5,271,009

[Eric Pepke]

I am seeking the author of a story called 5,271,009 or other such number.
The basis of the story is that it is the number of choices that one has to
make in a lifetime.

Eric Pepke
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University
pe...@scri.fsu.edu

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Eric Pepke (pe...@scri.fsu.edu) wrote:
: I am seeking the author of a story called 5,271,009 or other such number.

: The basis of the story is that it is the number of choices that one has to
: make in a lifetime.

Alfred Bester. It's in his collection STARLIGHT, among other places.

[Nils Weinander,7430,000446]

>I am seeking the author of a story called 5,271,009 or other such number.

Alfred Bester?

[res...@delphi.com]

Alfie Bester wrote the story around a previously-commissioned cover
painting that featured a prisoner wearing the number "5,271,009" on
his outfit.

[David E Romm]

In article <pepke-040...@pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu>, pe...@scri.fsu.edu
(Eric Pepke) wrote:

> I am seeking the author of a story called 5,271,009 or other such number.
> The basis of the story is that it is the number of choices that one has to
> make in a lifetime.

And other things, too...

--
Shockwave: Science Fiction/Science Fact. The only tactile radio show in
the galaxy. Riding the wave since the Year of Our Moonlanding 10. Tapes
available.

"Dateline Year of Our Moonlanding 5,271,009. Earth's sun Sol went nova
today, killing an estimated 12 billion people. Names are being withheld
pending notification of next of kin."
-- Dave Romm, Shockwave, "Spindizzy", 1981

[drroc...@gmail.com]

24601? Oh, wrong author! <grin>

[Peter Trei]

On Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 11:53:38 AM UTC-4, drroc...@gmail.com wrote:
> 24601? Oh, wrong author! <grin>
>
> On Thursday, January 5, 1995 at 9:25:19 PM UTC-5, David E Romm wrote:
> > In article <pepke-040...@pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu>, pe...@scri.fsu.edu
> > (Eric Pepke) wrote:
> >
> > > I am seeking the author of a story called 5,271,009 or other such number.
> > > The basis of the story is that it is the number of choices that one has to
> > > make in a lifetime.
> >
> > And other things, too...

Top post (blech).

Over 21 years delayed response. Is this a record?

pt

[Scott Lurndal]

The oldest post that I've seen be resurrected was 25 years.

When I saw the Subject header, I figured it was a reference to a patent :-)

http://www.google.com/patents/US5271009

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <8ddd8de5-497a-431b...@googlegroups.com>,

<drroc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>24601? Oh, wrong author! <grin>
>
>On Thursday, January 5, 1995 at 9:25:19 PM UTC-5, David E Romm wrote:
>> In article <pepke-040...@pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu>, pe...@scri.fsu.edu
>> (Eric Pepke) wrote:
>>
>> > I am seeking the author of a story called 5,271,009 or other such number.
>> > The basis of the story is that it is the number of choices that one has to
>> > make in a lifetime.

Oh, my. The author was Alfred Bester, and the story was
reprinted I don't know how many times, usually under the title
"The Starcomber." (As in beachcomber, = remittance man.)

I bet several others have already replied to this *elderly*
post.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

[Alie...@gmail.com]

No.

Also, considering the OP's sig file, I would think his Google skills should have been up to the task.

I hope they've improved since then.


Mark L. Fergerson

[Peter Trei]

In 1995, there was a heck of a lot less data available online, and Google
didn't exist. The best you had were things like Lycos and AltaVista. Asking
on Usenet (then still in its heyday) was a smart option).

pt

pt

[David DeLaney]

Possibly not. (see: 'Ed Rice', a.f.u)

However, these days it's actually not too easy to find posts that old to
respond to, so somewhere around that age probably _is_ the record.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "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://gatekeeper.vic.com/~dbd/ -net.legends/Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Don Bruder]

In article <_u-dnQL2-8zoX_TK...@earthlink.com>,

David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> On 2016-06-21, Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 11:53:38 AM UTC-4, drroc...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> 24601? Oh, wrong author! <grin>
> >> On Thursday, January 5, 1995 at 9:25:19 PM UTC-5, David E Romm wrote:
>
> > Top post (blech).
> >
> > Over 21 years delayed response. Is this a record?
>
> Possibly not. (see: 'Ed Rice', a.f.u)
>
> However, these days it's actually not too easy to find posts that old to
> respond to, so somewhere around that age probably _is_ the record.
>
> Dave

Are you forgetting the google grabbing of Deja News? And the OP *WAS*
posting with a gmail address... Which to me immediately leaps out and
yells "Another n00b who thinks that because it shows up in google
groups, it must be fresh and new."

