• Re: Community

    From Adept@21:2/108 to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Nov 10 10:27:44 2022
    Back in the 2000s, recruiters used hotmail accounts as throwaways, then fill them up with resumes and have them bounce mail once they were
    full. Annoying.

    On the bright side, that seems like a good way to know when you're working with a recruiter who's mostly just wasting your time.

    I should dive into contacting recruiters again, now that I have industry experience. But I'm not at all sure that I'd _want_ to, even if some of them do provide value to prospective employees.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Adept on Thu Nov 10 06:11:00 2022
    Adept wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    I should dive into contacting recruiters again, now that I have
    industry experience. But I'm not at all sure that I'd _want_ to, even
    if some of them do provide value to prospective employees.

    Yeah, it's a whole new world for recruiting. I've mentioned before
    experiences with screening chat-bots and recruiters wanting you to send them
    a video. It's like a bad knock-off of "Black Mirror".


    ... If it isn't broken, I can fix it.
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From Bex@21:1/137 to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Nov 10 09:41:00 2022
    poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Bex <=-

    Words are important.

    I agree; with some of the bizarre word usements I structure I've had to spend much time in preparing.

    That reminds me of my proverb that my kiddos *HATE*, but has actually
    improved their speaking skills: "Say what you mean and mean what you say."

    Thank you Alice in Wonderland!!!

    (:


    -+- Brightening your day. -Bex <3

    ... "This is my family. I found it, all on my own. It's little, and broken, but

    --- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Bex@21:1/137 to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Nov 10 09:48:00 2022
    poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Bex <=-

    Every generation thinks the generations after them are lacking in education, intelligence, morals, etc. It's time for us GenXers to start doing the same thing to millenials and gen-Zers, unfortunately. I had hoped we were above such things.

    Funny, I keep hoping the next generation will get things like race relations right.

    Gen Z is well on the way. That generation has been raised with the idea of acceptance, inclusivenness, visibility. Many of them have taken these
    concepts and used them as a foundation for their world views. GenZ are the generation who loved having an African-American Ariel, who understand that cuture and heritage is much more important than the color of someone's
    skin. This generation is going to do great things.

    Unfortunately we GenXers are already doing the "these damned kids and their wokeness and their hairstyles and their refusal to accept the things that always have been" thing. We are becoming the speed bump to the future that
    they will build. We GenXers should stop becoming a hindrance and work with
    the next two generations (hi, Millenials!) to move our society forward.


    -+- Brightening your day. -Bex <3

    ... "The power you have is to be the best version of yourself you can be..." ƒ€”
    --- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From esc@21:4/173 to Nightfox on Tue Oct 4 02:03:26 2022
    I know I'm not the person you were replying to, but I am a softare developer, and I do see a lot of software developers using Windows. But

    Conversely, I'm also a software developer, and I have seen very few devs use Windows, except to test building things for Windows clients. I guess it varies *shrug*

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Arelor on Wed Oct 5 00:20:17 2022
    I'm at times left to wonder, how much data Google Search actually maint about the individuals using it. I've found frequently if I swap search engines I cannot get anything remotely like the information I'm looking while getting all sorts of extraneous junk. While if I go back to the Empire I'll generally get a better result. Usually I'm not looking for anything thats on any other major service like FacePalm or similar.


    I don t know. For general search, Bing/Duckduckgo are quite good.
    Results don t get better if I switch to Startpage/Google.

    --

    You used to be able to find more obscure webpages on google. Now its the same old top 5 sites. Google seems to strongly prefer the big players, and doesn't really service up the smaller web creators. There is also a trend for many of these sites to NOT link to other sites, so finding more information on a topic is hard, as you have to search, and search again.

    We used to have web-rings which allowed us to find different sites on the same topic.

    Here are two good web search engines to try.

    https://wiby.me

    This focuses on sites with simpler design. You won't get the Javascript laden, slow heavy sites here. It's fun to click "surprise me" and see what you get.

    Another is
    https://search.marginalia.nu/

    Which again focuses on non-commercial content and shows you stuff you may not have been aware of. A lot isn't on these sites, but when I used them I did something I haven't done in a while, and that is actually SURFED the 'net.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Wed Oct 5 00:21:50 2022
    I've worked for produces of medicinal products, so a different indust I would imagine that software developers may be more likely to use Li than say, Pfizer. I did see Linux once on an Internet Kiosk computer a backpackers in Germany, and have maybe seen it once or twice elsewhere, but quite rare.

    I promise you Pfizer is running Linux all over the place.



    Server or desktop? Server I believe. Didn't see desktops with it, but that was in Australia.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Wed Oct 5 00:31:00 2022
    I can't see anyone doing data harvesting from BBS' its just such a minority it'd have no value other than interest. You'll always get some miscreants, doesn't to much matter what platform it is, its just a
    matter of dealing with them as they arise. If usenet was resurrectable it'd still be a popular platform. Like the BBS end of things its a mere shadow of itself and in continued decline. You're looking for other dinosaurs to join reserve without looking at the bigger picture, without "new blood" they'll die out. You'll eventually have to put up with a
    level of openess to stay alive.

    There is nothing to gain from harvesting data, which is good. I'm not sure I sympathise with wanting things to "survive". Either it is useful, or it is not. If it is not useful anymore, why should it survive? I'm not sentimental about things in my past. I really liked the old IBM PC's but it doesn't bother me that DOS didn't survive. It didn't bother me when BBS's died out because the Internet at the time offered so much more. I don't see a need to keep something alive for the sake of it being alive.

    BUT what the Internet has become is something more awful than its heyday in the late 90's early 2000's and in an odd twist of fate, the BBS offers what we had lost. Maybe the future is something "BBS like" but not a BBS. Someone brought up public access Unix.

    But "survival" is something people can destroy themselves trying to do. You have to be clear WHAT it is you are trying to keep. For me, it is privacy, self-hosting, social communication not sullied by advertisers and data harvesters and other bad actors and no dark patterns, so to speak. A simple interface which is keyboard friendly is also a plus ;)

    For my own private BBS, I would have happily ditched Mystic in a heartbeat, but to be honest, I did NOT find an alternative! Citadel was the closest, but that hasn't been maintained much.

    Shrug, I know nothing about telegram. Until last week I'd never heard of it. However it already implies your dinosaur collection is already being diluted by other attractions.

    Telegram was not really wanted anyway in the end.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Wed Oct 5 00:34:12 2022
    Google also has high requirements for accepting e-mails from a server if you set up your own e-mail server, gmail will likely not accept yo outbound e-mails. We may end up in a situation where only the major

    Never seen that. IME GMAIL has always been one of the more accepting servers. In fact even being able to use it as a relay to other servers that are persnickety about it.


    https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years- i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html

    Don't know how much truth there is in this,

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Nightfox on Wed Oct 5 00:36:52 2022
    I know I'm not the person you were replying to, but I am a softare developer, and I do see a lot of software developers using Windows. But I've also seen some software developers using Linux, and some prefer
    Mac. It also seems to depend what people are working on - It seems
    there are lot of web developers who seem to gravitate toward Mac for
    some reason. I think there are also perfectly good web development software tools for Windows and Linux.


    Software develops I think have a distorted view of computing. Linux is used less frequently among non-devs. I don't work in software or computing at all, and Linux is almost unheard of among my professional colleagues.

    Most people just go with defaults, and have no idea how to evaluate anything computer related.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Wed Oct 5 01:52:41 2022
    On 04 Oct 2022 at 12:35a, boraxman pondered and said...

    This is anecdotal evidence, and is a common logical fallacy.

    Just because _you_ haven't seen a thing doesn't mean that that
    thing isn't common.

    In _my_ professional career, it's rare to see someone using,
    say, a Windows desktop. That doesn't mean that Windows isn't
    wildly popular as a desktop OS.

    And moreover, when we're talking about Linux, we're talking
    about Linux, which encompasses a lot more than just someone's
    idea of a desktop system.


    Are you a software developer of some description by any chance? Most people in the world are not actually software developers.

    I am, but that rather misses the point. You asserted
    that Linux is "niche" and that this is good because it
    prevents large corporations from defining it's direction.

    Perhaps you meant to say, "Linux on the desktop, as used
    by me with my preferred distro, is uncommon in my line of
    work and among my peers." That statement may well be
    true, but the original argument, that Linux is "niche"
    as a prima facie statement is simply incorrect. Again,
    Linux is used everywhere, and again, most Linux development
    is done at large corporations. If someone wants to get
    a major feature pushed, it almost has to be done with
    corporate sponsorship. This isn't really a debatable
    statement, either; plenty of evidence is readily available,
    including the history in the Linux git repository. Sorted
    by domain, the top twenty contributors come mostly from
    commercial organizations. Granted, the #1 _is_ "gmail",
    but a) many Linux developers contribute using their personal
    email address, and b) the next three entries combined are
    nearly double the total number of gmail-using contributors.

    So this idea that Linux is sort of the "people's OS" and a
    quirky obscure niche thing is just not true.

    TECHNICALLY, people using Android are using
    the Linux kernel, but that is so vastly different to what we con be a Linux desktop that the term "Linux user" has little meaning

    "We" who, precisely?

    When people say they use Linux, they mean a computer. When people use Android, they say they use Android. Very few Android users say they are Linux users.

    So, first of all, this is a strawman in the context of the original
    discussion. Second of all, lots of people _do_ understand that when
    they run an Android device (which, by the way, can be installed on
    a desktop; lots of ARM-based devices run Android in that configuration)
    they're using Linux, and third of all, so what? Whether someone
    realizes that they're using Linux or not (like the millions of
    school kids using chromebooks) that doesn't mean that Linux is niche.

    We know this, because there are "Linux Phones" which are called such, despite the fact that Android phones have a Linux kernel. The language people use says it all. A "Linux system" is one which has not only a Linux kernel, but userspace tools typical of a Linux install.

    That is entirely subjective, but is also irrelevant to the original
    point. Let's focus on that; I'll say it again: Linux is not
    "niche" by any reasonable definition (it runs everywhere; the
    average person at this point _probably_ has multiple devices
    running Linux in their home whether they realize it or not) and
    it is mostly developed by large corporations.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Wed Oct 5 01:56:51 2022
    On 05 Oct 2022 at 12:21a, boraxman pondered and said...

    I've worked for produces of medicinal products, so a different i I would imagine that software developers may be more likely to u than say, Pfizer. I did see Linux once on an Internet Kiosk com a backpackers in Germany, and have maybe seen it once or twice elsewhere, but quite rare.

    I promise you Pfizer is running Linux all over the place.


    Server or desktop? Server I believe. Didn't see desktops with it, but that was in Australia.

    Server-side, almost certainly, but also for supercomputing. Pharma
    is a consumer of compute-cycles, and I doubt they're renting capacity
    from the national labs or other major public supercomputing sites.

    For desktop use, I imagine it depends on job function.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to esc on Tue Oct 4 09:11:48 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: esc to Nightfox on Tue Oct 04 2022 02:03 am

    I know I'm not the person you were replying to, but I am a softare
    developer, and I do see a lot of software developers using Windows.
    But

    Conversely, I'm also a software developer, and I have seen very few devs use Windows, except to test building things for Windows clients. I guess it varies *shrug*

    What do you usually see software developers use?

    One of the programming languages I've used for some projects is C#, which I guess tends to naturally falls with Windows, since C# development would often be done with Visual Studio in Windows. You can develop in many other languages in Windows too, so it just tends to be the system I usually use (though I've used Linux for development sometimes too).

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to unixl0rd on Tue Oct 4 09:37:56 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: unixl0rd to Nightfox on Mon Oct 03 2022 07:53 pm

    I am a web developer, and I use a Mac. It's the system I had to use at my first job, and I've just stuck with it.

    Sometimes you don't have a choice though. I've worked for several companies that would just give you a Windows laptop and didn't have a choice otherwise.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to tenser on Tue Oct 4 11:38:23 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: tenser to Spectre on Tue Oct 04 2022 09:12 am

    If you go to your Google account, you can download everything
    they know about you and all of your data that they're holding
    onto via the "Takeout" service (or whatever they're calling it
    these days). I can say that user data is encrypted at rest
    and that if you delete it, it is fully purged from Google's
    servers (including backups) in something like 30 days.


    Let me open the tin-foil hat store.

    You may download everything they are willing to confess they have about you via that
    method. You have to trust they are not generating more information about you via
    interpolation.


    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to boraxman on Tue Oct 4 09:40:47 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: boraxman to Spectre on Wed Oct 05 2022 12:34 am

    https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-y ears- i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html

    Don't know how much truth there is in this,

    I haven't read that article, but someone where I work was recently saying it's very hard to have a self-hosted email service now because your email address will likely end up on spam lists that other email services use, so a self-hosted email address is likely to end up marked as spam.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to boraxman on Tue Oct 4 11:43:23 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: boraxman to Arelor on Wed Oct 05 2022 12:20 am


    Here are two good web search engines to try.

    https://wiby.me

    This focuses on sites with simpler design. You won't get the Javascript laden, slo

    Another is
    https://search.marginalia.nu/

    Which again focuses on non-commercial content and shows you stuff you may not have

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)

    Thanks for the links. Do they use their own searching indexes? BY your description, it
    sounds like so. Gigablast is the only search engine with open source code published
    and which actually operates its own index in full, but results are kind of meh (and
    the last version of their engine at github leaves something to be desired)

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to boraxman on Tue Oct 4 11:46:02 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: boraxman to Spectre on Wed Oct 05 2022 12:31 am

    it. However it already implies your dinosaur collection is already being

    Citadel is pretty much well maintained. Current version has strict separation between
    the front end and the back end, which is nice. More information at the ADMIN Magazine
    (issue number I have forgotten, sadly)

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Arelor on Wed Oct 5 07:41:09 2022
    On 04 Oct 2022 at 11:38a, Arelor pondered and said...

    Re: Re: Community
    By: tenser to Spectre on Tue Oct 04 2022 09:12 am

    If you go to your Google account, you can download everything
    they know about you and all of your data that they're holding
    onto via the "Takeout" service (or whatever they're calling it
    these days). I can say that user data is encrypted at rest
    and that if you delete it, it is fully purged from Google's
    servers (including backups) in something like 30 days.


    Let me open the tin-foil hat store.

    You may download everything they are willing to confess they have about you via that
    method. You have to trust they are not generating more information
    about you via
    interpolation.

    Well, perhaps things have changed since I left, but
    access to user data and use thereof was incredibly
    strictly controlled, audited, and logged. Generally,
    what Google is telling people about what they do with
    your data and data about you is what they're doing.
    At least, that was the case when I worked there (I
    left for a startup about a year and a half ago). Oh,
    and if someone violated user access rules? First off,
    that was very difficult because the data is encrypted
    at rest (e.g., on storage) but if you somehow figured
    out how to access it, you were looking at being fired
    for cause immediately, if not a referral for a criminal
    complaint. Google does not mess around when it comes
    to user data.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to tenser on Tue Oct 4 16:53:10 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: tenser to Arelor on Wed Oct 05 2022 07:41 am

    Well, perhaps things have changed since I left, but
    access to user data and use thereof was incredibly
    strictly controlled, audited, and logged. Generally,
    what Google is telling people about what they do with
    your data and data about you is what they're doing.
    At least, that was the case when I worked there (I
    left for a startup about a year and a half ago). Oh,
    and if someone violated user access rules? First off,
    that was very difficult because the data is encrypted
    at rest (e.g., on storage) but if you somehow figured
    out how to access it, you were looking at being fired
    for cause immediately, if not a referral for a criminal
    complaint. Google does not mess around when it comes
    to user data.

