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Comment UUCP Mailnet (Score 1) 635

I still have several machines that interchange mail with each other and the Internet via uucp mailnet. I poll an ISP twice an hour (or use an alias to force a poll if i don't want the mail to wait.)

I even check my personal mailbox on that domain every couple months. (Every three weeks or so I get another offer to buy my domain name, which has been around since the list of machines that exchanged email fit on three typeset pages.) But you wouldn't BELIEVE the amount of spam that accumulates on an account that has been around since before the first mass mail-merge spam scripts were offerd for sale. (I think I still have a saved copy of that original piece of spam - advertising spam software.) The spammers STILL include that address in their mailing lists.

If the NSA or ISIS ever kills the connected Internet, UUCP mailnet will still work, merrily bucket-brigading email among the hadnful of machines whose mail transfer agents still interconnect by routes that don't just hand the mail off to an Internet hop.

Also: Back when we ran mailing lists over UUCP, the polling delay limited the deluge of mail when someone on the list accidentally forwarded his mail to the list. This gave us time to catch it manually and suspend the account before everybody was buried in repeated messages. B-)

Comment Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping. (Score 1) 635

vi for me, too.

Not that I have anything against emacs. But I bought my first unix computer in the 80s, and it only had two megabytes of RAM and used an early member of the 68xxx series that couldn't do demand paging to act like it had more. This was too little to compile and run emacs.

After about three years of heavy bulletin-board participation I had the vi commands "wired into my brainstem". I tried emacs several times over the years and each time discovered that certain common things I did (and still do) with vi took about twice as many keystrokes.

Once I tried using its vi emulation mode - only to discover that it (the version at the time) had TWO of them, in true emacs kitchen sink style, and each had different deltas from getting the vi commands right. With only one I might have gone on to use it, and learn the deltas, while edging into native commands. But with two, and no obvious selection, I didn't bother.

Nowadays I use vim, which is close enough. (Especially if you tell it to act like vi in a couple important places.)

Comment Re:Obama's Propaganda (Score 1) 848

It hasn't. This latest invasion by Russia is of interest to all free countries in the world. Putin has provoked that start of WW3, and we can forget for now this "economic crisis" which pales into insignificance compared to this Russian aggression. And to get ourselves completely off Russian gas is going to need some new tech otherwise we are going to suffer a lot of economic pain.

Phillip.

Comment Re:Putin: (Score 5, Informative) 848

Wow that is some pretty powerful Russian propaganda you have been drinking there. Calling normal peaceful Ukranians "fascists"? Check. Calling it a "violent overthrow" despite it not being one? Check. Calling the government "ultra nationalist"? Check. Blaming the US despite them having nothing to do with anything? Check. Russians have a "right to use force"? Check.

Thanks for popping in Putin, but your deluded views aren't welcome here.

Phillip.

Comment Re:Putin: "Your move, West" (Score 1) 848

You've been listening to too much Russian propaganda. A peaceful revolution kicked out a corrupt Russian puppet president in Ukraine (you notice Yanakovich has gone to live with his mate Putin in Russia?). Ukraine wanted to build strong trade links with Europe and Russia. Russia wanted Ukraine to itself. Now Putin has had a tantrum and has vowed to destroy Ukraine.

Of course the West wants peace. However when a crazed dictator starts invading European countries then you need to sit up and take notice. This is the 3rd time he has invaded Europe recently.

Phillip.

Comment Re:Why we wouldnt want to get involved here (Score 1, Insightful) 848

Putin's first instinct is to go to war. He has invaded Ukraine once and gotten away with it. He is invading a second time. Next will be Moldova. Then Georgia. Then Latvia. Then the rest of Europe until it is under Putin's rule. Better to stop him on his doorstep, rather than wait until he is parading himself through Paris.

Phillip.

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