--
Brought to you by the letter Q and the number .357
Security provided by Horace S. & Dan W.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Wonder if he ever saw the answers?

[Dimensional Traveler]

And did he have to read thru 5,271,009 posts to do so?

--
Running the rec.arts.TV Channels Watched Survey for Summer 2016

[Robert Carnegie]

I'm almost sure that gmail didn't exist in 1995 either.
At least not the same gmail...

[Peter Trei]

I don't know where David gets that; gmail didn't start till 2004.

Here's the headers from the OP. They're Old School:

Path: nntp.gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!princeton!rutgers!netnews.upenn.edu!dsinc!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!usenet.cis.ufl.edu!usenet.ufl.edu!mailer.acns.fsu.edu!pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu!user
From: pe...@scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: 5,271,009
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written
Date: 4 Jan 1995 16:10:30 GMT
Organization: Florida State University, but I don't speak for them
Lines: 8
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <pepke-040...@pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu


No sign of google there, and a honey of a Path: line.

pt

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <4f16509f-338a-44e2...@googlegroups.com>,

Yeah, that's what it was like, back in the day; I vaguely
remember.

The question in my mind is how this thread managed to go on
drifting about so long. Does Google Groups, which I have never
used, actually keep all these posts in storage for (mumble)
years?

[Don Bruder]

In article <d944e31b-ce2f-4499...@googlegroups.com>,

I'm pretty sure you're intelligent enough to realize I was referring to
the necroposter. Then again, perhap you aren't...

[Peter Trei]

You referred to the 'OP', or 'Original Poster', the creator of the thread.
If you were referring to someone besides Eric Pepke, that usage is incorrect.

pt

[Torbjorn Lindgren]

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>The question in my mind is how this thread managed to go on
>drifting about so long. Does Google Groups, which I have never
>used, actually keep all these posts in storage for (mumble)
>years?

Google Groups started with Google acquiring Deja News in 2001 and
running it pretty much as it had before the takeover, this included
full Usnet archives going back to March 1995 (when Deja started).

Later in 2001 Google added older Usenet posts going back to May 11,
1981 (!) that they had been given but I'm under the impression there
was some years which wasn't covered by the archives they were given.

So early on Google Groups was aggressive on trying to make sure they
had as much old Usenet history as was possible.

Unfortunately a few years later (2005?) the older posts started to get
harder and harder to find with the situation getting worse over time
and no fix ever implemented.

Google clearly couldn't possibly care less about Google Groups these
days, the only surprise is that they've not killed it (yet). The Group
search does find SOME old Usenet posts though...

The total amount of storage needed for a total archive of all text
Usenet posting ever made isn't very large by modern standards. There's
evidence that Google Groups have a lot of old posts that can only be
found via message ids but not by keyword search.

So, they could do a lot better if they just fixed their search
indexes, this is likely fairly simple but the chance of it ever
happening seems extremely remote at this point.

[Peter Trei]

My suspicion is that the GG archive became someone's 20% project, and they
left. I used to be able to find posts of mine back to around 1980 (a
discussion of TESB).

pt

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 6/22/16 10:30 AM, Torbjorn Lindgren wrote:

> Later in 2001 Google added older Usenet posts going back to May 11,
> 1981 (!) that they had been given but I'm under the impression there
> was some years which wasn't covered by the archives they were given.
>

Definitely there are some missing. I cannot find any of my earliest
posts, which probably date to 1989 or 1988. Reading any of the earliest
posts available for me, which seem to be around 1991, it's clear I was
already online and a part of communities like r.g.frp and r.a.sf-lovers
and alt.callahans well before then.


