Origin Of The Abbreviation I18n

[Philip Chee]

<http://www.i18nguy.com/origini18n.html>

"Technically, the term is not an acronym, as acronyms represent
expressions that are derived from the first letters of words. (For
example, "DBCS" is an acronym for "Double Byte Character Set".) I
believe the correct name for this type of abbreviation is numeronym- a
number based word. Examples include "K9" for canine, and the French
"K7", pronounced "K-sept" for the word cassette. Another example is
"411" for the concept of "information"."

Phil 124C+

--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.

[Paul Dormer]

In article <5pa9pf....@news.alt.net>, phi...@aleytys.pc.my (Philip

Chee) wrote:

>
> "Technically, the term is not an acronym, as acronyms represent
> expressions that are derived from the first letters of words. (For
> example, "DBCS" is an acronym for "Double Byte Character Set".)

Actually, technically an acronym is a word derived from an abbreviation.
If you don't pronounce it as a word, it's not an acronym. But Chambers
explicitly gives "radar" as an acronym - RAdio Detection And Ranging.

BBC is not an acronym, CAPTCHA is. I wonder if "bit" is too, as it's
derived from BInary digiT.

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Monday, 9 July 2012 04:47:21 UTC+1, Philip Chee wrote:
> &lt;http://www.i18nguy.com/origini18n.html&gt;
>
> &quot;Technically, the term is not an acronym, as acronyms represent

> expressions that are derived from the first letters of words. (For

> example, &quot;DBCS&quot; is an acronym for &quot;Double Byte Character Set&quot;.) I

> believe the correct name for this type of abbreviation is numeronym- a

> number based word. Examples include &quot;K9&quot; for canine, and the French
> &quot;K7&quot;, pronounced &quot;K-sept&quot; for the word cassette. Another example is
> &quot;411&quot; for the concept of &quot;information&quot;.&quot;

How does 411 = information?

Tim 124C41+

[Cryptoengineer]

On Jul 12, 8:12 am, Tim.Bate...@redbridge.gov.uk wrote:
> On Monday, 9 July 2012 04:47:21 UTC+1, Philip Chee  wrote:
> > &lt;http://www.i18nguy.com/origini18n.html>
>

> > &quot;Technically, the term is not an acronym, as acronyms represent
> > expressions that are derived from the first letters of words. (For
> > example, &quot;DBCS&quot; is an acronym for &quot;Double Byte Character Set&quot;.) I
> > believe the correct name for this type of abbreviation is numeronym- a
> > number based word. Examples include &quot;K9&quot; for canine, and the French
> > &quot;K7&quot;, pronounced &quot;K-sept&quot; for the word cassette. Another example is
> > &quot;411&quot; for the concept of &quot;information&quot;.&quot;
>
> How does 411 = information?

[I haven't bothered to analyze what happened to your character
encoding, but boy it got ugly this time.]

It's 'information' in the same sense that '911', (or in the UK, '999')
is 'emergency'. In the US, 411 is the number you dial for directory
information.

[ObNerd: The UK '999' number was selected because it was the hardest 3
digit number to *accidentally* enter on a dial phone.]

pt

[Keith F. Lynch]

<Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:
> How does 411 = information?

In the US, 411 is the phone number for "information," i.e. directory
assistance.

Why did you convert the text you quoted into HTML? Usenet is not
the Web.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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

Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> <Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:
>> How does 411 = information?
>
> In the US, 411 is the phone number for "information," i.e. directory
> assistance.
>
> Why did you convert the text you quoted into HTML? Usenet is not
> the Web.

Perhaps because of the same reason some people convert perfectly valid
UTF-8 sequences into numerical codes - that is, unintentionally. Because
their software is flawed - witness the ever-expanding apostrophe.

I started to see quoted HTML quite often recently - perhaps something to
do with Google Groups upgrade? If this is the reason, it is Yet Another
Nail into USENET's coffin..

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
| 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!

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Friday, 13 July 2012 02:10:32 UTC+1, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> &lt;Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk&gt; wrote:
> &gt; How does 411 = information?
>
> In the US, 411 is the phone number for &quot;information,&quot; i.e. directory

> assistance.
>
> Why did you convert the text you quoted into HTML? Usenet is not
> the Web.

I think that you may well have answered your own question there.

[Keith F. Lynch]

<garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
> I started to see quoted HTML quite often recently - perhaps
> something to do with Google Groups upgrade?

I think you mean downgrade. Whatever happened to "don't be evil"?

> If this is the reason, it is Yet Another Nail into USENET's coffin..

I think you mean another nail into Google's coffin. Anything that
pushes Usenet participants back toward full-functioned newsreaders
is a good thing.

[Ben Yalow]

In <jtrvpk$t2p$2...@reader1.panix.com> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

><garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>> I started to see quoted HTML quite often recently - perhaps
>> something to do with Google Groups upgrade?

>I think you mean downgrade. Whatever happened to "don't be evil"?

>> If this is the reason, it is Yet Another Nail into USENET's coffin..

>I think you mean another nail into Google's coffin. Anything that
>pushes Usenet participants back toward full-functioned newsreaders
>is a good thing.

Google doesn't care about Usenet -- they still keep doing it without it
making them any significant money, just because it's easy.

On the other hand, if it becomes harder to get to Usenet, then fewer
people will use it.

There are only a few sites still left that carry Usenet; almost everybody
gets their feed from the same handful. And they make their money by
people willing to pay to be able to download large amounts from the
binaries groups, and not anything to do with the text groups, which carry
an insignificant amount of usage.

But it's still work to set up newsgroups -- even the text-only ones. It's
easier just to drop it, and let the few customers you have that still use
it get it from someone else, and pay a few bucks for it.

>--
>Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
>Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

Ben
--
Ben Yalow yb...@panix.com
Not speaking for anybody

[Keith F. Lynch]

Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>> <garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>>> If this is the reason, it is Yet Another Nail into USENET's coffin..

>> I think you mean another nail into Google's coffin. Anything that
>> pushes Usenet participants back toward full-functioned newsreaders
>> is a good thing.

> Google doesn't care about Usenet --

Or about search, evidently, given how crappy that has become. What
*do* they care about? Some bright and shiny new thing they invented
last Tuesday and will drop next Thursday?

> they still keep doing it without it making them any significant
> money, just because it's easy.

Apparently they don't find it easy to do *right*.

> There are only a few sites still left that carry Usenet; almost
> everybody gets their feed from the same handful. And they make
> their money by people willing to pay to be able to download large
> amounts from the binaries groups, and not anything to do with the
> text groups, which carry an insignificant amount of usage.

Define "insignificant." I challenge anyone to be able to read all the
text groups, even if they don't take time to reply to any of them. If
you mean the text groups don't take up much disk space or bandwidth by
today's standards, so much the better. It makes it easier than ever
before for ISPs to host them.

> But it's still work to set up newsgroups -- even the text-only ones.
> It's easier just to drop it, and let the few customers you have that
> still use it get it from someone else, and pay a few bucks for it.

