Requiem for Usenet 498
xoip writes "Jack Kapica at The Globe and Mail reports that '[Canadian ISP] Rogers is removing [Usenet] service without changing its rates, suggesting subscribers turn to portal technology controlled by Rogers/Yahoo, or to subscribe to an outside Usenet service -- at extra cost.'" From the article: "Aside from being based on the written word, which many game-playing kids would rather not make the effort to compose, Usenet is deeply flawed. Its democratic dream offers no defence against viruses, spammers, criminals, hucksters or deranged individuals. Rummaging about in Usenet is like slumming through the tenderloin district during the plague years -- your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place."
What if... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What if... (Score:5, Funny)
What the hell is this? They have steak districts in places?
"I'm looking for invitations to unspeakable sexual acts?",
Sex with a steak apparently?
Re:What if... (Score:4, Informative)
If you WERE trying to be funny - don't.
Re:What if... (Score:4, Informative)
I have, however, heard of a "red light district," a term that seems more universal...
Re:What if... (Score:4, Funny)
They're called towns and cities you insensitive clod!
The way (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the time when I'm using usenet, I'm not looking for something. I am looking to get hit with random content like what other people think is good or interesting. Its fun to explore the mp3 newsgroups and just download some random mp3s and learn about new music.
Oh, ok. (Score:2)
Re:The way (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The way (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The way (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The way (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to be picky - but I am sure you meant s/n ratio was too low. If the s/n ratio was too high then you'd actually find the service useful
They just don't get their custommers (Score:5, Funny)
I think they're missing on what people are looking for on usenet in the first place
Rogers usenet (Score:2)
I watch the local forsale groups, but I can't post because they never set up the moderation properly.
That and I can't be bothered to read all the information available. I've switched to IRC and mailing lists.
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
So...in other words, Usenet is like the rest of the internet where there is good, valuable information as well as bad, useless (to some at least) information?
I've been hanging out in various usenet groups for years and yet to have picked up a virus that infected my system and wasn't picked up my Norton AV. I've received more viruses via e-mail then I've found in Usenet, so does that mean we should also get rid of e-mail?
Why don't we just call Roger's actions what they really are, a cost saving measure. They aren't doing it to protect the children, they are doing it to save a few cents per customer.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Usenet eventually gained a reputation as a refuge for pre-civilized thugs with a penchant for imbecile grammar and vicious talk. The antics of juveniles and troubled people started scaring off others -- democracy still needs laws, after all, so that its mechanisms are not hijacked by people in serious need of psychiatric help. I recall one incident, in which a bunch of high-spirited kids decided to invade another newsgroup as a prank. The prank effectively destroyed the target group.
Is it just me or does this guy kinda sound like he was once kill filed by an entire USENET group. I still use USENET. some of the comp.* and sci.* groups are great. I also go there for the entertainment value of reading the raving of net kooks. You get a fantastic quality of net kook on USENET because it takes effort to post mind numbing ramblings(as opposed to a blog or whatever).
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
There are times when I think "I'm not that much of a geek." Then I read something like that with ease and realize, yes, yes I am.
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
I first accessed Usenet from a BBS in 1992, and got my own small UUCP of my favorite groups a year later. I'm still a regular on some Usenet forums, and paid my thirteen bucks to the German individual.net. Not the greatest retention, but carries all the groups I care about. Groups like talk.origins are as busy as ever, with damn little spam. The groups that seem to be dead or dying are mainly the vanity groups like alt.barney.die.die.die.
6-7 years? Try 20 (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately the oldest reference I could find on google was only from 1989, but it'll have to do. [google.ca] The fact that it's sigged should be a clue that the fearmongering was already a meme then.
history, not vision (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a democratic reality.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention to make a few cents per customer. Usenet has always, always suffered from not generating any revenue for the hosts that carry it. How much better if for the company if they can move their users over to a paid or advertising-supported forum! Yekch!
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still trying to come to terms with the concept of catching a virus from a plain text usenet post. I realize most of usenet is 7-bit text, but it would still take a damned smart hacker to hide a virus in those remaining eighth bits...
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that the *point*? I like usenet just the way it is, TYVM.
Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all bull. I've used Usenet for over ten years, and I have never "caught" any viruses or gotten any invitations to unspeakable sexual acts (maybe I hang out in the wrong groups...). Usenet is not as big as it was, but it's still a great resource for information.
Re:Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
This is absolutely true. I've NEVER had a problem with Usenet.