    Of course they don't mess with user data. It is too valuable to let it leak when it
    can be sold.

    BTW does anybody have a nice tutorial for making a good tin foil hat?

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Wed Oct 5 08:13:00 2022
    https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-y ars- i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html

    Don't know how much truth there is in this,

    Shrug, no idea.. I don't serve any real volume, but the odd user I have
    reports that mail gets delivered. I've only hit the other odd private server that declines to accept based on the fact I'm on a dynamic ip so reverse
    lookup of the ip never matches the name I'm using.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From esc@21:4/173 to Nightfox on Tue Oct 4 23:00:48 2022
    What do you usually see software developers use?

    Macs. And I have two linux laptops for work and a Mac, and the Mac is simply more convenient to work on. Apple builds top notch products, in my experience.

    One of the programming languages I've used for some projects is C#,
    which I guess tends to naturally falls with Windows, since C#
    development would often be done with Visual Studio in Windows. You can develop in many other languages in Windows too, so it just tends to be
    the system I usually use (though I've used Linux for development
    sometimes too).

    Yeah, C# development would probably rely on a Windows box for sure. My last company focused on Java, js, and some typical web dev stuff. My current company does python, c++, and typical web dev stuff. All of this can be easily accomplished on a Mac while also providing a platform that is reliable and can do all the other things any professional would need. I'm not advocating for Macs, just acknowledging that for me and a great deal of people I have seen professionally that Macs tend to be the choice people make.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)
  • From esc@21:4/173 to Nightfox on Tue Oct 4 23:01:54 2022
    I haven't read that article, but someone where I work was recently
    saying it's very hard to have a self-hosted email service now because
    your email address will likely end up on spam lists that other email services use, so a self-hosted email address is likely to end up marked
    as spam.

    It's /possible/ to host your own email server and get through Google's filters, but it ain't easy and I have no idea how long it would persist in a trusted mode. Email is really a fixed fight at this point. Which sucks. :(

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)
  • From esc@21:4/173 to tenser on Tue Oct 4 23:03:07 2022
    Well, perhaps things have changed since I left, but
    access to user data and use thereof was incredibly
    strictly controlled, audited, and logged. Generally,

    Which, contrary to popular fashionable belief these days, is also the case at Meta (aka Facebook).

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Thu Oct 6 00:11:07 2022
    I am, but that rather misses the point. You asserted
    that Linux is "niche" and that this is good because it
    prevents large corporations from defining it's direction.

    Perhaps you meant to say, "Linux on the desktop, as used
    by me with my preferred distro, is uncommon in my line of
    work and among my peers." That statement may well be
    true, but the original argument, that Linux is "niche"
    as a prima facie statement is simply incorrect. Again,
    Linux is used everywhere, and again, most Linux development
    is done at large corporations. If someone wants to get
    a major feature pushed, it almost has to be done with
    corporate sponsorship. This isn't really a debatable
    statement, either; plenty of evidence is readily available,
    including the history in the Linux git repository. Sorted
    by domain, the top twenty contributors come mostly from
    commercial organizations. Granted, the #1 _is_ "gmail",
    but a) many Linux developers contribute using their personal
    email address, and b) the next three entries combined are
    nearly double the total number of gmail-using contributors.

    So this idea that Linux is sort of the "people's OS" and a
    quirky obscure niche thing is just not true.


    Take random people off the street and ask them if they've used Windows, MacOS or Linux, and tell me the result. Ask them what they use at home, what they know.

    Linux won't come up all that often.
    So, first of all, this is a strawman in the context of the original discussion. Second of all, lots of people _do_ understand that when
    they run an Android device (which, by the way, can be installed on
    a desktop; lots of ARM-based devices run Android in that configuration) they're using Linux, and third of all, so what? Whether someone
    realizes that they're using Linux or not (like the millions of
    school kids using chromebooks) that doesn't mean that Linux is niche.


    Ask those people off the street if they know what kernel Android uses. If you get more then 20% saying "Linux" I'll eat my underpants. I'll make it easier, you only have to ask the question to those who have an android phone.

    That is entirely subjective, but is also irrelevant to the original
    point. Let's focus on that; I'll say it again: Linux is not
    "niche" by any reasonable definition (it runs everywhere; the
    average person at this point _probably_ has multiple devices
    running Linux in their home whether they realize it or not) and
    it is mostly developed by large corporations.


    This is now just wasting my time. Do the poll, tell me the results.

    Far more people use Linux than they think. My argument was based on what people chose to use for their computing.

    You're either being unnecessarily pedantic, deliberately taking my argument in bad faith, or genuinely not understanding it.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Thu Oct 6 00:12:29 2022
    Server-side, almost certainly, but also for supercomputing. Pharma
    is a consumer of compute-cycles, and I doubt they're renting capacity
    from the national labs or other major public supercomputing sites.


    For desktop use, I imagine it depends on job function.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)


    The ONLY Linux desktop I ever saw at a workplace was the one I had when I worked in IT support, because I chose to install it. I've worked at many companies, and audited and visited many others.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Arelor on Thu Oct 6 00:17:33 2022
    If you go to your Google account, you can download everything
    they know about you and all of your data that they're holding
    onto via the "Takeout" service (or whatever they're calling it
    these days). I can say that user data is encrypted at rest
    and that if you delete it, it is fully purged from Google's
    servers (including backups) in something like 30 days.


    Let me open the tin-foil hat store.

    You may download everything they are willing to confess they have about you via that
    method. You have to trust they are not generating more information
    about you via
    interpolation.


    I know for a fact that Facebook makes shadow profiles of people who don't even have accounts. Google would have more data and metadata than they would let on. They would only show you data that directly relates to you, perhaps data you directly generated, but there would be other data which they could argue isn't strictly based on your activity, that is nevertheless still about you.

    American Big Tech is pathological in its behaviour, and the USA has very shoddy business ethics. They tolerate crap that others wouldn't.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Nightfox on Thu Oct 6 00:19:36 2022
    https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-th ears- i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html

    Don't know how much truth there is in this,

    I haven't read that article, but someone where I work was recently
    saying it's very hard to have a self-hosted email service now because
    your email address will likely end up on spam lists that other email services use, so a self-hosted email address is likely to end up marked
    as spam.


    That is pretty much the gist of the article. Because a few large players can do this, they can push smaller ones out. Introduce some non-standard "Features" and e-mail now becomes proprietary and incompatible. Could Big Tech do that? Yes. They are evil and most definitely could. There is little to stop them anymore.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Arelor on Thu Oct 6 00:27:37 2022
    Here are two good web search engines to try.

    https://wiby.me

    This focuses on sites with simpler design. You won't get the Javascrip laden, slo

    Another is
    https://search.marginalia.nu/

    Which again focuses on non-commercial content and shows you stuff you m not have

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)

    Thanks for the links. Do they use their own searching indexes? BY your description, it
    sounds like so. Gigablast is the only search engine with open source code published
    and which actually operates its own index in full, but results are kind
    of meh (and
    the last version of their engine at github leaves something to be
    desired)

    --


    I believe they do. I do not view this as definitive search engines, just as alternative ways of accessing information. We've become so accustomed to searching that we've forgotten other ways of categorizing information. Curated links lists, webrings and such.

    I don't know if you remember, or were even there, but in the late 90's you may search for something, but quite often you could "click" around and find different sources on a topic, going from one person or organisations page to another. Some websites still list references, but it is more just a "this is where I got this information from" type of thing. StackOverflow gives you related questions, but its hard to surf a topic.

    I remember that Yahoo had pages of links on topics.

    The standard way people do things now, is to just use search after search, so we really do things Googles way and no other.

    Using those search engines I listed, I've found many interesting web pages I would not have otherwise come across. Their value is more in
    1) Finding the corner sites, the enthusiast sites
    and
    2) Finding things that you didn't think you wanted, or didn't realise you were looking for.

    Think of a library. You go in, and you can browse books on a topic, or author. Imagine a library where you could never see the books, and could only search keywords, and you'd only get the popular books. You wouldn't know what other books on the topic your researching exist, which your keywords won't find.

    If you want to learn about Ancient Greece, browsing the section on Ancient Greece will allow you access to more information, than just getting answers to very specific questions. Google, in catering to people who ask questions, have turned the worlds greatest Library of Alexandria into just a 'dial a fact' service.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Arelor on Thu Oct 6 00:28:19 2022
    it. However it already implies your dinosaur collection is already being

    Citadel is pretty much well maintained. Current version has strict separation between
    the front end and the back end, which is nice. More information at the ADMIN Magazine
    (issue number I have forgotten, sadly)

    --

    I'll take another look then!

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to esc on Wed Oct 5 22:34:00 2022
    It's /possible/ to host your own email server and get through Google's filters, but it ain't easy and I have no idea how long it would persist in a trusted mode. Email is really a fixed fight at this point. Which sucks. :(

    Just setup your server to use your gmail credentials when sending mail to the server. It'll work as a relay this way too. :P

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to esc on Wed Oct 5 10:15:39 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: esc to Nightfox on Tue Oct 04 2022 11:00 pm

    Yeah, C# development would probably rely on a Windows box for sure. My last company focused on Java, js, and some typical web dev stuff. My current company does python, c++, and typical web dev stuff. All of this can be easily accomplished on a Mac while also providing a platform that is reliable and can do all the other things any professional would need. I'm not advocating for Macs, just acknowledging that for me and a great deal of people I have seen professionally that Macs tend to be the choice people make.

    Yeah, you can use Apple for a lot of different types of development. It seems our experiences are a little different though, as most of the software developers I've seen use a Windows PC. I have seen some developers use a Mac, but not as many as those using a Windows PC.

    Years ago (around 2014-2015), I was working on project that involved some Mac OS and iOS development, and I was using XCode for those. I noticed that XCode would occasionally crash.. And I was also writing some scripts using Apple's Automator software, which would crash more frequently. I eventually got a little frustrated using those tools. I've never had a problem with Visual Studio randomly crashing. Perhaps Apple's developer tools have gotten better since then though.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to esc on Wed Oct 5 10:17:00 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: esc to Nightfox on Tue Oct 04 2022 11:01 pm

    It's /possible/ to host your own email server and get through Google's filters, but it ain't easy and I have no idea how long it would persist in a trusted mode. Email is really a fixed fight at this point. Which sucks.

    Does Google provide filters that work everywhere, even if you're not using Gmail?

    Recently I've heard of something called Spamhaus, which I've heard does email filtering, but I'm not sure how it works.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Arelor on Thu Oct 6 06:48:57 2022
    On 04 Oct 2022 at 04:53p, Arelor pondered and said...

    BTW does anybody have a nice tutorial for making a good tin foil hat?

    I hear there are some good tutorials on youtube, but that's
    owned by Google.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to esc on Thu Oct 6 06:50:10 2022
    On 04 Oct 2022 at 11:03p, esc pondered and said...

    Well, perhaps things have changed since I left, but
    access to user data and use thereof was incredibly
    strictly controlled, audited, and logged. Generally,

    Which, contrary to popular fashionable belief these days, is also the
    case at Meta (aka Facebook).

    Everyone wants to talk about how Google, Meta, Amazon
    etc are so gangsta, but no one wants to talk about SOX
    or auditors.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to boraxman on Wed Oct 5 12:56:33 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: boraxman to Arelor on Thu Oct 06 2022 12:27 am

    Thanks for the links. Do they use their own searching indexes? BY your description, it
    sounds like so. Gigablast is the only search engine with open source co published
    and which actually operates its own index in full, but results are kind of meh (and
    the last version of their engine at github leaves something to be desired)

    --


    I believe they do. I do not view this as definitive search engines, just as d such.

    I did some research (using wilby, btw) and it turns out they do use their own indexes, which is great.

    Thanks for the pointer.

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From NuSkooler@21:1/121 to boraxman on Wed Oct 5 11:54:21 2022

    boraxman around Thursday, October 6th...
    The ONLY Linux desktop I ever saw at a workplace was the one I had when I worked in IT support, because I chose to install it. I've worked at many companies, and audited and visited many others.

    My previous job was pure Linux desktops across the dev space. Managers et al., love their Macs (and a few Windows). Current gig is def more of a Windows shop traditionally, but with cloud movement most of us are either in Linux directly or OS X.

    As far as the general public, it's "cool" to use Mac, many offices and the like are on Windows (AD, Exchange, blah blah just takes the cake here), all their services are probably running Linux for the most part, while their phones are Android (Linux) or iPhone (still has a huge BSD base), and their hardware appliances often BSD based. ...but most have zero idea about any of it.

    I know quite a few people that have zero understanding of any of this also running Linux desktops. Because again a) they don't know the difference, and b) it just works for what they want -- web browsing, email, and viewing documents.





    --
    |08 â–  |12NuSkooler |06// |12Xibalba |08- |07"|06The place of fear|07"
    |08 â–  |03xibalba|08.|03l33t|08.|03codes |08(|0344510|08/|03telnet|08, |0344511|08/|03ssh|08)
    |08 â–  |03ENiGMA 1/2 WHQ |08| |03Phenom |08| |0367 |08| |03iMPURE |08| |03ACiDic
    --- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.13-beta (linux; x64; 16.16.0)
    * Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (21:1/121)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to tenser on Wed Oct 5 12:57:53 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: tenser to Arelor on Thu Oct 06 2022 06:48 am

    On 04 Oct 2022 at 04:53p, Arelor pondered and said...

    BTW does anybody have a nice tutorial for making a good tin foil hat?

    I hear there are some good tutorials on youtube, but that's
    owned by Google.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

    I expect those tutorials to be malformed as to get people to build defective tin fol hats, then.

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Thu Oct 6 07:01:56 2022
    On 06 Oct 2022 at 12:11a, boraxman pondered and said...

    Perhaps you meant to say, "Linux on the desktop, as used
    by me with my preferred distro, is uncommon in my line of
    work and among my peers." That statement may well be
    true, but the original argument, that Linux is "niche"
    as a prima facie statement is simply incorrect. Again,
    Linux is used everywhere, and again, most Linux development
    is done at large corporations. If someone wants to get
    a major feature pushed, it almost has to be done with
    corporate sponsorship. This isn't really a debatable
    statement, either; plenty of evidence is readily available,
    including the history in the Linux git repository. Sorted
    by domain, the top twenty contributors come mostly from
    commercial organizations. Granted, the #1 _is_ "gmail",
    but a) many Linux developers contribute using their personal
    email address, and b) the next three entries combined are
    nearly double the total number of gmail-using contributors.

    So this idea that Linux is sort of the "people's OS" and a
    quirky obscure niche thing is just not true.

    Take random people off the street and ask them if they've used Windows, MacOS or Linux, and tell me the result. Ask them what they use at home, what they know.

