@David Your comment vvv is an answer:

@kan Program configuration for Thunderbird You must, of course, change the newsserver name (edit: This is for Windows, for Linux: Program configuration for Thunderbird 2.0.0.6). And some general background: Usenet – Wikipedia.

@Speravir Thank you for the link. I'll read through and set it up. :-) Thank you so much. :)

@DavidCarlisle What do you think about this comment?

@PauloCereda might have some comments too regarding that (^^^) question @egreg

@kan @egreg’s comment reminded me of something: Aren’t you a happy emacs user now? So this could be very useful for you: Program configuration for Gnus 5.11.

@egreg Nice comments. :) I use it too. :)

@PauloCereda You could add that other program I trashed.

@egreg :P

@Speravir Oooh. I have used terminal and do editing from inside emacs. :)

Thank you @Speravir for these very helpful pointers.

@Paulo gets the credit for the nudge too.

@kan You’re welcome.

@egreg i thought I'd resist answering emacs:-)

!!/eightball will you use the answer I suggested?

@DavidCarlisle Psmith, the TeX bot: The great 8-ball says: it ain't happening.

@Speravir @PauloCereda Can the name of these account have spaces in them?

Like "TeX News Group"?

@DavidCarlisle emacs can be configured to do, certainly, but it does not do it off the box, no? :)

@kan shrug. Programmable editors are meant to be programmed.

@kan Do you mean for the account name in ThB? I think so, yes. (I do use another news reader, in Windows BTW).

@DavidCarlisle :-) Agreed.

!!/eightball can emacs do anything the OP asks?

@DavidCarlisle Psmith, the TeX bot: The great 8-ball says: affirmative.

@Speravir Oh, OK! Thanks.

@kan see/ ^^^^

@PauloCereda Good boy. @David I did not disagree about that. I just said, it does not happen off the box. Let's ask:

@dıʞsdoʇ I love your new avatar icon! ;-) I wondwer, why @PauloCereda did not say anything to this … :-)

!!/eightball will OP be disappointed with emacs as the answer to his question?

@kan Psmith, the TeX bot: The great 8-ball says: better not tell you now.

!!/eightball will OP be disappointed with emacs as one of the answers to his question?

@kan Psmith, the TeX bot: The great 8-ball says: you may rely on it.

@Paulo I've added some more comments for Psmith :-)

@NicolaTalbot The service shows the translation table, when you inserted one name and started it: upsidedown.info/… It uses among others IPA extensions.

@NicolaTalbot ooh! :)

@Speravir Oh weird. :-)

And rather cool!

!!/fortune

@NicolaTalbot Psmith, the TeX bot: Here is your fortune: Help! I am being held prisoner in a Chinese bakery!

@PauloCereda :-)

!!/fortune

@NicolaTalbot Psmith, the TeX bot: Here is your fortune: Use longtable.

@Speravir I have now set up an account. I am having difficulty subscribing...

@NicolaTalbot ;-) Regarding @dıʞsdoʇ we are lucky, that his nick name starts with a latin letter, so typesetting @d is enough and then you can select with tab key. Raphael Pinson’s nick with mathematic R and one of the former names of Bugbusters with only asian (Japanese I was told) letters are for me impossible to input.

I think I know the reason... but I do not know how to fix this. The email to me said: if you can only see some groups, you're connecting to the server without using your user id and password.

But, how do I fix this?

@kan Did you already get username and password?

@Speravir Yes, I have a pair.

@Speravir Yes, I think with Raphael it would be a case of using the character map application. It's bad enough trying to type accented letters.

@Speravir Got the problem fixed! :)

@NicolaTalbot Like Ibus.

@kan In server settings somewhere must be the opportunity to insert them. Edit: Oh, you were faster. Fine.

@kan I take it you don't mean the London iBus.

@NicolaTalbot One can copy & paste the first character, but then I need to find the last/an appearance.

@NicolaTalbot :-)

Now another dilemma:

should I download all headers?

or just a 50 of them?

@kan I think I'd just go with 50, unless you've got a lot of time on your hands or are really interested. There have been some CTAN update announcements lately, and a few threads.

@NicolaTalbot Okay! Thanks for the suggestion...

Done... real quick.

@kan :-)

I'm going off to bed now. Night all.

@NicolaTalbot Bye! And, now the Speravir-Nicola effect was observed. Can Speravir confirm?

Good night!

!!/battle

@egreg Psmith, the TeX bot: The current score is egreg 275 vs. 85 David. So far, egreg is winning.

@kan Oh, I was not in the room for a while.

Oopsie. So, I'll count that as happened. :P

@egreg yesterday I was offline and today I was in the garden:-)

!!/eightball can I get 200 more points today?

@DavidCarlisle Psmith, the TeX bot: The great 8-ball says: my reply is no.

@DavidCarlisle Yesterday and today we had rain.

@egreg You can't expect sun in Mediterranean countries: you should live in England.

@DavidCarlisle I don't want sun.

I am baked here every day.

@kan you should live in Italy then:-)

@DavidCarlisle :P

!!/answer weather Oxford, England

Psmith, the TeX bot, in fixed font mode:

No results available.

!!/help

@DavidCarlisle Psmith, the TeX bot: Good night! I'm Psmith, the friendly TeX bot - the p in my name is silent, as in pshrimp. I'm here as a companion to our fellow users in the typographic land. As you probably noticed, I always reply under Paulo's account, but do not despair, I say, my replies are always preceded by my own name. Enjoy your stay at TeX.sx! If you need any help, just ask our chat residents. Cheerio!

