Google Groups & Usenet

[Brian M. Scott]

For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.

Brian

[Moriarty]

I posted something in the RIP John Christopher thread yesterday and
got a response.

Please, can any non-GG person out there let me know if you get this.

-Moriarty

[Robert Carnegie]

I suppose we'll just have to talk amongst ourselves then. :-)

Actually, maybe don't, 'cause I think last time it stopped, when it
unstuck afterwards, everything went through. In spurts, maybe.

> > <http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.arts.sf.written/>
> > is read-only, skips surprisingly many posts apparently on grounds
of
> > indecent language, and takes a ridiculously[*] long time to
unfreeze
> > after opening one month's list of articles in Internet Explorer
8,
> > ymmv (okay in Opera, likewise ymmv). And then a long time again
if you
> > prefer to switch from tree view to strict date-time order. And
I
> > don't know how frequently it is updated. Still, it keeps a
fellow
> > (begging the question) sane.

But I think the long outage last July was that Usenet wasn't getting
into Google Groups, whereas this is the other way around. My own last
communication in rasfw this time appears to be on
Thu, 2 Feb 2012 09:32:12 -0800 (PST)

[Andrew Plotkin]

Could be their posting process has just fallen over again. This
happened a few months ago, although that time it was a bi-directional
failure. After a few days they fixed it (without comment).

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*

[Suzanne Blom]

This does explain why there's so little traffic here all of
a sudden.

[David Duffy]

In rec.arts.sf.written Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
> In rec.arts.sf.written, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.

> Could be their posting process has just fallen over again. This
> happened a few months ago, although that time it was a bi-directional
> failure. After a few days they fixed it (without comment).

I think it's my fault. I complained to them about spam on comp.lang.fortran.

[Taki Kogoma]

On 2012-02-06, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu>
allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:

And the downside of this is...?

--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:59:50 -0600, Taki Kogoma
<qu...@tenma.swcp.com> wrote in
<news:slrnjj0qbm...@tenma.swcp.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:

> On 2012-02-06, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu>
> allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:

>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.

> And the downside of this is...?

There are some desirable posters who use GG.

Brian

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <slrnjj0qbm...@tenma.swcp.com>,

Taki Kogoma <qu...@tenma.swcp.com> wrote:
>On 2012-02-06, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu>
>allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>
>And the downside of this is...?

The downside is that a lot of people have been posting to USENET
via GG because they no longer have any other connection to
USENET. A great many ISPs seem to've simply assumed, "Oh, well,
USENET is a thing of the past, everybody and his cousin Fred is
on Facebook now," and closed it off.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.
Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Taki Kogoma <qu...@tenma.swcp.com> wrote in

news:slrnjj0qbm...@tenma.swcp.com:

> On 2012-02-06, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu>
> allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>
> And the downside of this is...?
>

Who said anything about a down side? I thought he was trying to
organize a party.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Andrew Plotkin]

In rec.arts.sf.written, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

I noted Ahasuerus and Cryptoengineer at first glance, for example.

There's a longer-term question of whether the group gets any newcomers
at all, in the future. I realize it's mostly a dead issue either way.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 00:22:24 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Plotkin
<erky...@eblong.com> wrote in
<news:jgpqs0$3no$1...@reader1.panix.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:

> In rec.arts.sf.written, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>> On Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:59:50 -0600, Taki Kogoma
>> <qu...@tenma.swcp.com> wrote in
>> <news:slrnjj0qbm...@tenma.swcp.com> in
>> rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:

>>> On 2012-02-06, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu>
>>> allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:

>>>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>>>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>>>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>>>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>>>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>>>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.

>>> And the downside of this is...?

>> There are some desirable posters who use GG.

> I noted Ahasuerus and Cryptoengineer at first glance, for
> example.

And William Hyde and tphile2, I believe.

> There's a longer-term question of whether the group gets
> any newcomers at all, in the future. I realize it's
> mostly a dead issue either way.

True, sadly.

Brian

[erilar]

In article <fo1ua2d4tfrt.13aot6t5lp7nq$.d...@40tude.net>,

"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

Is anyone surprised by the latter?

--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist

[erilar]

In article <jgpihn$56$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:

> In rec.arts.sf.written, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> > For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
> > that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
> > forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
> > seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
> > by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
> > Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>
> Could be their posting process has just fallen over again. This
> happened a few months ago, although that time it was a bi-directional
> failure. After a few days they fixed it (without comment).

Considering how they messed up googlemaps well over a year ago and never
fixed it despite hundreds of complaints, it could actually be a similar
case.

--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist

[Lynn McGuire]

On 2/6/2012 6:09 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article<slrnjj0qbm...@tenma.swcp.com>,
> Taki Kogoma<qu...@tenma.swcp.com> wrote:
>> On 2012-02-06, Brian M. Scott<b.s...@csuohio.edu>
>> allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
>>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>>
>> And the downside of this is...?
>
> The downside is that a lot of people have been posting to USENET
> via GG because they no longer have any other connection to
> USENET. A great many ISPs seem to've simply assumed, "Oh, well,
> USENET is a thing of the past, everybody and his cousin Fred is
> on Facebook now," and closed it off.

There are many good and FREE usenet providers:
http://www.eternal-september.org/
http://aioe.org/

Lynn

[Jim Hetley]

On Feb 6, 7:09 pm, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

>
> The downside is that a lot of people have been posting to USENET
> via GG because they no longer have any other connection to
> USENET.  A great many ISPs seem to've simply assumed, "Oh, well,
> USENET is a thing of the past, everybody and his cousin Fred is
> on Facebook now," and closed it off.
>

*raises hand*

Of course, whether I contribute anything worth reading would be a
separate question . . .

Jim
May 2012 -- POWERS, by James A. Burton

[Will in New Haven]

To the dismay of several of the people who took part in the threads,
my posts continue to appear in threads on several newsgroups.