No wonder the economy is in such bad shape. "Work? That's too much
like work. I'll let someone else do it. Or maybe it won't get done.
Who cares?"

What's the alternative to Usenet? Blogs? Facebook? Hardly. As
someone posted elsewhere today, "It may feel like ours, but Mark
Zuckerberg just lets us hang out there as long as we don't piss him
off." And as long as we don't mind being bombarded by ads, and having
the terms of service changed out from under us without recourse.

[Cryptoengineer]

On Jul 14, 6:12 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> > "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

It appears that Steve Jobs isn't the only one with a Reality
Distortion Field. But Keith's affects only him.

pt

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

Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:

> <garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>> I started to see quoted HTML quite often recently - perhaps
>> something to do with Google Groups upgrade?
>
> I think you mean downgrade. Whatever happened to "don't be evil"?
>

They are not evil. Just indifferent.

>> If this is the reason, it is Yet Another Nail into USENET's coffin..
>
> I think you mean another nail into Google's coffin. Anything that
> pushes Usenet participants back toward full-functioned newsreaders
> is a good thing.

But it won't push them back.
First, they probably do not see the html entities in their web
interface.
Second, if GG's {up,down}grade pisses someone (an average netizen) off,
s/he will most likely turn to other discussion forums (most likely on
Facebook). Usenet will see dropped traffic and less discussions.

[David Harmon]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 09:28:28 +0000 (UTC) in rec.arts.sf.fandom,
garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk wrote,

>Second, if GG's {up,down}grade pisses someone (an average netizen) off,
>s/he will most likely turn to other discussion forums (most likely on
>Facebook). Usenet will see dropped traffic and less discussions.

So, you are saying that they are doing it to drive people from the
forums that they don't own and where they cannot sell advertising
(Usenet) to the one that they do and can (Facebook.) That's not
indifference. Whatever happened to "don't be evil"?

[Ben Yalow]

In <jtsqsf$8l0$1...@reader1.panix.com> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

>Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> <garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>>>> If this is the reason, it is Yet Another Nail into USENET's coffin..

>>> I think you mean another nail into Google's coffin. Anything that
>>> pushes Usenet participants back toward full-functioned newsreaders
>>> is a good thing.

>> Google doesn't care about Usenet --

>Or about search, evidently, given how crappy that has become. What
>*do* they care about? Some bright and shiny new thing they invented
>last Tuesday and will drop next Thursday?

But people keep using their search, and others keep dropping out of the
market. So why should we believe you, instead of what billions of other
people seem to think?

>> they still keep doing it without it making them any significant
>> money, just because it's easy.

>Apparently they don't find it easy to do *right*.

They do it well enough to dominate the market. It doesn't work well for
you -- but you're not someone they care about, since your profile doesn't
match the way they make money.

>> There are only a few sites still left that carry Usenet; almost
>> everybody gets their feed from the same handful. And they make
>> their money by people willing to pay to be able to download large
>> amounts from the binaries groups, and not anything to do with the
>> text groups, which carry an insignificant amount of usage.

>Define "insignificant." I challenge anyone to be able to read all the
>text groups, even if they don't take time to reply to any of them. If
>you mean the text groups don't take up much disk space or bandwidth by
>today's standards, so much the better. It makes it easier than ever
>before for ISPs to host them.

Right now, Usenet lives because giganews, easynews, and Google still make
money off it. And they don't make money off the text groups -- although
they carry them, with reasonably long retention, since it doesn't take up
any space.

But, for example, the cheap Easynews plan is their 20G/month plan. And
most of their customers take one of their larger plans. You don't get to
need more than 20G/month for text.

But most propogation goes through places like them. *They* keep Usenet
alive, not people like you. You just get to ride on what their paying
customers want.

>> But it's still work to set up newsgroups -- even the text-only ones.
>> It's easier just to drop it, and let the few customers you have that
>> still use it get it from someone else, and pay a few bucks for it.

>No wonder the economy is in such bad shape. "Work? That's too much
>like work. I'll let someone else do it. Or maybe it won't get done.
>Who cares?"

"Our customers don't care about Usenet -- why should we?"

>What's the alternative to Usenet? Blogs? Facebook? Hardly. As
>someone posted elsewhere today, "It may feel like ours, but Mark
>Zuckerberg just lets us hang out there as long as we don't piss him
>off." And as long as we don't mind being bombarded by ads, and having
>the terms of service changed out from under us without recourse.

Feel free to write something better. Or continue to keep pretending that
Usenet isn't dying -- and keep hoping that binaries can keep it alive for
a while longer.

>--
>Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
>Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

[Jette Goldie]

Google do not own Facebook.

--
Jette Goldie
jgold...@btinternet.com

Living in the Future!

[Keith F. Lynch]

Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

>> Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>>> Google doesn't care about Usenet --

>> Or about search, evidently, given how crappy that has become.
>> What *do* they care about? Some bright and shiny new thing
>> they invented last Tuesday and will drop next Thursday?

> But people keep using their search, and others keep dropping out of
> the market. So why should we believe you, instead of what billions
> of other people seem to think?

You might as well ask why you should believe me that the sun rises
in the east. Anyone can observe for themselves that Google's search
often finds pages that don't contain the requested search term, fails
to find pages that do contain it, often finds *more* pages when a
search is made more restrictive, etc.

Google users are looking for a good search engine. Something like
Google used to be. When we find it, we'll abandon Google.

>>> they still keep doing it without it making them any significant
>>> money, just because it's easy.

>> Apparently they don't find it easy to do *right*.

> They do it well enough to dominate the market.

If they dominate the market, it's only because the market is so
fragmented -- which is a good thing.

> It doesn't work well for you -- but you're not someone they care
> about, since your profile doesn't match the way they make money.

Lots of people complain about it. Many, unlike me, go so far as to
killfile all posts from Google Groups. If Google Groups posts will
hencforth be filled with angle brackets, semicolons, and ampersands
like the source code to a web page, a lot more people will killfile
them.

>>> There are only a few sites still left that carry Usenet; almost
>>> everybody gets their feed from the same handful.

Most ISPs still carry it. When a major ISP drops Usenet, that's
remarkable enough that it makes headlines.

>>> And they make their money by people willing to pay to be able to
>>> download large amounts from the binaries groups, and not anything
>>> to do with the text groups, which carry an insignificant amount of
>>> usage.

Some ISPs have dropped just the binaries groups because of the
bandwidth and disk space drain. So of course people who subscribe to
third-party Usenet providers are disproportionately users of binaries
groups.

As for "insignificant," not all bits are created equal. You might as
well claim that television is a million times more popular than books,
based on how many bits are conveyed by each medium. A better metric
is how many person-hours are spent with each.

> But, for example, the cheap Easynews plan is their 20G/month plan.
> And most of their customers take one of their larger plans. You
> don't get to need more than 20G/month for text.

Do you think you're disagreeing with me? You're not. I've been a
heavy user of Usenet for over a quarter century, and I haven't yet
read or posted 20G in total. The more than 38,000 messages I've
posted to this newsgroup probably total less than 0.2G -- and that's
spread over 21 years.

