/dev/chat

derobert

5:33 PM

@lgeorget Confuse them even more if you talk about the "big 8". Or lumber cartels (which most assuredly do not exist).

Or just mention things like c.l.c++ or c.l.c++.m and expect people to know what that means and how to access it.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert lumber cartels?

derobert

@FaheemMitha TINLC

Faheem Mitha

@derobert I think most people would at least recognize comp.lang.c++. I wonder how many people post there these days? I think SO gets much of that market now.

@derobert Ah. Never heard of that.

Hmm, both Duke and UNC have shut down their news servers. Sic Transit Gloria, or something.

I can imagine spam must be a big problem for Usenet. It was never designed to deal with it.

derobert

5:51 PM

@FaheemMitha Spam more or less killed Usenet.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert RIP. :-(

derobert

And has been doing a number on email.

Faheem Mitha

Though it isn't actually dead yet. AFAIK.

@derobert I think email is holding its own. Though my hosting provider's spam filtering sucks. And they're not the cheapest, either.

They want to charge $2 extra a month for some extra special spam filtering. So far I have resisted.

derobert

And is probably a good part responsible for killing open instant messaging.

@FaheemMitha Well, spam has made it ever more difficult and expensive to run a mail server.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert True. Torrents of garbage.

Stephen Kitt

5:54 PM

Amazingly though some parts of Usenet still survive, and spam is no longer a problem.

derobert

While I've been running mail servers, spam has gone from a minority of the mail, the occasional annoyance, to the vast, vast majority of email traffic.

Stephen Kitt

Actually not so amazingly, there's no point in spamming Usenet now.

derobert

Yeah. The big audience has moved on.

Stephen Kitt

But yes for email it's a huge problem, both because of the volume of spam, and because of the hoops you have to go through to send legitimate mail.

DMARC and mailing lists...

derobert

Yep. Trying to convince everyone else that your tiny server is sending legit mail, unlike 99.9% of other mail servers on the Internet.

Stephen Kitt

5:56 PM

+ the fact that nowadays many servers no longer bounce email so debugging is hard

derobert

yeah. Email just vanishes into black holes, neither the sendor nor the recipient is aware, and unless you can find the server admins, and competent ones at that—no one can figure out why.

Faheem Mitha

@StephenKitt The last I checked, comp.lang.lisp was still around, for example.

derobert

I haven't actually looked around to see what Usenet discussion groups are still alive... How nice are the technical ones nowadays? Is connecting to Unsenet a high enough bar to keep the trolls out?

Stephen Kitt

Some of the well-established trolls are still around... But you don't get Twitter-style trolls.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert I haven't read them myself in a while. I used to mostly read and post to the tech ones. And SE has mostly replaced that for me.

derobert

6:03 PM

@StephenKitt That sounds pretty nice, then. A few trolls isn't so bad—and some of them were entertaining. Just a problem when it's so many (or so vile) that you can no longer hold a conversation, or at least not easily.

Faheem Mitha

I have distant memories of posting to newsgroups, though not very frequently.

derobert

Yeah, I think my last time would have been in the early 2000s.

Faheem Mitha

It might be that Usenet is returning to what it was at the beginning. A place for hard core tech people. Like the Big Bang in reverse. Oh, and the venerable comp.text.tex is very much alive, I believe.

Stephen Kitt

@derobert yes it's quite nice. Most of the remaining people are hard-core Usenet users, the same kind that hang out on cctalk etc. so they tend to have interesting things to say...

Faheem Mitha

@StephenKitt Which groups do you frequent?

Stephen Kitt

6:06 PM

@FaheemMitha a bunch of fr.comp.* groups, comp.risks, and rec.arts.sf.written.

I haven't posted in years though!

derobert

Hah, I read the comp.risks email digest, wasn't aware it was actually still a newsgroup!

Faheem Mitha

@StephenKitt Ah. You write SF? And you're an Francophone? I thought you were English.

For asking questions, SE is much better. But of course, Usenet is more than that.

Stephen Kitt

I'm British but I live in France, and some of the fr.comp. have local interest.

I don't write SF, r.a.sf.written is about written SF v. other forms (movies etc.).

derobert

I have a news server, I should check out how much is still alive. I wonder if r.a.anime is....

Faheem Mitha

@StephenKitt I see. Yes, I remember you live in France.

@StephenKitt Ok.

derobert

6:10 PM

No MT-Newswatcher for Linux, though, so I suppose I'll have to settle for Pan or Thunderbird...

Faheem Mitha

@derobert You adminster a news server? That sounds like hard work.

derobert

@FaheemMitha sorry, that should be "I have access to a news server".

Faheem Mitha

BTW, does anyone know how Gmane is doing these days? I've been doing so little computer work recently, I haven't accessed it in awhile.

@derobert Oh, pardon me.

derobert

I don't administer one. Any more. I used to, for internal stuff, a long time ago.

Stephen Kitt

@derobert I use Claws Mail, it's pretty good.

Faheem Mitha

6:11 PM

In other random observations, commercial CAD software is insanely expensive.

Well, gmane.org is down. That's not encouraging.

derobert

@StephenKitt Ah, I normally use Mutt or Thunderbird for email. (I guess Mutt does nntp as well, come to think of it). Haven't tried Claws in ages...

@FaheemMitha news.gmane.org is accepting NNTP connections :-P

Faheem Mitha

@derobert yay?

derobert

@FaheemMitha So you can use a news reader still

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Sure. It's nice to have a web interface, though.