    So what? How is that at all relevant?

    Linux won't come up all that often.

    So what?

    So, first of all, this is a strawman in the context of the original discussion. Second of all, lots of people _do_ understand that when they run an Android device (which, by the way, can be installed on
    a desktop; lots of ARM-based devices run Android in that configuratio they're using Linux, and third of all, so what? Whether someone realizes that they're using Linux or not (like the millions of
    school kids using chromebooks) that doesn't mean that Linux is niche.

    Ask those people off the street if they know what kernel Android uses.
    If you get more then 20% saying "Linux" I'll eat my underpants. I'll
    make it easier, you only have to ask the question to those who have an android phone.

    So it's like this. You've repeatedly made an assertion.
    That assertion has been shown to be false. When presented
    with falsifying evidence, you move the goalposts, but that
    doesn't make your assertion any less false.

    Now, if you want to modify your assertion as I stated above,
    you may have something that's approximately correct, but
    as it stands, you are simply wrong.

    That is entirely subjective, but is also irrelevant to the original point. Let's focus on that; I'll say it again: Linux is not
    "niche" by any reasonable definition (it runs everywhere; the
    average person at this point _probably_ has multiple devices
    running Linux in their home whether they realize it or not) and
    it is mostly developed by large corporations.

    This is now just wasting my time. Do the poll, tell me the results.

    No. This "poll" is irrelevant.

    Far more people use Linux than they think. My argument was based on what people chose to use for their computing.

    Let's look at your original statement:

    I am a Linux user, and Linux is still niche. It hasn't taken over
    the world, and shouldn't. The very fact that Linux is "niche" is
    what makes it useful. IT caters to those who are seeking its reconfigurability, its freedom, its power. When something becomes
    BIG, you have to drop catering to all those people who built it
    in the first place.

    As I have shown, Linux is "BIG", it is not "niche", and it
    has "taken over the world." It caters to those who _do the
    work_ developing on it, which is mostly large corporations,
    as I have also shown.

    You seem to take exception to these things, but have shown
    no evidence to the contrary, offering only logical fallacies
    based on your personal experience.

    You're either being unnecessarily pedantic, deliberately taking my argument in bad faith, or genuinely not understanding it.

    No, I understand your argument, it's just poor and doesn't
    hold together when evaluated against facts. I'm sorry to
    say, but I don't think you have a good handle on either how
    Linux is used in the real world or how it's developed.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Thu Oct 6 07:06:14 2022
    On 06 Oct 2022 at 12:12a, boraxman pondered and said...

    Server-side, almost certainly, but also for supercomputing. Pharma is a consumer of compute-cycles, and I doubt they're renting capacity from the national labs or other major public supercomputing sites.

    For desktop use, I imagine it depends on job function.

    The ONLY Linux desktop I ever saw at a workplace was the one I had when I worked in IT support, because I chose to install it. I've worked at many companies, and audited and visited many others.

    More argument from anecdote. This is a well-known logical
    fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_anecdote

    More generally, I suspect your experience is a lot more
    limited than you believe it to be.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Arelor on Thu Oct 6 07:25:22 2022
    On 05 Oct 2022 at 12:57p, Arelor pondered and said...

    Re: Re: Community
    By: tenser to Arelor on Thu Oct 06 2022 06:48 am

    On 04 Oct 2022 at 04:53p, Arelor pondered and said...

    BTW does anybody have a nice tutorial for making a good tin foil h

    I hear there are some good tutorials on youtube, but that's
    owned by Google.

    I expect those tutorials to be malformed as to get people to build defective tin fol hats, then.

    That's how they getcha. Wake up, sheeple!

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to tenser on Wed Oct 5 12:25:39 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: tenser to esc on Thu Oct 06 2022 06:50 am

    Everyone wants to talk about how Google, Meta, Amazon
    etc are so gangsta, but no one wants to talk about SOX
    or auditors.

    Who/what is SOX? And what do you mean by auditors?

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Nightfox on Thu Oct 6 09:52:12 2022
    On 05 Oct 2022 at 12:25p, Nightfox pondered and said...

    Re: Re: Community
    By: tenser to esc on Thu Oct 06 2022 06:50 am

    Everyone wants to talk about how Google, Meta, Amazon
    etc are so gangsta, but no one wants to talk about SOX
    or auditors.

    Who/what is SOX? And what do you mean by auditors?

    Sarbanes/Oxley. While SOX is largely for financial
    compliance, Google is regularly evaluated by external
    auditors to make sure it's not doing Bad Things.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From apam@21:1/182 to NuSkooler on Thu Oct 6 10:38:13 2022
    My previous job was pure Linux desktops across the dev space. Managers
    et al., love their Macs (and a few Windows). Current gig is def more
    of a Windows shop traditionally, but with cloud movement most of us
    are either in Linux directly or OS X.

    My brother in law works for Tesla, and they use linux a lot. He was a
    mechanic I think, now a trainer, but when he started to learn the ropes
    to be able to understand the engineers it was with cygwin, then later
    ubuntu.

    Andrew


    --- Talisman v0.43-dev (Windows/x64)
    * Origin: Smuggler's Cove - Private BBS (21:1/182)
  • From unixl0rd@21:1/158 to Nightfox on Thu Oct 6 03:58:40 2022
    The nice thing about Windows 10 is that you easily run unix software by installing LSW. It's basically Ubuntu running alongside Windows. My current employer gave me a Windows PC on my first day at the job. I told them that I needed command line tools that wouldn't work under Windows, and they got me a Macbook pro. I understand that some people may not be so lucky.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: thE qUAntUm wOrmhOlE, rAmsgAtE, uK. bbs.erb.pw (21:1/158)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Nightfox on Thu Oct 6 19:00:00 2022
    Yeah, you can use Apple for a lot of different types of development. It seems our experiences are a little different though, as most of the software developers I've seen use a Windows PC. I have seen some developers use a Mac, but not as many as those using a Windows PC.

    Used to be a time, it predates me, where you could use your Z80 card to
    either compile or assemble 6502... not sure which of those terms is really accurate in this case... cross compiled programming has been around a long time.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to tenser on Thu Oct 6 19:02:00 2022
    BTW does anybody have a nice tutorial for making a good tin foil hat?

    I hear there are some good tutorials on youtube, but that's owned
    by Google.


    Rule #1 only one hat per roll of tin foil.


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to tenser on Thu Oct 6 19:04:00 2022
    gangsta, but no one wants to talk about SOX or auditors.

    Serially Offending Xenophobes?


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to NuSkooler on Fri Oct 7 01:00:08 2022
    The ONLY Linux desktop I ever saw at a workplace was the one I had wh worked in IT support, because I chose to install it. I've worked at companies, and audited and visited many others.

    My previous job was pure Linux desktops across the dev space. Managers
    et al., love their Macs (and a few Windows). Current gig is def more of
    a Windows shop traditionally, but with cloud movement most of us are either in Linux directly or OS X.

    As far as the general public, it's "cool" to use Mac, many offices and
    the like are on Windows (AD, Exchange, blah blah just takes the cake here), all their services are probably running Linux for the most part, while their phones are Android (Linux) or iPhone (still has a huge BSD base), and their hardware appliances often BSD based. ...but most have zero idea about any of it.

    I know quite a few people that have zero understanding of any of this
    also running Linux desktops. Because again a) they don't know the difference, and b) it just works for what they want -- web browsing, email, and viewing documents.


    I installed Linux for my wife, but to her its just a web browser with files on the desktop and a few games. She doesn't care what she's using, because she's not really "using" the operating system as such. Just the Web Browser. Sure, the Operating System is running and technically she is using it, but she doesn't use the unique features of it, at all. It's like having a convertible and not even being aware you can put the top down.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Fri Oct 7 01:03:18 2022
    So it's like this. You've repeatedly made an assertion.
    That assertion has been shown to be false. When presented
    with falsifying evidence, you move the goalposts, but that
    doesn't make your assertion any less false.


    No, its not false. You are not engaging in discussion, but in rhetoric.

    My statement was that most people don't use Linux. It's niche because very few people make the conscious choice to do their computing on Linux instead of Windows and Mac.

    I really don't see how that is fallacious.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Fri Oct 7 01:05:43 2022
    Server-side, almost certainly, but also for supercomputing. Pha is a consumer of compute-cycles, and I doubt they're renting cap from the national labs or other major public supercomputing site

    For desktop use, I imagine it depends on job function.

    The ONLY Linux desktop I ever saw at a workplace was the one I had wh worked in IT support, because I chose to install it. I've worked at companies, and audited and visited many others.

    More argument from anecdote. This is a well-known logical
    fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_anecdote

    More generally, I suspect your experience is a lot more
    limited than you believe it to be.


    You're argumentation style is really nothing but trying to find technicalities to nit-pick on, while militantly trying to avoid understanding what is being meant.

    I'm going to end this now as its not worth my time trying to explain what everyone else understands easily.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Fri Oct 7 01:31:23 2022
    On 07 Oct 2022 at 01:05a, boraxman pondered and said...

    I'm going to end this now as its not worth my time trying to explain what everyone else understands easily.

    Probably best for all involved.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From NuSkooler@21:1/121 to boraxman on Thu Oct 6 09:52:30 2022

    On Friday, October 7th boraxman was heard saying...
    I installed Linux for my wife, but to her its just a web browser with files on the desktop and a few games. She doesn't care what she's using, because she's not really "using" the operating system as such. Just the Web Browser. Sure, the Operating System is running and technically she is using it, but she doesn't use the unique features of it, at all. It's like having a convertible and not even being aware you can put the top down.

    Yep, I have my mother running Linux. It saves her from malware and the like, and just like your wife, she uses it for what she wants and doesn't notice the difference. I even gave her a "Windows-like" desktop so the 'start' button, apps, etc. are familiar. Never looked back.



    --
    |08 â–  |12NuSkooler |06// |12Xibalba |08- |07"|06The place of fear|07"
    |08 â–  |03xibalba|08.|03l33t|08.|03codes |08(|0344510|08/|03telnet|08, |0344511|08/|03ssh|08)
    |08 â–  |03ENiGMA 1/2 WHQ |08| |03Phenom |08| |0367 |08| |03iMPURE |08| |03ACiDic
    --- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.13-beta (linux; x64; 16.16.0)
    * Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (21:1/121)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Wed Oct 5 07:05:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to Spectre <=-

    https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three -years-
    i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html

    Don't know how much truth there is in this,

    If that's the article I think it is, there's a lot of truth in it. I ran my own mail server for about 5 years back in the 2000s, and it was manageable. Trying to send mail from an ISP's IP block or a VPS nowadays is a pain, and getting your IPs off of blacklists is extremely difficult.

    I've resorted to using a web host to forward mail to gmail. It's not the
    same as having mail hosted locally and running my own SPAM filters and procmail.


    ... DELIVERY - CONTESTABILITY - IMPROVULENCE - UPSOAR - YESNESS
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Nightfox on Wed Oct 5 07:08:00 2022
    Nightfox wrote to esc <=-

    What do you usually see software developers use?

    Python for web development, running on cloud-hosted Linux servers, and developed on local VMs running Linux or WSL2 running under Windows 10. Development is done using Windows Python IDEs.



    ... THE HEXAGONS OF AIM
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Nightfox on Wed Oct 5 07:09:00 2022
    Nightfox wrote to unixl0rd <=-

    Sometimes you don't have a choice though. I've worked for several companies that would just give you a Windows laptop and didn't have a choice otherwise.

    If I had $10 for every time I had a developer take a corporate-managed
    Windows laptop and install Linux/OpenBSD/Plan9/whatever on it, I wouldn't
    have to work with developers who re-image corporate laptops any more.


    ... UNPRISON YOUR THINK RHINO
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Arelor on Wed Oct 5 07:12:00 2022
    Arelor wrote to tenser <=-

    You may download everything they are willing to confess they have about you via that method. You have to trust they are not generating more information about you via interpolation.

    Dancing with the devil.


    ... THE SEVEN JOURNEYS TO ITSELFNESS
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to esc on Wed Oct 5 07:15:00 2022
    esc wrote to Nightfox <=-

    It's /possible/ to host your own email server and get through Google's filters, but it ain't easy and I have no idea how long it would persist
    in a trusted mode. Email is really a fixed fight at this point. Which sucks. :(

    Yeah, when you're essentially Google's competition by running your own email server (and they can't serve ads or index your mail) they have no
    inclination to make getting off of their block lists easy.

    I have a VPS hosting a test domain of mine; I should set up DMARC and DKIM
    on it and see how it goes.


    ... Everyone's an atheist until it's time for a BIOS update.
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Wed Oct 5 08:21:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to tenser <=-

    The ONLY Linux desktop I ever saw at a workplace was the one I had when
    I worked in IT support, because I chose to install it. I've worked at many companies, and audited and visited many others.

    I set up a Proof-of-Concept Linux desktop at a large internet company back
    in 2012 as an alternative for our developers. It was pretty nice, even got Evolution talking to our on-premise Exchange environment, but the cost of duplicating patching and managing two different distros (Fedora and Ubuntu) killed it.




    ... Everyone's an atheist until it's time for a BIOS update.
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From DustCouncil@21:1/227 to boraxman on Thu Oct 6 17:19:05 2022
    More argument from anecdote. This is a well-known logical
    fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_anecdote

    You're argumentation style is really nothing but trying to find technicalities to nit-pick on, while militantly trying to avoid understanding what is being meant.

    Either saying Linux *is* or *is not* niche is argument-from-anecdote. Absent statistics gathered in a way everyone is happy with, there's no index to verify either claim.

    Anecdotally, in the quarter century I've been at this job, in a technical company with several hundred thousands of employees (you have all heard of it), I have never encountered a Linux desktop. Servers, yes. Android, yes.

    We did used to have SunOS/Solaris + CDE, but it was for specific enterprise applications which, at the time, only ran on that platform. That was on the desk in the pizza box form factor, under monitors, with a KVM switch we used to switch to the Windows boxes under our desks, for e-mail and everything else.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/

    I've never seen a survey like this which indicated there was much use of desktop Linux. Be absolutely happy to take a look at one if someone has one.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Shipwrecks & Shibboleths [San Francisco, CA - USA] (21:1/227)
  • From DustCouncil@21:1/227 to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Oct 6 17:27:19 2022
    https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-th -years-
    i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html

    If that's the article I think it is, there's a lot of truth in it. I ran my own mail server for about 5 years back in the 2000s, and it was manageable. Trying to send mail from an ISP's IP block or a VPS
    nowadays is a pain, and getting your IPs off of blacklists is extremely difficult.

    Somewhere - it might have been reddit - people were tearing into this guy for being technically incompetent, because, well, that is how certain kinds of technical people are.

    What should be accounted for is the *sheer joylessness* of hosting a server of any sort, if you have anything like a limited number of hours in the day *and* you don't particularly get a charge out of running one.

    I like running web servers, but I know a lot of people don't. I expect there are people who like running e-mail servers. I sure don't. There's no hobbyist pleasure in that for me, personally.

    When I ran my own - it was Postfix - they kept releasing updates which broke my configuration files, which are byzantine and annoying to fix. And then there's the spam issue.