--
Will in New Haven

[Robert Carnegie]

On Feb 6, 11:59 pm, Taki Kogoma <qu...@tenma.swcp.com> wrote:
> On 2012-02-06, Brian M. Scott <b.sc...@csuohio.edu>

> allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> > For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
> > that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
> > forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG.  There
> > seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
> > by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
> > Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>
> And the downside of this is...?

Don't you get it? The people still using Usenet are cut off! Both of
them!

[Mike Beede]

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> In article <slrnjj0qbm...@tenma.swcp.com>,
> Taki Kogoma <qu...@tenma.swcp.com> wrote:
>> On 2012-02-06, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu>
>> allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
>>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>>
>> And the downside of this is...?
>
> The downside is that a lot of people have been posting to USENET
> via GG because they no longer have any other connection to
> USENET. A great many ISPs seem to've simply assumed, "Oh, well,
> USENET is a thing of the past, everybody and his cousin Fred is
> on Facebook now," and closed it off.

Reasonable assumption. Facebook is as good a substitute for USENET
as . . . well, all three comparisons I thought of were extremely rude and
I wouldn't want to lower the tone.

Anyway, I bet Google is just boned. Most of their services seem to work
great, except when they don't, and they don't seem to care a lot so
Long as search works.

Mike Beede

[Larry]

In article <jgpsms$ltl$1...@dont-email.me>, l...@winsim.com says...

And if the free servers aren't good enough for you, Giganews is only $5 a
month for 5 gigs of news. If you are into video binaries, that isn't enough,
but if you just want text you could read from now to Christmas and not go
through 5 gigs.

[Larry]

In article <drache-56FC0F....@news.eternal-september.org>,
dra...@chibardun.net.invalid says...

I had a bad feeling when Google bought out Deja News.

[Bill Swears]

On 2/6/2012 2:59 PM, Taki Kogoma wrote:
> On 2012-02-06, Brian M. Scott<b.s...@csuohio.edu>
> allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>
> And the downside of this is...?
>

Bunches of us writerly types haven't got an alternate way to review and
post. I'm not one, but it will have an impact on the even more tech
challenged.

Bill

--
Puppies - http://www.mtaonline.net/~wswears/
Opinions - http://wswears.livejournal.com/
Touristy Stuff and a resume - http://home.gci.net/~wswears/Bill's1.htm

[Dan Goodman]

On Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:37:21 -0900, Bill Swears wrote:

> On 2/6/2012 2:59 PM, Taki Kogoma wrote:
>> On 2012-02-06, Brian M. Scott<b.s...@csuohio.edu> allegedly proclaimed
>> to rec.arts.sf.written:
>>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears that as of
>>> the last few days, Google Groups is no longer forwarding to Usenet
>>> those posts made through GG. There seems to be no official
>>> confirmation, but it's been tested by folks in a number of groups: GG
>>> is still harvesting Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>>
>> And the downside of this is...?
>>
> Bunches of us writerly types haven't got an alternate way to review and
> post. I'm not one, but it will have an impact on the even more tech
> challenged.

http://eternal-september.org





--
Dan Goodman

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 22:00:24 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Plotkin
<erky...@eblong.com> wrote in
<news:jgpihn$56$1...@reader1.panix.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:

> In rec.arts.sf.written, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.

> Could be their posting process has just fallen over again. [...]

So it appears: a bunch of GG posts have just shown up.

Brian

[Kurt Busiek]

I don't read Girl Genius, and I got it.

The bottleneck seems to have opened.

kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[Carson Chittom]

I am not using Google Groups.

[Kip Williams]

I have an impression the blockage has gone. The dam seems to have burst.


Kip W

[Kip Williams]

I used to use them when they were called Mozzarella (or some homonym of
it), and their service was good, especially considering it was free.
When I had a problem and emailed tech support, I always got a good response.

I finally put down some money ($5, I think) for a chunk of Giganews,
because of problems I was having with my newsgroup access. The problems
never really went away, so it wasn't the free usenet server's fault —
but since I've paid for these gigs, I may as well use them up, which
will take approximately forever at the rate I'm going.


Kip W
rasfw

[garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk]

In rec.arts.sf.composition Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:

> There are many good and FREE usenet providers:
> http://www.eternal-september.org/
> http://aioe.org/

s/many/some/

used to be much better...
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
| Radovan Garabík http://kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk/~garabik/ |
| __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk |
-----------------------------------------------------------
Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus.
Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread!

[Michael Stemper]

I'll have to admit to being very surprised at what a large percentage
of our traffic came from GG.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

[Taki Kogoma]

On 2012-02-07, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com>
allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:

> The bottleneck seems to have opened.

Yep. I note the mini-flood of spam as evidence.

[Lynn McGuire]

On 2/6/2012 4:14 PM, David Duffy wrote:
> In rec.arts.sf.written Andrew Plotkin<erky...@eblong.com> wrote:

>> In rec.arts.sf.written, Brian M. Scott<b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>

>> Could be their posting process has just fallen over again. This
>> happened a few months ago, although that time it was a bi-directional
>> failure. After a few days they fixed it (without comment).
>

> I think it's my fault. I complained to them about spam on comp.lang.fortran.

No joke. The spam on c.l.f. is an attack on the
group if you ask me. I just deleted 450+ with
the secret thunderbird delete key function.

Lynn

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Which opens the question, WHY would anybody want to spam
comp.lang.fortran???? Weird people spamming rec.arts.sf.written
we can understand: they think we might go for their particular
brand of weirdness. Cuius contrarium verum est.

But FORTRAN? I can remember Hal trying hard to teach me some
FORTRAN when we were first acquent. But that was forty years
ago. Is FORTRAN still *used* anywhere? or is c.l.f. a place
where old tired programmers (those who remain) hang out and
reminisce?

