CLAX

[Rod Pemberton]

The CLAX in-box has been slowly filling with posts since May 8th.

Nathan Baker and Frank Kotler are the current moderators.
I can find no record of a post from Frank Kotler since
September of 2013 and no post from Nathan Baker since
March of 2014.

I don't have any information on their whereabouts, and I'm
not looking to spread any unfounded rumors. However, I
ran across something which made me wonder if CLAX is now
without moderators. Hopefully, my suspicions are incorrect,
perhaps they're on vacation or out of funds or relocating,
and this is just a temporary glitch that'll be fixed soon.

In the mean time, we should assume the best and contact them.
Is there someone here willing and able to send a polite private
email to Nathan and another to Frank asking about the status
of CLAX? I don't have email currently, or I would do this
myself. These are the last addresses they sent to CLAX:

nathan...@gmail.com
fbko...@myfairpoint.net

Hopefully, someone will do this. Please post here saying
that you did so that there isn't a flood of messages from
everyone here to their email accounts.

I think we should mark today's date (May 22nd 2014) and start
counting. If there is no reply in a reasonable timeframe,
perhaps a month or two, then I'd think it's safe to assume
they are no longer available to moderate CLAX. In which case,
we may wish to request that Usenet administration allow new
moderators or have CLAX changed to be unmoderated.

If neither respond, the messages in CLAX's queue will likely
remain there unless reposted by their original authors.


Rod Pemberton

[Bernhard Schornak]

Rod Pemberton wrote:


> nathan...@gmail.com


Gmail rejects this address.


> fbko...@myfairpoint.net


Should be delivered. Frank posted in NASM's forum last week.
One reply sent to a.l.asm and c.l.a.x86 is pending.


Greetings from Augsburg

Bernhard Schornak

[Bernhard Schornak]

Got the following e-mail from Frank:


Greetings from Raymond!

Hi Bernhard,
Hi Nathan,

and if somebody would be so kind to post this to a.l.a... Hi Rod,
Hi Everybody,

Thanks for checking on us!

> The CLAX in-box has been slowly filling with posts since May 8th.

Has it been that long? Yes, it has. What's been happening is that I'm getting "account is closed"
when trying to log in to Nathan's nntp account. I mentioned it to Nathan, but no word back yet. This
will serve as a "nag". Any idea what's going on, Nathan? You okay, buddy?

..

> I can find no record of a post from Frank Kotler since
> September of 2013

Has it been that long? Yes it has. Some of you may recall that I've been whining for literally years
and years that I need to upgrade my hardware real soon now? Well, I did. And I've regretted it every
minute since. Amongst other things, I can't post to newsgroups - I can read ya, but I can't post.
I'm reduced to bleepin' "webmail" - can't log in with pop3. It isn't a hardware problem or a
software problem, it's a "too lazy to fix the software" problem. To start with. I installed a distro
which is "not right for me" and I've been too lazy to replace it.... and it's gone down hill from
there...
I'm "only" 69, but lately I've been feeling really old and really tired and a little depressed.
There was another problem with gettin' old, but I forget. I'll try to get my asm together enough to
get c.l.a.x. back on the road. Easiest if I hear from Nathan (hope all is well!) but I can do it
myself if need be (temporarily, at least). It's just a laziness problem and I apologize for it.
..

> I think we should mark today's date (May 22nd 2014) and start
> counting.

Yeah, do that. Someone, please, rattle my cage again if there's no action on c.l.a.x. in... say a week?

> If there is no reply in a reasonable timeframe,
> perhaps a month or two,

C'mon, assembly language is supposed to be fast! Okay, two weeks.

> then I'd think it's safe to assume
> they are no longer available to moderate CLAX. In which case,
> we may wish to request that Usenet administration allow new
> moderators or have CLAX changed to be unmoderated.

I understand that it is not a practical matter to "unmoderate" a newsgroup. If it were, I would
favor that. I'm afraid we've made our bed and we must lay in it. Usually it's not a problem. Right
now it is.

> If neither respond, the messages in CLAX's queue will likely
> remain there unless reposted by their original authors.

As I recall, most of 'em have been reposted here anyway...
> Rod Pemberton

Thanks Rod, Thanks Bernhard.
Best,
Frank

[Rod Pemberton]

On Thu, 22 May 2014 14:05:39 -0400, Bernhard Schornak <scho...@web.de>
wrote:

> What's been happening is that I'm getting "account is closed" when
> trying to log in to Nathan's nntp account. I mentioned it to Nathan,
> but no word back yet. This will serve as a "nag". Any idea what's
> going on, Nathan? You okay, buddy?

Do you happen to know what his middle name is, age, etc.?
(don't post his personal info)

I'm not trying to spread any false rumors of someone's demise, but
I happened across an obituary for a Nathan Baker which seemed to fit.
Of course, I have no way to confirm.

Do you want a link?

>> I can find no record of a post from Frank Kotler since

>> September of 2013.

>Has it been that long? Yes it has.

I'm glad to hear from you. So, half my suspicions are incorrect.
Now, we just need to hear from Nathan ...

> Amongst other things, I can't post to newsgroups - I can read
> ya, but I can't post.

You can post for free at AIOE.org.

AIOE Info
http://aioe.org/

AIOE servers
news://nntp.aioe.org
news://news.aioe.org

It might work to direct CLAX's accepted posts through them. Then,
you don't have to worry about bills or closed accounts. Supposedly,
some people filter out AIOE posts though as "spam".

If it's just a software issue, the Opera browser has newsgroup
support. It's been removed from newer versions of Opera and
provide as Opera Mail. Thunderbird from Mozilla should also work.

> I'm "only" 69, [...]

Well, there's just another 70 to go, right? ;-)

> [...] but lately I've been feeling really old and really

> tired and a little depressed.

Yeah, you're not posting. It sounds like you need a hobby:
golf? hunting? yard work? online gambling? drinking? ;-)

> I understand that it is not a practical matter to "unmoderate" a
> newsgroup. If it were, I would favor that. I'm afraid we've made
> our bed and we must lay in it. Usually it's not a problem. Right
> now it is.

So, could you guys line up some back up moderators? ...


Rod Pemberton

[Frank Kotler]

test eax, 1

[Frank Kotler]

Ah. Hello, World! I knew I could beat this beast into submission if I
worked at it. I'm still not happy, but I can post (I guess). It's a
laziness issue.

On 14-05-22 05:09 PM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> On Thu, 22 May 2014 14:05:39 -0400, Bernhard Schornak <scho...@web.de>
> wrote:

(forwarded from me)

>> What's been happening is that I'm getting "account is closed" when
>> trying to log in to Nathan's nntp account. I mentioned it to Nathan,
>> but no word back yet. This will serve as a "nag". Any idea what's
>> going on, Nathan? You okay, buddy?
>
> Do you happen to know what his middle name is, age, etc.?
> (don't post his personal info)

No, I do not. "P", I think? No, "C"??? I may have his phone number, but
it's "stranded on the old computer". I will try to rescue it.

> I'm not trying to spread any false rumors of someone's demise, but
> I happened across an obituary for a Nathan Baker which seemed to fit.
> Of course, I have no way to confirm.
>
> Do you want a link?

Yes. I have instructed my daughter to let Nathan know if I kick off. I
don't know if anyone's going to contact me if Nathan kicks off. I surely
hope this is not true!

...

> You can post for free at AIOE.org.
>
> AIOE Info
> http://aioe.org/
>
> AIOE servers
> news://nntp.aioe.org
> news://news.aioe.org

Yes. Wonderful organization! Thank you for making me aware of them, Rod.
I'm using it now. Unfortunately, they won't let me "approve" a message.
If they would, there would be no problem. For that, I was using Nathan's
nntp account (my software was) - now when I send them his password I get
"Acount is locked". For this, I need Nathan, or I need to get myself a
paid account.

The posting issue was a client problem. Insisted on trying to log in
through pop3 to fairpoint - which I can't do, for reasons I haven't
figured out. Got it to use aioe, but it still wants to "reply" to your
email address and I have to switch to "newsgroup" and type in
"alt.lang.asm". I used to think "SeaMonkey" was a joke, but I liked it
better than this. Will probably install it. It's a laziness problem.

> It might work to direct CLAX's accepted posts through them. Then,
> you don't have to worry about bills or closed accounts. Supposedly,
> some people filter out AIOE posts though as "spam".
>
> If it's just a software issue, the Opera browser has newsgroup
> support. It's been removed from newer versions of Opera and
> provide as Opera Mail.

I may try Opera...

> Thunderbird from Mozilla should also work.

Yes, it should...

>> I'm "only" 69, [...]
>
> Well, there's just another 70 to go, right? ;-)

Kinda doubt it. Ya never know

>> [...] but lately I've been feeling really old and really
>> tired and a little depressed.
>
> Yeah, you're not posting. It sounds like you need a hobby:

This *is* my hobby.

> golf? hunting? yard work? online gambling? drinking? ;-)

Tried drinking. That didn't work out too well. I could give it one more
try I suppose. :) I'm approaching my 50th anniversary as a pothead.
Perhaps giving that a rest might make a good hobby..

>> I understand that it is not a practical matter to "unmoderate" a
>> newsgroup. If it were, I would favor that. I'm afraid we've made
>> our bed and we must lay in it. Usually it's not a problem. Right
>> now it is.
>
> So, could you guys line up some back up moderators? ...

Up to Nathan. Who's willing? As you'll recall, when Chuck died, "the
board" didn't quite know what to do. They decided that since Jim Carlock
was an official "assistant", they could name him moderator. They really
don't like to get involved in moderator changes! I think I may be known
to them as Nathan's assistant (?) and could probably be named moderator,
if it comes to that. Let us hope it does not.

As Betov used to tell us, "Courage!"

Best,
Frank

[Rod Pemberton]

On Fri, 23 May 2014 01:09:11 -0400, Frank Kotler
<fbko...@myfairpoint.net> wrote:
> On 14-05-22 05:09 PM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
>> On Thu, 22 May 2014 14:05:39 -0400, Bernhard Schornak <scho...@web.de>
>> wrote:

>> I'm not trying to spread any false rumors of someone's demise, but
>> I happened across an obituary for a Nathan Baker which seemed to fit.
>> Of course, I have no way to confirm.
>>
>> Do you want a link?
>
> Yes.

Well, I hope it's not him. It's probably not given that he has a very
common name. It's speculation on my part this point. But, it sounds
like it could be him:

"... worked on the development of software ..."
"... edited computer language text books ..."

Here's a few links to newspaper obits (same content). I.e., so, there
won't be any no spam posts to this guy's funeral home, webpage.

http://www.thenewscenter.tv/obituaries/253912411.html
http://www.newsandsentinel.com/page/content.detail/id/586060.html

The funeral home is listed incorrectly in the article. It has the
same content too. It's: www.mcculloughraiguel.com

Let's hope for the best.


Rod Pemberton

[David Hume]

Frank Kotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net> writes:

> it to use aioe, but it still wants to "reply" to your email address
> and I have to switch to "newsgroup" and type in "alt.lang.asm". I used
> to think

You can solve that problem by customising the buttons. The function you
want is "reply to message" and it will work for email and for
news. Right click on the toolbar, select customise, select the button
called "reply" but shows "reply to message" in the bubble help.