You know why? Because it's also a community, like any other.
Anytime someone posts something shady, there will always be a post in which someone calls it out, right in the subject line. So if someone posts a virus, 20 minutes later, someone's replied warning you of it.
You only catch viruses on Usenet the same way you do in email - by not using your head.
Re:Bull (Score:2)
Re:Bull (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
Things have gotten worse. We took a network full of college students (geeky college students at that), and opened it up to grandmothers, pre-teens, and (the source of all spam:) businesspeople. Usenet got a lot more noise and very little more signal.*
* I'm not saying that we shouldn't have opened-up the Internet, just that that decision had some negative consequences in addition to its positive consequences.
Re:Bull (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bull (Score:3, Insightful)
All the cruft on Usenet doesn't bother me too much. If I'm searching for specific info on groups.google.com, I never see most of the junk. If I'm just "channel surfing" to see if anybody has any interesting thoughts,
Re:Bull (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, its bigger than even given that average daily traffic has grown from 4.6GB in 1996, to 2TB today! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet [wikipedia.org])
Why lower prices? (Score:3, Insightful)
Usenet requires tons of bandwidth and storage, and serving it needs decent server hardware. I'm not sure anyone I know still uses it.
What will the ISP do with thr money saved? Because of competition, they'll spend it on service quality improvements for services their customers do use. If they pocketed it, they'd lose business.
Being an ISP today means giving the user the most bandwidth, the least downtime and the cheapest cost. Value added services such as e-mail accounts, web home, Usenet and even security utilities is better served by third parties.
Competition in pricing requires some minority features to go bu-bye.
Re:Why lower prices? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why lower prices? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bandwidth and processing power requirements are quite moderate.
We do that - the only real cost is the part of the work time of a reaosnable qualified Usenet admin to run that. And with a commercial package like dnews, even that is not that huge.
Re:Why lower prices? (Score:4, Informative)
Then you obviously don't know anyone worth knowing.
Being an ISP today means giving the user the most bandwidth, the least downtime and the cheapest cost. Value added services such as e-mail accounts, web home, Usenet and even security utilities is better served by third parties.
News flash: your ISP probably ALREADY (as I'm sure did Rogers) outsources your usenet access. Go ahead: ping news.myisp.com and see where it ACTUALLY goes. They buy a corporate subscription that is nowhere NEAR the cost of maintianing their own usenet servers.
Re:Why lower prices? (Score:2)
Exactly. And the vast majority of Usenet content is spam, porn, and warez. Why bother with it for the small fraction of users who would use it? A commercial usenet service is just the ticket for those who do want it.
A few years ago I worked at an ISP and we decided not to offer usenet for exactly this reason. Very, very few customers complained.
Re:Why lower prices? (Score:2)
My ISP (Comcast) farms out their Usenet service (to giganews, I think). I use my Comcast user account and password to access the news server.
Re:Why lower prices? (Score:2)
it requires a different password you get via email.
Re:Why lower prices? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the American trend was for the CEO to pocket half and spend the other half on mindless advertising to further brainwash customers that they are in fact better than their competitors.
I'm not sure about your second point either. Most ISPs just seem to want to brainwash the customer in to thinking they are getting a ton of bandwidth. THE ISPs real plot is to sell the user as many services as possible for a monthless fee... (Such as "wireless" APs, "pop-up blockers", and the rest of the host of items that they charge monthly fees for fixed-cost items). Of course, these are considered "Value-Added" because they add value to shareholders, not to the customer.
So, please don't try to deceive yourself or other readers about what is really happening. This ISP is just trying to find a way to increase their profits... The customer will not benefit from the removal of usenet service.
Frankly, I'm still amazed that home cable/DSL users are still getting their own IP address... I figured long ago, they would have put everyone on a private network and used NAT and/or WWW proxies for access... Despite the financial cost, I suspect there are technical motovations for not doing this. (Such as scalability).
Re:Why lower prices? (Score:3, Insightful)
If it weren't for the cable/DSL monopolies in most areas, I would think there would be a great market for just bandwidth for a minimum price. The Southwest Ai
Re:Why lower prices? (Score:5, Insightful)
This might have happened if Rogers weren't a monopoly in its market. In my area, DSL has much lower coverage and Rogers is the only choice for high-speed Internet.
Yes, they will pocket the money and will not lose business. In fact, they have just increased their rates from 45 to 50 CAD/month for their 5Mbit service.