    E-mail, to me, is mundane. If I could do my own mail service with minimal hassle, I'd do it. But it wasn't minimal hassle. And the benefits of doing it myself were minimal anyway.

    I think the guy who wrote that article had his limits, too. It's not that it can't be done, it's that there are a limited number of hours in the day and is doing that a good use of your time? Maybe, if you're into it. How many people are into it?

    What I have found works for me is to own my own domains, and get professional mail hosts to just provide service for them (this is borderline trivial - they want you to put a bunch of DNS records in proving you own the domain, then they take care of the rest).

    If I become unhappy with a service or they turn out to be evil or something, I can just move the address to a competitor, taking the domain with me and preserving the accounts.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Shipwrecks & Shibboleths [San Francisco, CA - USA] (21:1/227)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to unixl0rd on Thu Oct 6 17:57:12 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: unixl0rd to Nightfox on Thu Oct 06 2022 03:58 am

    The nice thing about Windows 10 is that you easily run unix software by installing LSW. It's basically Ubuntu running alongside Windows. My

    I don't know what this is in response to. It would be easier to follow if you had quoted the part of my message you wre responding to.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Oct 6 18:00:23 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Wed Oct 05 2022 07:09 am

    Sometimes you don't have a choice though. I've worked for several
    companies that would just give you a Windows laptop and didn't have
    a choice otherwise.

    If I had $10 for every time I had a developer take a corporate-managed Windows laptop and install Linux/OpenBSD/Plan9/whatever on it, I wouldn't have to work with developers who re-image corporate laptops any more.

    I've never actually seen someone do that, but I have seen some people request a Mac laptop (where allowed).

    You might be able to get away with that at some companies, but some companies have very strict IT policies (with virus detection, email filters, etc.) where they might detect laptops without Windows and probably ask that you return your laptop so they can re-image it with Windows again.

    There's also the time you'd have to spend configuring the email client to talk to the company's email server, set up chat software, etc.. Would you really want to do that when it was all set up for you (even if it's with Windows)?

    One time I worked at a place (one with strict IT rules) and someone installed a VM with Linux on his Windows work laptop. He got an email client working with the company's MS Exchange email server, but sometimes the emails he sent were formatted in a weird way.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to NuSkooler on Fri Oct 7 21:58:20 2022
    I installed Linux for my wife, but to her its just a web browser with files on the desktop and a few games. She doesn't care what she's us because she's not really "using" the operating system as such. Just Web Browser. Sure, the Operating System is running and technically sh using it, but she doesn't use the unique features of it, at all. It' like having a convertible and not even being aware you can put the to down.

    Yep, I have my mother running Linux. It saves her from malware and the like, and just like your wife, she uses it for what she wants and
    doesn't notice the difference. I even gave her a "Windows-like" desktop
    so the 'start' button, apps, etc. are familiar. Never looked back.



    I think I saved close to $1000 on getting the Linux based Thinkpad instead of the Apple Mac. Now, if there was a noticeably different you could say "Yeah, that $1000 would have gone towards something useful", but as the experience is basically the same, it shows that had we gone the Apple route, we would have wasted hundreds of dollars for, well, a logo?

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Oct 7 22:00:09 2022
    https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-th -years-
    i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html

    Don't know how much truth there is in this,

    If that's the article I think it is, there's a lot of truth in it. I ran my own mail server for about 5 years back in the 2000s, and it was manageable. Trying to send mail from an ISP's IP block or a VPS
    nowadays is a pain, and getting your IPs off of blacklists is extremely difficult.

    I've resorted to using a web host to forward mail to gmail. It's not the same as having mail hosted locally and running my own SPAM filters and procmail.



    I have heard multiple "anecdotes" to this effect. One on its own isn't worth much, but when you have others reporting the same thing, there is something.

    It's really depressing to see the closing of what was once open architecture. The walls are closing in.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Oct 7 22:02:51 2022
    It's /possible/ to host your own email server and get through Google' filters, but it ain't easy and I have no idea how long it would persi in a trusted mode. Email is really a fixed fight at this point. Which sucks. :(

    Yeah, when you're essentially Google's competition by running your own email server (and they can't serve ads or index your mail) they have no inclination to make getting off of their block lists easy.

    I have a VPS hosting a test domain of mine; I should set up DMARC and
    DKIM on it and see how it goes.


    This would be a perverse view, if Google had it. The value of e-mail is precisely its interoperability. If google is doing this, they are killing e-mail. But then again, Google have killed many other products of theirs, haven't they?

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to DustCouncil on Fri Oct 7 22:16:05 2022
    You're argumentation style is really nothing but trying to find technicalities to nit-pick on, while militantly trying to avoid understanding what is being meant.

    Either saying Linux *is* or *is not* niche is argument-from-anecdote. Absent statistics gathered in a way everyone is happy with, there's no index to verify either claim.


    You are applying the "argument-from-anedote" logical fallacy erroneously. I don't know when this idea that observation=anectode=unreliable came from, but I see it all the time and its wrong.

    If someone says "I saw the sun rise in the East" and others report the same, is that just anectodal evidence, anecdata to be just dismissed? No, its an observation. And its a testable one too.

    The market share stats for Linux on the desktop, ie, how many people choose to run Linux on their home computer or laptop, are readily available. It matches the observation.

    We all live on the same planet, so if I say "I've rarely seen this", and you see the same thing...

    Tenser made this a point of contention because that is just what some people do. IT could have easily been refuted by data, or a survey, but he provided neither.

    Du> Anecdotally, in the quarter century I've been at
    this job, in a technical Du> company with several hundred thousands of employees (you have all heard Du> of it), I have never encountered a Linux desktop. Servers, yes. Du> Android, yes.

    We did used to have SunOS/Solaris + CDE, but it was for specific enterprise applications which, at the time, only ran on that platform. That was on the desk in the pizza box form factor, under monitors, with
    a KVM switch we used to switch to the Windows boxes under our desks, for e-mail and everything else.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-

    I've never seen a survey like this which indicated there was much use of desktop Linux. Be absolutely happy to take a look at one if someone has one.


    I've seen figures as high as 11% in places like Greece, were they're looking to save money.

    Back to my ORIGINAL point, the people who consciously choose Linux over another operation system are in a minority, as MOST people choose, either by comparison or simply not examining alternatives, another system. Linux offers something different, which, by definition, makes it niche.

    Any product, any thing which occupies some space that something else doesn't, exists in a niche. In Biology, organisms occupy and are specially adapted to niches because it is better then trying to compete elsewhere.

    If Linux abandoned its niche, it would be competing head to head with Windows, and lose. Because it can offer things Windows can't, it has a niche.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to DustCouncil on Fri Oct 7 22:26:47 2022
    If that's the article I think it is, there's a lot of truth in it. I my own mail server for about 5 years back in the 2000s, and it was manageable. Trying to send mail from an ISP's IP block or a VPS nowadays is a pain, and getting your IPs off of blacklists is extrem difficult.

    Somewhere - it might have been reddit - people were tearing into this
    guy for being technically incompetent, because, well, that is how
    certain kinds of technical people are.

    What should be accounted for is the *sheer joylessness* of hosting a server of any sort, if you have anything like a limited number of hours
    in the day *and* you don't particularly get a charge out of running one.


    I like running web servers, but I know a lot of people don't. I expect there are people who like running e-mail servers. I sure don't. There's no hobbyist pleasure in that for me, personally.

    When I ran my own - it was Postfix - they kept releasing updates which broke my configuration files, which are byzantine and annoying to fix.
    And then there's the spam issue.

    E-mail, to me, is mundane. If I could do my own mail service with
    minimal hassle, I'd do it. But it wasn't minimal hassle. And the
    benefits of doing it myself were minimal anyway.

    I think the guy who wrote that article had his limits, too. It's not
    that it can't be done, it's that there are a limited number of hours in the day and is doing that a good use of your time? Maybe, if you're
    into it. How many people are into it?

    What I have found works for me is to own my own domains, and get professional mail hosts to just provide service for them (this is borderline trivial - they want you to put a bunch of DNS records in proving you own the domain, then they take care of the rest).

    If I become unhappy with a service or they turn out to be evil or something, I can just move the address to a competitor, taking the
    domain with me and preserving the accounts.


    Agreed, but one should also consider how joyless it would be to have a world where a couple of American companies which are political (politically unhinged I would say), domineering, control e-mail, to the point where you have no option but to use their products, and subject yourself to their monitoring, privacy intrusions and perhaps their censorship. And not having a choice, you want to communicate to people, you have to use the monopolists products, monopolists who have a business model which by using their product you tacitly support, a business model which is socially harmful.

    People seem to have this idea that Freedom IS Free. That you don't actually have to do anything to be free, it comes default. That Freedom requires no effort, no sacrifice, and the moment you have to sacrifice anything, whether your time, some effort or even maybe some small convenience, then it is never worth it

    I'm not directing this at you, but in general, I find this view that people have quite depressing. We got into this dystopia, and it is a dystopia, because at each step, people disregarded freedom and autonomy for a little convenience.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to DustCouncil on Sat Oct 8 01:12:01 2022
    On 06 Oct 2022 at 05:19p, DustCouncil pondered and said...

    More argument from anecdote. This is a well-known logical fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_anecdote

    You're argumentation style is really nothing but trying to find technicalities to nit-pick on, while militantly trying to avoid understanding what is being meant.

    Either saying Linux *is* or *is not* niche is argument-from-anecdote. Absent statistics gathered in a way everyone is happy with, there's no index to verify either claim.

    I dunno. There are statistics that are easily accessible:

    https://truelist.co/blog/linux-statistics/

    It is known that Linux runs on _all_ of the machines on the
    top 500 supercomputer list, 85% of smart phones, and 96% of
    the top 1,000,000 web servers. That's not "niche" by any
    reasonable definition, even if Linux _desktop_ use is fairly
    niche. Still you've got ChromeBooks and things like that.

    Linux is big business.

    I've never seen a survey like this which indicated there was much use of desktop Linux. Be absolutely happy to take a look at one if someone has one.

    The thing is, limiting the definition of whether an operating
    system is "niche" or not to desktop usage isn't a particularly
    meaningful measure, particularly as desktop usage declines.

    In the context of discussing who controls the direction of the
    system's development, it seems strange to ignore non-desktop
    use, when that's _by far_ the most common form of use.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Sat Oct 8 01:42:21 2022
    On 07 Oct 2022 at 10:16p, boraxman pondered and said...

    Either saying Linux *is* or *is not* niche is argument-from-anecdote. Absent statistics gathered in a way everyone is happy with, there's n index to verify either claim.

    You are applying the "argument-from-anedote" logical fallacy
    erroneously. I don't know when this idea that observation=anectode=unreliable came from, but I see it all the time and its wrong.

    If someone says "I saw the sun rise in the East" and others report the same, is that just anectodal evidence, anecdata to be just dismissed?
    No, its an observation. And its a testable one too.

    The market share stats for Linux on the desktop, ie, how many people choose to run Linux on their home computer or laptop, are readily available. It matches the observation.

    The essence of the scientific method is to make a hypothesis
    based on observation and then test that with repeated falsifiable
    experiments. In the face of disconfirming evidence, the hypothesis
    is false.

    The "sun rises in the east, sets in the west" observation matches
    repeated observation and has been tested and retested for literally
    thousands of years, all in myriad different ways, including
    observation from space. We can explain it. Tests trying to
    demonstrate the opposite fail. We've tested it so much we need
    no longer test it.

    That is qualitatively different than making a statement based on
    a purely personal observation about a specific use of a thing
    and then extrapolating to general assumptions about that thing,
    particularly in light of disconfirming evidence about the general
    thing. THAT is argument-from-anecdote, and simply being obstinate
    when confronted by falsifying data.

    We all live on the same planet, so if I say "I've rarely seen this", and you see the same thing...

    You need to qualify what you've seen. As I said earlier, if your
    statement was, "I've rarely seen Linux running on a desktop in my
    line of work or among my peers" then you're probably right. But
    if instead your statement is, "I've rarely seem Linux on a desktop
    therefore _Linux_ [the general thing] is niche" then you're wrong.

    And that WAS and IS your statement, and it is wrong because you are extrapolating from an observation about a specific thing to a general conclusion.

    This is not hard. Being obstinate that everyone accept that "Linux"
    is defined according to desktop usage and your definition is ridiculous.

    Tenser made this a point of contention because that is just what some people do. IT could have easily been refuted by data, or a survey, but
    he provided neither.

    Ya know, if you want to end a discussion with me, don't a) talk
    about me in the third person using the ad hominem ("...that is just
    what some people") and b) don't misrepresent what I did: I did
    point to data about server, smart phone, and top-500 supercomputer
    usage, in addition to embedded devices. You did not refute that
    data. I pointed out who is developing the system and why.

    Your problem is that you have defined "Linux" to mean "desktop
    operating system" and that is a poor definition, as I pointed
    out. If you think that's being pedantic, I think that's just
    your ignorance. All you have is a limited set of observations
    with no context, and you are not a person doing the work, so I
    kind of get why you may think this, but that does not make it
    correct.

    Now this really is wasting _my_ time. If you don't want to be
    educated on this matter, that's your business; I'm certainly
    done trying, and I'll thank you for not mentioning me again.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to DustCouncil on Fri Oct 7 12:30:23 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: DustCouncil to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Oct 06 2022 05:27 pm

    I like running web servers, but I know a lot of people don't. I expect there are people who like running e-mail servers. I sure don't. There's no hobbyist pleasure in that for me, personally.

    I enjoy running a BBS at home, and I also use that PC to run Plex Media Server, which I enjoy. As far as running an email server, I think the main reason I'd enjoy running such a thing is that it's my own, I have complete control over it, and I could probably have an email address on a domain of my choosing (i.e., with my name or something).

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Sun Oct 9 01:59:21 2022


    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Sun Oct 9 02:21:03 2022
    Now this really is wasting _my_ time. If you don't want to be
    educated on this matter, that's your business; I'm certainly
    done trying, and I'll thank you for not mentioning me again.

    If you're wondering why I'm being so abrupt with you, it is because, upon seeing what you believed to be a misuse of a term, instead of just seeking clarification as to context and moving on, got on your high horse so you could win some argument, or at least, make yourself feel good about yourself because you convinced yourself was smarter.

    Any decent person would have asked "Hey, did you mean to say...", got the clarification and moved on.

    You didn't. You REFUSED to accept any clarification. Everyone else got it, you didn't, so either you just failed to comprehend, or just chose not to. You seem to be the only one adamant in the belief that the discussion is not about end-user choices.

    Neither of these failure is "on me".

    And I'll talk to whomever I want about whatever I want.

    https://itsfoss.com/linux-market-share/

    Current Linux desktop market usage, which is a good indication of what people choose to use.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Sun Oct 9 07:40:00 2022
    Current Linux desktop market usage, which is a good indication of what people choose to use.

    https://itsfoss.com/linux-market-share/

    But you're choosing a specific niche in which to look at the picture..


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From apam@21:1/182 to boraxman on Sun Oct 9 12:36:18 2022
    Everyone else got it..