[Bernhard Schornak]

Frank Kotler wrote:


> Unfortunately, they won't let me "approve" a message. If they would, there would be no problem. For
> that, I was using Nathan's nntp account (my software was) - now when I send them his password I get
> "Acount is locked". For this, I need Nathan, or I need to get myself a paid account.
>
> The posting issue was a client problem. Insisted on trying to log in through pop3 to fairpoint -
> which I can't do, for reasons I haven't figured out. Got it to use aioe, but it still wants to
> "reply" to your email address and I have to switch to "newsgroup" and type in "alt.lang.asm". I used
> to think "SeaMonkey" was a joke, but I liked it better than this. Will probably install it. It's a
> laziness problem.

Try news.eternal-september.org - they support moderation if
you send them proof you are the moderator of c.l.a.x86 (the
service is cost free).

[Frank Kotler]

On 14-05-23 02:38 AM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> Well, I hope it's not him. It's probably not given that he has a very
> common name. It's speculation on my part this point. But, it sounds
> like it could be him:
>
> "... worked on the development of software ..."
> "... edited computer language text books ..."
>
> Here's a few links to newspaper obits (same content). I.e., so, there
> won't be any no spam posts to this guy's funeral home, webpage.
>
> http://www.thenewscenter.tv/obituaries/253912411.html
> http://www.newsandsentinel.com/page/content.detail/id/586060.html
>
> The funeral home is listed incorrectly in the article. It has the
> same content too. It's: www.mcculloughraiguel.com
>
> Let's hope for the best.

Yes. It looks rather bad, though. That would explain why I haven't heard
from him when he's always been right on the ball when I've reported any
problems to him. I've dropped a note to Randy to see if he can confirm
that it's "our" Nathan. Nathan was an editor on (at least) one of
Randy's books, and he may know more personal information. Hope it's not so.

In any case, I need to get myself an nntp account. I've been hoping to
be the last guy on the planet without a credit card (and paypal's worse)
but I probably wasn't going to make it anyway. Or maybe my daughter
would get me one. I hate to ask her, since I don't do plastic "as a
matter of principle" (more or less) to put something on her card for me,
but what the heck she's got one anyway... Ah, the things I do for
assembly language! :)

I want to stress that money is not the issue. I'm solidly in the "frugal
class" but I'm not broke. I offered to send money to Nathan and he
didn't want it either. It's just that I'm a "cash and carry" kind of guy...

Currently, Nathan's mailbox where c.l.a.x. posts end up is working. Who
knows for how long? That's where we'll have to talk to "the board" and
get a new moderator named. Essentially, the mailbox "is" the moderator.
We can cross that bridge when we come to it... if we do. Think good
thoughts!

Best,
Frank

[Frank Kotler]

Thanks, David. That isn't exactly the interface I'm seeing, but with
your tip I've realized that the "followup" button is what I want, not
"reply". Obvious when you know how. I'm just not familiar with the
interface - I skipped too many upgrades, so it's all "new" to me. I'm
quite aware that change is inevitable (progress not so much), but I'm
having a surprising amount of trouble with it.

Best,
Frank

[Frank Kotler]

On 14-05-23 02:07 PM, Bernhard Schornak wrote:

> Try news.eternal-september.org - they support moderation if
> you send them proof you are the moderator of c.l.a.x86 (the
> service is cost free).

Good one. I've never used eternal september but I've heard good things
about 'em. But I'm not the moderator of c.l.a.x., Nathan is (or perhaps
was). I don't know what "proof" there would be. There's no
"certificate". If moderators.isc.org forwards the messages to you,
you're the moderator. Wanna be moderator?

Thanks for the tip, and thanks for providing email services to Rod. :)

Best,
Frank

[Bernhard Schornak]

Frank Kotler wrote:


> On 14-05-23 02:07 PM, Bernhard Schornak wrote:
>
>> Try news.eternal-september.org - they support moderation if
>> you send them proof you are the moderator of c.l.a.x86 (the
>> service is cost free).
>
> Good one. I've never used eternal september but I've heard good things about 'em. But I'm not the
> moderator of c.l.a.x., Nathan is (or perhaps was). I don't know what "proof" there would be. There's
> no "certificate". If moderators.isc.org forwards the messages to you, you're the moderator.

See FAQ, point 6:

http://news.eternal-september.org/index.php?language=en&showpage=faq#approved


> Wanna be moderator?


I'm surely not the right one for this job. There still are some
pending bypass surgeries (arteriosclerosis in my legs), so I am
not available all of the time. (Not a big thing, but quite time
consuming...)

> Thanks for the tip, and thanks for providing email services to Rod. :)

The least thing one could do for old friends... :)


Greetings from Augsburg

Bernhard

[Rod Pemberton]

On Fri, 23 May 2014 19:16:26 -0400, Mike Gonta <mike...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Rod Pemberton wrote:

>> I'm not trying to spread any false rumors of someone's demise, but
>> I happened across an obituary for a Nathan Baker which seemed to fit.
>> Of course, I have no way to confirm.
>

> The public ICANN WHOIS record of his domain name registration shows
> his address as the same small town in WV (population under 400).
>

I didn't realize inspiretomorrow.net was his domain. Fortunately, he
didn't mask the registrar info. The registered phone number is for
the same town too. White pages lists the number as registered to a
name which, from the obit, is most likely his mother.

Sorry, to be the bearer of bad news guys.

R.I.P. Nathan.


Rod Pemberton

[Rod Pemberton]

On Fri, 23 May 2014 18:03:10 -0400, Frank Kotler
<fbko...@myfairpoint.net> wrote:

> I've been hoping to be the last guy on the planet without a credit card
> (and paypal's worse) but I probably wasn't going to make it anyway.

Credit or debit?

I haven't had a credit card since the early 1990's. I still use debit via
my bank though. I only use ATM cash for fast food because it's convenient
and a bit safer than giving them my card. Mastercard and Visa purchases
are
available almost everywhere point-of-sale is, so a debit or credit card can
be used wherever they can. So, if I didn't have a bank account but had
cash,
I'd definately consider a pre-paid card, debit or credit.

Some of the prepaid cards provide access to ATM networks too, i.e., allow
you to withdraw your cash via ATMs. E.g., MoneyPass, which is usually
available at ATMs at Kmart, Walmart, gas stations, etc for "free", i.e.,
without extra ATM fees, if the card supports MoneyPass. Other ATM networks
will charge out-of-network fees for using a MoneyPass card. So, you can
think of these pre-paid cards as "bankless" credit or debit cards, some
with ATM support.

You should be able to walk into any 7-11 or gas station or Walmart,
Kroger, Safeway, and perhaps money forwarders like Western Union,
MoneyGram, the U.S. Post Office, put down cash and acquire a pre-paid
credit or pre-paid debit card. Yes, they have *both* types.

Pre-paid credit cards works just like a regular credit card, except *you*
provide the credit limit. You borrow against that limit. So, it builds
your credit history, when you repay the "borrowed" money on time. You
don't get your funds for the credit limit back until you cancel the card.

Pre-paid debit just subtracts the money from your virtual account, the
amount you put onto the card.

The prepaid do have some extra fees though since they don't connect to a
bank account, e.g., monthly fee etc. If you've never used a credit or
debit card but you've used a gift card, it's basically the same, just the
card is reused and reloadable.

You can select "prepaid" on websites like these to see what's out there,
i.e., fees and such, but generally they don't have the minimum funds
requirements etc that banks have.

http://www.cardhub.com/
http://www.creditcards.com/

It's my understanding that you generally have to provide the same identity
info as a credit card or bank account (debit card): name, address, phone,
SS#, etc due to the U.S. Patriot Act and prior banking safety and
anti-money
laundering laws in the U.S., and of course, "Big-Brother" is probably
archiving your transactions. So, cash isn't dead yet! ;-) Anyway, those
laws are why PayPal etc require a bank account or credit card.

7-11 and Walmart stores usually have Green Dot affiliated reloadable,
pre-paid cards, as well as other financial services like ATM's, cash
checking, money orders, funds transfers, on-line payment services, etc.
Wal-mart has moved into providing a variety of financial services such
as those in the past few years.

https://www.greendot.com/greendot/
https://www.walmartmoneycard.com/Walmart
https://www.7-eleven.com/Financial/Prepaid-Center/

It's my belief that Bitcoin is illegal under current U.S. money laundering
laws.
It's not legal U.S. currency, the origin and destination are unknown, and
it
occurs outside the U.S. banking system. Transactions where the origin and
destination are unknown are only legal outside the U.S. banking system in
the U.S.
for legal U.S. tender, i.e., cash. This is the same as illegal money
laundering
using casino chips, or informal money transfer systems, e.g., hawala, or
untaxed
barter trade transactions. But, every time the U.S. government comments
on it,
not one of the US agencies mentions it's illegal. Each U.S. government
agency to
make a comment so far all mention how it's valued a property, or how it's
taxable,
or how confiscated Bitcoins are saleable. It's clearly not legal for a US
agency
to sale an asset that's not legal in the US. Of course, it's never the
DOJ that
makes a comment. It's the IRS or BATF or DEA or some other agency. So,
apparently,
they're holding off on making a statement for some reason, perhaps
attempting
to entrap some large criminal organizations.


Rod Pemberton

[wolfgang kern]

Mike Gonta confirmed:

> Rod Pemberton wrote:

>> I'm not trying to spread any false rumors of someone's demise, but
>> I happened across an obituary for a Nathan Baker which seemed to fit.
>> Of course, I have no way to confirm.

> The public ICANN WHOIS record of his domain name registration shows
> his address as the same small town in WV (population under 400).

I wont believe in 'that' much coincidence, but I thought he was older.
So I already started my mourn for 'Evenbit'.

perhaps I once meet Beth, Chuck and Nate when I have to go.
__
wolfgang

[Frank Kotler]

On 14-05-23 07:16 PM, Mike Gonta wrote:

> Rod Pemberton wrote:
>
>> I'm not trying to spread any false rumors of someone's demise, but
>> I happened across an obituary for a Nathan Baker which seemed to fit.
>> Of course, I have no way to confirm.
>

> The public ICANN WHOIS record of his domain name registration shows
> his address as the same small town in WV (population under 400).
>
>

> Mike Gonta
> look and see - many look but few see
>
> http://mikegonta.com

Thanks, Mike. I don't know why I didn't think to check whois. Perhaps
because I don't want to know. I'm afraid that pretty much nails it.

I'll share with y'all part of the last note I got from Nathan, since
it's "on topic". This was in response to my offer to send him some money...

" Don't worry about this. I got a new job with more hours and have
decided the cost to keep CLAX running is not a burden at the moment.
Oddly enough, my official title is "Assembler", what I do is "assemble"
product, and sometimes the boss says "go to assembly" when assigning me
a work location. So, I guess there can never again be any doubt in my
mind what an 'assembler' is, huh?? :)"

IP, EIP, and RIP Nathan. Keep assembling in your new work location!

Sadly,
Frank

[Shadow]

On Sat, 24 May 2014 10:33:37 -0400, Frank Kotler
<fbko...@myfairpoint.net> wrote:

>I'll share with y'all part of the last note I got from Nathan, since
>it's "on topic". This was in response to my offer to send him some money...
>
>" Don't worry about this. I got a new job with more hours and have
>decided the cost to keep CLAX running is not a burden at the moment.