> "Our customers don't care about Usenet -- why should we?"

Whose customers?

> Feel free to write something better.

Usenet doesn't need a replacement.

> Or continue to keep pretending that Usenet isn't dying -- and keep
> hoping that binaries can keep it alive for a while longer.

In no sense do the binaries groups subsidize the text groups.

If Usenet is dying, it's not because someone has created or failed to
create something better. It's because of ubiquitous gross violations
of netiquette, such as the repeated failure to trim irrelevant groups
from crossposted threads.

If I were on the grand jury investigating the attempted murder of the
net, I'd indict everyone who has crossposted in the massive thread
that has dominated this newsgroup for the past five weeks. It's way
off topic in rasfw. Worst of all is anyone who crossposts without
checking *both* newsgroups for followups, since he's implicitly
discouraging people from doing the right thing, i.e. trimming
irrelevant newsgroups. Indeed, that's not so much crossposting
into a newsgroup as it's shitting into a newsgroup.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Harmon <b...@example.invalid> wrote:
> So, you are saying that they are doing it to drive people from the
> forums that they don't own and where they cannot sell advertising
> (Usenet) to the one that they do and can (Facebook.) That's not
> indifference. Whatever happened to "don't be evil"?

Google doesn't own Facebook.

Anyhow, as big as Google is, they don't have the power to drive anyone
off Usenet. As their Usenet user interface gets crappier, Usenet
won't lose users, Google will.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> As for "insignificant," not all bits are created equal. You might as
> well claim that television is a million times more popular than books,
> based on how many bits are conveyed by each medium. A better metric
> is how many person-hours are spent with each.

Interesting question, how much more popular television is than books.
Lots of books sell in the 4-digit to mid 5-digit quantities. More
popular TV shows probably are 10,000 times more popular than those
books. But it's complicated by the fact that books are read by multiple
people, and the TV is often left on when nobody is really paying
attention to it (and in public spaces, which I hate). And by the fact
that a lot more different books are published; an overall statement
about the categories has to deal with that, and the books read from long
ago out of public and private libraries, and so forth.
--
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

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> Interesting question, how much more popular television is than
> books. Lots of books sell in the 4-digit to mid 5-digit quantities.
> More popular TV shows probably are 10,000 times more popular than
> those books. But it's complicated by the fact that books are read
> by multiple people, and the TV is often left on when nobody is
> really paying attention to it (and in public spaces, which I hate).
> And by the fact that a lot more different books are published; an
> overall statement about the categories has to deal with that, and
> the books read from long ago out of public and private libraries,
> and so forth.

As I said, I think the most relevant measure is how many person-hours
are spent in each activity, whether the activities are reading books
versus watching television or reading and posting to text Usenet
groups versus viewing or uploading to binary Usenet groups.

I suspect that more hours are spent watching TV than reading books,
but probably only by a factor of two to four. And I suspect that much
more time is spent reading and posting to text Usenet groups than
viewing or uploading to binary Usenet groups.

[David Harmon]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:53:53 +0100 in rec.arts.sf.fandom, Jette Goldie
<jgold...@btinternet.com> wrote,

I'm sorry, I thought they did. I suppose I most likely have it confused
with some other similar site they bought. I don't really try to keep
track. Is it at all apparent what forum site I should have referred to
instead?

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> Interesting question, how much more popular television is than
>> books. Lots of books sell in the 4-digit to mid 5-digit quantities.
>> More popular TV shows probably are 10,000 times more popular than
>> those books. But it's complicated by the fact that books are read
>> by multiple people, and the TV is often left on when nobody is
>> really paying attention to it (and in public spaces, which I hate).
>> And by the fact that a lot more different books are published; an
>> overall statement about the categories has to deal with that, and
>> the books read from long ago out of public and private libraries,
>> and so forth.
>
> As I said, I think the most relevant measure is how many person-hours
> are spent in each activity, whether the activities are reading books
> versus watching television or reading and posting to text Usenet
> groups versus viewing or uploading to binary Usenet groups.

For TV vs. books, I think we can argue that the information rate (what
actually gets into our brains, I mean) is very much higher for books,
and maybe that should be taken into account.

> I suspect that more hours are spent watching TV than reading books,
> but probably only by a factor of two to four. And I suspect that much
> more time is spent reading and posting to text Usenet groups than
> viewing or uploading to binary Usenet groups.

Upload and download time isn't usually a *person's* time, anyway; they
have scripts or applications handle it for them, and just examine the
results when they get them (or archive them unexamined, I suspect, in
some cases).

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Google Plus is the site they created that's like Facebook, and is
intended to compete with it. Doesn't seem to be working very well for
that. Anyway, they didn't buy a Facebook-like site that I know of, they
built their own.

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Sunday, 15 July 2012 05:06:24 UTC+1, Cryptoengineer wrote:
> On Jul 14, 6:12 pm, &quot;Keith F. Lynch&quot; &lt;k...@KeithLynch.net&gt;

> &gt; What&#39;s the alternative to Usenet?  Blogs?  Facebook?  Hardly.  As
> &gt; someone posted elsewhere today, &quot;It may feel like ours, but Mark
> &gt; Zuckerberg just lets us hang out there as long as we don&#39;t piss him
> &gt; off.&quot;  And as long as we don&#39;t mind being bombarded by ads, and having
> &gt; the terms of service changed out from under us without recourse.
>
> It appears that Steve Jobs isn&#39;t the only one with a Reality
> Distortion Field. But Keith&#39;s affects only him.

Pointless (as far as I can see) changes to Faecesbook have affected me as well as Keith.

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Tuesday, 17 July 2012 01:56:03 UTC+1, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

> You might as well ask why you should believe me that the sun rises

> in the east. Anyone can observe for themselves that Google&#39;s search
> often finds pages that don&#39;t contain the requested search term, fails

> to find pages that do contain it, often finds *more* pages when a
> search is made more restrictive, etc.

I make you right on this, Keith.

The only good thing about the recent 'improvements' is that it automatically comes up with a note saying 'do you mean _x_?' if you might have mistyped your search term.

> Google users are looking for a good search engine. Something like

> Google used to be. When we find it, we&#39;ll abandon Google.

Absolutely. Do spread the word when you find such a beast, please.

> Lots of people complain about it. Many, unlike me, go so far as to
> killfile all posts from Google Groups. If Google Groups posts will
> hencforth be filled with angle brackets, semicolons, and ampersands
> like the source code to a web page, a lot more people will killfile
> them.

Google Groups posts are not full of these items, Keith. Posts on Google Groups which have been placed there via a 'newsreader' rather than the site are full of them.

> If I were on the grand jury investigating the attempted murder of the

> net, I&#39;d indict everyone who has crossposted in the massive thread
> that has dominated this newsgroup for the past five weeks. It&#39;s way
> off topic in rasfw.

I am reading this in rasff.

Did you crosspost to rasfw? If so, I have no way of telling. I'll check after sending this to see if I can see if there's crossposting prior to pressing the 'reply' button.