Re:Why lower prices? (Score:3, Funny)
bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahaha
ok ok im good now its just that- AHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
hahahahahahahahahahahaha
oh mercy.. that was a good one.
"I'm not sure anyone I know still uses it."
with this statement i can discern the following facts:
1) you have n00b friends
2) you are also probaly a n00b
3) you dislike porn, warez, high quality hdtv rips, et
I agree (Score:2)
I've received phone calls, letter mail and calls from the police [the last joe-job against me had kiddie porn in it]. While it hasn't been seriously traumatic it is enough of a nusiance.
However, the ideal solution would be a usenet like service where your headers aren't arbitrary [e.g. IPs are listed in the head
Re:I agree (Score:2)
So that makes it kind of like SMTP then. Why aren't we cancelling everyone's Email access?
Re:I agree (Score:2)
I *AM* for improvements in mail as well. Hashcash is one thing I'm all for. It can be added to the existing framework *without* changing the servers AT ALL only the clients [and even then it woul
Re:I agree (Score:2)
Tom
Re:I agree (Score:2, Informative)
joe-job: n., vt.
A spam run forged to appear as though it came from an innocent party, who is then generally flooded by the bounces; or, the act of performing such a run. The original incident is described
Re:I agree (Score:2)
Point is, if someone is depraved enough to spam 4000 usenet groups in your name it won't take too long to sort out who you are. And that's just the point, if you're just going to a group as a pseudonym and not offering anything then what's the point? If usenet is only full of questions why read it?
I stopped posting in usenet [two weeks sober yesterday] and gene
Is this news? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to lament the passing of net tech, pick something geeky sexy like Gopher [wikipedia.org]! It's been a long time since anybody cared about USENET, especially since the advent of web forums and competent WWW searching. Rest in peace, USENET. We'd mis
Re:Is this news? (Score:2)
$sys$ How about alt.binaries.*?
You're quite right, USENET is entirely useless and wholly devoid of any material of interest.
insert head up ass (Score:5, Insightful)
many useful usenet groups with reasonable signal and not much spam.
Re:insert head up ass (Score:2)
The best solution I think is a properly moderated email list. It's hard to joe-job or spam and the content is on-topic.
Try reading sci.crypt or comp.compression for two weeks. Most of the posts are of
Problems are over-hyped (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet it's still easier to find informed technical help on many subjects, or to compare notes with peers, via Usenet than via any of the wannabe web forums full of people with too many letters on their CV and too many buzzwords in their brain. It's also one of the best places to find interesting discussion on many hobbies. Contrary to apparent popular opinion, not all of Usenet is binaries groups where people can rip material illegally if P2P is too hard for them to understand. Also contrary to apparent popular opinion, it is possible not to read all the virus/spyware/whatever posts!
Re:Problems are over-hyped (Score:4, Insightful)
Vs. Log in to multiple websites (like I think bullshit sessions are important enough to have a username and password for each), wade through pages of advertisements and flashing icons, for a few snippets of signal.
Give me the text only Usenet groups any day.
And before anyone points out the obvious, I consider Slashdot to be a different animal due to the article submission and moderation mechanisms.
*higher* signal-to-noise (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, usenet represents the safe, traditionalistic, slow-moving side of the internet. It's mostly populated by older people who know each other.
Re:*higher* signal-to-noise (Score:2)
Ashamed to say (Score:3, Informative)
I've been using GoogleGroups quite extensively for my (albeit read only) access for some time. (While I used to used DejaNews, that was mostly for the archives. I think that Google killed off a lot of the usefullness of the archives, but it's still nice that it's searchable.)
I guess I have used some private NNTP services, now that I think on it. But in gener
Re:*higher* signal-to-noise (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:*higher* signal-to-noise (Score:3, Interesting)
Imminent Death of Usenet Predicted.. Film at 11! (Score:2)
Re:Imminent Death of Usenet Predicted.. Film at 11 (Score:3, Interesting)
And yet this is evidence that it's actually happening.
Just because predictions sometimes start becoming reality doesn't mean that the actual events aren't news, or of interest.
What I'd do... (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, they can't really advertise Usenet as a feature to users who aren't familiar with it. It's too complicated, and too much of a sewer nowadays.
Spammers just suck. They showed up in this environment (that admittedly was already buckling under the load of new users), left it a smoking ruin and moved on. How much money could they even have made?