He could be classified as a martyr. New job ---> more hours
---> keep CLAX running ---> heart attack at 40+ years old.
Asm has it's risks.
R.I.P
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

[Frank Kotler]

On 14-05-23 07:31 PM, Bernhard Schornak wrote:
> Frank Kotler wrote:

...

>> Good one. I've never used eternal september but I've heard good things
>> about 'em. But I'm not the
>> moderator of c.l.a.x., Nathan is (or perhaps was). I don't know what
>> "proof" there would be. There's
>> no "certificate". If moderators.isc.org forwards the messages to you,
>> you're the moderator.
>
>
> See FAQ, point 6:
>
> http://news.eternal-september.org/index.php?language=en&showpage=faq#approved

Mmmm... I suppose the fact that my name appears in the header of almost
every post on c.l.a.x. would serve as evidence on my behalf. I may try
that. I've emailed my daughter asking her to get me an account - haven't
heard back yet. I have a couple other ideas... friends that could do it
for me... plus the ideas that Rod mentioned. One way or another, I'll
get it going again. Couple more days...

>> Wanna be moderator?
>
>
> I'm surely not the right one for this job. There still are some
> pending bypass surgeries (arteriosclerosis in my legs), so I am
> not available all of the time. (Not a big thing, but quite time
> consuming...)

Ouch! Okay, you're off the hook. At a minimum, we will want somebody I
can name as my "assistant". That's if/when I can be named as official
moderator. I'm not sure I have any official standing at the moment, but
they may know who I am. When Chuck died, Jim Carlock and Nathan made
most of the arrangements - I just kinda tagged along. (you out there,
Jim?) I guess I can figure out how it goes... somewhere in the "news"
hierarchy, as I recall. But that's the next step. First step is an nntp
account. Then we can move this discussion over to c.l.a.x where it
belongs...

Best,
Frank

[Rosario193]

On Sat, 24 May 2014 12:27:28 -0300, Shadow <S...@dow.br> wrote:

> He could be classified as a martyr. New job ---> more hours
>---> keep CLAX running ---> heart attack at 40+ years old.
> Asm has it's risks.
> R.I.P
> []'s

too young... rip

[Melzzzzz]

On Sat, 24 May 2014 10:33:37 -0400
Frank Kotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net> wrote:

> On 14-05-23 07:16 PM, Mike Gonta wrote:
> > Rod Pemberton wrote:
> >
> >> I'm not trying to spread any false rumors of someone's demise, but
> >> I happened across an obituary for a Nathan Baker which seemed to
> >> fit. Of course, I have no way to confirm.
> >
> > The public ICANN WHOIS record of his domain name registration shows
> > his address as the same small town in WV (population under 400).
>

> IP, EIP, and RIP Nathan. Keep assembling in your new work location!

Rest in peace, Nathan.


--
Click OK to continue...

[fbkotler]

On 14-05-24 12:18 PM, Frank Kotler wrote:
> On 14-05-23 07:31 PM, Bernhard Schornak wrote:

>> See FAQ, point 6:
>>
>> http://news.eternal-september.org/index.php?language=en&showpage=faq#approved
>>
>
> Mmmm... I suppose the fact that my name appears in the header of almost
> every post on c.l.a.x. would serve as evidence on my behalf. I may try
> that.

Well... if this works, I'm signed up to eternal-september. Pending
success of this message, I will write to 'em and beg permission to post
approved messages per the FAQ. We shall see how that goes...

Once again, thanks to everybody for the help, tips, and detective work.

Best,
Frank

[Steve]

In <llsgqp$fn4$1...@dont-email.me>, fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net> writes:
>
>Once again, thanks to everybody for the help, tips, and detective work.
>
>Best,
>Frank

Hi,

I want to say I am thankful for your efforts. Keep up
the good work. Thanks to the others helping out as well.

Regards,

Steve N.

[Bernhard Schornak]

If you need any help - feel free to ask!


Greetings from Augsburg

Bernhard

[fbkotler]

On 14-05-25 06:31 AM, fbkotler wrote:

> Well... if this works, I'm signed up to eternal-september. Pending
> success of this message, I will write to 'em and beg permission to post
> approved messages per the FAQ. We shall see how that goes...

Wolfgang Weyand of Eternal_September has kindly allowed me to post
approved messages. I managed to get the one from Jacob posted. The
others complain about the date being too old. I've tried to fudge the
date, now it complains about "duplicate". I'll try pounding on it a bit
more, but I may have to drop some pending messages. I don't like to do
that! Other than that, we may be back in business.

Best,
Frank

[Rod Pemberton]

On Sun, 25 May 2014 15:48:20 -0400, fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net>
wrote:

You could attempt to forward them to alt.lang.asm via AIOE, perhaps
set the reply-to back to comp.lang.asm.x86.


RP

[Rod Pemberton]

Sorry, that should've been the follow-up to, not reply-to.
Maybe post a note on comp.lang.asm.x86 about where the posts went.


RP

[s_dub...@yahoo.com]

I'm late to this thread and to the sad news about Nathan, bummer.

I don't know why all the responsibility should default to your shoulders.. Remind me again why CLAX needs to be moderated, other than "it's always been that way". I'd offer to help, but, [insert excuses here].

Actually, I'm the 'primary care giver' to my dad, he'll be 90 soon, and spare time to do much is quite constrained. Switching to another point of posting, that is, to your health; and the subject of proper hydration. I've been amazed to learn from experience how as we get older, we lose the sense of thirst, don't drink enough neutral fluids (water) and what accumulating effects that has on our well-being. By the time one is diagnosed 'dehydrated' you are already much beyond the point of dehydration where much of the symptoms can arise. And those symptoms can vary widely, such as what you earlier described as feeling lately, but including mental sharpness, even faintness, such as a second cousin had for a time (she's 83) until she paid more attention to her fluid intake. It's recommended that an otherwise healthy person take in 80 ounces of fluid a day, that's ten full, standard measure, cups. Stop and think about that, nobody does that in an off-hand manner. To do that takes a concerted effort, or habit by regimen (2. Any regulation or remedy which is intended to produce beneficial effects by gradual operation.). I've seen that much of the vague feeling of un-wellness people close to me have experienced, go away after paying attention to their fluid intake, that it is sufficient.

Even with his cardiac failure issues, I regulate closely my dad's fluid intake, and his health has been much more stable and improved since doing so.

---

Hey, frugal: you don't need money if you don't spend any! (yeah, me too, in the new world order of the frugal class).

Best regards,

Steve

(old guy and his dad)

[James Harris]

"Shadow" <S...@dow.br> wrote in message
news:gce1o9lopnsph4gia...@4ax.com...

> On Sat, 24 May 2014 10:33:37 -0400, Frank Kotler
> <fbko...@myfairpoint.net> wrote:
>
>>I'll share with y'all part of the last note I got from Nathan, since
>>it's "on topic". This was in response to my offer to send him some
>>money...
>>
>>" Don't worry about this. I got a new job with more hours and have
>>decided the cost to keep CLAX running is not a burden at the moment.

The news about Nathan is incredibly sad. It seems he unselfishly helped a
lot of us over the years.

> He could be classified as a martyr. New job ---> more hours
> ---> keep CLAX running ---> heart attack at 40+ years old.

I see from the obituaries that he was in his mid 40s but I didn't see a
cause of death, only that he died at his residence. Did you see that
somewhere?

James

[James Harris]

<s_dub...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:a988e32e-9e9e-4ced...@googlegroups.com...

...

> I don't know why all the responsibility should default to your shoulders..
> Remind me again why CLAX needs to be moderated, other than "it's always
> been that way". I'd offer to help, but, [insert excuses here].

That's a valid point. I don't know if the reasons for moderation apply as
much now to Usenet groups as they used to. Moderation can make a group less
responsive and moderation does add to the workload of volunteer moderators.
Further, it seems there's a cost involved - either one-off or ongoing. Is
moderation still the best option for clax?

IIRC Frank and Nathan made the moderation much less apparent by setting up a
whitelist for known posters which helped make comp.lang.asm.x86 a much
better group to use. I don't know *how* that whitelist worked or even if it
is still operational.

> Actually, I'm the 'primary care giver' to my dad, he'll be 90 soon, and
> spare time to do much is quite constrained.

...

> (old guy and his dad)

From a few comments I've seen recently it seems that a lot of us who make
use of newsgroups (or at least who post to them) may be of similar age.
Nathan in his mid 40s may have been one of the younger ones. I wonder if
younger programmers ever get to know about Usenet.

James

[s_dub...@yahoo.com]

>On Fri, 23 May 2014 18:03:10 -0400, Frank Kotler
><fbko...@myfairpoint.net> wrote:
>
>> I've been hoping to be the last guy on the planet without a credit card
>> (and paypal's worse) but I probably wasn't going to make it anyway.
>
>Credit or debit?
>
>I haven't had a credit card since the early 1990's. I still use debit via
>my bank though. I only use ATM cash for fast food because it's convenient
>and a bit safer than giving them my card. Mastercard and Visa purchases
>are
>available almost everywhere point-of-sale is, so a debit or credit card can
>be used wherever they can. So, if I didn't have a bank account but had
>cash,
>I'd definately consider a pre-paid card, debit or credit.
>
>Some of the prepaid cards provide access to ATM networks too, i.e., allow
>you to withdraw your cash via ATMs. E.g., MoneyPass, which is usually
>available at ATMs at Kmart, Walmart, gas stations, etc for "free", i.e.,
>without extra ATM fees, if the card supports MoneyPass. Other ATM networks
>will charge out-of-network fees for using a MoneyPass card. So, you can
>think of these pre-paid cards as "bankless" credit or debit cards, some
>with ATM support.
>
>You should be able to walk into any 7-11 or gas station or Walmart,
>Kroger, Safeway, and perhaps money forwarders like Western Union,
>MoneyGram, the U.S. Post Office, put down cash and acquire a pre-paid
>credit or pre-paid debit card. Yes, they have *both* types.
>

I'm familiar with a credit union which offers both kinds, and recommends
hitting the credit button while using the debit card for extra protection.

There's at least one small grocery chain and some gas stations which are
'debit card only'.

>Pre-paid credit cards works just like a regular credit card, except *you*
>provide the credit limit. You borrow against that limit. So, it builds
>your credit history, when you repay the "borrowed" money on time. You
>don't get your funds for the credit limit back until you cancel the card.
>
>Pre-paid debit just subtracts the money from your virtual account, the
>amount you put onto the card.
>
>The prepaid do have some extra fees though since they don't connect to a
>bank account, e.g., monthly fee etc. If you've never used a credit or
>debit card but you've used a gift card, it's basically the same, just the
>card is reused and reloadable.
>
>You can select "prepaid" on websites like these to see what's out there,
>i.e., fees and such, but generally they don't have the minimum funds
>requirements etc that banks have.
>
>http://www.cardhub.com/
>http://www.creditcards.com/
>
>It's my understanding that you generally have to provide the same identity
>info as a credit card or bank account (debit card): name, address, phone,
>SS#, etc due to the U.S. Patriot Act and prior banking safety and
>anti-money
>laundering laws in the U.S., and of course, "Big-Brother" is probably
>archiving your transactions. So, cash isn't dead yet! ;-) Anyway, those
>laws are why PayPal etc require a bank account or credit card.