Worst of all is anyone who crossposts without

> checking *both* newsgroups for followups, since he&#39;s implicitly

> discouraging people from doing the right thing, i.e. trimming

> irrelevant newsgroups. Indeed, that&#39;s not so much crossposting
> into a newsgroup as it&#39;s shitting into a newsgroup.

As indicated _supra_, it looks at the moment as no one can comply with your wish on this one.

[Lowell Gilbert]

Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk writes:

> Pointless (as far as I can see) changes to Faecesbook have affected me as well as Keith.

At the risk of offending what are surely some fine programmers,
I will repeat my oft-made observation that Facebook appears to
have an "infinite number of monkeys" development model.

- Lowell

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk writes:

> On Tuesday, 17 July 2012 01:56:03 UTC+1, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>
>> You might as well ask why you should believe me that the sun rises
>> in the east. Anyone can observe for themselves that Google&#39;s search
>> often finds pages that don&#39;t contain the requested search term, fails
>> to find pages that do contain it, often finds *more* pages when a
>> search is made more restrictive, etc.
>
> I make you right on this, Keith.
>
> The only good thing about the recent 'improvements' is that it
> automatically comes up with a note saying 'do you mean _x_?' if you
> might have mistyped your search term.

That's not new, been around for years. I agree it's useful.

The thing that angered me was losing many of the advanced search tools I
was used to using, especially simple quoted terms.

[Ben Yalow]

In <ju2d72$5b0$1...@reader1.panix.com> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

>Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>> Google doesn't care about Usenet --

>>> Or about search, evidently, given how crappy that has become.
>>> What *do* they care about? Some bright and shiny new thing
>>> they invented last Tuesday and will drop next Thursday?

>> But people keep using their search, and others keep dropping out of
>> the market. So why should we believe you, instead of what billions
>> of other people seem to think?

>You might as well ask why you should believe me that the sun rises
>in the east. Anyone can observe for themselves that Google's search
>often finds pages that don't contain the requested search term, fails
>to find pages that do contain it, often finds *more* pages when a
>search is made more restrictive, etc.

>Google users are looking for a good search engine. Something like
>Google used to be. When we find it, we'll abandon Google.

Possibly.

But, in the real world, Google's share of the search business continues to
grow. It's now over 2/3 of the total search market, and growing. It's
picked up about another 1% of the total market in the last year. Although
gains are hard, considering that it's got to get them at the expense of
tiny competitors (Bing is closest, but has under 1/6 of the total market).

>>>> they still keep doing it without it making them any significant
>>>> money, just because it's easy.

>>> Apparently they don't find it easy to do *right*.

>> They do it well enough to dominate the market.

>If they dominate the market, it's only because the market is so
>fragmented -- which is a good thing.

>> It doesn't work well for you -- but you're not someone they care
>> about, since your profile doesn't match the way they make money.

>Lots of people complain about it. Many, unlike me, go so far as to
>killfile all posts from Google Groups. If Google Groups posts will
>hencforth be filled with angle brackets, semicolons, and ampersands
>like the source code to a web page, a lot more people will killfile
>them.

Which means that these people will see even fewer posts. And this is
supposed to strengthen the already-dying Usenet how?

>>>> There are only a few sites still left that carry Usenet; almost
>>>> everybody gets their feed from the same handful.

>Most ISPs still carry it. When a major ISP drops Usenet, that's
>remarkable enough that it makes headlines.

The major ISPs don't bother to carry Usenet. Verizon doesn't. Comcast
doesn't. Charter, Cablevision(Optimum), Earthlink, Speakeasy all
outsource it, and don't carry it themselves.

>>>> And they make their money by people willing to pay to be able to
>>>> download large amounts from the binaries groups, and not anything
>>>> to do with the text groups, which carry an insignificant amount of
>>>> usage.

>Some ISPs have dropped just the binaries groups because of the
>bandwidth and disk space drain. So of course people who subscribe to
>third-party Usenet providers are disproportionately users of binaries
>groups.

But that's the Usenet people will pay for.

>As for "insignificant," not all bits are created equal. You might as
>well claim that television is a million times more popular than books,
>based on how many bits are conveyed by each medium. A better metric
>is how many person-hours are spent with each.

>> But, for example, the cheap Easynews plan is their 20G/month plan.
>> And most of their customers take one of their larger plans. You
>> don't get to need more than 20G/month for text.

>Do you think you're disagreeing with me? You're not. I've been a
>heavy user of Usenet for over a quarter century, and I haven't yet
>read or posted 20G in total. The more than 38,000 messages I've
>posted to this newsgroup probably total less than 0.2G -- and that's
>spread over 21 years.

Right. But it's those users who keep Usenet in business.

>> "Our customers don't care about Usenet -- why should we?"

>Whose customers?

The customers of the ISPs, most of whom don't carry Usenet.

>> Feel free to write something better.

>Usenet doesn't need a replacement.

No -- it needs users who are willing to post there.

This group has a dozen people or so who provide most of its content. Any
of them leave, and it's a big loss. And a newsgroup that's kept alive by
a handful of people isn't very alive.

>> Or continue to keep pretending that Usenet isn't dying -- and keep
>> hoping that binaries can keep it alive for a while longer.

>In no sense do the binaries groups subsidize the text groups.

The binaries are the reason that places like Giganews exist. And, without
the commercial servers, even more of the ISPs would have customers without
any way to get Usenet access.

>If Usenet is dying, it's not because someone has created or failed to
>create something better. It's because of ubiquitous gross violations
>of netiquette, such as the repeated failure to trim irrelevant groups
>from crossposted threads.

>If I were on the grand jury investigating the attempted murder of the
>net, I'd indict everyone who has crossposted in the massive thread
>that has dominated this newsgroup for the past five weeks. It's way
>off topic in rasfw. Worst of all is anyone who crossposts without
>checking *both* newsgroups for followups, since he's implicitly
>discouraging people from doing the right thing, i.e. trimming
>irrelevant newsgroups. Indeed, that's not so much crossposting
>into a newsgroup as it's shitting into a newsgroup.
>--
>Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
>Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

[Keith F. Lynch]

Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>> Lots of people complain about it. Many, unlike me, go so far as to
>> killfile all posts from Google Groups. If Google Groups posts will
>> hencforth be filled with angle brackets, semicolons, and ampersands
>> like the source code to a web page, a lot more people will killfile
>> them.

> Which means that these people will see even fewer posts. And this
> is supposed to strengthen the already-dying Usenet how?

Usenet isn't dying.

It will strengthen it by driving people away from Google Groups and
toward better Usenet providers.

One crappy Usenet provider can't kill Usenet any more than one crappy
car company can cause everyone to stop driving cars or one crappy
clothing company can cause everyone to go naked.

> This group has a dozen people or so who provide most of its content.
> Any of them leave, and it's a big loss. And a newsgroup that's kept
> alive by a handful of people isn't very alive.