(As for deleting stuff ... I use trn, which allows me to select
those few posts I want to read, and 'c' deletes everything else.
Disgust, like love, will find out a way.)

P.S. Hal tells me that FORTRAN is still used in standard
packages for scientific programming, which nobody wants to have
to rewrite.

[Jim Hetley]

On Feb 7, 1:08 pm, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

>
> But FORTRAN?  I can remember Hal trying hard to teach me some
> FORTRAN when we were first acquent.  But that was forty years
> ago.  Is FORTRAN still *used* anywhere? or is c.l.f. a place
> where old tired programmers (those who remain) hang out and
> reminisce?
>

Hell, I learned FORTRAN in college. In the fabulous sixties . . .

Jim

[Lynn McGuire]

Yup, I've writing fortran since the 1970s. Our
calculation engine is written in mostly fortran,
about 700K lines of same. We are getting ready to
try to convert it to C++ using a commercial tool
called for_c.

And yes, c.l.f. is the place where old fortran
programmers go to hang out and talk about Univac
1108s and such. Some people actually try to
talk about the new variants of the oopy fortrans
but they are getting fewer every day.

Lynn

[garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk]

Me too... in the nineties. And then taught it and programmed in it
until 2000, when I left the university for good.

[Wayne Throop]

: djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
: But FORTRAN? I can remember Hal trying hard to teach me some FORTRAN

: when we were first acquent. But that was forty years ago. Is FORTRAN
: still *used* anywhere? or is c.l.f. a place where old tired
: programmers (those who remain) hang out and reminisce?

"I don't know what the technical characteristics of the standard
language for scientific and engineering computation in the year 2000
will be... but I know it will be called Fortran."
--- John Backus

I don't know when he said that... but probably in the 70s. Probably
during the big standards effort that produced FORTRAN 77.
And he was pretty much right. Wikipedia sez, the most recent standard
was approved in september of 2010. And it doesn't much resemble
FORTRAN IV in terms of "technical characteristics", neither lexical
nor semantic. Well. Some. But *big* differences.

So as he implies, it doesn't much resemble the fortran of yore. But it's
still the go to language (heh heh) for science and engineering, afaik.
I suppose it may be slowly changing, and other computing methods may be
displacing it, but certainly in 2000 it was nigh-universal in scientific
computing. If you had a supercomputer, it was probably running something
in fortran.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran
Since Fortran has been in use for more than fifty years, there is a
vast body of Fortran in daily use throughout the scientific and
engineering communities. It is the primary language for some of the
most intensive supercomputing tasks, such as weather and climate
modeling, computational fluid dynamics, computational chemistry,
computational economics, animal breeding, plant breeding and
computational physics. Even today, half a century later, many of
the floating-point benchmarks to gauge the performance of new
computer processors are still written in Fortran (e.g., CFP2006, the
floating-point component of the SPEC CPU2006 benchmarks).

[Jerry Brown]

On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:21:08 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
wrote:

>: djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>: But FORTRAN? I can remember Hal trying hard to teach me some FORTRAN
>: when we were first acquent. But that was forty years ago. Is FORTRAN
>: still *used* anywhere? or is c.l.f. a place where old tired
>: programmers (those who remain) hang out and reminisce?
>
> "I don't know what the technical characteristics of the standard
> language for scientific and engineering computation in the year 2000
> will be... but I know it will be called Fortran."
> --- John Backus
>

"Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in
any language."
(from "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal")

--
Jerry Brown

A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)

[Moriarty]

On Feb 8, 1:21 am, mstem...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper)
wrote:

> In article <jgpj32$1r...@dont-email.me>, Suzanne Blom <bo...@sueblom.net> writes:
> >On 2/6/2012 2:34 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> >> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
> >> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
> >> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG.  There
> >> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
> >> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
> >> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>
> >This does explain why there's so little traffic here all of
> >a sudden.
>
> I'll have to admit to being very surprised at what a large percentage
> of our traffic came from GG.

It's like the old days when AOL introduced Usenet into their basic
package. Suddenly Usenet was awash with the great unwashed. Everyone
complained and/or laughed at the stupid AOLusers. Eventually
everything settled down and AOL users were no more (or less) likely to
be ignorant twats. Then one day AOL stopped supplying Usenet to its
customers and everyone who was left said "Gee it's quiet here isn't
it? Where did everyone go?"

The moral of the story: Google ditching Usenet would be a Bad Thing
and a further nail in the Usenet coffin.

-Moriarty (used GG for 10 years now)

[Walter Bushell]

In article <0s33j75r5g0ok5120...@4ax.com>,

True, most of us only look at the poster's host when the poster has been
shown to be an ignoranus. The intelligent posts from google we don't
check.

--
It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant
and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting. -- H. L. Mencken

[Suzanne Blom]

On 2/7/2012 8:21 AM, Michael Stemper wrote:
> In article<jgpj32$1r8$1...@dont-email.me>, Suzanne Blom<bo...@sueblom.net> writes:
>> On 2/6/2012 2:34 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
>>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.
>>>
>> This does explain why there's so little traffic here all of
>> a sudden.
>
> I'll have to admit to being very surprised at what a large percentage
> of our traffic came from GG.
>

Me, too, actually.

[Lynn McGuire]

The term is Eternal September:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Lynn

[Howard Brazee]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 18:35:30 -0800, Larry <lar...@peaksky.com> wrote:

>And if the free servers aren't good enough for you, Giganews is only $5 a
>month for 5 gigs of news. If you are into video binaries, that isn't enough,
>but if you just want text you could read from now to Christmas and not go
>through 5 gigs.

API's even cheaper. I don't have a Facebook account and doubt if I
ever will. Fidonet is as close to social media that I'm likely to
ever get.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

[michael]

On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:21:31 -0500, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Considering the sheer volume of spam that seems to originate
through GG, I would have to use an analogy for removing the blockage
more along the lines of "the enema apparently worked".