Apart from anything else, you can't really post a link to a news archive.

derobert

Well, you can, but few people will figure out how to open it :-P

Faheem Mitha

6:18 PM

In a civilized world, Lars would have been supported and paid handsomely for his work on Gmane. But that's not the world we live in.

@derobert I don't know how to.

derobert

6:43 PM

Wow, appears FidoNet is still alive... wpusa.dynip.com/FIDONEWS

Faheem Mitha

7:16 PM

@derobert The WP article says it is.

Stephen Kitt

7:36 PM

@derobert I didn't know Mutt did NNTP, I used to use slrn for Usenet back when I used Mutt for email.

Faheem Mitha

7:49 PM

@StephenKitt Oh wow, another slrn user!

Do you still use it?

lgeorget

8:55 PM

@derobert Now I'm the one feeling young :D I've no idea what you're talking about

@derobert I used to follow comp.lang.C++. I remember a conversation about the semantics of inheritance, preconditions, postconditions

Very interesting

Is it more reasonnable to make Rectangle inherit from Square, or Square from Rectangle

(spoiler: none of these solutions is satisfying)

@FaheemMitha We used to have a news server at INRIA (French public computer science laboratory)

People would cross-post in three of four channels each time, since there were more channels than active people

Only old folks used it

and secretaries, to announce the PhD defenses

Apart from that, the only posts were rants

what to expect from a French server filled with French people anyway

:D

Faheem Mitha

9:16 PM

@lgeorget Private newsgroups, then.

lgeorget

@FaheemMitha Yes, it was a news server serving as a gateway to Usenet, and there were private channels

inria.tex, inria.linux, etc.

years ago it was used for support

Faheem Mitha

@lgeorget Do those groups still exist? And how was INRIA? Did you work there?

Or were you a student?

lgeorget

I'm a PhD student in a research team there

Faheem Mitha

@lgeorget Oh. How is it?

lgeorget

(when I say years ago, it's not necessarily that I witnessed that directly, more that I found the archives)

A very nice place, full of very clever people :)

But academic research in France these days...

It's becoming a bit complicated

Faheem Mitha

9:22 PM

How so? Lack of funding?

Or not enough jobs? Or both?

lgeorget

Lack of funding, no positions opening

the global political context is not very favorable

Faheem Mitha

@lgeorget So both, then.

@lgeorget Yes, it's not good.

lgeorget

people don't see the value of research

Faheem Mitha

I'm told some places in Asia are good. Possibly India.

I mean only in the sense that jobs are available. You might not want the jobs.

lgeorget

We have presidential elections next month, and it's like all the candidates try each harder than the other to bash "fonctionnaires"

Faheem Mitha

9:24 PM

@lgeorget France has historically been one of the centers of scientific research.

lgeorget

that it "civil servants" or something like that

Faheem Mitha

Along with Germany.

lgeorget

people paid by the state

Faheem Mitha

It's hard to imagine that they don't see the value of that.

It's part of why they are a developed country. The other part is that they stole resources from other places.

lgeorget

Scientists are no longer the idols :/

Faheem Mitha

9:25 PM

@lgeorget Were they ever?

lgeorget

Well yes... If you talk to people about Marie Curie everybody know who she was

but who knows Cédric Villani for example?

@FaheemMitha (we still do :p, we're just not the only one doing it anymore)

Faheem Mitha

@lgeorget Still do? How?

lgeorget

Still steal resources :p

Faheem Mitha

@lgeorget Yes, I got that. But how?

lgeorget

Well 75% of french electricity is nuclear

Faheem Mitha

9:29 PM

@lgeorget So?

lgeorget

yet no uranium is extracted in France

Faheem Mitha

@lgeorget Hmm. Well, it's possible to buy uranium.

lgeorget

If uranium-producing countries organized themselves like petrol-producing countries did in the 70s

they'd be rich

Faheem Mitha

@lgeorget I don't know anything about that.

Are you saying they don't get a fair price for their uranium?

Interesting contrast to Germany, where they are busy phasing out nuclear.

lgeorget

OPEC

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC, /ˈoʊpɛk/ OH-pek, or OPEP in several other languages) is an intergovernmental organization of 13 nations, founded in 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela), and headquartered since 1965 in Vienna. As of 2015, the 13 countries accounted for an estimated 42 percent of global oil production and 73 percent of the world's "proven" oil reserves, giving OPEC a major influence on global oil prices that were previously determined by American-dominated multinational oil companies. OPEC's stated mission...

Given the strategic importance of uranium, it could cost far more. Especially because resources are scarce

Faheem Mitha

9:33 PM

@lgeorget And it doesn't?

lgeorget

Many mines belong to the French group Areva in Africa

Faheem Mitha

@lgeorget Never heard of them.

So, are they bandits?

lgeorget

Not really, but they do benefit from the instability of governments

en.rfi.fr/africa/…

Faheem Mitha

A lot of multinationals rob poor countries of their mineral resources with the assistance of corrupt politicians. It's a big thing in India. With zero reporting, of course.

lgeorget

From time to time this kind of news break through

Faheem Mitha

9:35 PM

There are a handful of people who report on it. None of them associated with official media outlets. And everyone calls them names. Well, that's India.

@lgeorget It's hard to believe there isn't bad stuff going on.

lgeorget

I don't know the situation first-hand in Namibia, Central Africa and the other uranium-producing countries

but I guess it must be similar

Faheem Mitha

Probably. It's an ugly dangerous world. Especially when large amounts of money are at stake.

lgeorget

Exactly

Not to mention uranium is not only used for energy production

Faheem Mitha

Bombs, you mean? :-(

lgeorget