On the contrary, this sort of scaling law is seen almost everywhere.
Next you'll be saying movies are obsolete because the same handful of
movie stars appear in so many of them. Or that the solar system is
doomed because most of the mass is in the sun, and most of what isn't
in the sun is in Jupiter.

ObFandom: If the person who wins the best novel Hugo this year is
one of the tiny percentage of the population who have won it before,
will you conclude that science fiction is dying?

Anyhow, we're talking about the whole of Usenet, not just this one
newsgroup. Plenty of others are far more active. For instance
alt.fan.cecil-adams.

> The binaries are the reason that places like Giganews exist. And,
> without the commercial servers, even more of the ISPs would have
> customers without any way to get Usenet access.

As long as people are interested in Usenet, there will be Usenet
providers. And there's no sign that people are losing interest
in Usenet.

[Keith F. Lynch]

<Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:

> Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>> If Google Groups posts will hencforth be filled with angle
>> brackets, semicolons, and ampersands like the source code
>> to a web page, a lot more people will killfile them.

> Google Groups posts are not full of these items, Keith. Posts on
> Google Groups which have been placed there via a 'newsreader' rather
> than the site are full of them.

Who saw, in the above message, in the text of mine that Tim quoted,
all my apostrophes replaced with ampersand hash three nine semicolon?

I find it mildly annoying when text is mangled, but infuriating when
*my* text is mangled. I know Tim is not deliberately misquoting me,
but that is how it looks -- as if I had been typing gibberish instead
of apostrophes.

Maybe we should all just abandon the apostrophe as a lost cause and
cease using contractions.

> Did you crosspost to rasfw?

No. When responding to a rasff-rasfw crossposted message I respond
only in rasff. Unless my reply is primarily about written SF, in
which case I respond only in rasfw. And yes, I always check both
newsgroups for responses. Or for any mention of my name in any
thread. (Except by the tiny number of people in my killfile.)

> If so, I have no way of telling. I'll check after sending this
> to see if I can see if there's crossposting prior to pressing
> the 'reply' button.

If it is really true that Google Groups will not let you know whether
or where you are crossposting, then it has dropped even further in
my estimation, all the way to completely unacceptable. And I will
seriously consider joining the growing bandwagon and killfiling all
postings from there.

(If I do so, I will mention it in my sig so that GG users will not
waste their time replying to me from there. Ideally, they will move
to a competent Usenet provider.)

[Keith F. Lynch]

<Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:

> Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> It appears that Steve Jobs isn&#39;t the only one with a Reality
>> Distortion Field. But Keith&#39;s affects only him.

> Pointless (as far as I can see) changes to Faecesbook have affected
> me as well as Keith.

Seldom does a week go by in which someone I know does not abandon
Facebook because of something it did.

Most recently, so many users were annoyed that it made the news.
Apparently, Facebook peremptorily changed everyone's contact email
address to an @facebook.com address without permission or notification.

Digression: How do I rephrase "everyone's contact email address" to
not have an apostrophe? "The contact email address of everyone" is
too clumsy. Perhaps it is moot, since I also need to avoid quote
marks if I want Google Groups to not take a crap all over my posting
when it is quoted in a reply by a Google Groups user.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>> As I said, I think the most relevant measure is how many person-
>> hours are spent in each activity, whether the activities are
>> reading books versus watching television or reading and posting to
>> text Usenet groups versus viewing or uploading to binary Usenet
>> groups.

> For TV vs. books, I think we can argue that the information rate
> (what actually gets into our brains, I mean) is very much higher for
> books, and maybe that should be taken into account.

Perhaps. But I think just counting hours spent in each activity is
the fairest and most unbiased metric.

>> I suspect that more hours are spent watching TV than reading books,
>> but probably only by a factor of two to four. And I suspect that
>> much more time is spent reading and posting to text Usenet groups
>> than viewing or uploading to binary Usenet groups.

> Upload and download time isn't usually a *person's* time, anyway;
> they have scripts or applications handle it for them, and just
> examine the results when they get them (or archive them unexamined,
> I suspect, in some cases).

Fair enough. That increases the ratio towards text Usenet ever
further. In other words, the vast majority of time that people
spend using Usenet they spend on text newsgroups.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> As I said, I think the most relevant measure is how many person-
>>> hours are spent in each activity, whether the activities are
>>> reading books versus watching television or reading and posting to
>>> text Usenet groups versus viewing or uploading to binary Usenet
>>> groups.
>
>> For TV vs. books, I think we can argue that the information rate
>> (what actually gets into our brains, I mean) is very much higher for
>> books, and maybe that should be taken into account.
>
> Perhaps. But I think just counting hours spent in each activity is
> the fairest and most unbiased metric.

It avoids arguments about the correction factors, at least. And
measuring "time" as the resource people spend makes sense.

>>> I suspect that more hours are spent watching TV than reading books,
>>> but probably only by a factor of two to four. And I suspect that
>>> much more time is spent reading and posting to text Usenet groups
>>> than viewing or uploading to binary Usenet groups.
>
>> Upload and download time isn't usually a *person's* time, anyway;
>> they have scripts or applications handle it for them, and just
>> examine the results when they get them (or archive them unexamined,
>> I suspect, in some cases).
>
> Fair enough. That increases the ratio towards text Usenet ever
> further. In other words, the vast majority of time that people
> spend using Usenet they spend on text newsgroups.

I have so little idea what the range of actual uses of binary newsgroups
are that I just have no feeling for it. I make tiny amounts of use of
them, and usually find that they've gotten weird beyond my ability to
figure out and give up and go away.

[Cryptoengineer]

On Jul 17, 9:10 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

>And there's no sign that people are losing interest
> in Usenet.

If Keith is making that assertion about text groups, then he's insane.
So far this year, rasff has about a bit over half the posts that were
made in January of 2001 alone.

pt

[Cryptoengineer]

On Jul 16, 1:12 am, David Harmon <sou...@netcom.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 09:28:28 +0000 (UTC) in rec.arts.sf.fandom,

> garabik-news-2005...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk wrote,

>
> >Second, if GG's {up,down}grade pisses someone (an average netizen) off,
> >s/he will most likely turn to other discussion forums (most likely on
> >Facebook). Usenet will see dropped traffic and less discussions.
>
> So, you are saying that they are doing it to drive people from the
> forums that they don't own and where they cannot sell advertising
> (Usenet) to the one that they do and can (Facebook.)  That's not
> indifference.  Whatever happened to "don't be evil"?

Um, Google does not own facebook. The nearest things they have are
Orkut and G+

pt

[Ben Yalow]

In <ju52dq$3d$1...@reader1.panix.com> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

>Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> Lots of people complain about it. Many, unlike me, go so far as to
>>> killfile all posts from Google Groups. If Google Groups posts will
>>> hencforth be filled with angle brackets, semicolons, and ampersands
>>> like the source code to a web page, a lot more people will killfile
>>> them.

>> Which means that these people will see even fewer posts. And this
>> is supposed to strengthen the already-dying Usenet how?

>Usenet isn't dying.