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

[Don Bruder]

In article <o96Dp...@kithrup.com>,

In a word, yes. Ain't the death of ephemera great?

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <nke7ed$5rs$1...@dont-email.me>,

Torbjorn Lindgren <t...@none.invalid> wrote:
>
>The total amount of storage needed for a total archive of all text
>Usenet posting ever made isn't very large by modern standards. There's
>evidence that Google Groups have a lot of old posts that can only be
>found via message ids but not by keyword search.
>
>So, they could do a lot better if they just fixed their search
>indexes, this is likely fairly simple but the chance of it ever
>happening seems extremely remote at this point.

If only they had access to someone who knew something about search..
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Peter Trei]

On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 10:55:58 AM UTC-4, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> On 6/22/16 10:30 AM, Torbjorn Lindgren wrote:
>
> > Later in 2001 Google added older Usenet posts going back to May 11,
> > 1981 (!) that they had been given but I'm under the impression there
> > was some years which wasn't covered by the archives they were given.
> >
>
>
> Definitely there are some missing. I cannot find any of my earliest
> posts, which probably date to 1989 or 1988. Reading any of the earliest
> posts available for me, which seem to be around 1991, it's clear I was
> already online and a part of communities like r.g.frp and r.a.sf-lovers
> and alt.callahans well before then.

You have to know how to do it.

The earliest r.a.sf-lovers post I can find is from 16 Nov 1986:

- start quote -

Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!clyde!cbatt!cbosgd!wright!jsloan
From: jsl...@wright.EDU (John Sloan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,comp.ai
Subject: Re: Re: Canonical list of sentient computer novels
Message-ID: <1...@wright.EDU>
Date: Sun, 16-Nov-86 19:20:43 EST
Article-I.D.: wright.180
Posted: Sun Nov 16 19:20:43 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Nov-86 01:59:42 EST
References: <42...@ut-ngp.UUCP> <4...@lewey.UUCP> <7...@ulowell.UUCP> <22...@ecsvax.UUCP> <41...@amdahl.UUCP> <2...@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Wright State University, Dayton OH, 45435
Lines: 17
Xref: mnetor rec.arts.sf-lovers:2 comp.ai:32

>>"The Mote in God's Eye" by Niven/Pournell
> This novel is remarkable for the complete lack of computer technology.

Must be thinking of _Oath of Fealty_ by the same authors, containing a
sentient computer named MILLIE. _The Mote in God's Eye_ lacked a lot of
high tech stuff because the powers that be froze the technological state
of their culture at a level that they believed would prevent global/near
space conflicts.

Also the three D.F. Jones Colossus books whose titles someone couldn't
remember were were _Colossus_, _The Fall of Colossus_, and _Colossus
and the Crab_.
--
______________________________________________________________________
John Sloan jsloan@wright.{CSNET,UUCP} ...!cbosgd!wright!jsloan
Computer Science Department, Wright State University, Dayton OH, 45435
+1 513 873 2491 belong(opinions,jsloan). belong(opinions,_):-!,fail.

- end quote --

As the Xref numbers suggest, this is just after the Great Renaming, so there
really aren't any earlier in that group.

Prior to the renaming, activity was on net.sf-lovers. I can push that back to
16 Jan, 1982:

- start quote -
Message-ID: <anews.Aesquire.195>
Newsgroups: net.games,net.sf-lovers
Path: utzoo!decvax!duke!chico!esquire!psl
X-Path: utzoo!decvax!duke!chico!esquire!psl
From: esquire!psl
Date: Sat Jan 16 05:41:04 1982
Subject: Keith Laumer's Bolos

I sent something like this to ucbvax.sf-lovers but haven't seen it, so...

