Good evening, furries of the Usenet!

[Tarin Coyote]

The outbreak of the coronavirus and the lockdown in my home state of Virginia have naturally kept me indoors quite a lot, and more time indoors means more time behind the computer screen for me. Figured I'd pop on here and see what the furry community on the Usenet is like. Never have used anything like this before for sure.

My name is Tarin Coyote, I have been a part of this fandom for over 8 years now, getting my start in furry on things like FurNation (RIP) and SecondLife before moving to things like FurNet and FurryMUCK not all that long after, along with Twitter. I write for WikiFur regularly, and very often come across mention of this place but only now decided to drop by! I am quite interested in the sort of history of the fandom, and have been collecting a decent bit of older furry media like comics from the 90's, old conbooks and things, etc. Kicking around on a 20 year old furry newsgroup is right up my alley!

Been recently using alternative means like IRC and FurryMUCK a lot more often to communicate with other furs as I cannot stand Twitter in the very least. Too much noise, too much drama, and too much clout chasing for me.

You'll be able to find me in a whole bunch of places
FurryMUCK - TarinCoyote
FurNet IRC - TarinCoyote
AnthroChat IRC - TarinCoyote
Telegram - @TarinCoyote
Twitter - " "
(you can see there's a running theme here)


Indeed looking forward to chatting with some of you all, if this is still active


-------------------------------------------------
The Coyote of Quiznos
April 3, 2007
-------------------------------------------------

[Sebastian]

Am 20.05.20 um 23:39 schrieb Tarin Coyote:

Hey Tarin, nice to see you here ^_^ The outbreak and lockdown took its
toll here in Germany too, nearly everything was closed and nothing
happened, the streets were empty like never before, and (funnily) the
buses here in Bonn didn't have too much delay compared to before
lockdown *g* I've found this Newsgroup more or less by coincidence,
don't know how.. I know another fur from this newsgroup who's collecting
furry media too, he might read your post.
Got to know my first boyfriend via IRC. ^^'
Also: "Furries are everywhere"

[Brian W. Antoine]

It is, to a small extent. A lot of us really old farts hang out in the
YiffNet Discord server these days.

[Brian W. Antoine]

If you're looking for old comics/etc, check the YiffNet Discord server.
We just added a furry-marketplace channel were a I and a few others are
selling stuff we collected decades ago.

[Tarin Coyote]

Do you have a link to that, or know where I can get one?
Sounds very interesting!

[Brian W. Antoine]

Looks like https://discord.gg/ for the software, I'll talk to the owner of
the server about an invite code, since it's not a public server.

[Brian W. Antoine]

On Wed, 03 Jun 2020 11:29:35 -0700, Brian W. Antoine <bri...@nas-kan.org>
wrote:

Ok, try this link: https://discord.gg/ZaC5kh8

[tom]

On Wed, 03 Jun 2020 16:30:45 -0700

Discord is spyware https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/discord.html

--
_______________________________________
/ QFD: \
| |
| Quelle fucking drag. "Jamie got stuck |
| at Rome airport for thirty-six hours |
| and it was, like, totally QFD." |
| |
| -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: |
| Tales for an Accelerated |
| |
\ Culture" /
---------------------------------------
\
\
/\ /\
//\\_//\\ ____
\_ _/ / /
/ * * \ /^^^]
\_\O/_/ [ ]
/ \_ [ /
\ \_ / /
[ [ / \/ _/
_[ [ \ /_/

[Brian W. Antoine]

Then don't click on the link.

[Sebastian]

Am 08.06.20 um 08:46 schrieb tom:

Once Furries hosted nearly everything they used online themselves, isn't
there a comparable software to Discord?
I found something called "Accord" on GitHub, the README says it's
something similar to Discord, but haven't tried it yet.

[Sebastian]

Am 09.06.21 um 16:43 schrieb Sebastian:

Maybe Matrix?

[Dan Skunk]

Everyone used to host their own things, then they got drawn in by blogs
and free services that replaced the ones they were paying for. Seems
every few years everyone jumps to a new chat program.

[Sebastian]

Am 04.11.21 um 23:36 schrieb Dan Skunk:

Might be. I remember the time when IRC for text chat and Skype for voice
calls were used by furries I knew back then. I still join IRC today though.

[Dan Skunk]

I'm still joining IRC often.

[tom]

There's a really good article about Matrix here:
https://www.nuegia.net/articles/matrix.xhtml

There's a furry chat on XMPP here:
xmpp:cyber...@conference.nuegia.net?join and a way to access it if
you don't have an xmpp client here:
https://www.nuegia.net/converse/#converse/room?jid=cyber...@conference.nuegia.net

The thing with the various discord clients is that people are making
them because they are upset with the discord spying, lack of features,
and customizibility. Problem is anybody who uses them gets banned
eventually, it's against the terms of service to use third party
clients on discord and they legally go after people who make them. It's
probably because it doesn't have as much spying in it as the official
client (but your still sending all your data to openfeint even with a
alternative client) and they can give you functionality without
""nitro"". Both of which cut into Openfeint's artificial scarcity and
userdata business model.


During the lockdown I have also gotten into HF radio, and wow there is
a lot I've learned so far. It's a cool hobby that can bring people
together.