[Lynn McGuire]

And about the same level of nastiness also, especially
in c.l.f.

Lynn

[Dave Hansen]

On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:37:17 -0600, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com>
wrote:

[...]

>
>Yup, I've writing fortran since the 1970s. Our
>calculation engine is written in mostly fortran,
>about 700K lines of same. We are getting ready to
>try to convert it to C++ using a commercial tool
>called for_c.

I learned FORTRAN 77 when it was new, and I even got paid to write
(well, modify) FORTRAN programs (a simulation program used to test
avionics software as a summer intern at Honeywell). But most of my
advanced programming classes used Pascal. Those that didn't used Lisp
(ignoring classes like "introduction to assembly", "survey of
programming languages" and "discrete simulation", which tended towards
the esoteric -- Simula, SNOBOL, Prolog, etc.).

I've been a C programmer since about 1985, though. Mostly embedded
real-time systems.

>
>And yes, c.l.f. is the place where old fortran
>programmers go to hang out and talk about Univac
>1108s and such. Some people actually try to

The mainframe at school was a new Univac 1100/80 (EXEC8, @ED,U,
FIELDATA) that had replaced the 1108 the year before I started.

>talk about the new variants of the oopy fortrans
>but they are getting fewer every day.

I haven't looked at the oopy features of the new Fortrans, though I
did notice some significant differences between the FORTRAN 77 I
learned in school and whatever was installed on the Level 6 at
Honeywell. The details fade...

Regards,

-=Dave

[Larry]

In article <13286...@sheol.org>, thr...@sheol.org says...

> So as he implies, it doesn't much resemble the fortran of yore. But it's
> still the go to language (heh heh) for science and engineering, afaik.
> I suppose it may be slowly changing, and other computing methods may be
> displacing it, but certainly in 2000 it was nigh-universal in scientific
> computing. If you had a supercomputer, it was probably running something
> in fortran.

That reminds me that I believe my desktop computer has more computing power
than the world's fastest supercomputer from 20 years ago. An i7 cpu with a 2
teraflop video card that SETI@home will do computations with.

Fortran is available for Linux.

[Larry]

In article <0s33j75r5g0ok5120...@4ax.com>,
je...@jwbrown.co.uk.RemoveThisBitToReply says...

> "Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in
> any language."
> (from "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal")

It would take a lot of determination to do complex numbers in a language that
lacks native complex number support. :)

[Dave Hansen]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 18:36:07 -0800, Larry <lar...@peaksky.com> wrote:

[...]
>
>I had a bad feeling when Google bought out Deja News.

I didn't then, but I was naive.

I do now. Deja News rocked. GiggleGroups just seems to get worse and
worse.

Regards,

-=Dave

[Carson Chittom]

Larry <lar...@peaksky.com> writes:

> That reminds me that I believe my desktop computer has more computing power
> than the world's fastest supercomputer from 20 years ago.

I'm reminded of something that I saw a while ago, which said that the
Cray supercomputer used to do the CGI for _The Last Starfighter_ (the
first movie in which the effects were wholly CGI) had less computing
power than an Xbox. The *original* Xbox, not the 360.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 19:21:04 -0800, Larry
<lar...@peaksky.com> wrote in
<news:MPG.299b89fd6...@news.aioe.org> in
rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:

Sounds pretty straightforward to me.

Brian

[David DeLaney]

And now I'm trying to remember whether this pastille-lozenge-box-size My
Passport drive right over here has 500Gb or 1 Tb, without plugging it in
and checking, and I can't. It is not as big as my hand when it sits in it,
and I have SMALL hands. And in 1985 I had an Apple ][e with 80-column card...

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Feb 8, 5:35 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 19:21:04 -0800, Larry
> <lar...@peaksky.com> wrote in
> <news:MPG.299b89fd6...@news.aioe.org> in
> rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:
>

> > In article <0s33j75r5g0ok5120u67q34lv9p43t1...@4ax.com>,

> > je...@jwbrown.co.uk.RemoveThisBitToReply says...
> >> "Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write
> >> Fortran programs in any language." (from "Real
> >> Programmers Don't Use Pascal")
> > It would take a lot of determination to do complex numbers
> > in a language that lacks native complex number support.
> > :)
>
> Sounds pretty straightforward to me.

Remember, i before e except after... no, that's for something else.
(And wrong, apparently.)

[Jerry Brown]

The tendency these days is to have languages with only simple base
types built in: boolean, integer, floating point and character. More
complex types, including the actual "complex number" type, can be
found in external libraries and are built up internally from the
native types.

It's been nearly 30 years, but my memory of complex types is that they
are represented by a pair of floating point numbers, and the process
of manipulating them bears some resemblence to vector coordinate
operations (x coord for the real part, and y coord for the
imaginary?). Please feel free to correct me, although I'm now off to
Wikipedia (as a starting point) to see if my memory is at least
partially correct.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <1unt6ygjpzr3k$.384myn37...@40tude.net>,

"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

In Forth it would be no problem, just add words for the operations.

[Michael Stemper]

Ditto. I've written complex number types in c and in javascript.

The real "killer app" for Fortran is the ease with which you can
handle matrices.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Reunite Gondwanaland!

[michael]

There's still quite a lot of Fortran around, but most of it is legacy
apps. The Fortran versions still work, so there really hasn't been
much incentive to recode them. Most of the new development for
scientific computing I've seen in the last 15 years or so has been
in C, C++, or one of the variants. The ability to handle complex data
structures more easily, coupled with direct memory addressing, has
made C almost ideal for scientific work.

[Jerry Brown]

Never used it myself, but isn't APL the definitive matrix killer app?