With automation? (Score:3, Insightful)
They're not alone (Score:4, Insightful)
comp.lang.misc (Score:2)
I mean Godzilla, PurlGurl, and all it's other names. That whole Abigail thingy.
USENET rocks like Gilbralter.
Besides where else can you download the entire Howard Stern Show without commercials?
useless? (Score:5, Insightful)
[it's full of thugs, imbeciles, etc...] "All this is true mostly of the Alt newsgroups, which were designed to have few inhibitions. Other groups, such as Comp, Sci, Soc and Humanities, fare much better, largely because they can be moderated. They contain lots of valuable stuff.
But the rise in the signal-to-noise ratio among the Alt groups has made combing through the chatter a tedious process. So useless has Usenet's reputation become..." [blah, blah, blah]
Is he talking about alt. groups or not? Why make a distinction and then act like usenet is nothing but alt.* ? Does he think it's like an ocean and you have to wade through all the alt groups to get to the moderated ones?
I read usenet groups pretty much every day. I've never gotten a virus from usenet but then I don't download binaries, either.
For instance: I like reading alt.horror for the goofy posts and pointers to movies I've never heard of. There are hundreds of posts there every day. Now I am a fan of Takashi Miike and Dario Argento, two great directors I'd never have heard of otherwise.
When I'm stumped on a technical problem, whether computer or automobile related, and web searching doesn't help, often I can find the problem already solved on usenet. Or I can find a group to post to and get help.
Re:useless? (Score:3, Informative)
Strictly speaking, "Usenet" doesn't include the alt.* hierarchy at all. The term classically refers to the "Big Seven" hierarchies for newsgroups: comp.*, sci.*, misc.*, rec.*, soc.*, talk.*, and news.* (with humanities.* being an eighth and recent addition).
A more appropriate term for the full set of hierarchies, including alt.*, k12.*, and all the other arbitrary designations, would be simply "ne
IRC (Score:2)
What really killed Usenet for me... (Score:2)
It got to the point where it simply wasn't fun because as the more experienced people were pushed away the groups were left with arrogant people w
First rule of usenet.... (Score:4, Funny)
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I must admit I laughed at his description of a sullied usenet:
"Usenet eventually gained a reputation as a refuge for pre-civilized thugs with a penchant for imbecile grammar and vicious talk. The antics of juveniles and troubled people started scaring off others..."
Sounds like the state of most chat rooms today.
Uh... Yeah. (Score:2)
Uhh. yeah. Why do you think it's so popular?
Not Unlike WWW? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not like the web supported internet at all right? Web pages offer defenses against virus, spammers, criminals, cheats, liars and swindlers! All web pages offer clear and concise information! You can never catch a virus from the web! And the web is chalk full of explicit stuff?
Err...wait, what are they complaining about again that they want to get rid of Web..er..I mean Usenet? It seems to me both are different implementations that exhibit the same problems. If one wants to complain that offering Usenet is an expensive service they can no longer offer at cost that is one thing. It is something silly to suggest that Usenet has to be sacked because it offers the same problems the Internet in general features.
Bump (Score:2)
2 cents,
Queen B
PS: Mods, please mod the parent up!
alt.regrettable.step.is.is.is (Score:5, Funny)
alt.fading.usenet.dwindles.declines.ain't-what-it
alt.remote.past.!dead.!gone.!forgotten
alt.sacred.format.preserve.continue.cherish
alt.noble.cry.resound.ring.echo:
"alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb.verb!"
Some newsgroups are moderated (Score:2)
Usenet is deeply flawed. Its democratic dream offers no defence against viruses, spammers, criminals, hucksters or deranged individuals. Rummaging about in Usenet is like slumming through the tenderloin district during the plague years -- your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
While that's close to the case when it comes to some unmoderated newsgroups, some newsgroups are m
The good old days (Score:3, Interesting)
I first used USENET in 1985 and I was frankly astounded. It was like having a club, but instead of being local it was world-wide. The topics were so numerous and the opinions so wide-ranging. I began to think it would be the start of some kind of global democracy, where everybody got to have a say.
But even then the signs were there. My first introduction to a flame-war was quite unintentional for a neophyte, but I quickly learned this was more like the Wild West than High Tech. You could have your fair share on intelligent discourse but there were many traps for the unwary and pretty soon you were being bombarded from all sides. It wasn't spam back then, but it was the idea. You learned to give out minimal information and never gave out your email address to anyone you didn't think you could trust.