    No, I think everyone else stopped reading this thread ages ago.

    And I'll talk to whomever I want about whatever I want.

    Not here I hope. FSXnet has rules about the kind of content is acceptable.

    Well past time to let this thread die I think.

    Andrew


    --- Talisman v0.44-dev (Windows/x64)
    * Origin: Smuggler's Cove - Private BBS (21:1/182)
  • From Boraxman@21:3/136 to Spectre on Sun Oct 9 22:01:00 2022
    Spectre wrote to boraxman <=-

    Current Linux desktop market usage, which is a good indication of what people choose to use.

    https://itsfoss.com/linux-market-share/

    But you're choosing a specific niche in which to look at the picture..

    Anyway you look at it, there is a niche.

    Desktop usage. It is small, which is represented more by "power users".

    For servers, it may dominate, but servers are configured by a small subset of the popuation. That decision is made by one profession, a minority of people in one discipline. For servers, we have specific purposes. Again, I think this fits the definition of niche, it serves specific purposes.

    There is nothing wrong with being niche. Mac OS was seen as one for artists. Having a niche can mean success because then people know what it is good for, what that system does well, who it serves. This is why Ferrari doesn't make family station wagons.

    And that was simply the point I was making, there is a more defined use-case, and that focusing on the value-propositions that it offers would lean towards success more than trying to be everything to everyone at once.

    === MultiMail/Linux v0.52
    --- SBBSecho 3.11-Linux
    * Origin: .:MiNDS EYE BBS:..Melb, Australia..mindseye.synchr (21:3/136)
  • From Boraxman@21:3/136 to apam on Sun Oct 9 22:06:00 2022
    apam wrote to boraxman <=-

    Everyone else got it..

    No, I think everyone else stopped reading this thread ages ago.

    And I'll talk to whomever I want about whatever I want.

    Not here I hope. FSXnet has rules about the kind of content is
    acceptable.

    Well past time to let this thread die I think.

    Andrew


    --- Talisman v0.44-dev (Windows/x64)
    * Origin: Smuggler's Cove - Private BBS (21:1/182)

    === MultiMail/Linux v0.52
    --- SBBSecho 3.11-Linux
    * Origin: .:MiNDS EYE BBS:..Melb, Australia..mindseye.synchr (21:3/136)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to DustCouncil on Fri Oct 7 07:32:00 2022
    DustCouncil wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    What should be accounted for is the *sheer joylessness* of hosting a server of any sort, if you have anything like a limited number of hours
    in the day *and* you don't particularly get a charge out of running
    one.

    I like running web servers, but I know a lot of people don't. I expect there are people who like running e-mail servers. I sure don't.
    There's no hobbyist pleasure in that for me, personally.

    I ran Apache, Sendmail, Procmail and UW-IMAP for several years - mostly because I was consulting and using my home domain as a testbed. There was
    some fun in that, but when it comes to running obscure, complex, sometimes interoperable, some times not software, running a BBS ticks all those boxes.


    ... A journey of a thousand sandwiches begins with a single cut.
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to unixl0rd on Fri Oct 7 07:57:00 2022
    unixl0rd wrote to Nightfox <=-

    The nice thing about Windows 10 is that you easily run unix software by installing LSW. It's basically Ubuntu running alongside Windows.

    WSL - Windows Subsystem for Linux. You can run one of several distros under WSL2. Under Windows 11, it'll apparently run X apps, too.

    current employer gave me a Windows PC on my first day at the job. I
    told them that I needed command line tools that wouldn't work under Windows, and they got me a Macbook pro. I understand that some people
    may not be so lucky.


    Cygwin and/or git BASH seem to provide a pretty good command-line
    environment, at least from what the developers I work with say. They don't seem to be in a huge hurry to move to WSL. If you're writing code locally
    and pushing it up to a dev environment, they should work just fine. If
    you're wanting to test locally, that's a different matter and WSL would be ideal, I'd think.




    ... Canned Air is GLUTEN FREE.
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to NuSkooler on Fri Oct 7 08:01:00 2022
    NuSkooler wrote to boraxman <=-

    Yep, I have my mother running Linux. It saves her from malware and the like, and just like your wife, she uses it for what she wants and
    doesn't notice the difference. I even gave her a "Windows-like" desktop
    so the 'start' button, apps, etc. are familiar. Never looked back.

    Getting elderly parents on Chromebooks is a good thing. I bought my mom a
    nice Toshiba Chromebook with Beats speakers and a 1080p screen. She has
    access to Google docs, photos, sync her Android phone to it so she can send text messages from the laptop, and she doesn't have to worry about those popups claiming that she has a Windows virus and to call a number to
    "remove" it.

    Print support was a royal pain, I had to swap out her perfectly good printer for a new one that they supported after they deprecated Cloud Print. And, I had to buy her a new one after 5 years when it went EOL.

    Good for me, though - flip a hardware switch to allow writing to the BIOS, burn a third-party BIOS to it and I can use it as a Linux ultrabook, albeit slightly lower powered than I'd like.


    ... SURELY NOT EVERYONE WAS KUNG FU FIGHTING
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Fri Oct 7 08:02:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    This would be a perverse view, if Google had it. The value of e-mail
    is precisely its interoperability. If google is doing this, they are killing e-mail. But then again, Google have killed many other products
    of theirs, haven't they?

    The value of email to Google is harvesting data, not providing the service.


    ... SURELY NOT EVERYONE WAS KUNG FU FIGHTING
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From NuSkooler@21:1/121 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Oct 10 11:07:49 2022

    On Friday, October 7th poindexter FORTRAN was heard saying...
    Print support was a royal pain, I had to swap out her perfectly good printer for a new one that they supported after they deprecated Cloud Print. And, I had to buy her a new one after 5 years when it went EOL.

    Can relate. My parents have these ancient printers, but they do work well still, so they won't get rid of them. Probably from '98 era or so. I had to do some rigging to get them to work in Linux. My father has a Windows machine he runs Photoshop in. For that, I had to run something out of VMware just so he could print ;D



    --
    |08 â–  |12NuSkooler |06// |12Xibalba |08- |07"|06The place of fear|07"
    |08 â–  |03xibalba|08.|03l33t|08.|03codes |08(|0344510|08/|03telnet|08, |0344511|08/|03ssh|08)
    |08 â–  |03ENiGMA 1/2 WHQ |08| |03Phenom |08| |0367 |08| |03iMPURE |08| |03ACiDic
    --- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.13-beta (linux; x64; 16.16.0)
    * Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (21:1/121)
  • From Exodus@21:1/176 to Poindexter Fortran on Mon Oct 10 20:15:28 2022
    Print support was a royal pain, I had to swap out her perfectly good printe for a new one that they supported after they deprecated Cloud Print. And, I had to buy her a new one after 5 years when it went EOL.

    Good for me, though - flip a hardware switch to allow writing to the BIOS, burn a third-party BIOS to it and I can use it as a Linux ultrabook, albeit slightly lower powered than I'd like.

    Try getting audio to run on linux on a chromebook .... talk about a pain in the ass.

    --- Renegade vY2Ka2
    * Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (21:1/176)
  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to Nightfox on Sun Oct 9 13:35:00 2022
    Am 07.10.22 schrieb Nightfox@21:1/137 in FSX_GEN:

    Hallo Nightfox,

    I like running web servers, but I know a lot of people don't. I expect Du>> there are people who like running e-mail servers. I sure don't. There's Du>> no hobbyist pleasure in that for me, personally.

    I enjoy running a BBS at home, and I also use that PC to run Plex Media Server, which I enjoy. As far as running an email server, I think the main reason I'd enjoy running such a thing is that it's my own, I have complete control over it, and I could probably have an email address on a domain of my choosing (i.e., with my name or something).

    +1
    I'm also running my BBS at home, next to an Emby Media Server.
    I'm running a mail server for several domains (for my wife, her mum
    and me) and don't have massive problems with mails (only sometimes
    with Micro$oft users)
    Besides, I'm hosting a Jitsi and Matrix instance and my own RSS
    reader.

    And for me, the main reason is also that I'd like to have control over
    my infrastructure -- and it's working for ~10 years now without any
    bigger problems.

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.56
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From Atreyu@21:1/176 to Acn on Tue Oct 11 08:21:49 2022
    On 09 Oct 22 13:35:00, Acn said the following to Nightfox:

    I'm also running my BBS at home, next to an Emby Media Server.
    I'm running a mail server for several domains (for my wife, her mum
    and me) and don't have massive problems with mails (only sometimes
    with Micro$oft users)

    Mostly the same scenario here too. I've been running my own email server at home for close to... 15 years and its all Microsoft, Exchange, proxy
    frontend etc, no Linux here. Are you using Domain-keys, SPF/Dmarc etc?

    Never had any problems delivering to Gmail. Microsoft I'm convinced is using some sort of internal reputation for Hotmail/Live.

    Atreyu

    --- Renegade vY2Ka2
    * Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (21:1/176)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Atreyu on Wed Oct 12 07:51:00 2022
    Never had any problems delivering to Gmail. Microsoft I'm convinced is using some sort of internal reputation for Hotmail/Live.

    Woah! Hotmail is still a thing? I don't think I've seen anyone using a
    hotmail account in the last ten years. Might be a local thing though.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From Atreyu@21:1/176 to Spectre on Tue Oct 11 18:05:50 2022
    On 12 Oct 22 07:51:00, Spectre said the following to Atreyu:

    Never had any problems delivering to Gmail. Microsoft I'm convinced is using some sort of internal reputation for Hotmail/Live.

    Woah! Hotmail is still a thing? I don't think I've seen anyone using a hotmail account in the last ten years. Might be a local thing though.

    Some friends of mine still have it and use it... so with running the email system it ended up being one of those quirks that drove me nuts for a short time because every other domain I could deliver messages to just fine.

    Atreyu

    --- Renegade vY2Ka2
    * Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (21:1/176)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Oct 11 17:42:28 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to NuSkooler on Fri Oct 07 2022 08:01 am

    Getting elderly parents on Chromebooks is a good thing. I bought my mom a nice Toshiba Chromebook with Beats speakers and a 1080p screen. She has access to Google docs, photos, sync her Android phone to it so she can send text messages from the laptop, and she doesn't have to worry about those popups claiming that she has a Windows virus and to call a number to "remove" it.

    Print support was a royal pain, I had to swap out her perfectly good printer for a new one that they supported after they deprecated Cloud Print. And, I had to buy her a new one after 5 years when it went EOL.

    Good for me, though - flip a hardware switch to allow writing to the BIOS, burn a third-party BIOS to it and I can use it as a Linux ultrabook, albeit slightly lower powered than I'd like.


    Replacing working hardware in order to make it fit your software deployment sounds so,
    so wasteful to me.

    I run mostly OpenBSD at home, yet I have never discarded working hardwae just because
    I could not make it work for my deployment. I either adjusted my deployment so I
    didn't have to purchase more electronic junk or found a new use for the hardware I was
    about to discard.

    In a firm, it makes sense to select the applications you intend to run, then the
    platforms you intend to run them on, and then select the hardware required for that.
    That is because in a firm, that setup is making you loads of money, so if you have to
    replace some infiniban cards or whatever it is less of a problem. You can always
    resell them in bulk and recoup part of the costs.

    We keep buying stuff and putting working stuff in the trashbin and then we feel good
    anyway because we vote for the Green Party or something :-(

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Spectre on Tue Oct 11 16:36:18 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: Spectre to Atreyu on Wed Oct 12 2022 07:51 am

    Woah! Hotmail is still a thing? I don't think I've seen anyone using a hotmail account in the last ten years. Might be a local thing though.

    I thought Microsoft is now requiring a Hotmail email address to create a user account in certain versions of Windows? Unless maybe Microsoft has another email service they're using. I think they actually renamed Hotmail to Outlook not too long ago. But yes, it's still a thing.

    Sometimes I've used my Hotmail email address when creating accounts elsewhere that I don't care too much about, or when I don't want to get their spam on my main email account.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Bex@21:1/137 to boraxman on Tue Oct 11 18:21:00 2022
    boraxman said to tenser: <=-

    That's not what "gatekeeperism" means.

    This is arguing a strawman: you've got a very different
    definition of "gatekeeperism" than what most other people

    Not really, I acknowledge I likely used the term incorrectly. The
    meaning behind what is said matters more than the specific words used.

    Words are important.

    -*- Bex <3
    Lightning McQueen: I'm serious! He's won three Piston Cups!
    Mater: He did WHAT in his cup?

    * Q-Blue 2.4 *
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Bex@21:1/137 to Adept on Tue Oct 11 18:28:00 2022
    Adept said to Spectre: <=-

    I'm of the belief that most "youth" are severely impaired when it comes to reading. They're to busy busting out the slang, and for the most part comprehension skills seem to have fallen through the floor. Which is

    Kids these days...

    But, seriously, my issue with this analysis is more that I doubt the intelligence of youth in the 90s or 80s.

    Every generation thinks the generations after them are lacking in
    education, intelligence, morals, etc. It's time for us GenXers to start
    doing the same thing to millenials and gen-Zers, unfortunately. I had hoped
    we were above such things.

    Personally, I think that Gen-Z are an amazing group and will make
    significant changes, moving our society forward. But that's a major
    digression on my part.

    -*- Bex <3
    "Am I going MAD, or did the word "think" escape your lips? You were not hired for your brains, you hippopotamic LAND MASS!"
    - Vizzini, "The Princess Bride"

    * Q-Blue 2.4 *
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Bex@21:1/137 to Spectre on Tue Oct 11 18:38:00 2022
    Spectre said to Adept: <=-

    comprehension skills seem to have fallen through the floor. Which is probably also an indictment of the teaching system.

    intelligence of youth in the 90s or 80s.

    at english skills rather than IQ.. If I had to hazzard it with no real data, english reading and comprehension has been in decline since the
    mid to late 70s and its more recently fallen off a precipice...

    I think that's a bit too cynical. And I am a dyed-in-the-wool cynic. :) I
    have had a lot of exposure to Gen-Z reading and comp classes between my
    kiddos (college freshman, high school junior and freshman). *What* the
    younger generation chooses to read is vastly different than what we read,
    and they consume it differently, but reading comprehension is strong in
    GenZ.

    -*- Bex <3
    Unable to locate Coffee -- Operator Halted!

    * Q-Blue 2.4 *
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Bex@21:1/137 to Warpslide on Tue Oct 11 18:42:00 2022
    Warpslide said to Spectre: <=-

    One only needs to look at the quality of song lyrics for proof of that.
    I'm afraid before too long we'll have some "#1 Hit" that is a person repeating the same word over & over.

    Like, for example, "Tequila"?

    Or these quality lyrics:
    Might as well jump
    Might as well jump
    Go ahead and jump
    Go ahead and jump



    -*- Bex <3
    As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it. -Mahatma Gandhi

    * Q-Blue 2.4 *
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Bex@21:1/137 to boraxman on Tue Oct 11 18:55:00 2022
    boraxman said to tenser: <=-

    I've never seen a Linux desktop at work, and few people that I know who

    The problem with anecdotal "evidence" is that it is so easy to bring up alternate examples. My first day at Jabber Inc, my first task was to remove Windows from the laptop I was given and install debian on it. Everyone on
    the tech side of the company ran linux, even after we were purchased by
    Cisco. My next two employers after that were dominated by linux
    workstations (Ubuntu and centos, mostly). The Linux desktop is here, just
    not in places where you've had exposure too.