Hmm, in the early 80's I enquired a bank officer about whether a SSN was
really required to have a bank account. I mean, my SS card prominently
displays 'not for identification purposes', ya know. So she didn't know
the answer to that, and promised to research it and get back to me. About
a month later she had the answer: No, not required for a non-interest
bearing accounts.

The FRB rules govern interest bearing accounts, and for those you do nead
a SSN. However, it is bank policy to require a SSN to open an account, in
part to provide consistent accounting for their system.

Systems double-speak, you've got to chuckle. So my checking account, which
pays no interest, is an interest bearing account?

>
>7-11 and Walmart stores usually have Green Dot affiliated reloadable,
>pre-paid cards, as well as other financial services like ATM's, cash
>checking, money orders, funds transfers, on-line payment services, etc.
>Wal-mart has moved into providing a variety of financial services such
>as those in the past few years.
>
>https://www.greendot.com/greendot/
>https://www.walmartmoneycard.com/Walmart
>https://www.7-eleven.com/Financial/Prepaid-Center/
>
>It's my belief that Bitcoin is illegal under current U.S. money laundering
>laws.

It is not a 'sum-certain value' either. The U.S. dollar is, a dollar is
defined by law (by the coinage acts.) in terms of a weight and purity of
silver. (That the federal reserve note doesn't standup to its stated face
value, is another subject.) That's probably why, in part, that bitcoin is
considered 'property' and not currency, in some quarters. There isn't an
established government standing behind its issue either. (and all that
entails, regarding powers of the state.) (also, as to 'sum certain value'
you'll notice the fine print on such money substitutes as coupons the
comment of 'face value, 1 cent' or 'face value, 1 mil' or 'cash value,
1 mil', etc, establishing its sum certain value apart from its stated
discount.)

>It's not legal U.S. currency, the origin and destination are unknown, and
>it
>occurs outside the U.S. banking system. Transactions where the origin and
>destination are unknown are only legal outside the U.S. banking system in
>the U.S.
>for legal U.S. tender, i.e., cash. This is the same as illegal money
>laundering
>using casino chips, or informal money transfer systems, e.g., hawala, or
>untaxed
>barter trade transactions. But, every time the U.S. government comments
>on it,
>not one of the US agencies mentions it's illegal. Each U.S. government
>agency to
>make a comment so far all mention how it's valued a property, or how it's
>taxable,
>or how confiscated Bitcoins are saleable. It's clearly not legal for a US
>agency
>to sale an asset that's not legal in the US. Of course, it's never the
>DOJ that
>makes a comment. It's the IRS or BATF or DEA or some other agency. So,
>apparently,
>they're holding off on making a statement for some reason, perhaps
>attempting
>to entrap some large criminal organizations.
>

Probably to let the experiment unfold abit more.

Steve


>
>Rod Pemberton
>

[s_dub...@yahoo.com]

On Monday, May 26, 2014 10:18:24 AM UTC-5, James Harris wrote:
> <s_dub...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:a988e32e-9e9e-4ced...@googlegroups.com...
>
> ...
>
> > I don't know why all the responsibility should default to your shoulders..
> > Remind me again why CLAX needs to be moderated, other than "it's always
> > been that way". I'd offer to help, but, [insert excuses here].
>
> That's a valid point. I don't know if the reasons for moderation apply as
> much now to Usenet groups as they used to. Moderation can make a group less
> responsive and moderation does add to the workload of volunteer moderators.
> Further, it seems there's a cost involved - either one-off or ongoing. Is
> moderation still the best option for clax?
>
> IIRC Frank and Nathan made the moderation much less apparent by setting up a
> whitelist for known posters which helped make comp.lang.asm.x86 a much
> better group to use. I don't know *how* that whitelist worked or even if it
> is still operational.
>

> ...

>
>
> From a few comments I've seen recently it seems that a lot of us who make
> use of newsgroups (or at least who post to them) may be of similar age.
> Nathan in his mid 40s may have been one of the younger ones. I wonder if
> younger programmers ever get to know about Usenet.
>
> James

I was going to mention that, about younger programmers. 'X86' just isn't in the current lexicon anymore, so probably is seen as antiquated, or, pertaining to old legacy systems. So even if a newbie finds Usenet on a search, or in a reference, they wouldn't think to relate to 'x86'. But they aren't likely to find 'usenet', more likely to find 'google groups', most likely to find a niche forum.

How did you find usenet? I found it as a consequence of dialup BBS'ing or dialup to university mail networks, but mostly when the internet came of age, re: Prodigy and some of the others, including subscription facilities ms outlook, way back before browser choice.

I'm not really advocating a name change, just being introspective - these 'sudden' events tend to invoke that.

Steve

[Shadow]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 05:27:57 -0700 (PDT), s_dub...@yahoo.com wrote:

>Switching to another point of posting, that is, to your health; and the subject of proper hydration. I've been amazed to learn from experience how as we get older, we lose the sense of thirst, don't drink enough neutral fluids (water) and what accumulating effects that has on our well-being.

Off-topic, but here goes:
As an MD, I've probably saved more old folk by giving them
re-hydrating fluid than by any other medical means. Some need an EV
route, they become comatose, but oral usually does the trick. A couple
of liters and they are walking around again. The climate here (40c in
summer) does not help.
"New" colleagues frequently miss-diagnose as a stroke and send
them off to hospital. Not at all necessary.
HTH
[]'s

Nathan died at 48. Since he was apparently active at the time,
probably a heart attack.

[Melzzzzz]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 16:00:12 -0300
Shadow <S...@dow.br> wrote:

>
> Nathan died at 48. Since he was apparently active at the time,
> probably a heart attack.

I am 45. I regularly take http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorazepam
on even small sign of stress.

[Rosario193]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 16:00:12 -0300, Shadow <S...@dow.br> wrote:

>On Mon, 26 May 2014 05:27:57 -0700 (PDT), s_dub...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>Switching to another point of posting, that is, to your health; and the subject of proper hydration. I've been amazed to learn from experience how as we get older, we lose the sense of thirst, don't drink enough neutral fluids (water) and what accumulating effects that has on our well-being.
>
> Off-topic, but here goes:
> As an MD, I've probably saved more old folk by giving them
>re-hydrating fluid than by any other medical means. Some need an EV
>route, they become comatose, but oral usually does the trick. A couple
>of liters and they are walking around again. The climate here (40c in
>summer) does not help.

i think drink but not more 2 litri not less 1 litri
but in what one eat there is [should be] water too [frutta, verdura,
brodo etc]
but i'm not a doctor can i make errors for that

> "New" colleagues frequently miss-diagnose as a stroke and send
>them off to hospital. Not at all necessary.
> HTH
> []'s
>
> Nathan died at 48.

here http://www.newsandsentinel.com/page/content.detail/id/586060.html
it says 46

[Shadow]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 21:20:00 +0200, Rosario193
<Ros...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>On Mon, 26 May 2014 16:00:12 -0300, Shadow <S...@dow.br> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 26 May 2014 05:27:57 -0700 (PDT), s_dub...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>>>Switching to another point of posting, that is, to your health; and the subject of proper hydration. I've been amazed to learn from experience how as we get older, we lose the sense of thirst, don't drink enough neutral fluids (water) and what accumulating effects that has on our well-being.
>>
>> Off-topic, but here goes:
>> As an MD, I've probably saved more old folk by giving them
>>re-hydrating fluid than by any other medical means. Some need an EV
>>route, they become comatose, but oral usually does the trick. A couple
>>of liters and they are walking around again. The climate here (40c in
>>summer) does not help.
>
>i think drink but not more 2 litri not less 1 litri
>but in what one eat there is [should be] water too [frutta, verdura,
>brodo etc]

Sure, fluids can be anything. I would not include alcohol in
the list.

>but i'm not a doctor can i make errors for that

It depends a lot on the ambient temperature. If you sweat, you
will dehydrate. Try to keep a good urine output. If you can keep your
urine to 1.5- 2 liters a day, you are doing fine. Unless you have a
kidney problem, in which case you might just swell up.

>> Nathan died at 48.
>
>here http://www.newsandsentinel.com/page/content.detail/id/586060.html
>it says 46
>

Which makes a heart attack (or even suicide, since his cause
of death is not mentioned anywhere) even more likely.
[]'s

[Shadow]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 21:17:27 +0200, Melzzzzz <m...@zzzzz.invalid>
wrote:

>On Mon, 26 May 2014 16:00:12 -0300
>Shadow <S...@dow.br> wrote:
>
>>
>> Nathan died at 48. Since he was apparently active at the time,
>> probably a heart attack.
>
>I am 45.

Been there, I think <searches memory>. Make the most of life.

>I regularly take http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorazepam
>on even small sign of stress.

Lorazepam is much more addictive than the other
benzodiazepines(not documented, daily experience). I'd go bromazepam
or even diazepam, or better, some physical activity ? Walking around
your computer while you think up that really K00l new algorithm,or
take up swimming and/or buy a bicycle.
;)
Way off topic
[]'s

[Melzzzzz]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 17:21:37 -0300
Shadow <S...@dow.br> wrote:

> On Mon, 26 May 2014 21:17:27 +0200, Melzzzzz <m...@zzzzz.invalid>
> wrote:
>
> >On Mon, 26 May 2014 16:00:12 -0300
> >Shadow <S...@dow.br> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Nathan died at 48. Since he was apparently active at the
> >> time, probably a heart attack.
> >
> >I am 45.
>
> Been there, I think <searches memory>. Make the most of life.
>
> >I regularly take http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorazepam
> >on even small sign of stress.
>
> Lorazepam is much more addictive than the other
> benzodiazepines(not documented, daily experience). I'd go bromazepam
> or even diazepam, or better, some physical activity ?

Physical activity does not relief from stress. I take lorazepam
only when I have anxiety from stress. I once didn't took it one month
and didn't feel any problems.
Other thing is that I had large problem with a spine back in 2009-2010.
I couldn't sleep because of pain and only drug that helped
me to sleep is lorazepam as it relax muscles and nerves. Pain killers
were useless to me.

Walking around
> your computer while you think up that really K00l new algorithm,or
> take up swimming and/or buy a bicycle.
> ;)
> Way off topic
> []'s



--

Click OK to continue...

[Steve]

In <llvl1c$fhu$1...@dont-email.me>, "James Harris" <james.h...@gmail.com> writes:

>
>The news about Nathan is incredibly sad. It seems he unselfishly helped a
>lot of us over the years.

Hi,

Has anyone contactacted the family and told them that he has helped
us, and made some (remote) friends? They might want to know.

Regards,

Steve N.

[fbkotler]

On 14-05-26 12:01 PM, s_dub...@yahoo.com wrote:
> On Monday, May 26, 2014 10:18:24 AM UTC-5, James Harris wrote:
>> <s_dub...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:a988e32e-9e9e-4ced...@googlegroups.com...

I'll arbitrarily reply to this message because I'm too lazy to reply to
all who deserve a reply. I've been a lazy SOB my entire life, but lately
it's gotten worse. This surprises me a bit, but there it is. Good thing
I don't chew gum, 'cause I'm too lazy to chew gum and breathe at the
same time.