The came the Web and suddenly everyone and his uncle who could afford an Internet connection could join in and USENET lost its quiet charm. Anyone who used it for a while got annoyed at the same questions being asked 1000's of times and the FAQs became a joke because no newbie would bother reading them. Sanity only seemed to be maintained in the moderated groups, but it was lawless fun in the alt.* groups. Pretty soon they were being overrun by the first generation of spammers and at that point I got out.
They say you can't go home again. True, but it seems the spirit of USENET lives on anyway, in places like Slashdot, and the Internet as a whole. When you think about, blogging is nothing more than having your own moderated newsgroup, and any website can become a focal point for discussion and dissemination of information to the like-minded. USENET is far from dead, but its legacy is well established, and a few of us hope that its spirit never truly dies.
free forums (Score:4, Insightful)
Bandwidth is not an issue for a large ISP. Having a local server reduces the need for bandwidth, if your users use the local server. Of course if you don't inform new users anything about the service, much less provide client software or a web client, of course average folks will never find out about it.
This is about control, not cost. Yahoo forums are controlled by Yahoo and generate Yahoo ad revenue. Yahoo posts won't be in Google groups. This is about Yahoo, the other comments are excuses.
No defence...and no control either (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheers,
Ian
os.comp.unix (Score:2)
I use Usenet Heavily (Score:3, Interesting)
The only problem with Usenet is that unless the newsgroup is a niche group like alt.comp.freeware or a thoroughly technical group, or a moderated newsgroup, it will be inundated with porn and other spam shortly. But even some of the babe newsgroups are easily usable. If somebody bothered to put a spam filter on newsgroups, most of the spam could be eliminated, but that'll never happen.
Viruses? Never seen one in three years. I've seen a handful of posts from people who have said, "Don't download this, it's a virus." That's it.
Other problems? Same as in real life - morons are everywhere. Deal with it (we Transhumans are going to in due time.)
The ISP is simply lying and trying to save a couple bucks. I would expect SBC to follow suit, since their Usenet service is crappy to begin with - their retention sucks. I'm convinced they deliberately damage the binary newsgroups because their completion rate is hideous in almost all of them - virtually NO multipart binary - at least if it's an MP3 or other media - gets through. Fortunately a lot of ebooks do get through. I've been meaning to get a subscription to a real Usenet service for some time.
In short, there's nothing seriously wrong with Usenet that a spam filter wouldn't solve, but using your ISP to access it is not the best idea.
With apologies to Frank Zappa: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've left off most of my Usenet usage, basically because websites/forums/blogs give me most of what I was looking for information-wise, and Slashdot gives me all the geek twaddle I need. I have horded a few megs of more amusing Usenet archives (alt.sysadmin.recovery and the works of Kibo spring instantly to mind), just to save for reminiscence when I'm in the old geek's home. But Usenet has definitely waned in usefulness compared to other internet resources, and it *is* crawling with spam, anyway. (That virus business is bogus; Usenet's safer than IRC. And as for obscene sexual propositions...it's the net. What do expect, a cathedral?)
I will say this, I still turn to Usenet if I can't find information on a subject *anywhere* else: it'll be there.
Author a clueless Windows user? (Score:4, Insightful)
The author must be using Windows in the "Stupid Mode", without engaging his brain. Apparently he has never heard of "Kill files" and other blocking techniques to eliminate the trash from the UseNet data stream. One would get the impression that when he gets into his car he finds it impossible to avoid the "tenderloin" of San Francisco because he doesn't know how to steer away from that area. He probably stops for every "Why lie, I need money for booze" bum standing at the entrances to Walmart.
Just like using email, one learns that messages from unknown senders, which get by spam blockers, are never opened. And when one is curiously impulsed to open an suspecious email they always have their anti-virus program engaged to scan it first. Duh!
Because I program for a living I use UseNet at work via my W2K box to access other coders using the tools I'm using, and I've never had a problem. I never open msgs that offer "enhancement" products, pharms, or rollex watches, either. For the last eight years I've used Linux, dual booting at work and solely at home. When running Linux I've NEVER encountered any malware which was effective. I've installed Linux anti-virus programs, like f-prot, to scan my NTFS filesystem while running Linux just to be sure there aren't bugs which Norton hasn't found.
What really burns me is that the author is just like the idiots who passed the "Patriot" Act. This guy thinks that curtailing freedom is the only way to guarantee safety. If there is no safety behind prison bars what makes him think that walling off society with "politically correct" bars will work any better?
isnt Google Groups biggest and cheapest usenet? (Score:3, Informative)
The interface is a little kludgey.