[Walter Bushell]

In article <6955j71qh8f908bfn...@4ax.com>,

Yes, but APL is the prototypical write only language.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <proto-FEF5DB....@news.panix.com>,

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <6955j71qh8f908bfn...@4ax.com>,
> Jerry Brown <je...@jwbrown.co.uk.RemoveThisBitToReply> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 8 Feb 2012 13:26:13 +0000 (UTC), mste...@walkabout.empros.com
>> (Michael Stemper) wrote:
>>
>> >In article <1unt6ygjpzr3k$.384myn37...@40tude.net>, "Brian M. Scott"
>> ><b.s...@csuohio.edu> writes:
>> >>On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 19:21:04 -0800, Larry <lar...@peaksky.com> wrote in
>> >><news:MPG.299b89fd6...@news.aioe.org> in
>> >>rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:
>> >>> In article <0s33j75r5g0ok5120...@4ax.com>,
>> >>> je...@jwbrown.co.uk.RemoveThisBitToReply says...
>> >
>> >>>> "Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write
>> >>>> Fortran programs in any language." (from "Real
>> >>>> Programmers Don't Use Pascal")
>> >>
>> >>> It would take a lot of determination to do complex numbers
>> >>> in a language that lacks native complex number support.
>> >>> :)
>> >>
>> >>Sounds pretty straightforward to me.
>> >
>> >Ditto. I've written complex number types in c and in javascript.
>> >
>> >The real "killer app" for Fortran is the ease with which you can
>> >handle matrices.
>>
>> Never used it myself, but isn't APL the definitive matrix killer app?
>
>Yes, but APL is the prototypical write only language.
>

Well, no -- *that*'s Perl. Because you can at least write Perl.

APL on the other hand requires a Dali keyboard.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[David Friedman]

In article <jgtt5k$73e$2...@dont-email.me>,

mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:

> The real "killer app" for Fortran is the ease with which you can
> handle matrices.

If that's it, shouldn't APL rule the world?

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
_Salamander_: http://tinyurl.com/6957y7e
_How to Milk an Almond,..._ http://tinyurl.com/63xg8gx

[Wayne Throop]

:: Yes, but APL is the prototypical write only language.

: Well, no -- *that*'s Perl. Because you can at least write Perl.
: APL on the other hand requires a Dali keyboard.

There are ascii encodings of the APL glyphs which read fairly cleanly.
Indeed, my cousin did APL programs on a CDC machine where the
character set was even *more* restrictive than ascii.

Oddly enough, part of the code generator of a compiler
was what, specifically, got written in APL. Whoda thunkit.
It was, of course... pretty much a read-only program.
Easy to get from the what-I-want-to-do to the gibberish,
but not at all easy to get from the gibberish to the WIWTD.
Classic trap-door transform.


Now who can argue with that? I think we're all indebted to Gabby
Johnson for stating what needed to be said. I am particulary glad
that these lovely children are here today to hear that speech. Not
only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage
little seen in this day and age.
--- Olson Johnson

[Ric Locke]

On Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:14:16 GMT, Wayne Throop wrote:

> pretty much a read-only program.

ITYM "write only".

In my day, CS majors had a competition: write a program obscurely as
possible, test it to make sure it worked, then give the source to other
people. The one who could figure out what the program did without
actually running it was the winner.

If that were a competitive sport, the APL version would be the Olympiad.

Regards,
Ric

[Suzanne Blom]

On 2/7/2012 3:09 PM, Moriarty wrote:

I must admit that after the silence, the spammers seem warm and fuzzy.
(Silence warps the brain?)

[David DeLaney]

Ric Locke <r...@riclocke.com> wrote:
>Wayne Throop wrote:
>> pretty much a read-only program.
>
>ITYM "write only".
>
>In my day, CS majors had a competition: write a program obscurely as
>possible, test it to make sure it worked, then give the source to other
>people. The one who could figure out what the program did without
>actually running it was the winner.
>
>If that were a competitive sport, the APL version would be the Olympiad.

Maybe, but the C version is the one that's been going on for 20 years:
http://www.ioccc.org/

Dave "ObFuscated" DeLaney

[Dave Hansen]

On Wed, 8 Feb 2012 15:57:31 -0600, Ric Locke <r...@riclocke.com> wrote:

>On Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:14:16 GMT, Wayne Throop wrote:
>
>> pretty much a read-only program.
>
>ITYM "write only".
>
>In my day, CS majors had a competition: write a program obscurely as
>possible, test it to make sure it worked, then give the source to other
>people. The one who could figure out what the program did without
>actually running it was the winner.

http://www.ioccc.org/

>
>If that were a competitive sport, the APL version would be the Olympiad.

The figuring out part, probably. The writing part would be automatic,
though.

Regards,

-=Dave

[Dave Hansen]

On 8 Feb 2012 16:51:50 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
wrote:

>In article <proto-FEF5DB....@news.panix.com>,
>Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:

[...]

>>
>>Yes, but APL is the prototypical write only language.
>>
>
>Well, no -- *that*'s Perl. Because you can at least write Perl.

Remember, TMTOWTDI. I have seen some exceptionally clear and
straightforward perl scripts.

Unfortunately, that's only one way to do it. There are others...

Regards,

-=Dave

[Jim Cornwall]

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <jgrn3h$8ms$1...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>> On 2/6/2012 4:14 PM, David Duffy wrote:
>>> In rec.arts.sf.written Andrew Plotkin<erky...@eblong.com> wrote:

>>>> In rec.arts.sf.written, Brian M. Scott<b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>>>>> For those who haven't already discovered this, it appears
>>>>> that as of the last few days, Google Groups is no longer
>>>>> forwarding to Usenet those posts made through GG. There
>>>>> seems to be no official confirmation, but it's been tested
>>>>> by folks in a number of groups: GG is still harvesting
>>>>> Usenet, but it's not feeding anything back out.