>>> I don't know why all the responsibility should default to your shoulders..

The responsibility only falls on my shoulders if we're lucky. As I
remember (and I'm gettin' forgetful along with old and tired and lazy),
when Chuck died "the board" didn't know what to do. They don't "do"
moderator replacement. A moderator can name a new moderator, and that's
it. Since Jim Carlock was able to convince them that he was Chuck's
assistant, they decided that, under the circumstances, they could name
Jim moderator. Nathan and I were helping him, and it went well. Then Jim
got a job offer, several states away starting tomorrow - so he had to
bail out in a hurry. He named Nathan as moderator - AFAIK that went
smoothly. Now we're back in the position of no moderator to name a new
moderator. I think I can get them to name me moderator, if I can figure
out who to talk to. Jim and Nathan made most of the arrangements, I just
kinda tagged along. I haven't even started working on that.

>>> Remind me again why CLAX needs to be moderated, other than "it's always
>>> been that way". I'd offer to help, but, [insert excuses here].

Understood. You don't need excuses. Nobody is "obliged" to do this...
but someone has to. Actually, Nathan asked me last fall if I'd take over
for him. I convinced him to stay on. Might have been easier if I'd done
it...

>> That's a valid point. I don't know if the reasons for moderation apply as
>> much now to Usenet groups as they used to. Moderation can make a group less
>> responsive and moderation does add to the workload of volunteer moderators.
>> Further, it seems there's a cost involved - either one-off or ongoing. Is
>> moderation still the best option for clax?

My understanding is that it's virtually impossible to "unmoderate" a
newsgroup. What would happen (I understand) is that some servers would
kill the "moderated" flag and some wouldn't. "Propagation" would be
badly disrupted. We could try it...

What we could do is go back to comp.lang.asm from which
comp.lang.asm.x86 was formed. The group still exists, but not all
servers carry it. If c.l.a.x. suddenly vanishes, try that. Or we can
just post here (a.l.a. - in case I decide to copy this to c.l.a.x.)

>> IIRC Frank and Nathan made the moderation much less apparent by setting up a
>> whitelist for known posters which helped make comp.lang.asm.x86 a much
>> better group to use. I don't know *how* that whitelist worked or even if it
>> is still operational.

I think Chuck had a whitelist. If you were experiencing delays, maybe
you weren't on it. :) I don't know how that worked. Chuck was using a
package called "STUMP" - secure team moderation... something - a
mishmash of bash scripts and executables that formed a "server" that a
team of moderators could use. Encrypted emails between moderators and
such - way overkill for what we need. It needs to run on Linux (and a
static IP?) but can be accessed by team members running anything.
Chuck's computer was still "up" after his death, and we used it for a
while...

Jim couldn't run STUMP, so we used "PyModerator" - written in Python so
it was portable to Windows. I don't remember much about it, but it
doesn't seem to have a good "reputation". Worked okay, as I recall, but
was a "server" and needed a static IP (or maybe it didn't and we just
thought it did). That went bye-bye with Jim's new job.

The current homemade software, "claxmod" (claxmod17.asm in the current
incarnation) is two clients - one to fetch mail from Nathan's
"clax-...@clax.inspiretomorrow.net" mailbox, and one to post to nntp.
In between, it checks "whitelist.txt". Two lines per entry, one the
exact "From:" header and the second the same thing but with
"nospicedham" stuffed into it. If the first one matches, it's replaced
with the second and off she goes. Well... the super-secret arcane
moderator incantation has to be added. :)

Initially, I just copied all the headers. Rod pointed out that we were
giving away too much information with that - email headers contain more
"traceable" information than nntp headers. So I started copying just
selected headers - guessing which ones. The latest glitch - with
Melzzzzz's posts - was because I guessed one too many. Giganews didn't
have any problem with "NNTP-Posting-Date:" but Eternal-September thinks
it's an obsolete header. I always tell the newbies, "Pay attention to
the error messages, sometimes they have useful information." If I'd paid
attention, I'd have seen that it wasn't complaining about the date, it
was complaining about the header. Once I figured that out, it was a
simple matter of commenting out the two lines of code that found
"NNTP-Posting-Date:" and copied that line. We live and learn. The next
glitch will be along soon to teach me something else, I imagine.

Anyway, everybody's on the whitelist. Rod's probably champion for being
on it the most times. Every time he (anyone) changes his "From:" line,
he's not on the whitelist. As soon as I'm awake and on the ball and
notice there's a pending message, I have to hit 'a' for "approve" and
'y' to put him on the whitelist. No hassle for me, but it causes a
delay. Same goes for "new users" (if any).

>> From a few comments I've seen recently it seems that a lot of us who make
>> use of newsgroups (or at least who post to them) may be of similar age.
>> Nathan in his mid 40s may have been one of the younger ones. I wonder if
>> younger programmers ever get to know about Usenet.

Used to be that an nntp server was "standard equipment" for an ISP. When
Verizon owned me they quit running their own server and farmed it out to
GigaNews. When they sold me to FairPoint, they'd never heard of nntp. So
the young 'uns would have to know to look for it.

>>
>> James
>
> I was going to mention that, about younger programmers. 'X86' just isn't in the current lexicon anymore, so probably is seen as antiquated, or, pertaining to old legacy systems. So even if a newbie finds Usenet on a search, or in a reference, they wouldn't think to relate to 'x86'. But they aren't likely to find 'usenet', more likely to find 'google groups', most likely to find a niche forum.
>
> How did you find usenet? I found it as a consequence of dialup BBS'ing or dialup to university mail networks, but mostly when the internet came of age, re: Prodigy and some of the others, including subscription facilities ms outlook, way back before browser choice.
>
> I'm not really advocating a name change, just being introspective - these 'sudden' events tend to invoke that.
>
> Steve
>

Possibly a reason to go back to plain comp.lang.asm - or a consolation
if we have to.

Best,
Frank

[Rod Pemberton]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 11:18:24 -0400, James Harris
<james.h...@gmail.com> wrote:

> From a few comments I've seen recently it seems that a lot of us who make
> use of newsgroups (or at least who post to them) may be of similar age.
> Nathan in his mid 40s may have been one of the younger ones. I wonder if
> younger programmers ever get to know about Usenet.
>

Well, I'm not mentioning my age on the internet, but thanks for the
complement. ;-) Actually, I thought Nathan was much younger than
he was, like by a decade.


Rod Pemberton

[Rod Pemberton]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 12:01:29 -0400, <s_dub...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Monday, May 26, 2014 10:18:24 AM UTC-5, James Harris wrote:

>> From a few comments I've seen recently it seems that a lot of us
>> who make use of newsgroups (or at least who post to them) may be
>> of similar age. Nathan in his mid 40s may have been one of the
>> younger ones. I wonder if younger programmers ever get to know
>> about Usenet.
>>
>

> I was going to mention that, about younger programmers. 'X86' just
> isn't in the current lexicon anymore, so probably is seen as antiquated,
> or, pertaining to old legacy systems. So even if a newbie finds Usenet
> on a search, or in a reference, they wouldn't think to relate to 'x86'.
> But they aren't likely to find 'usenet', more likely to find 'google
> groups', most likely to find a niche forum.
>
> How did you find usenet? I found it as a consequence of dialup BBS'ing
> or dialup to university mail networks, but mostly when the internet came
> of age, re: Prodigy and some of the others, including subscription
> facilities ms outlook, way back before browser choice.
>

I was exposed to it in the late 1980's at a university, but from the way it
was described, it was more about general social communication, like email,
and so it didn't interest me any. In '05 or '06 or thereabouts, I wanted
to contact the other users of OpenWatcom, but they didn't have a forum,
just a newsgroup. Forums all require accounts, email, etc hassle ...


Rod Pemberton

[Rod Pemberton]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 18:38:20 -0400, fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net>
wrote:

> I think I can get them to name me moderator, if I can figure out who to
> talk to.

The best option is to bypass that. Set up clax to auto-approve everything,
preferably using "free" everything so it is never closed or shut down.
Then, rename the robo-moderator "Frank Kotler" in your will. ;-)

> My understanding is that it's virtually impossible to "unmoderate" a
> newsgroup.

Shut down. Re-boot.

> What would happen (I understand) is that some servers would kill the
> "moderated" flag and some wouldn't. "Propagation" would be badly
> disrupted. We could try it...
>
> What we could do is go back to comp.lang.asm from which comp.lang.asm.x86
> was formed. The group still exists, but not all servers carry it. If
> c.l.a.x. suddenly vanishes, try that. Or we can just post here (a.l.a.
> - in case I decide to copy this to c.l.a.x.)

Although I've got good access to alt.lang.asm, I've found that the alt.*
groups, even text, are not as widely carried on Usenet as the comp.*
groups.
E.g., some don't carry any alt.* groups.

> The current homemade software, "claxmod" (claxmod17.asm in the current
> incarnation) is two clients - one to fetch mail from Nathan's
> "clax-...@clax.inspiretomorrow.net" mailbox, and one to post to nntp.

So, you just need a permanent email address, and a computer to suck the
posts, and an nntp client that allows approval of posts? It's too bad
AIOE.org won't allow approval. Their post ability has been really
reliable.
Their availability of messages, however, isn't that great. So, the
critical
issue seems to be the "free" and "permanently online" computer. There
has to be some of those public access, user groups that provided
telnet'able
accounts from years ago, or somebody that provides a free unix shell
account.

> In between, it checks "whitelist.txt". Two lines per entry, one the
> exact "From:" header and the second the same thing but with
> "nospicedham" stuffed into it. If the first one matches, it's replaced
> with the second and off she goes. Well... the super-secret arcane
> moderator incantation has to be added. :)

Well, I rotate fake email addresses ... How's that been? ;-)

> Anyway, everybody's on the whitelist. Rod's probably champion for being
> on it the most times. Every time he (anyone) changes his "From:" line,
> he's not on the whitelist. As soon as I'm awake and on the ball and
> notice there's a pending message, I have to hit 'a' for "approve" and
> 'y' to put him on the whitelist. No hassle for me, but it causes a
> delay. Same goes for "new users" (if any).

LOL! Question answered.

Hey, you want me to test that? I haven't posted to CLAX since you got
things back up, and it's about time to rotate fake addresses again ... ;-)


Rod Pemberton

[James Harris]

<s_dub...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:c10e4cfd-4f4d-492f...@googlegroups.com...

On Monday, May 26, 2014 10:18:24 AM UTC-5, James Harris wrote:

...

> > From a few comments I've seen recently it seems that a lot of us who
> > make
> > use of newsgroups (or at least who post to them) may be of similar age.
> > Nathan in his mid 40s may have been one of the younger ones. I wonder if
> > younger programmers ever get to know about Usenet.

> I was going to mention that, about younger programmers. 'X86' just isn't
> in the current lexicon anymore, so probably is seen as antiquated, or,
> pertaining to old legacy systems. So even if a newbie finds Usenet on a
> search, or in a reference, they wouldn't think to relate to 'x86'. But
> they aren't likely to find 'usenet', more likely to find 'google groups',
> most likely to find a niche forum.

