Slightly OT: News Reader

[[email protected]]

On Apr 8, 6:50 am, [email protected] (Roger Merriman) wrote:
> Andrew Price <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:26:43 +0100, Paul Boyd <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> > >At the moment I'm deleting anything from googlegroups or gmail (with a
> > >few other filters).  Sorry if anyone genuine is using them, but the
> > >spammers are making your choice unusable!  

> > Indeed - the risk of their contributions no longer being read is
> > something posters who insist on using the Google interface, instead of
> > a proper NNTP newsreader, should bear in mind.

I guess no one will see this but... I post through googlegroups
because the local firewall won't let the nntp protocol through. Or at
least I haven't found a newsreader that lets me point it at the proxy
- I use Opera as a browser which is much better at proxies than
Firefox; nntp is the only significant omission from its proxy support
list

I've spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to find a way round
this without success so far. I've now got to the stage of considering
writing my own newsreader to get round the problem.

I can understand why people are dumping googlegrops though. The trolls
have never bothered me, I find them easy to ignore, but the spam has
recently got ridiculous.

> true, this said most newbies etc use it, which is also why it's the
> spammers tool of choice.

I was using usenet when t'web wasn't even a gleam in Tim B-L's eye,
and Torvalds was still at school. Can't remember the name of the
newsreader, probably what ever came with BSD. Bit galling to be lumped
with the newbies.

Rob

 

[Dan Gregory]

[email protected] wrote:

> I guess no one will see this but...
it's okay T'bird, News international, & a few filters seems to be
stopping me getting the **** so I can read your posts

 

[[email protected]]

On Apr 8, 4:16 pm, Dan Gregory
<[email protected]> wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
> > I guess no one will see this but...
>
> it's okay T'bird, News international, & a few filters seems to be
> stopping me getting the **** so I can read your posts

It's nice to know I'm not talking to myself

Rob

 

[David Damerell]

Quoting <[email protected]>:
>I guess no one will see this but... I post through googlegroups
>because the local firewall won't let the nntp protocol through. Or at
>least I haven't found a newsreader that lets me point it at the proxy
>I've spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to find a way round
>this without success so far. I've now got to the stage of considering
>writing my own newsreader to get round the problem.

Why not write a stub daemon that just connects to the proxy and listens on
119 locally?
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> Kill the tomato!
Today is Second Epithumia, April - a weekend.

 

[[email protected]]

On Apr 8, 4:43 pm, David Damerell <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Quoting   <[email protected]>:
>
> >I guess no one will see this but... I post through googlegroups
> >because the local firewall won't let the nntp protocol through. Or at
> >least I haven't found a newsreader that lets me point it at the proxy
> >I've spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to find a way round
> >this without success so far. I've now got to the stage of considering
> >writing my own newsreader to get round the problem.
>
> Why not write a stub daemon that just connects to the proxy and listens on
> 119 locally?

That was about my third idea, and probably the simplest, although I
don't know if the proxy will pass on the nntp requests. Doesn't sound
too hard, but I'd have a fairly steep learning curve to get back in to
that kind of programming.

Rob

 

[Paul Boyd]

[email protected] said the following on 08/04/2008 16:22:

> It's nice to know I'm not talking to myself

Ah - there's googlemail as well!!! I'm not blocking that yet (but
neither does it seem to be a problem....)

Who said that??

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

 

[Paul Boyd]

[email protected] said the following on 08/04/2008 16:10:

> I was using usenet when t'web wasn't even a gleam in Tim B-L's eye,
> and Torvalds was still at school. Can't remember the name of the
> newsreader, probably what ever came with BSD.

A fair while then! I've only been using it since the late 1980s/early
1990s. Remember when AOL and Compuserve first appeared on the scene???
It's never been the same since :-(

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

 

[Nigel Cliffe]

Andrew Price wrote:
> On Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:26:43 +0100, Paul Boyd <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> At the moment I'm deleting anything from googlegroups or gmail (with
>> a few other filters). Sorry if anyone genuine is using them, but the
>> spammers are making your choice unusable!
>
> Indeed - the risk of their contributions no longer being read is
> something posters who insist on using the Google interface, instead of
> a proper NNTP newsreader, should bear in mind.