>It will strengthen it by driving people away from Google Groups and
>toward better Usenet providers.

>One crappy Usenet provider can't kill Usenet any more than one crappy
>car company can cause everyone to stop driving cars or one crappy
>clothing company can cause everyone to go naked.

Providers drop Usenet. Nobody adds it.

When somebody stops providing Usenet access, some people go to other
providers. The rest stop using Usenet.

And having fewer interesting people posting makes Usenet less valuable.
When the value drops sufficiently, then more people leave.

>> This group has a dozen people or so who provide most of its content.
>> Any of them leave, and it's a big loss. And a newsgroup that's kept
>> alive by a handful of people isn't very alive.

>On the contrary, this sort of scaling law is seen almost everywhere.
>Next you'll be saying movies are obsolete because the same handful of
>movie stars appear in so many of them. Or that the solar system is
>doomed because most of the mass is in the sun, and most of what isn't
>in the sun is in Jupiter.

If nobody new ever posts, and there are always some people leaving, then
it's a pretty clear indication of a dying system. When was the last new
major poster added to this newsgroup?

>ObFandom: If the person who wins the best novel Hugo this year is
>one of the tiny percentage of the population who have won it before,
>will you conclude that science fiction is dying?

If fandom went many cycles during which nobody new ever got nominated for
a Hugo, I'd probably say SF was dying, too.

>Anyhow, we're talking about the whole of Usenet, not just this one
>newsgroup. Plenty of others are far more active. For instance
>alt.fan.cecil-adams.

>> The binaries are the reason that places like Giganews exist. And,
>> without the commercial servers, even more of the ISPs would have
>> customers without any way to get Usenet access.

>As long as people are interested in Usenet, there will be Usenet
>providers. And there's no sign that people are losing interest
>in Usenet.

Major ISPs have dropped it, and their growth hasn't been affected.

And the text volume is constantly decreasing -- which seems like a sign
that people are losing interest. And that's even on an absolute basis --
much less as a fraction of the Internet population as a whole.

>--
>Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
>Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

[Ben Yalow]

In <ylfkfw8p...@dd-b.net> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> writes:

>"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

>> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:

<snip>

>>
>>> Upload and download time isn't usually a *person's* time, anyway;
>>> they have scripts or applications handle it for them, and just
>>> examine the results when they get them (or archive them unexamined,
>>> I suspect, in some cases).
>>

Right. With a decent interface, the machine handles all of the
upload/download.

>> Fair enough. That increases the ratio towards text Usenet ever
>> further. In other words, the vast majority of time that people
>> spend using Usenet they spend on text newsgroups.

>I have so little idea what the range of actual uses of binary newsgroups
>are that I just have no feeling for it. I make tiny amounts of use of
>them, and usually find that they've gotten weird beyond my ability to
>figure out and give up and go away.

Pr0n, warez, and multimedia of various kinds.

A busy multimedia group gets a few hundred thousand posts/day. Very busy
ones get more.

>--
>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

[Jette Goldie]

On 18/07/2012 02:10, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> Lots of people complain about it. Many, unlike me, go so far as to
>>> killfile all posts from Google Groups. If Google Groups posts will
>>> hencforth be filled with angle brackets, semicolons, and ampersands
>>> like the source code to a web page, a lot more people will killfile
>>> them.
>
>> Which means that these people will see even fewer posts. And this
>> is supposed to strengthen the already-dying Usenet how?
>
> Usenet isn't dying.
>
>

LOL. The majority of newer/younger users of internet (WWW, email)
services have never even heard of usenet. Their ISP probably doesn't
even carry it.

Hands up anyone here who is under the age of 40 or who first got online
less than 10 years ago?

[David Goldfarb]

In article <ju569p$scf$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

>Digression: How do I rephrase "everyone's contact email address" to
>not have an apostrophe? "The contact email address of everyone" is
>too clumsy.

"The contact email address of all users", perhaps? Most English
constructions of possession involve apostrophes, so avoiding them
is going to be difficult.

--
David Goldfarb | From the fortune cookie file:
goldf...@gmail.com |
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | "You will have gold pieces by the bushel."

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Tuesday, 17 July 2012 18:33:43 UTC+1, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk writes:
>
> &gt; On Tuesday, 17 July 2012 01:56:03 UTC+1, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> &gt;
> &gt;&gt; You might as well ask why you should believe me that the sun rises
> &gt;&gt; in the east. Anyone can observe for themselves that Google&amp;#39;s search
> &gt;&gt; often finds pages that don&amp;#39;t contain the requested search term, fails
> &gt;&gt; to find pages that do contain it, often finds *more* pages when a
> &gt;&gt; search is made more restrictive, etc.
> &gt;
> &gt; I make you right on this, Keith.
> &gt;
> &gt; The only good thing about the recent &#39;improvements&#39; is that it
> &gt; automatically comes up with a note saying &#39;do you mean _x_?&#39; if you
> &gt; might have mistyped your search term.
>
> That&#39;s not new, been around for years. I agree it&#39;s useful.

Yes, it's *%&#!! useful. Lol!

> The thing that angered me was losing many of the advanced search tools I
> was used to using, especially simple quoted terms.

Yes, now you mention it...

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Wednesday, 18 July 2012 03:16:25 UTC+1, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> &lt;Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk&gt; wrote:
> &gt; Cryptoengineer wrote:
> &gt;&gt; It appears that Steve Jobs isn&amp;#39;t the only one with a Reality
> &gt;&gt; Distortion Field. But Keith&amp;#39;s affects only him.
>
> &gt; Pointless (as far as I can see) changes to Faecesbook have affected
> &gt; me as well as Keith.

>
> Seldom does a week go by in which someone I know does not abandon
> Facebook because of something it did.

There are two sorts of fora on the internet: Facebook and fora where people complain about how useless Facebook is.

> Most recently, so many users were annoyed that it made the news.

> Apparently, Facebook peremptorily changed everyone&#39;s contact email

> address to an @facebook.com address without permission or notification.
>

> Digression: How do I rephrase &quot;everyone&#39;s contact email address&quot; to
> not have an apostrophe? &quot;The contact email address of everyone&quot; is

> too clumsy. Perhaps it is moot, since I also need to avoid quote
> marks if I want Google Groups to not take a crap all over my posting
> when it is quoted in a reply by a Google Groups user.

Well, I was wondering whether I ought to use double inverted commas instead of single to make messages clearer. Now we know.

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Wednesday, 18 July 2012 03:04:49 UTC+1, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> &lt;Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk&gt; wrote:
> &gt; Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> &gt;&gt; If Google Groups posts will hencforth be filled with angle
> &gt;&gt; brackets, semicolons, and ampersands like the source code
> &gt;&gt; to a web page, a lot more people will killfile them.
>
> &gt; Google Groups posts are not full of these items, Keith. Posts on
> &gt; Google Groups which have been placed there via a &#39;newsreader&#39; rather
> &gt; than the site are full of them.

>
> Who saw, in the above message, in the text of mine that Tim quoted,
> all my apostrophes replaced with ampersand hash three nine semicolon?