I would think x86 would be known to people who would be interested in x86
assembly programming but suspect that such programmers would find web
forums, and maybe even social media before they came across Usenet. Many
ISPs charge for Usenet services and some people never find that there are
cost-free alternatives. So I suspect familiarity with Usenet is the major
hurdle.

> How did you find usenet?

I have used it for so long I cannot remember when I first came across it!

> I'm not really advocating a name change, just being introspective - these
> 'sudden' events tend to invoke that.

I too don't see a need for a change to the name of the group but that is
just my view.

James

[James Harris]

"fbkotler" <fbko...@myfairpoint.net> wrote in message
news:lm0fpv$3ac$1...@dont-email.me...

> On 14-05-26 12:01 PM, s_dub...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> On Monday, May 26, 2014 10:18:24 AM UTC-5, James Harris wrote:
>>> <s_dub...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>> news:a988e32e-9e9e-4ced...@googlegroups.com...
>
> I'll arbitrarily reply to this message because I'm too lazy to reply to
> all who deserve a reply. I've been a lazy SOB my entire life, but lately
> it's gotten worse. This surprises me a bit, but there it is. Good thing I
> don't chew gum, 'cause I'm too lazy to chew gum and breathe at the same
> time.

I know the feeling ... and I find that any motivation I had gradually
diminishes with the passing of time. :-( Perhaps it is due to a transition
from the naivety and optimism of youth to the experience and realism of age.
Quick, everyone, take an antidepressant before thinking about that too much.
;-)

...

> Now we're back in the position of no moderator to name a new moderator. I
> think I can get them to name me moderator, if I can figure out who to talk
> to.

If it helps, I found that the Big8 (who, for any who don't know, provide
management services for the Big 8 Usenet hierarchy which includes comp.*)
are very helpful. Once there is a clear idea of what's wanted perhaps a good
way to contact them is via newsgroup news.groups.proposals.

http://www.big-8.org/articles/n/e/w/News.groups.proposals_FAQ.html

...

> My understanding is that it's virtually impossible to "unmoderate" a
> newsgroup. What would happen (I understand) is that some servers would
> kill the "moderated" flag and some wouldn't. "Propagation" would be badly
> disrupted. We could try it...

If unmoderation turns out to be the way to go, I found this:

http://www.big-8.org/articles/c/h/a/Changing_the_Moderation_Status_of_Existing_Groups.html

If you are willing, Frank, as there's been no outright objections here it
might be best to kick off a discussion on clax to see what existing members
of the group have to say about its future moderation status. If people agree
then you/we could approach the Big8 board to ask what's involved (that web
page doesn't say much about it) and how successful it is likely to be.

James

[Shadow]

On Mon, 26 May 2014 22:31:26 -0400, "Rod Pemberton"
<dont_us...@xnothavet.cqm> wrote:

>On Mon, 26 May 2014 18:38:20 -0400, fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net>
>wrote:
>
>> I think I can get them to name me moderator, if I can figure out who to
>> talk to.
>
>The best option is to bypass that. Set up clax to auto-approve everything,
>preferably using "free" everything so it is never closed or shut down.
>Then, rename the robo-moderator "Frank Kotler" in your will. ;-)

A blacklist is far more useful that a whitelist. Filter on
cheap, sex, cigarettes, nike, all uppercase, obama, bush, etc in the
subject line. You can build on that. And occasionally examine any
false positives. Whitelisting means more work, as people tend to
change nyms.

[Rosario193]

I do not agree, for example here in my phone arrive from 3 to 6 or 7 I
could not calculate well calls a day of "cold calls", always with
different numbers, or numbers hidden. I realized that the only
solution is, that the phone recognizes numbers allowed, and therefore
a "white list"

io non sono d'accordo, per esempio qui nel mio telefono arrivano da 3
alle 6 o 7 non saprei calcolare bene telefonate al giorno di
"pubblicit� telefonica", sempre con numero diverso, oppure con numero
nascosto. mi sono accorto che l'unica � fare in modo che il telefono
riconosca se il numero � conosciuto e quindi una "white list"

[wolfgang kern]

Steve wrote:

[...]
<q>

I was going to mention that, about younger programmers. 'X86' just isn't in
the current lexicon anymore, so probably is seen as antiquated, or,
pertaining to old legacy systems. So even if a newbie finds Usenet on a
search, or in a reference, they wouldn't think to relate to 'x86'. But they
aren't likely to find 'usenet', more likely to find 'google groups', most
likely to find a niche forum.

How did you find usenet?

</q>

I started to read usenet-news somehow late (1999 when I was 50).
At this time there were many young programmers around and they
seemed eagerly interested in ASM and low-level programming then.

Not sure if some of the 'script-kids' are still with us yet by
other nick-names.

I like to keep usenet alive, because I'm not a friend of funny
icons and all the almost redundant/useless 'quoted printable'
which just costs net-bandwidth (iow: my money).

about the question if CLAX should continue moderated or move
to an unmoderated group like comp.lang.asm ... On one side
I'd like to see CLAX remain as it was since long, and not just
in memorial of Chuck and Nate, but I'd fully understand if
Frank and others would decide for an unmoderated group.
__
wolfgang

[Rosario193]

On Tue, 27 May 2014 19:34:57 +0200, "wolfgang kern" wrote:
>Steve wrote:

my story for usenet is simple
first i had a program called "outlook express" or something near that
name, installed in the first pc i had

i seen how i could use it, in email and news== usenet
and i connected the pc for find some good group for programming
so comp.lang.c and afther some time
and alt.lang.asm
in how i remember that

[Shadow]

On Tue, 27 May 2014 19:27:22 +0200, Rosario193
<Ros...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>On Tue, 27 May 2014 11:26:45 -0300, Shadow <S...@dow.br> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 26 May 2014 22:31:26 -0400, "Rod Pemberton"
>><dont_us...@xnothavet.cqm> wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 26 May 2014 18:38:20 -0400, fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think I can get them to name me moderator, if I can figure out who to
>>>> talk to.
>>>
>>>The best option is to bypass that. Set up clax to auto-approve everything,
>>>preferably using "free" everything so it is never closed or shut down.
>>>Then, rename the robo-moderator "Frank Kotler" in your will. ;-)
>>
>> A blacklist is far more useful that a whitelist. Filter on
>>cheap, sex, cigarettes, nike, all uppercase, obama, bush, etc in the
>>subject line. You can build on that. And occasionally examine any
>>false positives. Whitelisting means more work, as people tend to
>>change nyms.
>> []'s
>
>I do not agree, for example here in my phone arrive from 3 to 6 or 7 I
>could not calculate well calls a day of "cold calls", always with
>different numbers, or numbers hidden. I realized that the only
>solution is, that the phone recognizes numbers allowed, and therefore
>a "white list"

Usenet Spam-post will not wake you up in the middle of the
night.

>
>io non sono d'accordo, per esempio qui nel mio telefono arrivano da 3
>alle 6 o 7 non saprei calcolare bene telefonate al giorno di
>"pubblicit� telefonica", sempre con numero diverso, oppure con numero
>nascosto. mi sono accorto che l'unica � fare in modo che il telefono
>riconosca se il numero � conosciuto e quindi una "white list"

Uma mensagem Spam na Usenet n�o te acordar� de madrugada....

[fbkotler]

On 14-05-26 10:31 PM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> On Mon, 26 May 2014 18:38:20 -0400, fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net>
> wrote:
>
>> I think I can get them to name me moderator, if I can figure out who
>> to talk to.

With a nudge in the right direction from James Harris, I think I've got
the ball rolling on that. We shall see.

> The best option is to bypass that. Set up clax to auto-approve everything,

I'm not sure you'd want that. The fake watches, fake diplomas, and fake
erections wouldn't kill us, but there are some binaries... I've never
tried to disassemble them but I suspect they're up to no good. Text-only
newsgroup - probably wouldn't post anyway, but... I think there are some
things we want blocked.

Why don't we have this spam in a.l.a you ask? Good question. I just came
across a reference, in a post from Kathy Morgan (chair of "the board")
regarding a particular newsgroup with an unusual amount of spam, to
"CleanFeeds". Possibly a filter that nntp servers apply, but not to
moderated groups? Dunno.

The other thing is the mail link. comp-lan...@moderators.isc.org
gets (by mail) posts from nntp servers who see that we're moderated,
and... other places. I don't think they filter at all, but I'm not sure.
At Nathan's mailbox, we used to get a lot of spam but it's dropped off
sharply over time. I strongly suspect there's some filtering involved,
but I don't know where/who. There's a lot going on behind the scenes,

> preferably using "free" everything so it is never closed or shut down.
> Then, rename the robo-moderator "Frank Kotler" in your will. ;-)

I'd probably name it after Chuck. Would need some cleaning up first - in
the shape it's in, it wouldn't be much of an honor.

>> My understanding is that it's virtually impossible to "unmoderate" a
>> newsgroup.
>
> Shut down. Re-boot.

Maybe if we got all the servers to reboot at the same time... You know
how to hack the grid? :)

...

> Although I've got good access to alt.lang.asm, I've found that the alt.*
> groups, even text, are not as widely carried on Usenet as the comp.*
> groups.
> E.g., some don't carry any alt.* groups.

Yeah, I think it's a porn problem, specifically kiddie porn. Given the
possibility that some gubmint somewhere might decide that the carrier is
guilty, some people don't want to stick their neck out. Can't say I
blame them, but kudos to the ones that do. Okay, we definitely want a
presence on the "Big 8".

...

> So, you just need a permanent email address, and a computer to suck the
> posts, and an nntp client that allows approval of posts? It's too bad
> AIOE.org won't allow approval. Their post ability has been really
> reliable.
> Their availability of messages, however, isn't that great.

So far, I have been very pleased with Eternal-September. When I asked
for permission to approve posts, I heard back within an hour or two.
Okay, I guess it wasn't a "holiday weekend" in Germany, but I was still
impressed.

> So, the critical
> issue seems to be the "free" and "permanently online" computer. There
> has to be some of those public access, user groups that provided
> telnet'able
> accounts from years ago, or somebody that provides a free unix shell
> account.

Dunno. One of the guys on "the board" offered to help us configure STUMP
if we had a PANIX account. Not free, but there are options if this
homemade stuff doesn't work out.

...

> Hey, you want me to test that? I haven't posted to CLAX since you got
> things back up, and it's about time to rotate fake addresses again ... ;-)

Sure, go for it. The more test messages the better! I got a surprise the
other day when I found myself "not in whitelist". My "From:" line had
changed from "Frank Kotler <..." to "fbkotler <..." - something I did
when swapping to Eternal-September I think. Type 'a' and 'y'... actually
there's a "last chance to quit" prompt - a leftover debugging device -
should probably remove that. No hassle at all, but it does cause a delay
until I notice it. If an old fake address rotates back into play, you
should already be on the whitelist.

Best,
Frank

[fbkotler]

On 14-05-27 10:26 AM, Shadow wrote:

> A blacklist is far more useful that a whitelist. Filter on
> cheap, sex, cigarettes, nike, all uppercase, obama, bush, etc in the
> subject line. You can build on that. And occasionally examine any
> false positives. Whitelisting means more work, as people tend to
> change nyms.
> []'s

I think I disagree. Spammers morph even more than people do. I don't
think Chuck ever "auto-rejected" anything, and I'm not inclined to
either. I made an exception to that. My program looks for the word
"viagra" in the header and auto-rejects that. Prints a "die spammer die"
message to let me see it worked. Used to get dozens of 'em. Haven't seen
one for many months. Test it if you feel like it...