I need information on two aspects of Keith Laumer's Continental Siege Units
(a.k.a. Bolos):
a) Are there any stories other than the first book of them and the
story "A Relic of War" that appeared in "The Big Show"?
b) Are there any drawings or pictures of Bolos other than the cover
of "The Big Show"?
I need this information to fill in a few gaps in the documentation of a game
loosely based on the Bolos (called "Bolo", natch).
Peter Langston
esquire!psl
- end quote -

"Will google for egoboo"

pt

[Peter Trei]

On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 10:55:58 AM UTC-4, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:

> On 6/22/16 10:30 AM, Torbjorn Lindgren wrote:
>
> > Later in 2001 Google added older Usenet posts going back to May 11,
> > 1981 (!) that they had been given but I'm under the impression there
> > was some years which wasn't covered by the archives they were given.
> >
>
>
> Definitely there are some missing. I cannot find any of my earliest
> posts, which probably date to 1989 or 1988. Reading any of the earliest
> posts available for me, which seem to be around 1991, it's clear I was
> already online and a part of communities like r.g.frp and r.a.sf-lovers
> and alt.callahans well before then.

rasfw dates to October 1991
rasf to Sept 1991
rec.arts.sf-lovers to Nov 1986
net.sf-lovers to at least Jan 1982

pt

[Joe Bernstein]

Downthread you claim you were referring to the resurrector, not the
actual OP. The resurrector posted less than a day ago, so I'm not sure
what "since then" is supposed to mean, and had no .sig file. Are you
sure you were referring to anyone at all?

-- JLB

[Robert Carnegie]

I understood that there was a misunderstanding.

[Joe Bernstein]

Sigh, I miss cancels.

Yeah, I was wrong. Mixed up two references to the OP. Sorry.

-- JLB

[Peter Trei]

One more tidbit: SF-Lovers Digest was being gatewayed to fa.sf-lovers at
least by 13 May, 1981

pt

[Joe Bernstein]

On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 7:30:39 AM UTC-7, Torbjorn Lindgren wrote:

> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:

> >The question in my mind is how this thread managed to go on
> >drifting about so long. Does Google Groups, which I have never
> >used, actually keep all these posts in storage for (mumble)
> >years?

[Yes.]

> Later in 2001 Google added older Usenet posts going back to May 11,
> 1981 (!) that they had been given but I'm under the impression there
> was some years which wasn't covered by the archives they were given.

What they did was acquire a series of archives. Each archive had
different policies, both about which posts they kept and about which
headers in those posts they kept. However, the archives cover not only
each year but each month subsequent to the first archive, the
University of Toronto's, the earliest parts of which are sometimes
referred to as the A News Archive. (A News had such different headers
that Google's copies of these posts feature essentially reconstructed
headers; however, others have the archives - I'm pretty sure I still
have a copy somewhere - with the original headers. I think I also
still have a copy of A News itself somewhere with which I could try to
read them, though in fact I just read them as text, when I do.)

They announced that 5/11/1981 was the earliest post they found, but they
were way off. I found at least one post from May 1980; I'm not sure
whether I ever found anything older. (Usenet started in 1979, so this
is a pretty meaningful difference.) Toronto's coverage was pretty gappy;
there are certainly months with no posts between May 1980 and May 1981,
and there may be later, although I doubt it. The first non-Toronto
archive is from the mid-1980s.

<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/news.announce.important/C3WRTOPSYio>

> The total amount of storage needed for a total archive of all text
> Usenet posting ever made isn't very large by modern standards. There's
> evidence that Google Groups have a lot of old posts that can only be
> found via message ids but not by keyword search.

While this may be true, there are also posts that Google can't bring up
by message-ID either; worse yet, there are posts whose accessibility by
message-ID is unpredictable.

Not all these posts are particularly old, either. Searching for my post
on the "Novels of Kay Kenyon" now brings up, not that post, but my
complaint about its having gone missing, here, last year. I also
complained at that time of another post-2001 post having gone missing.
When I dug up message-IDs, one turned up, the other didn't.

Joe Bernstein

and yes, of course, the cited URL is shameless self-promotion

--
Joe Bernstein, writer and tax preparer <j...@sfbooks.com>

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Yeah, I know that. But there appear to be gaps in the archive, because
I can't find any postings for me prior to some time in 1991, and it's
clear I was on Usenet before that.

[Peter Trei]

Interesting. I can't track you prior to 10 April 1991, when you posted to a
variety of groups. Did you use a different handle or email before that?

pt

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

No, I've been "Sea Wasp" since 1977.