    -*- Bex <3
    There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.

    * Q-Blue 2.4 *
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Bex@21:1/137 to boraxman on Tue Oct 11 19:14:00 2022
    boraxman said to tenser: <=-

    Take random people off the street and ask them if they've used Windows, MacOS or Linux, and tell me the result. Ask them what they use at
    home, what they know.

    That doesn't make any sense at all. Half the Windows users won't know what version of Windows they use, there'll be a lot of people who have no idea
    that there's something besides Windows, and a whole bunch of people will
    answer with the equivalent of "who cares?"

    Far more people use Linux than they think. My argument was based on
    what people chose to use for their computing.

    No, it wan't, your argument said that Linux was a niche product. If you
    meant your argument to be something else, you should have specified that.
    Words have meaning, and meaning is important.

    You're either being unnecessarily pedantic, deliberately taking my
    argument in bad faith, or genuinely not understanding it.

    No, you just did what you seem to do a lot when someone makes a point that
    you can't refute: you try and change the subject and say we misunderstood
    your original statement/argument.

    -*- Bex <3
    "Learn to use ten minutes intelligently. It will pay you huge dividends." - William A. Irwin

    * Q-Blue 2.4 *
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Bex@21:1/137 to boraxman on Tue Oct 11 19:18:00 2022
    boraxman said to tenser: <=-

    The ONLY Linux desktop I ever saw at a workplace was the one I had when
    I worked in IT support, because I chose to install it. I've worked at
    many companies, and audited and visited many others.

    In a previous position, I had *three* desktops with Linux on them, one
    running Ubuntu, one RHEL 6 and one SUSE stacked on my desk. That means that
    I directly refute your anecdotal "evidence" not once, not twice but THREE times!

    As I've mentioned to you a few times, anecdotal "evidence" is not evidence, it's just a description of one person's experience.

    -*- Bex <3
    "You are so finished when I get in there! I'm gonna stuff you in the blender, push 'puree,' then bake you into a pie and feed it to the social worker! And when he says, 'Mmmm, this is great, what's your secret?' I'm gonna say... [Looks up, notices Cobra Bubbles] ...'Love... and... nurturing...'" - Nani, "Lilo & Stitch"

    * Q-Blue 2.4 *
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From claw@21:1/210 to Spectre on Wed Oct 12 07:42:33 2022
    On 12 Oct 2022, Spectre said the following...
    Woah! Hotmail is still a thing? I don't think I've seen anyone using a hotmail account in the last ten years. Might be a local thing though.

    Spec

    You can't get new accounts but if you have one you can keep it. If you go to use it it will take you to outlook.com.

    |23|04Dr|16|12Claw
    |16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |04(|14Noverdu.com|04)
    |10Standard Ports for SSH/Telnet Web/HTTP://|14Noverdu.com:808
    |20|15fsxNet/MRC Chat/Registered Doors!/50Nodes/No Time Use! Stay On!|16|07

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)
  • From unixl0rd@21:2/150 to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Oct 12 19:28:04 2022
    WSL - Windows Subsystem for Linux. You can run one of several distros under WSL2. Under Windows 11, it'll apparently run X apps, too.

    Woops, I got the acronym wrong; thanks for correcting me. I didn't know you could run multiple distros and X11 apps; that's cool. Back in the days of Windows XP, there was another *nix subsystem that could be installed. I never installed it though.

    ... A clean limerick is a contradiction in terms.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Bex on Thu Oct 13 13:54:00 2022
    I think that's a bit too cynical. And I am a dyed-in-the-wool cynic. :) I have had a lot of exposure to Gen-Z reading and comp classes between my kiddos (college freshman, high school junior and freshman). *What* the younger generation chooses to read is vastly different than what we read, and they consume it differently, but reading comprehension is strong in GenZ.

    Yeah, I dunno. I s'pose even in my youth I was amongst the odd ones out, I enjoyed reading, read everything I could slap my eyeballs onto. And that may give heavily rose shaded glasses. But there were plenty that had trouble
    with it back then too, for the most part they were children of migrants for whom english was pretty much a second language.

    Still furiously scrubbing at those lenses, I'm pretty sure in the limited circles I travel, and I've mostly only got family to go by these days, those germinations that arrived later seem to have a much higher proportion of low grade morons in the english dept. They appear to rely much more on the
    visual aspect of things rather than the written word.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to Atreyu on Thu Oct 13 11:01:00 2022
    Am 11.10.22 schrieb Atreyu@21:1/176 in FSX_GEN:

    Hallo Atreyu,

    I'm also running my BBS at home, next to an Emby Media Server.
    I'm running a mail server for several domains (for my wife, her mum
    and me) and don't have massive problems with mails (only sometimes
    with Micro$oft users)

    Mostly the same scenario here too. I've been running my own email server at home for close to... 15 years and its all Microsoft, Exchange, proxy frontend etc, no Linux here. Are you using Domain-keys, SPF/Dmarc etc?

    I would never let any MS software near my production server setup :)

    Yes, I have DKIM, DMARC and SPF set up with all domains.

    Never had any problems delivering to Gmail. Microsoft I'm convinced is
    using some sort of internal reputation for Hotmail/Live.

    Probably, it's not really transparent.

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.56
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to NuSkooler on Tue Oct 11 07:10:00 2022
    NuSkooler wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    Can relate. My parents have these ancient printers, but they do work
    well still, so they won't get rid of them. Probably from '98 era or so.
    I had to do some rigging to get them to work in Linux. My father has a Windows machine he runs Photoshop in. For that, I had to run something
    out of VMware just so he could print ;D


    I want my old HP Inkjet 500 back. 300 dpi, built like a tank.


    ... Abandon desire
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From NuSkooler@21:1/121 to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Oct 13 09:52:52 2022

    poindexter FORTRAN around Tuesday, October 11th...
    I want my old HP Inkjet 500 back. 300 dpi, built like a tank.

    I'm actually really wanting to get my paws on a nice dot matrix that at least feels retro enough, but that I can get ink and paper for!


    --
    |08 â–  |12NuSkooler |06// |12Xibalba |08- |07"|06The place of fear|07"
    |08 â–  |03xibalba|08.|03l33t|08.|03codes |08(|0344510|08/|03telnet|08, |0344511|08/|03ssh|08)
    |08 â–  |03ENiGMA 1/2 WHQ |08| |03Phenom |08| |0367 |08| |03iMPURE |08| |03ACiDic
    --- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.13-beta (linux; x64; 16.16.0)
    * Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (21:1/121)
  • From nugax@21:1/167 to NuSkooler on Thu Oct 13 11:53:06 2022
    On 13 Oct 22 09:52:52, NuSkooler wrote:

    poindexter FORTRAN around Tuesday October 11th...
    I want my old HP Inkjet 500 back. 300 dpi built like a tank.

    Im actually really wanting to get my paws on a nice dot matrix that at least feels retro enough but that I can get ink and paper for!


    --
    |08 â–  |12NuSkooler |06// |12Xibalba |08- |07|06The place of fear|07
    |08 â–  |03xibalba|08.|03l33t|08.|03codes |08(|0344510|08/|03telnet|08 |0344511|08/|03ssh|08)
    |08 â–  |03ENiGMA 1/2 WHQ |08| |03Phenom |08| |0367 |08| |03iMPURE |08| |03ACiDic
    --- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.13-beta (linux; x64; 16.16.0)
    * Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (21:1/121)


    Good luck with that!

    -Nugax [CyberBBS]


    --- CyberBBS v1.0.8 2022/09/17 [LMDE 4/x86_64]
    * Origin: CyberBBS WHQ | http://www.cyberbbs.com (21:1/167)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to NuSkooler on Fri Oct 14 06:51:00 2022
    I'm actually really wanting to get my paws on a nice dot matrix that at least feels retro enough, but that I can get ink and paper for!

    There are plenty around. Most Epsons you'll still get ribbons for, Apple Imagewriters are another good option, it uses a C-Itoh ribbon, its a nominal
    9 pin unless you find an imagewriter II, but you can't get colour ribbons for that particular model.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From NuSkooler@21:1/121 to Spectre on Thu Oct 13 15:58:29 2022

    On Friday, October 14th Spectre muttered...
    There are plenty around. Most Epsons you'll still get ribbons for, Apple Imagewriters are another good option, it uses a C-Itoh ribbon, its a nominal 9 pin unless you find an imagewriter II, but you can't get colour ribbons for that particular model.

    This is great info, thank you! I've been printing from PrintShop for example to PDF then printing that on my InkJet, but it's just not the same. ...and no banners!


    --
    |08 â–  |12NuSkooler |06// |12Xibalba |08- |07"|06The place of fear|07"
    |08 â–  |03xibalba|08.|03l33t|08.|03codes |08(|0344510|08/|03telnet|08, |0344511|08/|03ssh|08)
    |08 â–  |03ENiGMA 1/2 WHQ |08| |03Phenom |08| |0367 |08| |03iMPURE |08| |03ACiDic
    --- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.13-beta (linux; x64; 16.16.0)
    * Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (21:1/121)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Avon on Tue Sep 27 06:44:58 2022
    On 24 Sep 2022 at 08:29a, Avon pondered and said...

    On 24 Sep 2022 at 08:08a, tenser pondered and said...

    The BBS thing has always had a problem with the "big fish
    in a small pond" syndrome, which in turn led to (and evidently continues to lead to) a rigid mentality with respect to both
    a sense of ownership and ways of doing things. This is, indeed,

    I would argue that this is not just a BBS thing, but perhaps something
    you may well expect to find in a number of communities. I wonder if it's sometimes borne out of incumbents comfort for the ways things are done, the desire for consistency etc. I'm not against such things per say but
    I agree new ideas that come along into any pursuit/interest (if tested
    or trialled with an open mindset) can lead to developments unseen or thought of by the wider community prior.

    Oh yeah, it's definitely not just BBSes. Ham radio is the
    other big offender that I'm most familiar with: there's a
    lot of entrenched gatekeeperism there as well (which is kind
    of what this "big fish; small pond" mentality amounts to).
    I'm sure the same is true of fly anglers and stamp collectors
    and all kinds of other communities.

    became a thing. Sadly, as in many things, many of the more reasonable voices in the community also fell casualty to the
    effect.

    I'd like to think the not all left, and of course what is 'reasonable'
    to one may be seen as unreasonable to another. The joys eh? :)

    Yes, many left, but not all. :-)

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Wed Sep 28 00:39:31 2022
    I would argue that this is not just a BBS thing, but perhaps somethin you may well expect to find in a number of communities. I wonder if i sometimes borne out of incumbents comfort for the ways things are don the desire for consistency etc. I'm not against such things per say b I agree new ideas that come along into any pursuit/interest (if teste or trialled with an open mindset) can lead to developments unseen or thought of by the wider community prior.

    Oh yeah, it's definitely not just BBSes. Ham radio is the
    other big offender that I'm most familiar with: there's a
    lot of entrenched gatekeeperism there as well (which is kind
    of what this "big fish; small pond" mentality amounts to).
    I'm sure the same is true of fly anglers and stamp collectors
    and all kinds of other communities.

    became a thing. Sadly, as in many things, many of the more reasonable voices in the community also fell casualty to the effect.

    I'd like to think the not all left, and of course what is 'reasonable to one may be seen as unreasonable to another. The joys eh? :)

    Yes, many left, but not all. :-)


    I'm all for gatekeeperism. Nothing is improved when it is opened to the masses.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From apam@21:1/182 to boraxman on Tue Sep 27 21:59:24 2022
    I'm all for gatekeeperism. Nothing is improved when it is opened to
    the masses.

    Nothing is improved when it's open to no one either.

    Andrew


    --- Talisman v0.43-dev (Windows/x64)
    * Origin: Smuggler's Cove - Private BBS (21:1/182)
  • From NuSkooler@21:1/121 to apam on Tue Sep 27 09:04:14 2022

    On Wednesday, September 28th apam muttered...
    I'm all for gatekeeperism. Nothing is improved when it is opened to
    the masses.
    Nothing is improved when it's open to no one either.

    Agree with Apam. I'm not a fan of any sort of 'gatekeeping', but I am a fan of regulation/moderation. Unfortunantely even that leads to power pulls from a lot of people. It's all just human nature, I guess.


    --
    |08 â–  |12NuSkooler |06// |12Xibalba |08- |07"|06The place of fear|07"
    |08 â–  |03xibalba|08.|03l33t|08.|03codes |08(|0344510|08/|03telnet|08, |0344511|08/|03ssh|08)
    |08 â–  |03ENiGMA 1/2 WHQ |08| |03Phenom |08| |0367 |08| |03iMPURE |08| |03ACiDic
    --- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.13-beta (linux; x64; 16.16.0)
    * Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (21:1/121)
  • From roman@21:1/158 to All on Tue Sep 27 18:23:54 2022
    In my deep conviction there is no problem in this matter. Because BBS / Gopher, like any communication technology, can be used for private needs, as well as for public ones. In fact, this is an argument about which is better
    an egg or a chicken.
    <Avon>
    On 24 Sep 2022 at 08:08a, tenser pondered and said...

    Yeah. I would be nice though if people could be nicer though.
    People
    complain that BBSing is dying and then when a new person comes
    along
    full of beans and keen to do things, instead of a polite netmail explaining what might be a better way to do things they get a
    public
    blast of rudeness.

    The BBS thing has always had a problem with the "big fish
    in a small pond" syndrome, which in turn led to (and evidently
    continues to lead to) a rigid mentality with respect to both
    a sense of ownership and ways of doing things. This is, indeed,

    I would argue that this is not just a BBS thing, but perhaps something you may well expect to find in a number of communities. I wonder if it's sometimes borne out of incumbents comfort for the ways things are done,
    the desire for consistency etc. I'm not against such things per say but I agree new ideas that come along into any pursuit/interest (if tested or trialled with an open mindset) can lead to developments unseen or thought
    of by the wider community prior.

    became a thing. Sadly, as in many things, many of the more
    reasonable voices in the community also fell casualty to the
    effect.

    I'd like to think the not all left, and of course what is 'reasonable' to one may be seen as unreasonable to another. The joys eh? :)

    Kerr Avon [Blake's 7] 'I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid and I'm not
    going'
    avon[at]bbs.nz | bbs.nz | fsxnet.nz

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

    --- Mystic BBS/NNTP v1.12 A47 2021/08/10 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: thE qUAntUm wOrmhOlE, rAmsgAtE, uK. bbs.erb.pw (21:1/158)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Wed Sep 28 10:43:13 2022
    On 28 Sep 2022 at 12:39a, boraxman pondered and said...

    I'm all for gatekeeperism. Nothing is improved when it is opened to the masses.

    Well, that's why these things die out.

    Ham radio's population grows ever older and is dying faster
    than they're being replaced.

    Compare BBSes now to the 90s. It's not just the Internet.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to apam on Thu Sep 29 01:37:40 2022
    I'm all for gatekeeperism. Nothing is improved when it is opened to the masses.