Pete Disdale gave us some software he'd written - a filter intended for
sorting email. He tweaked it up and split it into a module I could link
against. As I recall, Pete said he was going out of town for a few days
so I put off getting back to him... I don't think I ever did. Thanks,
Pete, it worked great! (why can't those standardized C folk decide
between "strnicmp" and "strncasecmp"?)

Since claxmod takes its input from a server, I didn't have a way to test
it. I could have altered it to feed it a file, but I didn't have a "test
suite" to feed it anyway. So I set it going "live", watching it like a
hawk. Seemed fine, but the minute I turned my back one of those false
positives happened - a message from Rod, natch. I "fished it out of the
bin" and posted it, so no harm done, but it made me realize that I
really don't want to auto-reject a good post accidentally. So I set
Pete's code aside, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure it can be made
to work. Another moderator can do different (wanna be moderator?) but
I'm going with the whitelist approach.

The bright side of this is that the "pure asm" code was one of the few
things that ran without hassle after the Great Upgrade Disaster. If it
still had the C in it, it wouldn't have worked. I *still* haven't got
those accursed multilibs installed!

I agree with you 100% on the hydration issue though. Happened to my
son-in-law a year or two ago. Wasn't feeling well, went to the hospital,
many tests, no results. Finally a doctor asked him, "When was the last
time you had anything to drink?" Bingo. I just got up and got another
glass of water. Thanks!

Best,
Frank

[Rod Pemberton]

On Thu, 29 May 2014 01:13:52 -0400, fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net>
wrote:

> Seemed fine, but the minute I turned my back one of those false
> positives happened - a message from Rod, natch.

Wow! I didn't know I was such a PIA. I just thought Nathan pestered
me most of the time because that was Nathan, and a small amount of the
time because he had a different viewpoint. You guys should've said
something...

So, now, I take it the viagra reject occurs AFTER the whitelist? ...
I.e., "x86 on viagra!" should go through if sent by me, right? ;-)


Rod Pemberton

[fbkotler]

On 14-05-29 03:21 AM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> On Thu, 29 May 2014 01:13:52 -0400, fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Seemed fine, but the minute I turned my back one of those false
>> positives happened - a message from Rod, natch.
>
> Wow! I didn't know I was such a PIA. I just thought Nathan pestered
> me most of the time because that was Nathan, and a small amount of the
> time because he had a different viewpoint. You guys should've said
> something...

No, no. As you probably remember, when Nathan was a newbie moderator, he
did a very unmoderatorlike thing - called you a troll or a spammer or
some such. He realized his error and apologized, as I recall.

In my case, there was a point in time when I noticed that nearly every
post I made was disagreeing with you about something. I don't know if
you noticed, but I did. I don't normally disagree with you (not always
anyway). I was afraid that I was beginning to "look like" some kind of
"opponent". I'm not, and I don't want to look like one. That, and the
fact that we can't email you to discuss any "issues" privately make me a
little "sensitive" to my "relationship" with you. I appreciate you a
lot, actually. Just that when the false positive happened, I thought,
"Oh sh!t, it *would* be Rod..."

> So, now, I take it the viagra reject occurs AFTER the whitelist? ...
> I.e., "x86 on viagra!" should go through if sent by me, right? ;-)

I'd have to look. I suspect it won't. It probably "should". I'll be
getting into that code soon to try out the new mailbox (hard coded, as
it probably shouldn't be). I may try to fix some other things.

When I was writing that code, I felt under pressure to get something
working ASAP. I had only minimal experience with "socket" programming
and none with the "protocols" so it was "learn as you go". Okay we seem
to be connected, try to log in, okay try to get messages... etc. As a
result, it's rather a mess of spaghetti. Once I got it "working" I felt
a little burnt out and took a break. I expected to get back into it in a
few days or weeks, but I'm still feeling a little burnt out. It needs a
lot of improvement - recovery from errors, in particular - but it's a
single-purpose, single-user (or two) program so it doesn't have to be
"nice".

I'm kinda surprised it isn't a more common newbie question: "How do I
get on the Internet in assembly language?". The answer is "Talk to the
OS, same as you'd do in a HLL." They often seem to disappear after "How
do I display a number?" Still, some examples would be nice. I can't
distribute claxmod, as is, 'cause there are passwords hard-coded into
it. With a little work, a more "generic" example could be developed that
could be used as an example (de-spaghettified, preferably). But I'm
still feeling burnt out (or worse). Maybe I'll pull myself together and
maybe I won't. We'll see how it goes...

Best,
Frank

[Rod Pemberton]

On Thu, 29 May 2014 16:45:36 -0400, fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net>
wrote:

> That, and the fact that we can't email you to discuss any "issues"
> privately make me a little "sensitive" to my "relationship" with you.

Well, Frank, I'm sorry for causing you any "sensitivities," whatever
that means, but my response, perhaps overdone, would be something like:

First, I'm not sure what private email has to do with a public forum.
I.e., if you're willing to use private email to communicate with
participants, what's the point of a public forum? ...

Second, as you know, I haven't used email in a long, long, time due
to a suspected breach of my account, or perhaps an error of the part
of my former email provider. I hope to keep it that way, i.e., not
use email for an even longer time.

Third, Usenet allows the crazies to attack you anonymously, sometimes
with multiple fake or forged accounts, which makes keeping your privacy
an even more important issue than it otherwise would be.

Fourth, I use my real name, so providing an email or IP or other
info is enough for a stranger to locate or contact me, instead of
one of the other sixty or seventy or eighty or so "Rod Pemberton's"
of the world. Believe it or not, there are a dozen or so in every
English speaking country. If I had chosen to use a "nom de plume"
on Usenet, originally, which would've been a wise choice, then
perhaps I'd consider private email.

Fifth, there are just too many crazies on Usenet. I'm not interested
in them contacting me, or locating me. I think you can respect that.
That doesn't include old friends or enemies or those trying to scapegoat
you or other acquaintances attempting to victimize you. E.g., just who
sends binaries to CLAX for moderation? That's crazy. I just had some
psycho pick a fight for no reason about a month ago in another group.
I think he tried to locate me too... I'm not sure about the other
nutjobs, but there is at least one per year that creeps or seeps out
of the woodwork.

Sixth, it's just way too easy to track down people on the internet.
On what we'll call pure speculation, since I can't reveal certain
aspects of all info I know, I found Nathan's obit in no time flat.
Have you tried to locate Nathan's obit without any info except
his name? Try it... Start with "Nate Baker" and progress to "Nathan
Baker". It won't come up, or, at least, not that easily. But, you
can find it via just Google or Yahoo, as I did. And, as another
example, I believe I tracked down the location of the previously
mentioned psycho in the other newsgroup after just five, maybe, ten
minutes. He claimed my description was of his parent's address...
Of course, I have no way of knowing if his name was real or fake,
if he took things to authorities or if he was setting up a prank.
I do know for a fact that I tracked down the residence of an old
friend I hadn't seen in over a decade from just *one* word. One word,
only using info on the internet. I had no idea where this guy moved
to or lived or how to contact him. If you weren't his friend,
you wouldn't know the word, but if you were, it was like the key to
his life. In fact, I tracked down his prior two residences, two
businesses he'd registered, his last four websites, his wife,
now suspected ex-wife, his income, how much his last two houses sold
for, his resume, his parents, where his parents reside, his uncle
and aunts, where they reside, his family members, photo's of him,
his current friends, family, cars, inside of his house, etc, all in
about fifteen to twenty minutes with Google, Yahoo, Linkedin, Facebook,
MySpace, Google Maps, WhitePages, and more free info from a couple
of other sites. That was far more information than I knew about
him when I was his friend for a decade. I'm not an expert in this,
but just a guy using the internet. Think about what the U.S.
government or other authorities with skilled people could locate
about you... It's scary, at least to me, and I've got nothing
to hide!

Seventh, given the above, I really, really, don't think I'm all that
paranoid for taking a paranoid perspective on privacy, including not
using email. Recent events seem to confirm what I've always thought
about authories being abusive of their power, and especially so after
September 2001. Just look at the repeated attempts by U.S. government
programs to archive private emails of U.S. citizens:
-FBI Carnivore program harvested emails
-NSA found to be archiving all emails after 9/11
-U.S. ECPA law declares email "abandoned" after six-months, allowing
the U.S. government to archive it
-U.S. 9th circuit ruled that email headers have no expectation of
privacy

Hoping you grasp my perspective, and perhaps adopt it,


Rod Pemberton

[Melzzzzz]

On 6/2/14, 4:00 PM, Jim Higgins wrote:
> On Thu, 29 May 2014 01:13:52 -0400, in <lm6fnr$3es$1...@dont-email.me>,
> fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> OK... I understand clax has a posting problem, but why does ala have
> to suffer for it? The clax moderation stuff is one thing, but the
> completely off topic chit chat is another. Can you guys please
> respect the basic purpose of ala or take your discussion elsewhere?
>
Too much noise ... ahem...

[Herbert Kleebauer]

On 02.06.2014 16:00, Jim Higgins wrote:

> OK... I understand clax has a posting problem, but why does ala have
> to suffer for it? The clax moderation stuff is one thing, but the
> completely off topic chit chat is another. Can you guys please
> respect the basic purpose of ala or take your discussion elsewhere?

Funny, meanwhile you must be happy to find a viagra posting in a.l.a
so there is a posting at all in this group. Why is a posting about
c.l.a.x off topic in a.l.a?

[James Harris]

"Jim Higgins" <ILi...@Privacy.invalid> wrote in message
news:1sgpo9hankm2hlmpl...@4ax.com...

...

> Seriously, please give it some thought and then please do the "right
> thing."

For anyone from clax reading this please be aware that Jim doesn't speak for
all of us who post to ala and is not in a position to decide what are the
right and wrong things to be discussed here. I have no problem at all with
the topics recently discussed which have been predominantly about
assembly-related issues. Where posts have included other comments that's
also not been a problem to me. This is an alt group after all and
unmoderated, and publicly accessible and Usenet!

I think it's great that this group has been able to help out fellow asm
programmers on clax especially while they have been coping with a difficult
issue.

Notably, Jim the discussion here had died down. You chose to start it up
again by responding to a post that was nearly four days old.

James

[Phil Carmody]

Frank Kotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net> writes:
> On 14-05-23 07:16 PM, Mike Gonta wrote:
> > Rod Pemberton wrote:
> >
> >> I'm not trying to spread any false rumors of someone's demise, but
> >> I happened across an obituary for a Nathan Baker which seemed to fit.
> >> Of course, I have no way to confirm.

Thank you for reporting this, Rod.

> > The public ICANN WHOIS record of his domain name registration shows
> > his address as the same small town in WV (population under 400).
> >
> >
> > Mike Gonta
> > look and see - many look but few see
>
> Thanks, Mike. I don't know why I didn't think to check whois. Perhaps
> because I don't want to know. I'm afraid that pretty much nails it.
>
> I'll share with y'all part of the last note I got from Nathan, since
> it's "on topic". This was in response to my offer to send him some
> money...
>
> " Don't worry about this. I got a new job with more hours and have
> decided the cost to keep CLAX running is not a burden at the
> moment. Oddly enough, my official title is "Assembler", what I do is
> "assemble" product, and sometimes the boss says "go to assembly" when
> assigning me a work location. So, I guess there can never again be
> any doubt in my mind what an 'assembler' is, huh?? :)"
>
> IP, EIP, and RIP Nathan. Keep assembling in your new work location!