[Sebastian]

Am 05.11.21 um 05:30 schrieb tom:

For some retro vibes, you could try to set up UUCP via software modem on
your PC to use it on HF. See https://github.com/digitalHERMES
I found many friends through my Amateur Radio hobby, it's about
folk-communication as one part of its core

Using or not using Discord is also a matter of peer pressure, but I
don't want to get deeper into that subject here...

[tom]

On Sat, 6 Nov 2021 01:48:52 +0100
Sebastian <sga...@DIESPAMMERSgmail.com> wrote:

> For some retro vibes, you could try to set up UUCP via software modem
> on your PC to use it on HF. See https://github.com/digitalHERMES
> I found many friends through my Amateur Radio hobby, it's about
> folk-communication as one part of its core

Interesting. I have not played with UUCP, do you have any
recommendations? Also on the Open5066, it looks like it is perpetually
unfinished, and that it only supports the smtp application.

One of the things I'm going to be doing is modifying dialup modems
to use radios instead of telephone lines. It's probably cheaper than
buying proprietary pactor modems, and faster than a sound card.

>
> Using or not using Discord is also a matter of peer pressure, but I
> don't want to get deeper into that subject here...

would be interested in hearing more about that from you, perhaps on
another newsgroup?

[Dan Skunk]

That does sound pretty retro. I'm more interested in just finding ways
to communicate that work and think sometimes the older technology works
more efficiently.

[Sebastian]

Am 06.11.21 um 15:16 schrieb Dan Skunk:

Sometimes yes, sometimes not... UUCP can work over IP too, it has a
separate protocol for that, called "i" if I recall correctly.

[Sebastian]

Am 06.11.21 um 06:22 schrieb tom:

> On Sat, 6 Nov 2021 01:48:52 +0100
> Sebastian <sga...@DIESPAMMERSgmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For some retro vibes, you could try to set up UUCP via software modem
>> on your PC to use it on HF. See https://github.com/digitalHERMES
>> I found many friends through my Amateur Radio hobby, it's about
>> folk-communication as one part of its core
>
> Interesting. I have not played with UUCP, do you have any
> recommendations? Also on the Open5066, it looks like it is perpetually
> unfinished, and that it only supports the smtp application.

Recommendations for what exactly? :)
STANAG 5066 is a long and maybe complicated standard too, Open5066 could
profit from more volunteer work... STANAG 4285 is a sort-of-open
standard too, you hear it on HF more or less often> One of the things

I'm going to be doing is modifying dialup modems
> to use radios instead of telephone lines. It's probably cheaper than
> buying proprietary pactor modems, and faster than a sound card.

Oh, it depends highly on which software and modulation if you work via
soundcard, software modems like Direwolf outperform every hardware TNC
and are easily extendable, e.g. DW can "speak" AX.25 with FEC, called
FX.25, backwards-compatible, or 4800 Bd 8PSK. The market for PACTOR is
also oriented towards big ships on high sea, less towards single
persons.>> Using or not using Discord is also a matter of peer pressure,

but I
>> don't want to get deeper into that subject here...
> would be interested in hearing more about that from you, perhaps on
> another newsgroup?

Which newsgroup would that be?

[Dan Skunk]

I wonder if we might some time end up back on some ad and tracker free
text only application if energy prices get too high to make those
viable. People don't really consider the amount of energy that goes into
the internet. Every new app seems to just increase it ever more.

[Sebastian]

Am 07.11.21 um 19:11 schrieb Dan Skunk:

That might come in the future if it's not already there. Lots of people
are sick of seeing ads everywhere they browse, I'd assume. I personally
don't surf without NoScript, uBlock Origin and the built-in tracking
protection of Firefox at the strictest selectable level. (Otherwise I'd,
as an aspie, be distracted a lot while browsing the web or looking for
something)
To me it seems like more and more "apps" are just a skinned and
customised Chrome/Chromium-browser, no wonder why smartphones get more
and more and more RAM and storage, increasing available resources on
smartphones to run increasingly bad code at acceptable levels, or so...

A solution to the tracking- and ad-overloaded WWW of nowadays can be
Gemini, or the Gopher protocol if you're really into retro technology.
Gemini is encrypted by default and only allows a limited amount of
webpage(?)-styling elements. No JavaScript at all...

[Dan Skunk]

A lot of apps do just seem to be browsers, yeah. I noticed that too.

Is not just bad coding. They do that on purpose to force upgrades. No
matter how powerful, and how much memory there is, it will always get
used up eventually.

Seems for now at least, everyone's happy paying more and more and
thinking they're getting services for free because they're full of ads
and spyware.

I like the idea of a browser that cuts down on all the scripting but
some of the content is only accessed through those scripts, isn't it?

[Sebastian]

Am 10.11.21 um 21:46 schrieb Dan Skunk:

Electron, makes it easy to develop something. But hogs memory and isn't
the most efficient, compared to a "proper" application.
Some apps on Android from the F-Droid store can kill apps you didn't
access since a definable amount of time, which frees your phone's RAM.
It showed on my old phone, as soon as some memory-intensive apps running
in the background got killed it responded way faster again.

I don't really understand what you mean with the last paragraph. Gemini
only allows a very limited amount of styling elements for a page, which
is good. No frame-in-frame-in-frame-in-frame. Images are allowed too.

[Dan Skunk]

Like some of the content is accessed through scripts that open windows
in the browswer. Presumably with no scripts, you wouldn't see such content.