>>>> Could be their posting process has just fallen over again. This
>>>> happened a few months ago, although that time it was a bi-directional
>>>> failure. After a few days they fixed it (without comment).
>>> I think it's my fault. I complained to them about spam on comp.lang.fortran.
>> No joke. The spam on c.l.f. is an attack on the
>> group if you ask me. I just deleted 450+ with
>> the secret thunderbird delete key function.
>
> Which opens the question, WHY would anybody want to spam
> comp.lang.fortran???? Weird people spamming rec.arts.sf.written
> we can understand: they think we might go for their particular
> brand of weirdness. Cuius contrarium verum est.
>
> But FORTRAN? I can remember Hal trying hard to teach me some
> FORTRAN when we were first acquent. But that was forty years
> ago. Is FORTRAN still *used* anywhere? or is c.l.f. a place
> where old tired programmers (those who remain) hang out and
> reminisce?
>
> (As for deleting stuff ... I use trn, which allows me to select
> those few posts I want to read, and 'c' deletes everything else.
> Disgust, like love, will find out a way.)
>
> P.S. Hal tells me that FORTRAN is still used in standard
> packages for scientific programming, which nobody wants to have
> to rewrite.

Heh. Very few people are still using FORTRAN. Lots of us, though, are
using Fortran (they changed the name officially with the 1990 standard).
I admit I'm a bit surprised at all the c.l.f. denizens crawling out of
the woodwork in here :-)

Jim

[BCFD36]

On 2/7/12 10:08 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article<jgrn3h$8ms$1...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire<l...@winsim.com> wrote:

[stuff deleted]

Is FORTRAN still *used* anywhere? or is c.l.f. a place
> where old tired programmers (those who remain) hang out and
> reminisce?

You asked two questions there. Yes, Fortran is still used in places.
Specifically, it is being used to model and simulate many of the
subsystems of the satellite I am working on. And the stuff has been
around for years and years, but is still being updated for new birds.

>
> (As for deleting stuff ... I use trn, which allows me to select
> those few posts I want to read, and 'c' deletes everything else.
> Disgust, like love, will find out a way.)
>
> P.S. Hal tells me that FORTRAN is still used in standard
> packages for scientific programming, which nobody wants to have
> to rewrite.

Quite true.
>


--
Dave Scruggs
Captain, Boulder Creek Fire

[BCFD36]

On 2/7/12 12:55 PM, Jerry Brown wrote:
> On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:21:08 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
> wrote:
>
>> : djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>> : But FORTRAN? I can remember Hal trying hard to teach me some FORTRAN
>> : when we were first acquent. But that was forty years ago. Is FORTRAN

>> : still *used* anywhere? or is c.l.f. a place where old tired
>> : programmers (those who remain) hang out and reminisce?
>>

>> "I don't know what the technical characteristics of the standard
>> language for scientific and engineering computation in the year 2000
>> will be... but I know it will be called Fortran."
>> --- John Backus

>>
>
> "Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in
> any language."
> (from "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal")
>

Back in the '90s, I was accused of writing C-tran. And I was and
sometimes still am.

[BCFD36]

I don't know. LISP might give them a run for their money. But maybe I
misremember since I only ever had one LISP class. In 1977. On a CDC 6400.

[Helmut_Meukel]

I quit programming im FORTRAN December '93 (new job starting January
'94). I started in 1983 with FTN4X on a HP1000-E, some years later we
updated to FTN7X. FTN4X and FTN7X were eXtended versions of the
standards, including the MIL extensions and additional HP specific
extensions.
I tried to find a decent Fortran for the PC but found none I could
afford. So I finally ended with MS Basic PDS 7.1 on the PC after I had
tried Turbo-Pascal, C and - for database programming - dBase.

Helmut.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"I before e, except when it isn't."
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

[Wayne Throop]

: David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
: "I before e, except when it isn't."

Well true, that's the condensed version.

I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh,
or on alternate hours the last sunday in may.

It *is* a weird rule, I admit.

[Bill Snyder]

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:56:06 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
wrote:

And I'm not sure I believe it, iether.

--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]

[David DeLaney]

Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
>: "I before e, except when it isn't."
>
>Well true, that's the condensed version.
>
>I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh,

except for eight exceptions: Weird, height, and foreign leisure, Neither, seize
nor forfeit, either.

(Which isn't all of them: it misses 'deity', for example.)

>It *is* a weird rule, I admit.

English does not have rules so much as nets that catch 85% of the usages.

Dave

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 2/9/12 4:20 PM, David DeLaney wrote:

> Wayne Throop<thr...@sheol.org> wrote:

>> It *is* a weird rule, I admit.
>
> English does not have rules so much as nets that catch 85% of the usages.
>

"They're more like guidelines, actually."


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2012-02-09 21:20:20 +0000, d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) said:

> Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
>> : "I before e, except when it isn't."
>>
>> Well true, that's the condensed version.
>>
>> I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh,
>
> except for eight exceptions: Weird, height, and foreign leisure, Neither, seize
> nor forfeit, either.
>
> (Which isn't all of them: it misses 'deity', for example.)

"Deity," in at least one pronunciation, and in its etymological roots,
has the A sound. As part of the vowel sound, anyway.

>> It *is* a weird rule, I admit.
>
> English does not have rules so much as nets that catch 85% of the usages.

And we like it that way!

kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[Wayne Throop]

: Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com>
: "Deity," in at least one pronunciation, and in its etymological roots,

: has the A sound. As part of the vowel sound, anyway.

Deio! Deio! Daylight come and me wanna go home.

"It's the black megadeus!" --- frequent exclaimation in "Big O"

"Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty."

--- black megadeus starup message

[David Dyer-Bennet]

And "weird" should be in it. I like "except when it's weird" for that.

[Dimensional Traveler]

It does make rummaging thru other languages' pockets as we're mugging
them much easier.

[Jerry Brown]

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:56:06 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
wrote:

Not very scientific, either.