I did, in the message to which you refer (not the one I'm repying to).

Also, in the message to which I am now replying, Keith did not desperately call for an alcoholic beverage like unto a thing of Richard III and a horse. However, when I clicked the 'Reply' button, suddenly all the close-triangular-brackets or Chinese-hat-on-its-side symbols were followed by the plaintive wail '&gt;'

Presumably if Keith replies to this message of mine, my '&gt;' with its single quotation marks or inverted commas at each end will become '&#39;&gt;&#39;
'.

> I find it mildly annoying when text is mangled, but infuriating when
> *my* text is mangled. I know Tim is not deliberately misquoting me,
> but that is how it looks -- as if I had been typing gibberish instead
> of apostrophes.

Thank you for your understanding and tolerance, Keith. In return, I take this opportunity to state for the record that I know Keith is not deliberately typing gibberish instead of apostrophes , but that is how it looks -- as if I had been misquoting Keith.

> Maybe we should all just abandon the apostrophe as a lost cause

We are not market stallholders!

and
> cease using contractions.
>
> &gt; Did you crosspost to rasfw?

>
> No. When responding to a rasff-rasfw crossposted message I respond
> only in rasff. Unless my reply is primarily about written SF, in
> which case I respond only in rasfw. And yes, I always check both
> newsgroups for responses. Or for any mention of my name in any
> thread. (Except by the tiny number of people in my killfile.)

Sorry, Keith - I think that I had a point when I asked the question but I have no idea what it might have been.

> &gt; If so, I have no way of telling. I'll check after sending this
> &gt; to see if I can see if there's crossposting prior to pressing
> &gt; the 'reply' button.

I've just had to replace four strings of &39# with single inverted commas there.

> If it is really true that Google Groups will not let you know whether
> or where you are crossposting, then it has dropped even further in
> my estimation, all the way to completely unacceptable. And I will
> seriously consider joining the growing bandwagon and killfiling all
> postings from there.

I'm afraid that you'll have to consider that, then, Keith.

In fact, it's worse than you thought (I know, you did not believe that that was possible). I cannot see whether a message in GG has been cross-posted or not in the first place.

> (If I do so, I will mention it in my sig so that GG users will not
> waste their time replying to me from there. Ideally, they will move
> to a competent Usenet provider.)

Very considerate of you. If I get a home computer that works again, I shall be seeking out a free 'newsreader' that can send me four or five groups.

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Wednesday, 18 July 2012 07:22:50 UTC+1, Jette wrote:
> On 18/07/2012 02:10, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

> &gt; Ben Yalow &lt;yb...@panix.com&gt; wrote:
> &gt;&gt; &quot;Keith F. Lynch&quot; &lt;k...@KeithLynch.net&gt; writes:
> &gt;&gt;&gt; Lots of people complain about it. Many, unlike me, go so far as to
> &gt;&gt;&gt; killfile all posts from Google Groups. If Google Groups posts will
> &gt;&gt;&gt; hencforth be filled with angle brackets, semicolons, and ampersands
> &gt;&gt;&gt; like the source code to a web page, a lot more people will killfile
> &gt;&gt;&gt; them.
> &gt;
> &gt;&gt; Which means that these people will see even fewer posts. And this
> &gt;&gt; is supposed to strengthen the already-dying Usenet how?
> &gt;
> &gt; Usenet isn&#39;t dying.
> &gt;
> &gt;

>
>
> LOL. The majority of newer/younger users of internet (WWW, email)

> services have never even heard of usenet. Their ISP probably doesn&#39;t

> even carry it.
>
> Hands up anyone here who is under the age of 40 or who first got online
> less than 10 years ago?

Yo.

Actually, I'll go away and check, if I can. I know I don't qualify under the first criterion, but thought I did under the second... but now am having second thoughts.

[Lowell Gilbert]

gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) writes:

> In article <ju569p$scf$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>Digression: How do I rephrase "everyone's contact email address" to
>>not have an apostrophe? "The contact email address of everyone" is
>>too clumsy.
>
> "The contact email address of all users", perhaps? Most English
> constructions of possession involve apostrophes, so avoiding them
> is going to be difficult.

"of every user" would be better, no?

[Cryptoengineer]

On Jul 18, 8:36 am, Tim.Bate...@redbridge.gov.uk wrote:
> On Wednesday, 18 July 2012 03:04:49 UTC+1, Keith F. Lynch  wrote:
>

Of course you can. Click the 'More options' button at the top of the
message.

pt

[Keith F. Lynch]

<Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:
> However, when I clicked the 'Reply' button, suddenly all the
> close-triangular-brackets or Chinese-hat-on-its-side symbols were
> followed by the plaintive wail '&gt;'

Can you fix it? If so, please do so. If not, please switch to a
competent Usenet provider. Thank you.

> If I get a home computer that works again,

How are you posting? From work? Does your employer know?

> I shall be seeking out a free 'newsreader' that can send me four
> or five groups.

As far as I know, all newsreaders are free. What you need is a
competent Internet service provider. One which provides Usenet.
Alternatively, a Usenet service provider such as one of the several
that Ben recently mentioned.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> Google Plus is the site they created that's like Facebook, and is
> intended to compete with it. Doesn't seem to be working very well
> for that.

In the process, they annoyingly removed the plus sign functionality
from their search engine. If they give up on Google Plus, I hope they
will restore that funtionality.

[Alan Woodford]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 01:02:06 +0000 (UTC), "Keith F. Lynch"
<k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

><Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:
>> However, when I clicked the 'Reply' button, suddenly all the
>> close-triangular-brackets or Chinese-hat-on-its-side symbols were
>> followed by the plaintive wail '&gt;'
>
>Can you fix it? If so, please do so. If not, please switch to a
>competent Usenet provider. Thank you.
>
>> If I get a home computer that works again,
>
>How are you posting? From work? Does your employer know?
>
>> I shall be seeking out a free 'newsreader' that can send me four
>> or five groups.
>
>As far as I know, all newsreaders are free. What you need is a
>competent Internet service provider. One which provides Usenet.
>Alternatively, a Usenet service provider such as one of the several
>that Ben recently mentioned.

Cough, splutter!

I've been using Agent for at least the last 8 years, and that isn't
free.

And there are other paid for newsreaders out there.

Alan Woodford

The Greying Lensman!

[Brian Love]

Jette Goldie <jgold...@btinternet.com> wrote:

> Hands up anyone here who is under the age of 40 or who first got online
> less than 10 years ago?

I'm under 40... but I first encountered Usenet in either '93 or '94

--
Brian Love
Posted from NewsTap on an iPhone

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Wednesday, 18 July 2012 20:07:32 UTC+1, Cryptoengineer wrote:
> On Jul 18, 8:36 am, Tim.Bate...@redbridge.gov.uk wrote:

> &gt; In fact, it&#39;s worse than you thought (I know, you did not believe that that was possible). I cannot see whether a message in GG has been cross-posted or not in the first place.
>
> Of course you can. Click the &#39;More options&#39; button at the top of the
> message.