It limits 20 posts per six hour period. A Google post embeds your IP number so it is not truly anonymous.
The same thing could be said about e-mail (Score:3, Insightful)
Would any ISP use this as an excuse to turn off email for all customers? Of course not; the thought alone is ridiculous, and I think that shows that they're just looking for a convenient scapegoat. I'm not sure what the real reason could be, but it's probably money, in one way or another - turning off news servers means less bandwidth consumption, less hardware needed at the ISP, less administration overhead (i.e., less administrators), and so on.
Given that, and also given that most people don't use seem to Usenet anymore (at least not in the traditional form, especially since web-based services like Google Groups became available), I can understand their decision to stop offering Usenet, but I wish they'd at least be honest about why they're doing so.
Re:The same thing could be said about e-mail (Score:3, Funny)
Viri and invitations to "unspeakable" sexual acts (exactly what is "unspeakable", anyway?
Anything that makes speech impossible while doing it?
Nothing wrong with usenet... (Score:3, Informative)
I use usenet on an almost daily basis. For programming related help, it's about the best source. In various newsgroups I can post questions and often get answers within an hour. That's far better than customer support with most software vendors, and I get it for a very low fixed monthly cost.
I know there are lots of newsgroups infested with junk, but there are also a great number of very useful groups. It doesn't take a lot of effort to separate the wheat from the chaffe and the value of the content, at least for what I'm looking for, is far above the price I pay.
Granted, not everyone will find what they want in usenet, but for some things, it's about the best source on the net.
Re:REALLY Old News (Score:4, Funny)
Indeed, Slashdot seems to be losing its positions in the dupe posting market fast...
Re:REALLY Old News (Score:5, Funny)
Woah! Digg already duped this article twice! That's it Slashdot, I'm switching!
Re:Oh come on (Score:5, Funny)
In other news today, the Atlantic ocean is rather wet, the Great Attractor is rather far away, and the Pope is rather religious.
I thought the creationist mob were blockheaded... then I went to sci.physics and met the relativity deniers. Wow.
Re:Oh come on (Score:3, Funny)
/ Summon Bevets.
Re:Oh come on (Score:3, Insightful)
Relativity does fail at the quantum level
That is why we don't have a Unified Theory yet. Actually it is good to question everything in science. At one time the very idea of Quantum physics was where considered well impossible.
Re:Oh come on (Score:4, Interesting)
Both of whom are rather eclipsed by what I've come to call the "devolutionists", that is, the anti-learning, book-burning, everything-bashing clods, a few of whom infest /. Devolutionists (wait, it'll catch on) insist that there should be NO learning, that everything is TOO hard (no, you can't make it easier: those breath strips that dissolve on your toungue are too hard.), and that I'm a bad person just because I LEARNED and believe that OTHERS CAN LEARN, TOO. Devolutionists resent all advancement of the human race since the Dark Ages, and can't wait to get back so they can curl up in their safe little manure pile. No kidding!
Re:Overstates the case... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sorry to hear this. (Score:5, Funny)
What exactly are "pirate stimulating late-night conversations?" and why would I want to have them?
Re:Sorry to hear this. (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose like, "Yarrr, matey, before we go sleep it off in our racks, pass me that bottle of rum and I'll tell ye o' the time we caught this fat merchant freighter off the coast, yarr..."
Re:Sorry to hear this. (Score:5, Funny)
On USENET, there is absolutely zero chance that someone would have failed to quote "Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash." This, of course, would be followed with an off topic conversation twenty threads long about whether Churchill ever said such a thing or not, finally ended when the entire thread degenerates to a discussion of Nazi's.
On Slashdot, someone will backhandedly mention rum, sodomy and lashes, and from there we'll just drift off-topic three threads deep, moderators slamming us with "Offtopic" all the way while we slowly degenerate to a fascinating treatease on totalitarian regimes circa 1940.
Frankly, I'm much more proud of my Slashdot contributions. If it weren't for bad karma, I'd have no karma at all!
- Zarq
Re:Sorry to hear this. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sorry to hear this. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Coding resource (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. As ISPs drop usenet services, programmers will stop using the Usenet to ask and answer questions. Deja will not have any new info and it will become less valuable as a coding resource over time if people stop posting to Usenet.
'Course, this is but one of many requiems for Usenet. Remember when AOL installed their Usenet gateway? That was the end of Usenet too. As long as good ISPs don't