I did have different Emails before, of course, but anything I wrote
from at least the mid-80s on was almost certainly signed "Sea Wasp" with
the little jellyfish ascii at the end.

[Peter Trei]

FWIW, I can find posts I made in late 1983. I was on SF-Lovers Digest before
that.

pt

[Alie...@gmail.com]

Alsoplustoo, I had only made one post to the thread.

Just out of curiosity, who did you have me mixed up with?


Mark L. Fergerson

[J. Clarke]

In article <nke7ed$5rs$1...@dont-email.me>, t...@none.invalid says...

Google's search engine, which used to be the best around, had
degenerated into an adverising delivery system. I search harder and
harder to find less and less that's actually useful.

[Joe Bernstein]

On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 2:55:40 PM UTC-7, nu...@bid.nes wrote:

> On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 8:55:11 AM UTC-7, Joe Bernstein wrote:

> > On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 8:51:20 AM UTC-7, Joe Bernstein wrote:

> > > On Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 12:04:45 PM UTC-7, nu...@bid.nes wrote:

[but I'm not quoting, so this is the later post by me:]

> > Sigh, I miss cancels.
> >
> > Yeah, I was wrong. Mixed up two references to the OP. Sorry.

> Just out of curiosity, who did you have me mixed up with?

Don Bruder.

Each of you had made mistakes, which had each been corrected. But I
didn't think enough had been corrected, *because* I made the mistake of
associating your words with his reference to the resurrector. So I had
to correct my own mistake.

I'm quite certain there's an ObSF to this situation, but don't much want
to remember it.

-- JLB

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 8:30:39 AM UTC-6, Torbjorn Lindgren wrote:
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> >The question in my mind is how this thread managed to go on
> >drifting about so long. Does Google Groups, which I have never
> >used, actually keep all these posts in storage for (mumble)
> >years?

> Google Groups started with Google acquiring Deja News in 2001 and
> running it pretty much as it had before the takeover, this included
> full Usnet archives going back to March 1995 (when Deja started).

But until recently, Google Groups would not allow you to reply to a post older
than a certain limit, just as most ISPs would not allow you to do so back when
they provided Usenet access as a matter of course.

For whatever reason, Google has dropped this restriction, and that is what is
causing really old threads to occasionally reappear. After all, when reading a
post on a newsgroup that has turned up due to a search, its date isn't
immediately obvious.

John Savard

[David DeLaney]

On 2016-06-21, Don Bruder <dak...@sonic.net> wrote:

> David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> However, these days it's actually not too easy to find posts that old to
>> respond to, so somewhere around that age probably _is_ the record.
>

> Are you forgetting the google grabbing of Deja News?

Nope. I am also not forgetting google almost immediately losing track somehow
of a lot of what it grabbed, the more so as the posts got older. If they'd
done it correctly and retained access to it all, I would be more sour and
less bitter. (My umami content is still up in the air.)

> And the OP *WAS*
> posting with a gmail address... Which to me immediately leaps out and
> yells "Another n00b who thinks that because it shows up in google
> groups, it must be fresh and new."

My exasperated sigh agrees violently with you.

Dave, it's new to _them_ anyway
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "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://gatekeeper.vic.com/~dbd/ -net.legends/Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[David DeLaney]

On 2016-06-22, nu...@bid.nes <Alie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just out of curiosity, who did you have me mixed up with?

Who would sir prefer that we did?

Dave, will entangle destinies for food

[Robert Carnegie]

The Second Law of Thermodynamics probably applies.

[Peter Trei]

On Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 4:33:47 AM UTC-4, David DeLaney wrote:
> On 2016-06-21, Don Bruder <dak...@sonic.net> wrote:
> > David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >> However, these days it's actually not too easy to find posts that old to
> >> respond to, so somewhere around that age probably _is_ the record.
> >
> > Are you forgetting the google grabbing of Deja News?
>
> Nope. I am also not forgetting google almost immediately losing track somehow
> of a lot of what it grabbed, the more so as the posts got older. If they'd
> done it correctly and retained access to it all, I would be more sour and
> less bitter. (My umami content is still up in the air.)
>
> > And the OP *WAS*
> > posting with a gmail address... Which to me immediately leaps out and
> > yells "Another n00b who thinks that because it shows up in google
> > groups, it must be fresh and new."
>
> My exasperated sigh agrees violently with you.
>
> Dave, it's new to _them_ anyway

The problem appears to be in different interpretations of 'OP'. To me,
it meant 'Original Poster', and can *only* apply to the person who
started the thread, back in 1995, long before GG or gmail.