Ah, but he'll have no incentive to optimise for speed any more.

A toast to Nathan, and for his contribution to the community.

(And thanks Terje for stepping in with a moderation address for clax.)

Phil

[Rod Pemberton]

On Mon, 02 Jun 2014 10:00:44 -0400, Jim Higgins <ILi...@privacy.invalid>

wrote:
> On Thu, 29 May 2014 01:13:52 -0400, in <lm6fnr$3es$1...@dont-email.me>,
> fbkotler <fbko...@myfairpoint.net> wrote:

>> On 14-05-27 10:26 AM, Shadow wrote:

> OK... I understand clax has a posting problem, but why does ala have
> to suffer for it? The clax moderation stuff is one thing, but the
> completely off topic chit chat is another. Can you guys please
> respect the basic purpose of ala or take your discussion elsewhere?

Having been reading clax and ala off and on since about 06, I found
this be humorous. Was this meant to be serious?

I only read your post to see what you said for Nathan's passing ...

It seems "you" post one to two posts a year to each group.
So few posts, in fact, that I didn't recall your name. Sorry.

BTW, there is no topicality requirement in alt.* Usenet hierarchy,
just the other eight hierarchies.

alt - anarchists, lunatics, terrorists

Nathan clearly didn't have a problem with "off-topic" posts as long
as they were in ala. He seemed to "enjoy" having some with me.
Chuck would redirect some CLAX OT stuff here too.

If you wanted to complain about a thread that was causing ala to suffer,
as mentioned in your other post, you should've brought up the threads
with "pooh the cat" and Dustin. Yeah, I happened to be involved in
those too. Or, perhaps, you could cite one of my many OT non-assembly
posts here. I have posted just about as many on assembly though, too,
but not so many in the past few years. Nobody is around. It's been
really quiet here.

So, don't just automatically categorize everyone here as a loon,
although we may be so in the moment. By "everyone", I mean the
trivially few people still here on ala. It seems to be me, Ros, Peter,
Mike, random appearances by "Flying Skybuck", and a couple new guys,
random appearances by other guys from years ago, plus current CLAX
overflow. I also happen to be the originator of one of the "good"
posts you cited, and responded to patrick on his earlier thread. But,
you can also see I originated four OT threads recently, including the
gem: "Where's Johnny?" - to which no one replied.


Rod Pemberton

[luserdroog]

On Monday, May 26, 2014 at 9:31:26 PM UTC-5, Rod Pemberton wrote:
>There
> has to be some of those public access, user groups that provided
> telnet'able
> accounts from years ago, or somebody that provides a free unix shell
> account.

http://sdf.org/?faq%3FBASICS%3F01

[hughag...@gmail.com]

I think that moderation is a good thing, and I hope that CLAX continues to be moderated.

An important goal for a moderator is to block creepy stalkers such as Rod Pemberton. He describes above how a "psycho" "attacked" him. That was Brian Dickens. As far as I could tell, the guy was reasonable and was not attacking anybody. Rod posted a satellite photo of the guy's home. The guy said later that this was actually his mother's home. In this post that I'm quoting above, Rod says:
> I believe I tracked down the location of the previously
> mentioned psycho in the other newsgroup after just five, maybe, ten
> minutes. He claimed my description was of his parent's address...

Here is a thread on comp.lang.forth:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/comp.lang.forth/rod$20satellite%7Csort:date/comp.lang.forth/nWjTdLGHIOI/EyemfhMHYTIJ

On Friday, March 7, 2014 at 3:23:53 PM UTC-7, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Mar 2014 02:48:18 -0500, <hughag...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Wednesday, March 5, 2014 7:17:13 PM UTC-7, Albert van der Horst wrote:
>
> > I agree that Rod's response, especially the satellite photo of Brian's
> > parents' house, was pretty creepy --- [..]
>
> Satellite photos linked to addresses, phone numbers, and IPs are the
> modern phonebook and streetmap ... It's only creepy to those who
> haven't moved into the modern era of Microsoft Streets and Trips,
> Google's satellite maps, and, of course, "Big Brother." Or, it's
> creepy for those who haven't accepted or willfully ignore the NSA
> and CIA spying, and illegal U.S. government TSA body scans, etc.
>
> You've been told about posting your IP too. Even so, you post from
> your relative's IP. Why is that Hugh?
>
> Originally, I intended to do that to you a while ago when you were being
> an ass and posting from your relatives house (Uncle?) in California. But,
> IIRC, you mentioned something about your relative being seriously ill.
> So, I didn't think it would've been taken well by you, not that you
> would've
> taken it well at any point in time ... But, hitting a guy when he's down,
> like when a relative has died or possibly dying, is completely tactless.
> But, I'm 100% sure that had I used that on *you* instead of the other guy,
> it would've resulted in a far more positive response from those present.
> Some here might've even openly applauded the effort as they've done for
> attacks on you in the past. So, just remember that you were the one who
> inspired such a response originally.

Just for the record, I don't have any relatives in California, seriously ill or otherwise. Rod thinks that he is a super-stalker who can find peoples' personal information in 5 or 10 minutes, but most of what he comes up with is incorrect. Rod most likely just found some luckless devil in California who has the same name as me, or maybe he is stalking so many people that he gets them mixed up.

Rod tried to get an angry response from me by insulting my brother, which is why Rod is on my permanent twit-list --- my brother is a mathematician, not a programmer, and he never visits these usenet forums --- attacking family members is just wrong!

Anyway --- we need moderation on CLAX --- for the purpose of blocking creepy stalkers such as Rod Pemberton.

OTOH, we need moderation that is fair --- it is wrong to support certain assemblers and block any mention of other assemblers --- I'm thinking of HLA, of course, although I don't even use HLA due to it being 32-bit (I'm just sympathetic to the developer, because I develop software too).

If comp.lang.forth were moderated by Elizabeth Rather (sales-person for Forth Inc.), she would only allow posts that were praising ANS-Forth, because ANS-Forth is a marketing gimmick from Forth Inc. intended to convince the world that Forth Inc. declares what is Standard (with a capital 'S') Forth, and that everybody in the Forth community is totally dependent upon Forth Inc. for leadership. Her current strategy is that she has a team of "attack poodles" who attack people like myself and the late Jeff Fox who criticize ANS-Forth. For example, I've been told that I have: "a serious misunderstanding of how pointers work." The attack-poodles always overdo their attacks! Does anybody really believe that I don't know how pointers work? Her strategy is not very successful, although it certainly bloats out the forum with arguments between idiots (I get mad and respond: "I do know what pointers are. I do! I do!"). This is what you get on an unmoderated forum though --- a sales-person promoting her product, and a team of attack-poodles insulting the competition --- the only reason why alt.lang.asm hasn't descended to this level, is because nobody is selling assemblers, so there is no money involved. It is certainly possible to hurt Randy Hyde's feelings by saying that HLA is crap, but as a practical matter it doesn't matter because HLA isn't a commercial product --- there is no money involved, so you're not taking food off his table --- people write assemblers for fun; it is a hobby.

I actually bought a shrink-wrapped box with Borland Turbo-Assembler and Turbo-Debugger (3 or 4 books and about 15 disks 3.5"), but that was about 25 years ago, and I bought it at a store that was going out of business --- those days are long past --- Richard Stallman was right: programming is a service, but software is not a product.

So, everybody lighten up! There is no money involved, so we might as well try to have fun --- but calling other programmers stupid and their software crap, doesn't help.

[hughag...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, October 9, 2016 at 8:00:52 PM UTC-7, hughag...@gmail.com wrote:
> we need moderation that is fair --- it is wrong to support certain assemblers and block any mention of other assemblers --- I'm thinking of HLA, of course, although I don't even use HLA due to it being 32-bit (I'm just sympathetic to the developer, because I develop software too).

Well, Frank Kotler banned me from CLAX:
--- Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. ---

Is it true that Frank Kotler was the driving force behind getting Randy Hyde banned from CLAX, along with all discussion of his HLA? I'm suspecting that Frank banned me from CLAX primarily because I'm sympathetic to Randy Hyde --- when I switched from HLA to FASM I said that it was because HLA didn't support 64-bit, but that I liked HLA --- I should have denounced HLA in order to get on Frank Kotler's good side!

Denouncing HLA would not have made had any practical difference to me, because I wasn't using HLA anymore anyway, so I didn't need to stay on Randy Hyde's good side --- of course, there is the integrity issue --- but integrity is a cheap commodity on the internet, so selling mine in exchange for Frank Kotler allowing me to continue to post messages on CLAX would have been accepted by the CLAX denizens without comment.

[hughag...@gmail.com]

On Friday, November 11, 2016 at 3:13:21 PM UTC-7, hughag...@gmail.com wrote:
> Well, Frank Kotler banned me from CLAX:
> --- Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. ---

In this thread:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.lang.asm.x86/IVtSmnc2ddw

The quote, "Do not pass GO" etc., came from that thread --- that is a quote from a Monopoly card in which the player gets thrown in jail without having done anything wrong --- in Monopoly however, the player eventually gets out of jail...

[Bernhard Schornak]

hughag...@gmail.com wrote:


> On Sunday, October 9, 2016 at 8:00:52 PM UTC-7, hughag...@gmail.com wrote:
>> we need moderation that is fair --- it is wrong to support certain assemblers and block any mention of other assemblers --- I'm thinking of HLA, of course, although I don't even use HLA due to it being 32-bit (I'm just sympathetic to the developer, because I develop software too).
>
> Well, Frank Kotler banned me from CLAX:

He did not 'ban' you, he just removed you from the 'white list'
to prevent further attacks against CLAX posters. As long as you
send 'on topic' stuff, he lets pass pass it through the 'gate'.

I know Rod and Frank for many years, and I can assure you there
is no 'conspiracy' against you (or other CLAX posters) - on the
other hand, I ask myself "Who is Hugh Aguilar?", the new kid on
the block who starts attacking long-established posters a short
time after he appeared in CLAX?


Greetings from Augsburg

Bernhard Schornak

[Frank Kotler]

Thanks, Bernhard, Hugh's fantasy is about three moderators out of date.
I don't think Chuck and Randy liked each other very much, but the
main reason to keep HLA out was to keep Betov out, AFAIK. Nathan was a
HLA user (he was quite multilingual). I tried to answer a HLA question
only about a week ago. The only thing I've actually rejected from Hugh
was arguing with me that Rod was a troll. Not very bright, arguing with
the moderator! But he isn't worth creating a "blacklist" for...

Greetings from Raymond

Frank

[Bernhard Schornak]

Hi Frank!

What made me wonder was why he accuses Rod to be a troll.
I regard Rod as a poster who always tries to help us with
his profound knowledge, so I cannot comprehend why anyone
would call him a troll.

No "blacklist" necessary. Those who need to mess with the
authority can wait a few hours for approval... ;)


All the best!

Bernhard