    Nothing is improved when it's open to no one either.

    Andrew


    It is open to everyone, its just that most people would prefer to be somewhere else or don't care. If you want lots of people here, you'll have to make the BBS a clone of Social Media, you sure you want to do that?

    This will remain a niche hobby for enthusiasts, and there is nothing really wrong with that. Times have changes, the BBS hasn't.

    At least, if there is going to be changes, then we shouldn't slavishly follow the crap trends that got the mainstream internet where it is.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From apam@21:1/182 to boraxman on Thu Sep 29 09:15:25 2022
    This will remain a niche hobby for enthusiasts, and there is nothing
    really wrong with that. Times have changes, the BBS hasn't.

    i dont disagree, but we were talking about gatekeeping werent we? when enthusiasts are turned away because existing enthusiasts are nasty and
    like to wave around how "important" they are, i think there is a problem.

    Andrew

    --- Talisman v0.43-dev (Windows/x64)
    * Origin: Smuggler's Cove - Private BBS (21:1/182)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to apam on Fri Sep 30 02:48:27 2022
    On 29 Sep 2022 at 09:15a, apam pondered and said...

    This will remain a niche hobby for enthusiasts, and there is nothing really wrong with that. Times have changes, the BBS hasn't.

    i dont disagree, but we were talking about gatekeeping werent we? when enthusiasts are turned away because existing enthusiasts are nasty and like to wave around how "important" they are, i think there is a problem.

    It is impossible for me to agree with this more.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to apam on Sat Oct 1 12:45:09 2022
    I'm all for gatekeeperism. Nothing is improved when it is opened to the masses.

    Nothing is improved when it's open to no one either.

    Andrew


    But it *IS* open to everyone. We are just an SSH/telnet client away. No one is barred, no one turned away.

    We are probably more open than Social Media, which is more oppressive and abuses its users.

    People either don't know, or don't care. They should know, and they should care.

    The gatekeeping is those who want to make this into something else should, something which loses the advantages and style we have, should be politely told that this is what it is. It's not a service with easy to use apps and tracking, and its not by default searchable and tracked by third party companies.

    I don't see the controversy in that.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Sat Oct 1 12:59:33 2022
    I'm all for gatekeeperism. Nothing is improved when it is opened to masses.

    Well, that's why these things die out.

    Ham radio's population grows ever older and is dying faster
    than they're being replaced.

    Compare BBSes now to the 90s. It's not just the Internet.


    I am a Linux user, and Linux is still niche. It hasn't taken over the world, and shouldn't. The very fact that Linux is "niche" is what makes it useful. IT caters to those who are seeking its reconfigurability, its freedom, its power. When something becomes BIG, you have to drop catering to all those people who built it in the first place.

    Google got BIG, and now it sucks as a search engine. It ruined the Web. Social media got BIG and ruined the social aspect of the Web. Once things get big, they lose what they were, and become bad. The popularity means nothing if it doesn't do good.

    It's pretty easy to switch to a mindset where you're just seeking sheer numbers, quantity over quality. Where you're willing to sacrifice what makes you unique, your unique offerings for generic mass appeal.

    People could very easily make 'tweaks' that result in third party companies now scraping and monitoring the data. People could make tweaks that result in sysops having to give up sole control. Modern Tech has a lot to be desired, and is in a ruinous state. I'm not saying it WILL happen, but one has to keep this in mind.

    Maybe I'm jumping at shadows here, but I come here because I felt repulsed by Social Media, by how the whole model works. I'm just saying lets not think reinventing Facebook is the solution.

    That being said, I'm quite interested in the PTT Bulletin Board System in Taiwan, as it has 1.5 million registered users, with peak usage numbers (numbers of users online at once) reaching the 6 digits at time.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTT_Bulletin_Board_System

    I'd be interested to see how close the experience is to using the BBS's that we know. If close, it shows that one can indeed have many, many users while still maintaining the BBS as a BBS.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to apam on Sat Oct 1 13:05:11 2022
    This will remain a niche hobby for enthusiasts, and there is nothing really wrong with that. Times have changes, the BBS hasn't.

    i dont disagree, but we were talking about gatekeeping werent we? when enthusiasts are turned away because existing enthusiasts are nasty and like to wave around how "important" they are, i think there is a problem.

    Andrew


    I perhaps chose the wrong word. What I meant, was that there is going to be a barrier to entry, namely the willingness to use a suitable client and use a text based interface. The fact that when you post a news link, you don't get a graphic summary with pictures, or no push notifications on your phone, etc, etc. People I know, who would benefit from using a private BBS, would require this, as they see WhatsApp, Signal, etc and want those feature. People may just want Facebook reimplemented, and other forms of intrusive communication and by "gatekeeping" I really meant saying "thats not what this is".

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Sat Oct 1 13:29:40 2022
    On 01 Oct 2022 at 12:45p, boraxman pondered and said...

    I'm all for gatekeeperism. Nothing is improved when it is opened the masses.

    Nothing is improved when it's open to no one either.

    Andrew


    But it *IS* open to everyone. We are just an SSH/telnet client away.
    No one is barred, no one turned away.

    We are probably more open than Social Media, which is more oppressive and abuses its users.

    People either don't know, or don't care. They should know, and they should care.

    The gatekeeping is those who want to make this into something else
    should, something which loses the advantages and style we have, should
    be politely told that this is what it is. It's not a service with easy
    to use apps and tracking, and its not by default searchable and tracked
    by third party companies.

    That's not what "gatekeeperism" means.

    I don't see the controversy in that.

    This is arguing a strawman: you've got a very different
    definition of "gatekeeperism" than what most other people
    have, and you're arguing for _your_ definition. But that
    is not what the people you are discussing the matter with
    mean.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Sat Oct 1 13:47:11 2022
    On 01 Oct 2022 at 12:59p, boraxman pondered and said...

    I'm all for gatekeeperism. Nothing is improved when it is opene masses.

    Well, that's why these things die out.

    Ham radio's population grows ever older and is dying faster
    than they're being replaced.

    Compare BBSes now to the 90s. It's not just the Internet.

    I am a Linux user, and Linux is still niche. It hasn't taken over the world, and shouldn't. The very fact that Linux is "niche" is what makes it useful. IT caters to those who are seeking its reconfigurability,
    its freedom, its power. When something becomes BIG, you have to drop catering to all those people who built it in the first place.

    Linux is not niche. It is actually huge, and _mostly_ backed
    by very large corporations that depend on it. Linux, in fact,
    has taken over the world; from Android phones and tablets to
    home routers, to every supercomputer on the top-500 list, it's
    literally everywhere. Hell, I saw it booting on an informational
    monitor in the Frankfurt airport last month. Schoolchildren
    are given chromebooks running Linux.

    Some like to say the sort of stuff that you do above, but they're
    not the ones doing the work. Most of those are at Intel, Amazon,
    Facebook, IBM, or Google.

    Google got BIG, and now it sucks as a search engine. It ruined the Web.

    Nope.

    Social media got BIG and ruined the social aspect of the Web. Once
    things get big, they lose what they were, and become bad. The
    popularity means nothing if it doesn't do good.

    The web didn't have much of a social aspect before social media.
    I was there and saw it develop from a few weird hyperlink pages
    to what it is today. People looked elsewhere for socialization
    before sixdegrees.com, friendster, and then blogs, myspace and
    facebook. USENET and IRC were the two big ones.

    It's pretty easy to switch to a mindset where you're just seeking sheer numbers, quantity over quality. Where you're willing to sacrifice what makes you unique, your unique offerings for generic mass appeal.

    People could very easily make 'tweaks' that result in third party companies now scraping and monitoring the data. People could make
    tweaks that result in sysops having to give up sole control. Modern
    Tech has a lot to be desired, and is in a ruinous state. I'm not saying it WILL happen, but one has to keep this in mind.

    Maybe I'm jumping at shadows here, but I come here because I felt
    repulsed by Social Media, by how the whole model works. I'm just saying lets not think reinventing Facebook is the solution.

    Your argument is essentially that BBSes are special because
    they are not important enough for the crass commercialization
    of Facebook and Twitter, IG and Tiktok. Ok. But consider
    that they were orders of magnitude more popular 25 years ago;
    now they aren't. Why is that? First, because they didn't
    give people what they wanted, and second, because you had
    "big personalities" being jerks _because they could_. At the
    time, there was no real competition, so people could appoint
    themselves lord high poobah of their calling region and if
    you didn't like it, tough: you were at their mercy. The
    much more sophisticated and interesting Internet thankfully
    freed people from the torment of these petty tyrants, but
    what happened to them? Well, gee, as it turns out: they
    stayed and now they see themselves as the protectors of the
    faith.

    What bunkum. No one wants to turn the little BBS paradise
    into Facebook; don't worry. No one wants to exploit the
    population of BBS users. But that doesn't mean that they
    want to kowtow to the gatekeepers, either.

    That being said, I'm quite interested in the PTT Bulletin Board System in Taiwan, as it has 1.5 million registered users, with peak usage numbers (numbers of users online at once) reaching the 6 digits at time.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTT_Bulletin_Board_System

    I'd be interested to see how close the experience is to using the BBS's that we know. If close, it shows that one can indeed have many, many users while still maintaining the BBS as a BBS.

    Why not login and try it?

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From apam@21:1/182 to tenser on Sat Oct 1 13:00:09 2022
    but
    what happened to them? Well, gee, as it turns out: they
    stayed and now they see themselves as the protectors of the
    faith.

    I think some of them became facebook group admins - watch out for those
    guys & girls. lol :)

    Andrew


    --- Talisman v0.43-dev (Windows/x64)
    * Origin: Smuggler's Cove - Private BBS (21:1/182)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Sat Oct 1 21:55:00 2022
    But it *IS* open to everyone. We are just an SSH/telnet client away. No one is barred, no one turned away.

    Well that makes sense, isn't one of the prime reasons for "your" BBS to try
    and attract new users? So from the user end of things it wants to be as open as possible.

    On the other hand there are barriers. Telnet clients are in decline,
    you have go and look for a client that is generally deprecated and insecure. ssh is probably slightly more straight forward, so long as you can find
    a bbs and a port to support it. I'd also hazzard a guess that most gen-Ys and millenials aren't going to have the attention span to sit and read all this stuff. No pretty pictures, no video... its like going backwards to grab a newspaper.. most don't do that either, and you can see that in the poor circulation newspapers have these days.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From apam@21:1/182 to Spectre on Sat Oct 1 22:46:23 2022
    newspaper.. most don't do that either, and you can see that in the
    poor
    circulation newspapers have these days.

    I think that's because news is readily available on the internet for
    free and newspapers can't compete, rather than any reading impairment the
    youth of today may have.

    I'd speculate on the quality of newspaper content and the relationship
    with rupert murdoch, but that might be too political.

    Andrew


    --- Talisman v0.43-dev (Windows/x64)
    * Origin: Smuggler's Cove - Private BBS (21:1/182)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to apam on Sun Oct 2 07:34:00 2022
    newspaper.. most don't do that either, and you can see that in the
    poor circulation newspapers have these days.

    I think that's because news is readily available on the internet for
    free and newspapers can't compete, rather than any reading impairment the youth of today may have.

    I'd speculate on the quality of newspaper content and the relationship with rupert murdoch, but that might be too political.

    I'm of the belief that most "youth" are severely impaired when it comes to reading. They're to busy busting out the slang, and for the most part comprehension skills seem to have fallen through the floor. Which is probably also an indictment of the teaching system.

    Not so sure you can blame the lot on Rupert. My first job was in a news agency, and even back then some 35 or more years ago, newspapers, specifically the Herald Sun were already in trouble. Readership dropping off year on
    year. A lot of what was once profitable has had to be merged to maintain any kind of economy of scale.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Sun Oct 2 16:43:03 2022
    I'm all for gatekeeperism. Nothing is improved when it is op the masses.

    Nothing is improved when it's open to no one either.

    Andrew


    But it *IS* open to everyone. We are just an SSH/telnet client away. No one is barred, no one turned away.

    We are probably more open than Social Media, which is more oppressive abuses its users.

    People either don't know, or don't care. They should know, and they should care.

    The gatekeeping is those who want to make this into something else should, something which loses the advantages and style we have, shoul be politely told that this is what it is. It's not a service with ea to use apps and tracking, and its not by default searchable and track by third party companies.

    That's not what "gatekeeperism" means.

    I don't see the controversy in that.

    This is arguing a strawman: you've got a very different
    definition of "gatekeeperism" than what most other people
    have, and you're arguing for _your_ definition. But that
    is not what the people you are discussing the matter with
    mean.


    Not really, I acknowledge I likely used the term incorrectly. The meaning behind what is said matters more than the specific words used.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Sun Oct 2 16:53:36 2022
    Linux is not niche. It is actually huge, and _mostly_ backed
    by very large corporations that depend on it. Linux, in fact,
    has taken over the world; from Android phones and tablets to
    home routers, to every supercomputer on the top-500 list, it's
    literally everywhere. Hell, I saw it booting on an informational
    monitor in the Frankfurt airport last month. Schoolchildren
    are given chromebooks running Linux.

    Some like to say the sort of stuff that you do above, but they're
    not the ones doing the work. Most of those are at Intel, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, or Google.


    I've never seen a Linux desktop at work, and few people that I know who have a computer uses it. TECHNICALLY, people using Android are using the Linux kernel, but that is so vastly different to what we consider to be a Linux desktop that the term "Linux user" has little meaning there. Most of these people would be unaware they are using Linux.

    Google got BIG, and now it sucks as a search engine. It ruined the W

    Nope.

    I think that it has. SEO has changed the web. We went from a World Wide Web to masses of generated half-content, much if which appears AI generated, purely to game the system to create ads. It's harder to find good information than it used to be, and there is a preponderance of utter garbage sites that rank at the top of Google's search, because Google's model encouraged and rewarded the creation of garbage.

    And don't get me started on Gmail...


    Social media got BIG and ruined the social aspect of the Web. Once things get big, they lose what they were, and become bad. The popularity means nothing if it doesn't do good.

    The web didn't have much of a social aspect before social media.
    I was there and saw it develop from a few weird hyperlink pages
    to what it is today. People looked elsewhere for socialization
    before sixdegrees.com, friendster, and then blogs, myspace and
    facebook. USENET and IRC were the two big ones.


    No, but that isn't really the point of the web. We did have means to chat and e-mail and message, and there were forums and BBS (both this style and the web based BBS). "Social Media" really mostly just made it easier, but poisoned the well by making the user the product. I was on Facebook back in 2006 and what Social Media now has grown into something too large, something that has fundamentally shaped human behaviour, our expectations. These platformarchs control our experience and mediate between people. Some US Californian scumbag can now censor and manipulate billions of people world wide. Ugh.

