Some of the folks here might like this FB group... Internet Old Farts Club https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/ > This group is for self-declared Internet Old Farts, who want to discuss any aspect of the the Internet or its history. People in this group had their bits walk up hill both ways. > Welcome to the Internet Old Farts group. The purpose of this group is both social and technical. Feel free to revisit the past, explore the future, grouse about technical problems that you or others created. Feel free to self-aggrandize, complain about your least favorite standards organization or its politics, and how those young whippersnappers are running the show today. By participating in this group you are admitting or proclaiming that you are indeed an Internet Old Fart. Perhaps we should give a prize for the youngest and oldest Old Fart. -r
Rich Morin <rdm@cfcl.com> wrote:
> Some of the folks here might like this FB group...
>
> Internet Old Farts Club
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/
Kinda feel like being an Old Fart and joining a
Facebook group are mutually exclusive. Now if it was
a newsgroup, perhaps, or a FidoNet BBS, ...
-Jan
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 369 bytes --] On 1/26/22 5:36 PM, Rich Morin wrote: > Some of the folks here might like this FB group... I probably would be. > Internet Old Farts Club > https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/ But sadly FaceBook is a walled garden that you have to be a member of to be able to partake in any capacity, even read only. -- Grant. . . . unix || die [-- Attachment #2: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature --] [-- Type: application/pkcs7-signature, Size: 4017 bytes --]
On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 07:07:41PM -0700, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote:
> On 1/26/22 5:36 PM, Rich Morin wrote:
> >Some of the folks here might like this FB group...
>
> I probably would be.
>
> >Internet Old Farts Club
> >https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/
>
> But sadly FaceBook is a walled garden that you have to be a member of to be
> able to partake in any capacity, even read only.
Yeah, I feel the same way, not gonna be part of facebook ever. It's toxic.
I'm too much of an old fart to use FaceBook. a Norman Wilson Toronto ON @oclsc on twitter
On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 04:36:25PM -0800, Rich Morin wrote: > Some of the folks here might like this FB group... > > Internet Old Farts Club > https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/ [...] > > Welcome to the Internet Old Farts group. [...] > problems that you or others created. Feel free to self-aggrandize, > complain about your least favorite standards organization or its > politics, and how those young whippersnappers are running the show > today. [...] Oh wait, so falsebook now has a special group where folks can post a critique of... a falsebook? Do they have to monopolize even this? -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com **
On 2022-01-26 21:52, Norman Wilson wrote: > I'm too much of an old fart to use FaceBook. Well, after reading Levy's book on Facebook, I am glad not to be on it. N. > a > > Norman Wilson > Toronto ON > @oclsc on twitter
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 284 bytes --] On Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 17:56 Jan Schaumann via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org> wrote: > > Kinda feel like being an Old Fart and joining a > Facebook group are mutually exclusive. Now if it was > a newsgroup, perhaps, or a FidoNet BBS, ... > We can do 'forum' on Multics. -- Charles > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 838 bytes --]
On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 05:59:52PM -0800, Charles Anthony wrote: > On Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 17:56 Jan Schaumann via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org> > wrote: > > > > > Kinda feel like being an Old Fart and joining a > > Facebook group are mutually exclusive. Now if it was > > a newsgroup, perhaps, or a FidoNet BBS, ... > > > > We can do 'forum' on Multics. There's a re-implementation of 'forum' called Discuss[1] that was implemented by the MIT Student Information Board. It has a 'forum' feel, and the ss (subsystem) library provides the CLI interface which is reminiscent of Multics forum. [1] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.31.8576&rep=rep1&type=pdf The ss and et (error_table) libraries that were originally written for the Discuss system are still in use today as part of Linux's ext2/3/4 userspace utilities, e2fsprogs. (The debugfs program uses the ss library, as does a few regression test drivers for some unit tests). The ss library is also used for the Kerberos v5 Administration Server. - Ted
On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 09:24:24PM -0500, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 05:59:52PM -0800, Charles Anthony wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 17:56 Jan Schaumann via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Kinda feel like being an Old Fart and joining a
> > > Facebook group are mutually exclusive. Now if it was
> > > a newsgroup, perhaps, or a FidoNet BBS, ...
> > >
> >
> > We can do 'forum' on Multics.
>
> There's a re-implementation of 'forum' called Discuss[1] that was
> implemented by the MIT Student Information Board. It has a 'forum'
> feel, and the ss (subsystem) library provides the CLI interface which
> is reminiscent of Multics forum.
>
> [1] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.31.8576&rep=rep1&type=pdf
>
> The ss and et (error_table) libraries that were originally written for
> the Discuss system are still in use today as part of Linux's ext2/3/4
> userspace utilities, e2fsprogs. (The debugfs program uses the ss
> library, as does a few regression test drivers for some unit tests).