!!/answer wheather Padova, Italy

Psmith, the TeX bot, in fixed font mode:

weather | Padova, Italy
temperature | 17 °C
conditions | cloudy
relative humidity | 83%  (dew point: 14 °C)
(1 hour 20 minutes ago)
between 15 °C and 17 °C
rain (all night)  |  clear (night to late night)  |  few clouds (late night onward)
between 16 °C and 23 °C
rain (early morning to late morning)  |  few clouds (early morning to late afternoon)  |  clear (late afternoon onward)

  |  |   |
low: 14 °C
Wed, May 8, 5:00am | average high:  | 24 °C
average low:  | 15 °C | high: 25 °C

!!/answer weather in Oxford

@kan Psmith, the TeX bot: I'm deeply sorry, old chap, but the command weather does not exist.

@DavidCarlisle See? Even if I mistyped the word it works

Psmith, the TeX bot, in fixed font mode:

No results available.

Psmith, the TeX bot, in fixed font mode:

weather | Oxford, United Kingdom
temperature | 9 °C
conditions | clear
relative humidity | 81%  (dew point: 6 °C)
wind speed | 1 m/s
(1 hour 26 minutes ago)
between 5 °C and 12 °C
rain (night)  |  clear (all night)
between 6 °C and 19 °C
clear (all day)

  |  |   |
low: 0 °C
Fri, May 3, 5:45am | average high:  | 17 °C
average low:  | 5 °C | high: 19 °C
Mon, May 6, 4:00pm
 |   |

 | clear: 47.2% (2.4 days)   |  overcast: 7.5% (9 hours)

 | rain: 23.7% (1.2 days)

Psmith, the TeX bot, in fixed font mode:

weather | University of Oxford
temperature | 9 °C
conditions | clear
relative humidity | 81%  (dew point: 6 °C)
wind speed | 1 m/s
(1 hour 26 minutes ago)
between 5 °C and 12 °C
rain (night)  |  clear (all night)
between 6 °C and 19 °C
clear (all day)

  |  |   |
low: 0 °C
Fri, May 3, 5:45am | average high:  | 17 °C
average low:  | 5 °C | high: 19 °C
Mon, May 6, 4:00pm
 |   |

 | clear: 47.2% (2.4 days)   |  overcast: 7.5% (9 hours)

 | rain: 23.7% (1.2 days)

!!/answer Weather in Bangalore, India

Psmith, the TeX bot, in fixed font mode:

weather | Bengaluru, India
temperature | 30 °C
conditions | cloudy
relative humidity | 75%  (dew point: 25 °C)
wind speed | 2 m/s
(37 minutes ago)
(using weather station VOTR: 274 km SSE and 830 meters below Bengaluru, India)
between 24 °C and 31 °C
clear (all night)  |  rain (night to very early morning)
between 25 °C and 35 °C
clear (all day)

  |  |   |
low: 23 °C
Wed, May 8, 5:30am | average high:  | 36 °C
average low:  | 26 °C | high: 41 °C
Fri, May 3, 2:45pm, ...

Wow: Tiruchirapalli is where my parents stay!

@DavidCarlisle: Solution works as you posted. However, if I invoke the code via \AtBeginDocument I get an @todo in the header?

@PeterGrill ?

If I add the code as:

\AtBeginDocument{%
\makeatletter
\newwrite\tf@tdo
\immediate\openout\tf@tdo\jobname.tdo\relax
\makeatletter
}

@DavidCarlisle: A zen garden? :)

@PeterGrill No!!!

\makeatletter
\AtBeginDocument{%
\newwrite\tf@tdo
\immediate\openout\tf@tdo\jobname.tdo\relax}
\makeatletter

@DavidCarlisle Was just about to try that...

@PeterGrill changing catcodes in the argument of a macro never does anything useful.

@DavidCarlisle Yep, that works... Not that there was any doubt of course, because as you said earlier you code is correct "by definition".... :-) Thanks...

@PeterGrill although there's no need to delay to begin document I think, you can just open the tdo file in the preamble can't you?

@DavidCarlisle Didn't think of that. I think the \listoftodo had to be after \begin{document}. But will check...

@PauloCereda so are eightball answers weighted with earlier ones more likely?

@DavidCarlisle Yes. :)

@PeterGrill yes but \listof... makes a section heading and you just stopped that

@PauloCereda hmm I feel a re-ordering coming on:-)

@DavidCarlisle :)

can someone help me with vim installation?

@PauloCereda so what's the probability of the 55th answer?

!!/eightball does anyone know about vim?

@DavidCarlisle Psmith, the TeX bot: The great 8-ball says: let's wait for David to finish xor first.

@DavidCarlisle :)

@AlanH Which operating system?

@Paulo osx

@paulo I don't really know how to use terminal, so I've been starting at these instructions for hours now :(

@AlanH Which OS version? :)

@paulo 10.7.5

@AlanH code.google.com/p/macvim/downloads/list

Get MacVim-snapshot-66-Lion.tbz :)

@paulo do I need mac-vim to get vim-latex to work?

@AlanH Any vim will do.

@paulo I just want to try vim-latex. vim-latex.sourceforge.net/…

I don't know what I'm doing but I entered cd, mkdir .vim, cd .vim, open . into terminal

@AlanH I'm not sure if vim is the best option in this case. :)

@DavidCarlisle: I tried something.

@PauloCereda I think I need medical attention:(

@egreg: David in colour. ^^ :)

@DavidCarlisle oopsie. :)

I'm terrible with B&W retouching.

@PauloCereda since I was at mum's yesterday I have a new (or at least refound) image of me in colour...

@DavidCarlisle ooh! :)

@PauloCereda oh jpg should work shouldn't it? try again...

@DavidCarlisle :)

@DavidCarlisle :)

@PauloCereda It's all downhill from there:-)