I find that deleting googlegroups origin is unnecessary; the simple "three
cross posts" rule seems to keep most of the garbage out from a reasonably
clean news feed (ie not your regular ISP rubbish).

Beyond that is the decision to kill any regular trolls who frequent a few
groups.



- Nigel

--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/

 

[Mark T]

Rob Morley writtificated

>> You can have too much of something without it being unpleasant. Ice
>> cream, beer and pies spring to mind.
>
> If it's not unpleasant (and doesn't have unpleasant consequences) then
> it's not too much.

Example A:

Too much beer will put me over the limit for driving. I will have to have
a pleasant walk home, or let the wife drive. Neither option is unpleasant.

Too much of something, but not umpleasant. Two or three pints of beer is
quite nice. And a couple of pies.

>> That said, *way* too much of any
>> of those and the effects can be very unpleasant indeed.
>>
> That's not "way too much", it's just too much.

What's not way too much?

Going back to the beer example, two pints is too much as I'll have to walk
home. Fifteen pints is *way* too much as I'll be feeling very very ill.

 

[Rob Morley]

In article <[email protected]>, Mark T
pleasegivegenerously@warmail*turn_up_the_heat_to_reply*.com.invalid
says...
> Rob Morley writtificated
>
> >> You can have too much of something without it being unpleasant. Ice
> >> cream, beer and pies spring to mind.
> >
> > If it's not unpleasant (and doesn't have unpleasant consequences) then
> > it's not too much.
>
> Example A:
>
> Too much beer will put me over the limit for driving. I will have to have
> a pleasant walk home, or let the wife drive. Neither option is unpleasant.
>
> Too much of something, but not umpleasant.

Only too much if you need to drive - you don't need to drive so it's not
too much.

> Two or three pints of beer is quite nice. And a couple of pies.
>
> >> That said, *way* too much of any
> >> of those and the effects can be very unpleasant indeed.
> >>
> > That's not "way too much", it's just too much.
>
> What's not way too much?

Unpleasant side effects due to overindulgence.
>
> Going back to the beer example, two pints is too much as I'll have to walk
> home. Fifteen pints is *way* too much as I'll be feeling very very ill.
>
But you said walking home is pleasant, so it's not too much beer. If
you drove and got nicked for DUI or the weather was ****, then it would
be unpleasant, just as if you were a boxer or a jockey then that extra
pie might be a real problem.

 

[Mark T]

Rob Morley writtificated

> But you said walking home is pleasant, so it's not too much beer. If
> you drove and got nicked for DUI or the weather was ****, then it
> would be unpleasant, just as if you were a boxer or a jockey then that
> extra pie might be a real problem.

Walking home might be pleasant, but getting the car back in the morning
would likely be inconvenient. Too much beer, but not unpleasant.

I'm kinda enjoying this.

 

[Alan Braggins]

In article <[email protected]>, Mark T wrote:
>Rob Morley writtificated
>
>>> You can have too much of something without it being unpleasant. Ice
>>> cream, beer and pies spring to mind.
>>
>> If it's not unpleasant (and doesn't have unpleasant consequences) then
>> it's not too much.

The "consequences" is important though. You can find eating lots of beer,
pies, and ice cream extremely pleasant at the time for years, and find out
it was "too much" when your health is eventually affected later.


>Example A:
>Too much beer will put me over the limit for driving. I will have to have
>a pleasant walk home, or let the wife drive. Neither option is unpleasant.

If a walk home after a few pints is pleasant, then a few pints isn't too
much beer to walk home after. If it's too much beer _to drive_, the test
should be are there unpleasant consequences to having that much beer _and
driving_.

(Which suggests the real test should be does the _risk_ of unpleasant
consequences go up. Alternatively, you could say that if you did get
home without accident and without being stopped by the police then with
hindsight, it wasn't too much beer to drive on that occasion, but that's
not very helpful.)

 

[Mark T]

Alan Braggins writtificated

> If a walk home after a few pints is pleasant, then a few pints isn't
> too much beer to walk home after. If it's too much beer _to drive_,
> the test should be are there unpleasant consequences to having that
> much beer _and driving_.

This whole idea of 'too much' of something not having to be unpleasant is
causing problems isn't it.

How's about:

There is too much water in the bucket. I cannot lift it.