> The ss library is also used for the Kerberos v5 Administration
> Server.
>
> - Ted
It's amazing how long stuff lives, very cool. Just like the runoff
thread, stuff goes back to Multics and even earlier. Good ideas die
hard.
I also think that any idea of Facebook group for old Unix people is dead
in the water. I can only speak for myself but hell will freeze over
before I have a Facebook account, they have engineers that target kids,
they have to pay more because people are ashamed to work there. It
just makes me sad to think that technology is being used like Facebook
does. It's just my opinion, but the world would be a better place if
Facebook ceased to exist.
If we need another place for old farts to hang out, there are many.
I like groups.io, it's free for most stuff, it's super easy to be
a moderator, I moderate 12 groups there and am a member of a bunch
more. What they call groups, we would call an email list with a
bunch of knobs that help keep things sane.
--lm
On 1/29/22, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
> If we need another place for old farts to hang out, there are many.
> I like groups.io, it's free for most stuff, it's super easy to be
> a moderator, I moderate 12 groups there and am a member of a bunch
> more. What they call groups, we would call an email list with a
> bunch of knobs that help keep things sane.
I can speak only for myself, but I love that TUHS/COFF mailing lists
are still _the real_ mailing lists managed the old school way. I hate
all those modern web 2.0 technologies with extremely bloated js stacks
which you can only use if you have the latest version of Chrome. I am
still using old Atari DOS, Amiga Workbench, MS-DOS/Win9x/WinXP and of
course Linux/FreeBSD.
This is probably one of the last places on the Internet that is still
preserving one of its core ideas in the 80s/90s -- plain text
communication. It has been slowly dying in the last 15 years. Text
based Internet of the 80s and 90s has slowly been replaced by binary
protocols and image based interaction with a computer.
I still just love using text based protocols and command line and read
it on a real CRT monitor in full screen text mode. We lost something
when the world moved on.
So please do not go anywhere....
--Andy
Andy Kosela writes: > On 1/29/22, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > > > > If we need another place for old farts to hang out, there are many. > > I like groups.io, it's free for most stuff, it's super easy to be > > a moderator, I moderate 12 groups there and am a member of a bunch > > more. What they call groups, we would call an email list with a > > bunch of knobs that help keep things sane. > > I can speak only for myself, but I love that TUHS/COFF mailing lists > are still _the real_ mailing lists managed the old school way. I hate > all those modern web 2.0 technologies with extremely bloated js stacks > which you can only use if you have the latest version of Chrome. I am > still using old Atari DOS, Amiga Workbench, MS-DOS/Win9x/WinXP and of > course Linux/FreeBSD. > > This is probably one of the last places on the Internet that is still > preserving one of its core ideas in the 80s/90s -- plain text > communication. It has been slowly dying in the last 15 years. Text > based Internet of the 80s and 90s has slowly been replaced by binary > protocols and image based interaction with a computer. > > I still just love using text based protocols and command line and read > it on a real CRT monitor in full screen text mode. We lost something > when the world moved on. > > So please do not go anywhere.... > > --Andy I completely agree with you. Maybe one of the problems is the book-burners opposed to CRT. Don't know if any of you have ever run across this guy: http://unixsheikh.com/index.html Seems to be a younger-ish person who seems to get it. Jon
Andy Kosela <akosela@andykosela.com> writes: > > I can speak only for myself, but I love that TUHS/COFF mailing lists > are still _the real_ mailing lists managed the old school way. > [...] > So please do not go anywhere.... At the risk of sounding like a luddite, you're not alone, I'm right there with you. I'm certainly not opposed to innovation, not at all! There are some modern technologies that absolutely excite me and make me giddy to play around with. Unfortunately, all too often if feels like we're just spinning our wheels by doing the same things over and over again, but this time, more bloated. Increasingly, I'm asking myself: "Does this actually innovate, or is it just performative? Have I failed to research and read about existing techniques before I try to invent something that's already been invented, but this time in a 3 GB Electron app? Does the UX help, or hurt? Can colorblind people use it? Can people with vision impairment use it? Can people without access to broadband use it?" The Internet was a much more level playing field 20-30 years ago than it is now, and I'd like to keep what's left of that level playing field level as long as I can. > --Andy -Seth
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 514 bytes --] On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 8:37 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > > [...] > > If we need another place for old farts to hang out, there are many. > I like groups.io, it's free for most stuff, it's super easy to be > a moderator, I moderate 12 groups there and am a member of a bunch > more. What they call groups, we would call an email list with a > bunch of knobs that help keep things sane. > > --lm > Thanks! I just created two groups: https://groups.io/g/kiss https://groups.io/g/dynace Blake McBride [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1041 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 207 bytes --] On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 7:37 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > I can only speak for myself but hell will freeze over > before I have a Facebook account > In this instance you're speaking for me too. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 542 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1157 bytes --] On 1/29/22 7:20 PM, Adam Thornton wrote: > > > On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 7:37 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > > I can only speak for myself but hell will freeze over > before I have a Facebook account > > > In this instance you're speaking for me too. FB and I went round and round in 2018 when I opened an account and they disabled it that same day and demanded verification of my identity. They were never willing/able to enable the account for more than a few hours, even after I got the Better Business Bureau involved. The only single piece of content I ever posted to the account was a background image (a pic I took in Fort Collins, Colorado of a mountainside). After BBB got involved, they would enable the account (after I provided ID verification), only to disable it again after a few hours. This went on for about 5 months (I was tenancious and curious to see if it could ever be resolved). Eventually, I got bored and tired of going back and forth with BBB and the faceless monstrosity that FB is. An intelligence buddy of mine said it was all for the better anyway... I'm on the hell freezing over side of things :). [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2263 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2944 bytes --] On 1/29/22 1:48 AM, Andy Kosela wrote: > I can speak only for myself, but I love that TUHS/COFF mailing lists > are still _the real_ mailing lists managed the old school way. Usenet is still a thing that I use daily. > I hate all those modern web 2.0 technologies with extremely bloated js > stacks which you can only use if you have the latest version of Chrome. I too dislike what the Web 2.0 world has turned into. I believe that it's possible for web pages to by dynamic via AJAX without all the bloat. Sadly this isn't done. > I am still using old Atari DOS, Amiga Workbench, MS-DOS/Win9x/WinXP > and of course Linux/FreeBSD. :-) > This is probably one of the last places on the Internet that is > still preserving one of its core ideas in the 80s/90s -- plain > text communication. It has been slowly dying in the last 15 years. > Text based Internet of the 80s and 90s has slowly been replaced by > binary protocols and image based interaction with a computer. Usenet. > I still just love using text based protocols and command line and > read it on a real CRT monitor in full screen text mode. We lost > something when the world moved on. I used to have similar thoughts. Then I realized that things like OpenSSL's s_client and curl allow interaction with encrypted and other protocols. So, that got me to questioning "what is the command line" (UI / UX) really? Does OpenSSL's s_client (Secure / TLS) client provide a textual interface to TLS encrypted servers? Yes it does. Does it count as "command line"? I think so. So, what if there was a different command line utility that allowed similar interface with HTTP2 / QUIC connections. Would that mean that they are similarly CLI? I think so. Extrapolating out even further, does it actually matter that the bits on the wire are ASCII and / or unencrypted if I have a UI / UX that is akin to a Network Virtual Terminal interface (e.g. telnet, OpenSSL's s_client, etc.)? Or does the client provide an abstraction to fulfill my CLI desires? I think that it probably would. I agree completely that HTTPS is decidedly different on the wire than venerable HTTP which I can communicate with using telnet (et al.). However, the /telnet/ *client* is still there and being used. So when you back up and look at what that /client/ does in providing an abstraction between the end user and the underlying / backing protocol, it turns out that the underlying / backing protocol is less important. > So please do not go anywhere.... I'm not planing on discontinuing using mailing lists or Usenet any time soon. Despite the fact that they have migrated from unencrypted to encrypted communications. Even my MUA / NUA is using encrypted connections to the servers. But /my/ /personal/ /interaction/ with my MUA / NUA hasn't changed. -- Grant. . . . unix || die [-- Attachment #2: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature --] [-- Type: application/pkcs7-signature, Size: 4017 bytes --]
On Mon, 31 Jan 2022, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote: > On 1/29/22 1:48 AM, Andy Kosela wrote: >> I can speak only for myself, but I love that TUHS/COFF mailing lists are >> still _the real_ mailing lists managed the old school way. > > Usenet is still a thing that I use daily. As do I. > >> I hate all those modern web 2.0 technologies with extremely bloated js >> stacks which you can only use if you have the latest version of Chrome. > I too dislike what the Web 2.0 world has turned into. > > I believe that it's possible for web pages to by dynamic via AJAX without all > the bloat. Sadly this isn't done. The solution to bloat has, sadly, tended to be "throw more CPU/RAM/hard drive at it". That's one big reason WordPerfect 5.0 on a 486 is faster than a modern word processor on a recent i7. <snip> >> This is probably one of the last places on the Internet that is still >> preserving one of its core ideas in the 80s/90s -- plain text >> communication. It has been slowly dying in the last 15 years. Text based >> Internet of the 80s and 90s has slowly been replaced by binary protocols >> and image based interaction with a computer. > > Usenet. IRC. ;) <snip> > I'm not planing on discontinuing using mailing lists or Usenet any time soon. > Despite the fact that they have migrated from unencrypted to encrypted > communications. Even my MUA / NUA is using encrypted connections to the > servers. But /my/ /personal/ /interaction/ with my MUA / NUA hasn't changed. I still use the same software, in many cases, I've used since the 1990s. -uso.
