, responsible,
news admin who would have accepted the creation of a newsgroup that
essentially "forces" other news admins to propagate groups they don't
carry if they don't want to. That would be abusive. Whether "junk"
is visible to local newsreaders is configurable as well.

Netnews ("usenet" in particular, though we can extend this to include
"alt" and regional hierarchies) was created on good faith, and what
you're describing (the creation of a big-8 group for the explicit
purpose of forcing news admins to propagate groups they don't carry)
would never have been accepted. Because some people choose to abuse the
group for the benefit of seeing their messages on systems that don't
carry the newsgroup they intended the messages for, does not mean that's
how the group was meant to be used, and it certainly does not mean that
there isn't a more appropriate mechanism in place to ensure proper
propagation of messages posted to newsgroups not carried by every news
server.

More likely what you're describing started out as a way to submit a
message to a newsgroup not carried by the news server local to the
poster, by crossposting to misc.misc and the intended group. That still
seems like an overload of the group's original intention, but it does
seem plausible as legitimate use of that newsgroup. I think it's quite
likely, however, that the news service you're using does carry
"alt.os.linux.slackware", so the crosspost to misc.misc in that case
would have been completely unnecessary.

>> ... What secret NASA newsreader are you using?
>
> It started out as WinVN, ...

Oh! I thought you said that NASA "created" the newsreader you use. In
fact, it appears you did:

"... I wrote it in C (the language that NASA used when creating my
newsreader) ..."

The WinVN web page, however, clearly indicates otherwise:

WinVN began at home as an own-time project by Mark Riordan, a systems
programmer at Michigan State University. However, WinVN is not a
product of MSU, NASA, or any other institution. ... The MS Windows
based WinVN program and its source code were placed in the public
domain in 1991. ...

In 1992, Sam Rushing and Jim Dumoulin, of the NASA/Kennedy Space
Center Information Systems Branch, selected WinVN as a good candidate
for future development as part of the Payload Data Management System
(PDMS-II) project. After contacting Mark Riordan, NASA agreed to make
extensive enhancements to WinVN, coordinate a public domain Internet
development effort to extend its features, and to serve as the overall
integrator for future versions of WinVN. ...

:-/

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille syl@alcor.concordia.ca

Systems and Network analyst / Newsmaster Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:34:15 +0000, Guy Macon wrote:

> I am replying to those who reply to troll posts. I don't see the
> actual troll posts. And I only reply to those who reply to troll posts in
> cases where I think the poster is educable.

You are Alan Connor and I claim my $5.

Guy Macon The Phat Phuck trolled:
> Dan C wrote:

>>Do you think any of them care that you (or anyone else) is
>>killfiling them?

> Yes.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.guymacon.com/SUB/GUY256.HTM

HAHAHAHAAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The "self-taught" Engineer.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He has to wear the ring in his nose.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cordially, as always,

rm

On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:20:01 +0000, Sylvain Robitaille wrote:

<snip>

>>> ... What secret NASA newsreader are you using?

>> It started out as WinVN, ...

> Oh! I thought you said that NASA "created" the newsreader you use. In
> fact, it appears you did:
>
> "... I wrote it in C (the language that NASA used when creating my
> newsreader) ..."
>
> The WinVN web page, however, clearly indicates otherwise:

<snip>

Damn, that's quite revealing. Seems this Macon guy is quite the
bullshitter. Actually, I'd say "full of shit" is more accurate. Thanks
for pointing this out, perhaps the Troll RM is actually right for once.

Oh yeah, the lame excuse for spamming (the misc.misc crap) which I snipped
is also quite revealing. Perhaps this bag of shit actually is related to
Alan Connor...

Bugger off, Macon/Connor.


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

In article <Pine.LNX.4.63.0704202310320.441@C11.2000.FHK>,
Not@Arizona.Bay says...

>Does anybody know if there is a similar project to Damn
>Small Linux, but Slackware based? I'm thinking about the
>"run everything in ram" thing here and the reduction in
>required HDD space etc. (Yeah, guess what I've been playing
>with?

RIPLinux, the followup to Kent Robotti's Looplinux at tux.org.

In article <YrOdnc-gjIBLxbLb4p2dnA@giganews.com>, http://www.guymacon.com/
says...
>
>>
>>Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/> wrote:
>>>
>>> It's a bit of a hack, because I wrote it in C (the language that NASA
>>> used when creating my newsreader) and I suck at C, but eventually I will
>>> rewrite it in FORTH or Python and Open Source it.
>>
>>Har! What secret NASA newsreader are you using?
>
>It started out as WinVN, but I have made many modifications.
>
Actually, other people have modified WinVN, but it is written in C++
specialized to the Microsoft Visual C of that period, and it is a nightmare
to port to Linux directly because of that.

Sylvain Robitaille wrote:

>More likely what you're describing started out as a way to submit a
>message to a newsgroup not carried by the news server local to the
>poster, by crossposting to misc.misc and the intended group. That still
>seems like an overload of the group's original intention, but it does
>seem plausible as legitimate use of that newsgroup.

It's always interesting and helpful when someone questions something
and it turns out that I had it wrong, and this was just such a case.
As the old saying goes, "it's not what you don't know that kills you.
It's what you know for sure that isn't true." I have no idea where
I first heard the "misc.misc as a propagation assist" idea, but both
your analysis of why it is implausible and what history I could unearth
on it shows that it clearly belongs in the "what you know for sure that
isn't true" category. Thanks!

--
Guy Macon
<http://www.guymacon.com/>

Victor Schneider, Ph. D. wrote:

>Actually, other people have modified WinVN, but it is written in C++
>specialized to the Microsoft Visual C of that period, and it is a nightmare
>to port to Linux directly because of that.

The version I am currently hacking on compiles under Microsoft
Visual Studio version 6.0, and I didn't even try porting it to
Linux. Alas, I have to be able to stumble my way around VC++
because so many old aerospace actuator test stands are programmed
in it.

Instead of trying such a difficult port I simply give it it's own
slimmed-down Windows OS (See [ http://www.litepc.com/ ]) and run
it on a virtual machine under VMWare Workstation.

--
Guy Macon
<http://www.guymacon.com/>