That was in the old google groups. Under the new, deproved GG, there is no '&#39;More options&#39;' button.

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Thursday, 19 July 2012 02:02:06 UTC+1, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> &lt;Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk&gt; wrote:

> &gt; However, when I clicked the &#39;Reply&#39; button, suddenly all the
> &gt; close-triangular-brackets or Chinese-hat-on-its-side symbols were
> &gt; followed by the plaintive wail &#39;&amp;gt;&#39;

>
> Can you fix it? If so, please do so.

sadly not.

>If not, please switch to a
> competent Usenet provider. Thank you.

See original comments below.

> &gt; If I get a home computer that works again,

>
> How are you posting? From work?

Yes.

>Does your employer know?

At least in theory, yes.

> &gt; I shall be seeking out a free &#39;newsreader&#39; that can send me four
> &gt; or five groups.

>
> As far as I know, all newsreaders are free. What you need is a
> competent Internet service provider. One which provides Usenet.
> Alternatively, a Usenet service provider such as one of the several
> that Ben recently mentioned.

When I am in possession of a computer at home again I shall procure a competent Internet service provider, one which provides Usenet. Until then, do you have any other solutions?

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

Brian Love <docb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jette Goldie <jgold...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>> Hands up anyone here who is under the age of 40 or who first got online
>> less than 10 years ago?
>
> I'm under 40... but I first encountered Usenet in either '93 or '94
>

AOL^W me too (to both)

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
| 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!

[Keith F. Lynch]

<Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:
> When I am in possession of a computer at home again I shall procure
> a competent Internet service provider, one which provides Usenet.
> Until then, do you have any other solutions?

Can you manually search-and-replace HTML entities with what they are
supposed to be? If not, then I would suggest instead of quoting text,
paraphrasing it. Thanks.

[Cryptoengineer]

On Jul 19, 8:08 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

> <Tim.Bate...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:
> > When I am in possession of a computer at home again I shall procure
> > a competent Internet service provider, one which provides Usenet.
> > Until then, do you have any other solutions?
>
> Can you manually search-and-replace HTML entities with what they are
> supposed to be?  If not, then I would suggest instead of quoting text,
> paraphrasing it.  Thanks.

I find the mangling Tim is doing odd, and haven't looked into why it's
happening, but it isn't affecting enough posts for me to really care
one way or the the other.

pt

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Friday, 20 July 2012 01:08:24 UTC+1, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> &lt;Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk&gt; wrote:

> &gt; When I am in possession of a computer at home again I shall procure
> &gt; a competent Internet service provider, one which provides Usenet.
> &gt; Until then, do you have any other solutions?

>
> Can you manually search-and-replace HTML entities with what they are
> supposed to be? If not, then I would suggest instead of quoting text,
> paraphrasing it. Thanks.

My bad. I should have used the adjective 'practical' in front of the noun 'solutions.'

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Friday, 20 July 2012 04:37:56 UTC+1, Cryptoengineer wrote:
> On Jul 19, 8:08 pm, &quot;Keith F. Lynch&quot; &lt;k...@KeithLynch.net&gt; wrote:
> &gt; &lt;Tim.Bate...@redbridge.gov.uk&gt; wrote:
> &gt; &gt; When I am in possession of a computer at home again I shall procure
> &gt; &gt; a competent Internet service provider, one which provides Usenet.
> &gt; &gt; Until then, do you have any other solutions?
> &gt;
> &gt; Can you manually search-and-replace HTML entities with what they are
> &gt; supposed to be?  If not, then I would suggest instead of quoting text,
> &gt; paraphrasing it.  Thanks.
>
> I find the mangling Tim is doing odd, and haven&#39;t looked into why it&#39;s
> happening, but it isn&#39;t affecting enough posts for me to really care

> one way or the the other.

Maybe it is now? <Grin>

It is some computer programme somewhere that is doing any mangling, I wish to point out. I don't go through keith's messages replacing any single apostrophes with '&#39;' and Chinese hats with requests for a gin and Tonic.

[Keith F. Lynch]

<Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:
> It is some computer programme somewhere that is doing any mangling,
> I wish to point out. I don't go through keith's messages replacing
> any single apostrophes with '&#39;' and Chinese hats with requests
> for a gin and Tonic.

Nobody doubts that.

Even given that Google Groups is for some bizarre reason converting
quoted text into HTML, I cannot understand why they are converting
apostrophes. Unlike angle brackets and quote marks, apostrophes are
not reserved characters in HTML. Web pages can and often do contain
literal apostrophes.

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

Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> <Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:
>> It is some computer programme somewhere that is doing any mangling,
>> I wish to point out. I don't go through keith's messages replacing
>> any single apostrophes with '&#39;' and Chinese hats with requests
>> for a gin and Tonic.
>
> Nobody doubts that.
>
> Even given that Google Groups is for some bizarre reason converting
> quoted text into HTML, I cannot understand why they are converting
> apostrophes. Unlike angle brackets and quote marks, apostrophes are
> not reserved characters in HTML. Web pages can and often do contain
> literal apostrophes.

Maybe they are using their own character set, a subset of Unicode
without apostrophes, quotes and angle brackets.

[Keith F. Lynch]

<garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
> Maybe they are using their own character set, a subset of Unicode
> without apostrophes, quotes and angle brackets.

It seems unlikely that Google or anyone else would create such a
character set. What would be the point?

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Tuesday, 24 July 2012 04:09:51 UTC+1, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> &lt;garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk&gt; wrote:
> &gt; Maybe they are using their own character set, a subset of Unicode
> &gt; without apostrophes, quotes and angle brackets.

>
> It seems unlikely that Google or anyone else would create such a
> character set. What would be the point?

Given Facebook's recent 'improvements,' I am tempted to think that it is simply to annoy me (I regret that you may be mere collateral damage, Keith).

[Alan Woodford]

On Tue, 24 Jul 2012 04:56:54 -0700 (PDT), Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk
wrote:

Now it is just getting silly.

Your quoting of Keith worked properly this time, but your quote of
Keith's quoting of Radovan got the &gt treatment!

Keith's original quote of Radovan worked properly.

Maybe Google are getting the cluestick, but it hasn't been inserted
far enough yet...

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

Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:

> <garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>> Maybe they are using their own character set, a subset of Unicode
>> without apostrophes, quotes and angle brackets.
>
> It seems unlikely that Google or anyone else would create such a
> character set. What would be the point?

It makes it easier to HTML format messages... no need to care about
(de)quoting.

--
irony /ˈaɪə.ni/
1. Of or pertaining to the metal iron.
2. Resembling iron in taste, hardness, or other physical property.

[Keith F. Lynch]

<garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
>> <garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>>> Maybe they are using their own character set, a subset of Unicode
>>> without apostrophes, quotes and angle brackets.

>> It seems unlikely that Google or anyone else would create such a
>> character set. What would be the point?

> It makes it easier to HTML format messages... no need to care about
> (de)quoting.

How is HTML possible without quotes or angle brackets?