On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 07:12:32PM -0700, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote:
> On 1/29/22 1:48 AM, Andy Kosela wrote:
> >I can speak only for myself, but I love that TUHS/COFF mailing lists are
> >still _the real_ mailing lists managed the old school way.
>
> Usenet is still a thing that I use daily.
So I used to be very active on Usenet, comp.arch and comp.unix.wizards
were my jam. soc.singles, yeah, hung out there and I was not well
loved for my views.
I don't think I've been on usenet since the 1990's because it just
turned into a cesspool of crap. Sort of Facebook but text.
Are you saying there is still some decent value in Usenet or are you
hanging on just because?
On Mon, 31 Jan 2022, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 07:12:32PM -0700, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote:
>> On 1/29/22 1:48 AM, Andy Kosela wrote:
>>> I can speak only for myself, but I love that TUHS/COFF mailing lists are
>>> still _the real_ mailing lists managed the old school way.
>>
>> Usenet is still a thing that I use daily.
>
> So I used to be very active on Usenet, comp.arch and comp.unix.wizards
> were my jam. soc.singles, yeah, hung out there and I was not well
> loved for my views.
>
> I don't think I've been on usenet since the 1990's because it just
> turned into a cesspool of crap. Sort of Facebook but text.
>
> Are you saying there is still some decent value in Usenet or are you
> hanging on just because?
Well, I mostly lurk on comp.sys.apple2 and comp.os.cpm... there's
sometimes interesting stuff going on there still.
-uso.
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 917 bytes --] On 1/31/22 7:23 PM, Larry McVoy wrote: > So I used to be very active on Usenet, comp.arch and comp.unix.wizards > were my jam. soc.singles, yeah, hung out there and I was not well > loved for my views. I'll check out the comp.* groups and let you know what I see. > I don't think I've been on usenet since the 1990's because it just > turned into a cesspool of crap. Sort of Facebook but text. It seems to be a lot better as the number of people went down, there were fewer people for the trolls to feed on. > Are you saying there is still some decent value in Usenet or are you > hanging on just because? Yes, I have some good conversations in multiple newsgroups on the weekly basis and probably many on the monthly basis. My Thunderbird newsrc file has 427 lines of subscribed groups. I see worth while articles in 20-200 of them a day. -- Grant. . . . unix || die [-- Attachment #2: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature --] [-- Type: application/pkcs7-signature, Size: 4017 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2273 bytes --] On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 8:13 PM Grant Taylor via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org> wrote: > On 1/29/22 1:48 AM, Andy Kosela wrote: > [...] > > I hate all those modern web 2.0 technologies with extremely bloated js > > stacks which you can only use if you have the latest version of Chrome. > I too dislike what the Web 2.0 world has turned into. > > I believe that it's possible for web pages to by dynamic via AJAX > without all the bloat. Sadly this isn't done. > Having many years developing development frameworks, and having a need for a simple way to write business applications for the Web, I ended up writing my own Java-based, open-source web development framework called KISS. KISS stands for exactly what you think it does! KISS supports the front-end and back-end already configured and running out-of-the-box. It runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows (and probably most other Unix-like environments that support Java). On the back-end, it supports writing your application in Java, Groovy, or Common Lisp. On the front-end, it is just plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It comes with a new build system of my own making. That makes the whole system as easy as possible. For example, after downloading, you can download any needed libraries, build, and run the entire system by typing: ./bld develop That's it! You type the above and you have a complete, running web application built and running. It communicates over REST Web services. It also uses microservices and is designed so that both the front-end and back-end can be developed on a running system without the need for rebuilds or re-booting the server. This is also great for updating a production environment without bringing the system down! KISS also supports custom HTML controls, an SQL API, built-in authentication, reporting (using Groff & Tbl!), and a lot more. The system is being used in production environments today, so it isn't a beta. It comes with documentation. There is also a YouTube training series, and there has been a couple of articles written about it. With KISS, you can have an up-and-running web application running from scratch in less than five minutes. After that, you can build on it while it is running. Check it out! https://kissweb.org Blake McBride [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2938 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 256 bytes --] On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 9:23 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > I don't think I've been on usenet since the 1990's because it just turned > into a cesspool of crap. > My line at the time was that 'the signal to noise ratio seems to have disappeared'. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 939 bytes --]
Clem Cole wrote in <CAC20D2Onfa9y3GAN19b2+o3QoqRvq+KRDAykz0v4dxb6FPV+8w@mail.gmail.com>: |On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 9:23 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: | |> I don't think I've been on usenet since the 1990's because it just turned |> into a cesspool of crap. |> |My line at the time was that 'the signal to noise ratio seems to have |disappeared'. To be fair it is not different to almost anything else thus. --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)