[Lynn McGuire]

On 2/9/2012 4:42 PM, Jerry Brown wrote:
> On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:56:06 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
> wrote:
>
>> : David Dyer-Bennet<dd...@dd-b.net>
>> : "I before e, except when it isn't."
>>
>> Well true, that's the condensed version.
>>
>> I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh,
>> or on alternate hours the last sunday in may.
>>
>> It *is* a weird rule, I admit.
>
> Not very scientific, either.

We are talking about English here. Didn't I just
hear that English hit 250,000 unique words ?

Lynn

[David Goldfarb]

In article <jh1cse$6dm$1...@dont-email.me>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote:
>On 2012-02-09 21:20:20 +0000, d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) said:
>
>> Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>>> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
>>> : "I before e, except when it isn't."
>>>
>>> Well true, that's the condensed version.
>>>
>>> I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh,
>>
>> except for eight exceptions: Weird, height, and foreign leisure,
>Neither, seize
>> nor forfeit, either.
>>
>> (Which isn't all of them: it misses 'deity', for example.)
>
>"Deity," in at least one pronunciation, and in its etymological roots,
>has the A sound. As part of the vowel sound, anyway.

Also both "theist" and "atheist". (And yes, I've seen people get
both of those wrong -- the latter, many times.)

--
David Goldfarb |"An athiest is one who wierdly refuses to
goldf...@gmail.com |recieve the gift of beleif in a diety."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- Dave Langford, on rec.arts.sf.fandom

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2012-02-09 22:36:05 +0000, gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) said:

> In article <jh1cse$6dm$1...@dont-email.me>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote:
>> On 2012-02-09 21:20:20 +0000, d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) said:
>>
>>> Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>>>> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
>>>> : "I before e, except when it isn't."
>>>>
>>>> Well true, that's the condensed version.
>>>>
>>>> I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh,
>>>
>>> except for eight exceptions: Weird, height, and foreign leisure, Neither, seize
>>> nor forfeit, either.
>>>
>>> (Which isn't all of them: it misses 'deity', for example.)
>>
>> "Deity," in at least one pronunciation, and in its etymological roots,
>> has the A sound. As part of the vowel sound, anyway.
>
> Also both "theist" and "atheist". (And yes, I've seen people get
> both of those wrong -- the latter, many times.)

Can't say I've ever heard either of those pronounced with an A sound.

I've usually heard it that way with "deist," though, sound it stands to reason…

[David Goldfarb]

In article <jh1kbe$iqq$1...@dont-email.me>, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote:
>On 2012-02-09 22:36:05 +0000, gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) said:
>>> "Deity," in at least one pronunciation, and in its etymological roots,
>>> has the A sound. As part of the vowel sound, anyway.
>>
>> Also both "theist" and "atheist". (And yes, I've seen people get
>> both of those wrong -- the latter, many times.)
>
>Can't say I've ever heard either of those pronounced with an A sound.

I didn't intend to say that they were -- I intended to add them to
the list of exceptions that *weren't*. I apologize for being unclear.

--
David Goldfarb |"As an experimental psychologist I have been
goldf...@gmail.com |trained not to believe anything unless it can be
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu |demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or
|sophomores." -- Steven Pinker

[David DeLaney]

Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
> Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com>
>: "Deity," in at least one pronunciation, and in its etymological roots,
>: has the A sound. As part of the vowel sound, anyway.
>
>Deio! Deio! Daylight come

...with one magic word!

>and me wanna go home.

I'm told you have to finish this life first.

> "Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty."
> --- black megadeus starup message

Dave "error: universe not found" DeLaney

[David DeLaney]

Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:

>Jerry Brown wrote:
>> thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:
>>> David Dyer-Bennet<dd...@dd-b.net>
>>> : "I before e, except when it isn't."
>>>
>>> Well true, that's the condensed version.
>>>
>>> I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh,
>>> or on alternate hours the last sunday in may.
>>>
>>> It *is* a weird rule, I admit.
>>
>> Not very scientific, either.
>
>We are talking about English here. Didn't I just
>hear that English hit 250,000 unique words ?

psst: look closer at a couple of the words their^H^H^H^H^Hthey're using.

Dave

[Howard Brazee]

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:56:06 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
wrote:

>: David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
>: "I before e, except when it isn't."
>
>Well true, that's the condensed version.
>
>I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh,

And dozens of other exceptions.

>or on alternate hours the last sunday in may.

Is that another way of saying "And dozens of other exceptions"?

>It *is* a weird rule, I admit.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

[Howard Brazee]

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:20:20 -0500, d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David
DeLaney) wrote:

>>I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh,
>
>except for eight exceptions: Weird, height, and foreign leisure, Neither, seize
>nor forfeit, either.
>
>(Which isn't all of them: it misses 'deity', for example.)

Or sheik. Or reveille. Or heifer. Off the top of my head.

[Howard Brazee]

On Thu, 9 Feb 2012 13:12:46 -0800, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com>
wrote:

>> (Which isn't all of them: it misses 'deity', for example.)
>
>"Deity," in at least one pronunciation, and in its etymological roots,
>has the A sound. As part of the vowel sound, anyway.

Anybody who knows that won't need the ditty to spell it anyway.

[Kip Williams]

Howard Brazee wrote:
> On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:20:20 -0500, d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David
> DeLaney) wrote:
>
>>> I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh,
>>
>> except for eight exceptions: Weird, height, and foreign leisure, Neither, seize
>> nor forfeit, either.
>>
>> (Which isn't all of them: it misses 'deity', for example.)
>
> Or sheik. Or reveille. Or heifer. Off the top of my head.

"Sheik" is supposed to be said with an a, as in neighbor. The word got
popular here in silent movies, and most people jumped to a wrong
pronunciation. Now it's hit or miss whether you'll hear it said one way
or the other.