To Don, it seems to have meant the person who revived the thread after a
21 year hiatus.

I wonder if this may be related to the ease with which very old posts
can be seen. I use either GG (with its very deep, albeit hard to access
archives), or giganews with the xnews client, geep, by not quite as deep
as GG. Don uses eternal-september with Newswatcher, and obtaining the
actual 1995 'OP' (Eric Pepke) may not have been possible; he may have seen no one earlier than ddroc... , the reviver.

pt

[Don Bruder]

In article <92008ad2-7aa8-4041...@googlegroups.com>,

That's true enough - So far as E-S is concerned, the original is *LONG*
gone - so long gone that it has no clue it ever existed. I mis-spoke, is
all. "OP" should probably have been "necroposter" or similar. Base
concept remains the same: Google-n00b resurrects quarter-century-old
thread in foolish belief that because he was browsing through google
groups and it showed up, it's current material.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

But yet, we got a thread as good as most out of it, so no harm no foul.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <nkh20h$4c2$1...@dont-email.me>, Don Bruder <dak...@sonic.net> wrote:

Well, I did answer his question. Just in case he was expecting
one.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

[Jack Bohn]

How foolish is the belief that any post on Google Groups can be responded to? Isn't part of the justification for turning our ephemeral Usenet posts into deathless prose the idea that it's just a bit longer retention than the norm?

I do find myself wondering how the necroposter saw the thread. Looking for someone with a name similar to one of the posters? Looking for some substring of numbers found in "5,271,009"? (And how about the OP getting the number spot on but not remembering the author.) A cosmic ray bobbling a bit in the storage or transmission and serving it up randomly? (What if some error appended the rest of this thread back to 1995? As sf readers would we work out that some posters are spoofing a future society based on a few obvious extrapolations?)

Speaking of substring of numbers, I didn't get the joke about "24601". A search in ISFDB for that got no results, but the substring "246" brings up a page of fiction from the Japanese, I'm guessing it's based on the code number for some Japanese character. It does show an English "Drabblecast #246" and a German Perry Rhodan #2463(!?!) with, presumably, at least four and possibly ten other Perry Rhodans further down in the results. A google of "24601" show one popular usage of it.

--
-Jack

[Don Bruder]

In article <3b1774fc-ce87-45bb...@googlegroups.com>,

24601 = the prisoner number assigned to the character Jean Valjean in
the musical version of Les Miserables. Gets hammered on pretty hard in
at least one scene/song that I know of for sure, probably at least
appears in a few other places. Based on how often that one tune repeats
it, if someone remembers absolutely nothing else about the show, they'll
remember that number, whether they want to or not. (Dunno if it has any
significance in the book - I only know bits and pieces of the musical)

[Joe Bernstein]

On Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 9:16:21 AM UTC-7, Don Bruder wrote (and I answered at the time, but the server just told me it had eaten my post):

> Base
> concept remains the same: Google-n00b resurrects quarter-century-old
> thread in foolish belief that because he was browsing through google
> groups and it showed up, it's current material.

Fair enough, but it's also sometimes a convenience for those who

[a) lack access to Pnews
OR
b) lack relevant message-IDs]
AND
c) want to add to old threads
AND
d) can still find them in the mess Google Groups has become.

Speaking as someone who reasonably often is such a person, at present,
though I have some hope of getting back to Panix before too much longer.

(Also, I strongly doubt the resurrector actually *believes* anything
about the old post. This strikes me as rather more like debating the
intentions of someone who smashes a bottle on a sidewalk, than those of
the author of a 300-page book: absence of intention or thought is much
likelier than any specific content of either.)

Joe Bernstein

[Jeremy Bentham]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

In article <4f16509f-338a-44e2...@googlegroups.com>
Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 5:34:48 AM UTC-4, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> > On Wednesday, 22 June 2016 00:17:11 UTC+1, Don Bruder wrote:
> > > In article <_u-dnQL2-8zoX_TK...@earthlink.com>,
> > > David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On 2016-06-21, Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > On Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 11:53:38 AM UTC-4, drroc...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > >> 24601? Oh, wrong author! <grin>
> > > > >> On Thursday, January 5, 1995 at 9:25:19 PM UTC-5, David E Romm wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Top post (blech).
> > > > >

> > > > > Over 21 years delayed response. Is this a record?
> > > >

> > > > Possibly not. (see: 'Ed Rice', a.f.u)
> > > >

> > > > However, these days it's actually not too easy to find posts that old to
> > > > respond to, so somewhere around that age probably _is_ the record.
> > > >

> > > > Dave
> > >
> > > Are you forgetting the google grabbing of Deja News? And the OP *WAS*

> > > posting with a gmail address... Which to me immediately leaps out and
> > > yells "Another n00b who thinks that because it shows up in google
> > > groups, it must be fresh and new."
> >

> > I'm almost sure that gmail didn't exist in 1995 either.
> > At least not the same gmail...
>
>

> I don't know where David gets that; gmail didn't start till 2004.
>
> Here's the headers from the OP. They're Old School:
>
> Path: nntp.gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!princeton!rutgers!netnews.upenn.edu!dsinc!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!usenet.cis.ufl.edu!usenet.ufl.edu!mailer.acns.fsu.edu!pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu!user
> From: pe...@scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
> Subject: 5,271,009
> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written
> Date: 4 Jan 1995 16:10:30 GMT
> Organization: Florida State University, but I don't speak for them
> Lines: 8
> Distribution: world
> Message-ID: <pepke-040...@pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu>
> NNTP-Posting-Host: pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu
>
>
> No sign of google there, and a honey of a Path: line.

Oh, the nostalgia. Brings back memories of text-only USENET



Adamastor Glace Mortimer

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[Alie...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 1:37:30 AM UTC-7, David DeLaney wrote:
> On 2016-06-22, nu...@bid.nes <Alie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Just out of curiosity, who did you have me mixed up with?
>
> Who would sir prefer that we did?

And here I thought I was unique.

> Dave, will entangle destinies for food

Don't get me started on quantum psychology again.


Mark L. Fergerson

[David DeLaney]

On 2016-06-26, nu...@bid.nes <Alie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 1:37:30 AM UTC-7, David DeLaney wrote:
>> On 2016-06-22, nu...@bid.nes <Alie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Just out of curiosity, who did you have me mixed up with?
>>
>> Who would sir prefer that we did?
>
> And here I thought I was unique.

Sir is, just like everyone else.

>> Dave, will entangle destinies for food
>
> Don't get me started on quantum psychology again.

There is a theory that this has already happened, at all possible times. There
is another theory that says the first theory is nuts to a greater or lesser
degree. Then it goes off into trying to assign percentage values. Oops.

Dave, nobody has direct access to anyone else's internal world. it's all
mediated to some extent.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Saturday, 25 June 2016 01:26:19 UTC+1, Don Bruder wrote:
> 24601 = the prisoner number assigned to the character Jean Valjean in
> the musical version of Les Miserables.

Then it does have that in common with 5,271,009.

<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=24601>
says "It has no meaning in the Novel written by
Victor Hugo, but was a random number selected to rhyme
with the rest of the musical."

This, and other details, I don't quite trust.
It means this, anyway, I suppose; that as a prisoner,
his name was not "Jean Valjean" but was "24601",
an arbitrary number instead of a human identity.
I'm not familiar with the story but it also may be
a point that spending a length of time in prison
and known as "24601" makes it harder for you to
resume being "Jean Valjean" and a law abiding citizen
afterwards, if that was what he considered in the
first place.

But being 5,271,009 is probably worse. To remember,
anyway.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Being just Number Six may not be much better.

--
Running the rec.arts.TV Channels Watched Survey for Summer 2016

[Robert Carnegie]

But with opportunity for promotion! ;-)