Kip W
rasfw

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:20:20 -0500, David DeLaney
<d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote in
<news:slrnjj8bu...@gatekeeper.vic.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:

> Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>>David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>

>>: "I before e, except when it isn't."

>>Well true, that's the condensed version.

>> I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in
>> neighbor and weigh,

> except for eight exceptions: Weird, height, and foreign
> leisure, Neither, seize nor forfeit, either.

'Neither leisured foreigner seized the weird height' is the
mnemonic that I was taught back in the late 50s. 'Neither'
covers 'either', so only 'forfeit' is missed, and it could
easily be added.

> (Which isn't all of them: it misses 'deity', for example.)

No, because 'deity' is trisyllabic, with <e> and <i> in
different syllables, so it's covered by the normal rules.

>> It *is* a weird rule, I admit.

> English does not have rules so much as nets that catch 85%
> of the usages.

This one, however, catches almost everything.

Brian

[Bill Snyder]

On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:32:56 -0500, "Brian M. Scott"
<b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:20:20 -0500, David DeLaney
><d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote in
><news:slrnjj8bu...@gatekeeper.vic.com> in
>rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
>> Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>>>David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
>
>>>: "I before e, except when it isn't."
>
>>>Well true, that's the condensed version.
>
>>> I before e, except after c, or when sounded as a, as in
>>> neighbor and weigh,
>
>> except for eight exceptions: Weird, height, and foreign
>> leisure, Neither, seize nor forfeit, either.
>
>'Neither leisured foreigner seized the weird height' is the
>mnemonic that I was taught back in the late 50s. 'Neither'
>covers 'either', so only 'forfeit' is missed, and it could
>easily be added.

But as Jerry Brown has pointed out, "science" is a rather
prominent violator of the "except after c" portion.

[Leif Roar Moldskred]

In rec.arts.sf.written David DeLaney <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote:
>
> except for eight exceptions: Weird, height, and foreign leisure, Neither, seize
> nor forfeit, either.
>
> (Which isn't all of them: it misses 'deity', for example.)

Here's Stephen Fry's comment on the "i before e" rule, from QI:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duqlZXiIZqA

--
Leif Roar Moldskred

[Brian M. Scott]

On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:57:05 -0600, Bill Snyder
<bsn...@airmail.net> wrote in
<news:urm9j7d3r208hoieh...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:

No, 'science' is completely irrelevant, since the <i> and
<e> are in different syllables. The rule covers (and was
intended to cover ) *only* the cases in which <ie> or <ei>
represents the nucleus of a single syllable.

Brian

[Robert Carnegie]

And yet some people say the BBC can't speak authoritatively about
chilli. :-)

"If I were a sheik, or a shiek,
You could not mistake my mystique,
..."

[Michael Stemper]

In article <jgvtou$va$2...@speranza.aioe.org>, BCFD36 <bcf...@cruzio.com> writes:
>On 2/7/12 12:55 PM, Jerry Brown wrote:
>> On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:21:08 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:
>>> : djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)

>>> : But FORTRAN? I can remember Hal trying hard to teach me some FORTRAN
>>> : when we were first acquent. But that was forty years ago. Is FORTRAN
>>> : still *used* anywhere? or is c.l.f. a place where old tired
>>> : programmers (those who remain) hang out and reminisce?
>>>
>>> "I don't know what the technical characteristics of the standard
>>> language for scientific and engineering computation in the year 2000
>>> will be... but I know it will be called Fortran."
>>> --- John Backus

>>
>> "Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in
>> any language."
>> (from "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal")
>>

>Back in the '90s, I was accused of writing C-tran. And I was and
>sometimes still am.

In the early '90s, as C was starting to get used where I worked, a
friend mentioned to me that this charge had been leveled against him.
I took it as a challenge, and decided to deliberately write some. I
still have it:

mstemper@coelurosaur$ cat junk.c
# include "me.h"

PROGRAM

INTEGER FIRST, SECOND
C
FIRST = 1234
C
SECOND = 73
C
WRITE( OUTPUT, FORMAT, FIRST, SECOND, FIRST MOD SECOND )
C
STOP
mstemper@coelurosaur$

This will actually compile, load, and execute, giving the results
that a FORTRAN programmer would expect. The key is, of course, the
include file.

mstemper@coelurosaur$ cat me.h
# include <stdio.h>
# define PROGRAM int main() {
# define STOP exit(0); }
# define WRITE fprintf
# define MOD %
# define OUTPUT stdout
# define INPUT stdin
# define ERRLIST stderr
# define INTEGER int
# define C ;
# define I2 %d
# define FORMAT " %d mod %d is %d \n"
mstemper@coelurosaur$

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
This email is to be read by its intended recipient only. Any other party
reading is required by the EULA to send me $500.00.

[Kip Williams]

Robert Carnegie wrote:
> And yet some people say the BBC can't speak authoritatively about
> chilli. :-)
>
> "If I were a sheik, or a shiek,
> You could not mistake my mystique,
> ..."

What got me about the BBC is that they have voluminous rule books to be
sure they don't mispronounce Lord Luxury-Yacht, but give them a foreign
word and it's like they never saw it before and were told to pronounce
it as if it were English. "Jaguar" and "Nicaragua" stuck in my ear,
particularly as Spanish is the easiest language in the world to
pronounce, with simple and consistent rules.


Kip W
rasfw

[Robert Carnegie]

That's nice, but within the UK, they are broadcasting mainly to people
who will also pronounce the word as if it is English. Indeed, once we
are using the word, it /is/ English. That's what makes Paris not
Paree, as the song does not go, it makes sherry a fortified alcoholic
beverage, Chag-you-are is a marque of motor-car, and it's simply more /
fun/ to say "Nick-a-RAG-you-ah" than "Nick-a-rag-wah".

Having said that, I think it was British-born comedienne Yewande Osho
who had some well put remarks on the topic (although not on this link)
-
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andi_Osho>, that is.