    Your argument is essentially that BBSes are special because
    they are not important enough for the crass commercialization
    of Facebook and Twitter, IG and Tiktok. Ok. But consider
    that they were orders of magnitude more popular 25 years ago;
    now they aren't. Why is that? First, because they didn't
    give people what they wanted, and second, because you had
    "big personalities" being jerks _because they could_. At the
    time, there was no real competition, so people could appoint
    themselves lord high poobah of their calling region and if
    you didn't like it, tough: you were at their mercy. The
    much more sophisticated and interesting Internet thankfully
    freed people from the torment of these petty tyrants, but
    what happened to them? Well, gee, as it turns out: they
    stayed and now they see themselves as the protectors of the
    faith.

    What bunkum. No one wants to turn the little BBS paradise
    into Facebook; don't worry. No one wants to exploit the
    population of BBS users. But that doesn't mean that they
    want to kowtow to the gatekeepers, either.


    The were thousands of BBSs, that is vastly different to what we have today. There wasn't a SINGLE BBS which controlled everything. If you didn't like one BBS, or thought the Sysop was a knob, you could go to another. Most people probably were members of more than one anyway (I was).

    I'm not saying that BBS's will become facebook, only that there are some bad ideas which can sneak in when you want to popularise it, and those bad ideas should stay out.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Sun Oct 2 17:12:50 2022
    Well that makes sense, isn't one of the prime reasons for "your" BBS to try and attract new users? So from the user end of things it wants to
    be as open as possible.

    On the other hand there are barriers. Telnet clients are in decline,
    you have go and look for a client that is generally deprecated and insecure. ssh is probably slightly more straight forward, so long as you can find a bbs and a port to support it. I'd also hazzard a guess that most gen-Ys and millenials aren't going to have the attention span to
    sit and read all this stuff. No pretty pictures, no video... its like going backwards to grab a newspaper.. most don't do that either, and you can see that in the poor circulation newspapers have these days.

    Spec

    My BBS is meant for a particular community, and the idea is to solve a problem for us, rather than simply seek to be popular. The problem is to have a place where we can continue discussions from our meetups, a place maybe to store files (like books, PDF's), possibly chat, bulletins. Other options may be better, some type of groupware but the BBS seemed to have everything already ready to go. The lack of pictures was a positive actually, to dissuade people just posting "memes" and seeking "likes". We used Facebook, but the debate was really shallow because its easy to just post newslinks and get reactions, and make quick one word comments. That and the fact that we shouldn't have to have some Californian company use and abuse us just so we can talk to each other.

    You are right about the new trends in Millenials, but I don't feel that I need to follow trends. I don't need to be where the "people" are because it kind of sucks. I left it and am not missing anything. Social Media is overrated.

    One thing though, people, at least some, do have a curiosity. I use Emacs at work and people ask about it, and I show them ORG mode and how easily I can manage my tasks, edit files, all the cool things I can do that they just can't. A couple have wanted to try it out. Similarly, I think some people if they saw a cool BBS would be interested, a small minority sure, but they would be. I was out of the scene for many years simply because I didn't know they existed.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to boraxman on Sat Oct 1 23:43:45 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: boraxman to tenser on Sun Oct 02 2022 04:53 pm

    I've never seen a Linux desktop at work, and few people that I know who have a computer uses it.

    I used to work at a small company where we all had Linux on our PCs and used it for our software development work. It was a total Linux shop. And that was back in 2003-2007. And currently, where I work now, I've worked on a couple projects that have involved Linux installed on a Raspberry Pi system running a web interface for some software.

    Even some PC gaming companies like Steam are supporting Linux these days.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Sun Oct 2 17:55:00 2022
    My BBS is meant for a particular community, and the idea is to solve a

    So you've got a "gated" system for a dieing breed thats enclosed to keep
    the dinosaurs safe.

    No suggestion that you'd want FacePlant or other social media users
    generally, that's merely pointing out that they won't be using your BBS
    unless they're already BBS users. The whole system doesn't fit their modus operandi.

    Similarly, I think some people if they saw a cool BBS would be

    enchanted my the novelty for 10 minutes and disappear.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From Ogg@21:4/106.21 to boraxman on Sun Oct 2 11:17:00 2022
    Hello boraxman!

    ** On Sunday 02.10.22 - 16:53, boraxman wrote to tenser:

    Google got BIG, and now it sucks as a search engine. It ruined the
    W

    Nope.

    I think that it has. SEO has changed the web. We went
    from a World Wide Web to masses of generated half-content,
    much if which appears AI generated, purely to game the
    system to create ads. It's harder to find good information
    than it used to be, and there is a preponderance of utter
    garbage sites that rank at the top of Google's search,
    because Google's model encouraged and rewarded the creation
    of garbage.

    But google has become a verb. "I'll google it!". There is no
    equivalent for BBSing. "I'll BBS-it" ..don't sound right. :D
    .: google wins.


    And don't get me started on Gmail...

    The DO have a fine spam-filter function.

    [...] I was on Facebook back in 2006 and what Social Media
    now has grown into something too large, something that has
    fundamentally shaped human behaviour, our expectations.
    These platformarchs control our experience and mediate
    between people. Some US Californian scumbag can now censor
    and manipulate billions of people world wide. Ugh.

    But you can ignore the ads.

    Facebook seems to be a simple feature-rich common tool that CAN
    help people stay in touch. Photos, video-chat, voice-chat,
    video/sound messages, etc.

    I'm currently configuring a Fire HD for a senior relative of
    mine who is basically housebound, coping with arthritis and
    rarely gets outside contact except by traditional phone. She
    misses the interactions of friends, their photos, etc. I'm
    hoping that the Fire HD + Facebook will give her that
    opportinity to access what people are normally sharing via
    their phones. A "bbs" experience wouldn't work.



    --- OpenXP 5.0.51
    * Origin: (} Pointy McPointFace (21:4/106.21)
  • From Ogg@21:4/106.21 to Spectre on Sun Oct 2 11:27:00 2022
    Hello Spectre!

    ** On Sunday 02.10.22 - 17:55, Spectre wrote to boraxman:

    My BBS is meant for a particular community, and the idea
    is to solve a

    So you've got a "gated" system for a dieing breed thats
    enclosed to keep the dinosaurs safe.

    Perhaps "walled garden" is a better term?


    Similarly, I think some people if they saw a cool BBS
    would be

    enchanted my the novelty for 10 minutes and disappear.

    BBSes are generally a niche at this stage in life. But I think
    there is versatility and power in the messaging technologies
    (ftn, qwk) that could "connect" true conversationalists.

    --

    --- OpenXP 5.0.51
    * Origin: (} Pointy McPointFace (21:4/106.21)
  • From NuSkooler@21:1/121 to Nightfox on Sun Oct 2 11:08:50 2022

    Twas Saturday, October 1st when Nightfox said...
    Even some PC gaming companies like Steam are supporting Linux these days.

    If you take a look a the Steam Deck, it's literaly just a Linux desktop with Proton running. Not even special hardware per-se. lscpu and lshw show pretty generic components.



    --
    |08 â–  |12NuSkooler |06// |12Xibalba |08- |07"|06The place of fear|07"
    |08 â–  |03xibalba|08.|03l33t|08.|03codes |08(|0344510|08/|03telnet|08, |0344511|08/|03ssh|08)
    |08 â–  |03ENiGMA 1/2 WHQ |08| |03Phenom |08| |0367 |08| |03iMPURE |08| |03ACiDic
    --- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.13-beta (linux; x64; 16.16.0)
    * Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (21:1/121)
  • From Adept@21:2/108 to tenser on Sun Oct 2 17:32:53 2022
    Google got BIG, and now it sucks as a search engine. It ruined the W
    Nope.

    I kinda think that Google is "ruining the web" with various choices being made with Manifest v3, which is a problem because of Chromium controlling almost all of the browser market.

    My preferred browser is Firefox, but at some point I'm not entirely sure if it'll matter.

    But Google the search engine... Well, even there, if they're really awful, it's probably not _too_ hard to make a palatable option. As it is, I use DuckDuckGo (and thus Bing), though mostly because I try to keep my usage varied.

    E.g., while I might shop with Amazon, I'll try my hardest to shop with anyone else first, so it's not a big change for me if they are terrible.

    that they were orders of magnitude more popular 25 years ago;
    now they aren't. Why is that? First, because they didn't
    give people what they wanted, and second, because you had

    I tend to figure one could stop there. People went on the internet because it allowed you to do a lot of new and interesting things, including with graphics, and it didn't depend on what was available in your local calling area.

    And the barrier to entry was lower than it was for figuring out how to use a BBS.

    "big personalities" being jerks _because they could_. At the

    ...I think I get your point, but with how people are on the internet...

    Well, even just thinking about the little Napoleons on Wikipedia...

    But more broadly than that, there tends to be a lot of discussion about what various sites on the internet allow or do not allow.

    Maybe less controlled by a single individual, though.

    What bunkum. No one wants to turn the little BBS paradise
    into Facebook; don't worry.

    I am also not worried about this, so do understand that whatever points I'm making are more picking at the edges, rather than actually disagreeing.

    But I'm excited to see what people can come up with, especially if it's something where I don't _have_ to participate if I don't want to.

    That being said, I'm quite interested in the PTT Bulletin Board Syste Taiwan, as it has 1.5 million registered users, with peak usage numbe
    Why not login and try it?

    ...wouldn't it be in Chinese?

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)
  • From Adept@21:2/108 to Spectre on Sun Oct 2 17:39:51 2022
    I'm of the belief that most "youth" are severely impaired when it comes to reading. They're to busy busting out the slang, and for the most part comprehension skills seem to have fallen through the floor. Which is probably also an indictment of the teaching system.

    Kids these days...

    But, seriously, my issue with this analysis is more that I doubt the intelligence of youth in the 90s or 80s.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to NuSkooler on Sun Oct 2 14:41:36 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: NuSkooler to Nightfox on Sun Oct 02 2022 11:08 am

    Even some PC gaming companies like Steam are supporting Linux these
    days.

    If you take a look a the Steam Deck, it's literaly just a Linux desktop with Proton running. Not even special hardware per-se. lscpu and lshw show pretty generic components.

    Yeah, I've looked into Steam Deck a bit, and it looks interesting.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Adept on Mon Oct 3 07:32:00 2022
    comprehension skills seem to have fallen through the floor. Which is probably also an indictment of the teaching system.

    Kids these days...

    But, seriously, my issue with this analysis is more that I doubt the intelligence of youth in the 90s or 80s.

    I don't know they were a lot smarter... but I'm specificially looking at english skills rather than IQ.. If I had to hazzard it with no real data, english reading and comprehension has been in decline since the mid to late
    70s and its more recently fallen off a precipice...

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Mon Oct 3 12:26:12 2022
    On 02 Oct 2022 at 04:53p, boraxman pondered and said...

    Linux is not niche. It is actually huge, and _mostly_ backed
    by very large corporations that depend on it. Linux, in fact,
    has taken over the world; from Android phones and tablets to
    home routers, to every supercomputer on the top-500 list, it's literally everywhere. Hell, I saw it booting on an informational monitor in the Frankfurt airport last month. Schoolchildren
    are given chromebooks running Linux.

    Some like to say the sort of stuff that you do above, but they're
    not the ones doing the work. Most of those are at Intel, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, or Google.

    I've never seen a Linux desktop at work, and few people that I know who have a computer uses it.

    This is anecdotal evidence, and is a common logical fallacy.

    Just because _you_ haven't seen a thing doesn't mean that that
    thing isn't common.

    In _my_ professional career, it's rare to see someone using,
    say, a Windows desktop. That doesn't mean that Windows isn't
    wildly popular as a desktop OS.

    And moreover, when we're talking about Linux, we're talking
    about Linux, which encompasses a lot more than just someone's
    idea of a desktop system.

    TECHNICALLY, people using Android are using
    the Linux kernel, but that is so vastly different to what we consider to be a Linux desktop that the term "Linux user" has little meaning there.

    "We" who, precisely?

    Most of these people would be unaware they are using Linux.

    That seems mostly irrelevant to the success of Linux.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Adept on Mon Oct 3 12:41:33 2022
    On 02 Oct 2022 at 05:32p, Adept pondered and said...

    Google got BIG, and now it sucks as a search engine. It ruined
    Nope.

    I kinda think that Google is "ruining the web" with various choices
    being made with Manifest v3, which is a problem because of Chromium controlling almost all of the browser market.

    Perhaps, but that's a technology thing, less a "google drives
    content to suck because of SEO" sort of thing.

    But Google the search engine... Well, even there, if they're really
    awful, it's probably not _too_ hard to make a palatable option. As it
    is, I use DuckDuckGo (and thus Bing), though mostly because I try to
    keep my usage varied.

    Search is a hard problem and requires vast capital resources to
    address in a meaningful way. Most of the web is still outside
    of the walled gardens of Facebook et al, and indexing it is not
    easy, let alone making the search corpus available to people.

    In some sense, Google benefited enormously because, when it
    started out, the web was much, much smaller and so it could grow
    _with_ the web. Not so much these days.

    (Disclaimer: I worked at Google for a long time, though as a kernel
    person doing experimental next-gen OS stuff, not really search.)

    I tend to figure one could stop there. People went on the internet
    because it allowed you to do a lot of new and interesting things, including with graphics, and it didn't depend on what was available in your local calling area.

    Yes. As anemic as we thought the web was at the time it was
    introduced (HTTP was laughable; HTML seemed like a huge step
    backward compared to something like texinfo or even man pages),
    it was frankly better technology than what most BBSes sported.

    ...I think I get your point, but with how people are on the internet...

    Well, even just thinking about the little Napoleons on Wikipedia...

    In some senses, we're all people on the Internet now. Just as
    the POTS phone system continues to slide from relevance, BBSes
    are just services running on the Internet now.

    But more broadly than that, there tends to be a lot of discussion about what various sites on the internet allow or do not allow.

    Maybe less controlled by a single individual, though.

    Yeah, early on there was a weird mix of hippy libertarianism
    where anything went in the marketplace of ideas, but no person
    or organization owes anyone a platform, so you see AUPs in a
    way that, say, you didn't back in the USENET days.

    That being said, I'm quite interested in the PTT Bulletin Board Taiwan, as it has 1.5 million registered users, with peak usage
    Why not login and try it?

    ...wouldn't it be in Chinese?

    I think there's a lot of English there. I logged in once and
    could find my way around.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From esc@21:4/173 to Spectre on Sun Oct 2 16:58:45 2022
    I don't know they were a lot smarter... but I'm specificially looking at english skills rather than IQ.. If I had to hazzard it with no real data, english reading and comprehension has been in decline since the mid to late 70s and its more recently fallen off a precipice...

    *hazard

    ;) couldn't help myself considering the subject matter

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to esc on Mon Oct 3 10:36:00 2022
    *hazard

    ;) couldn't help myself considering the subject matter

    Chuckle...


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to tenser on Mon Oct 3 10:47:00 2022
    Search is a hard problem and requires vast capital resources to
    address in a meaningful way. Most of the web is still outside of the walled gardens of Facebook et al, and indexing it is not easy, let
    alone making the search corpus available to people.

    I'm at times left to wonder, how much data Google Search actually maintains about the individuals using it. I've found frequently if I swap search
    engines I cannot get anything remotely like the information I'm looking for while getting all sorts of extraneous junk. While if I go back to the Google Empire I'll generally get a better result. Usually I'm not looking for anything thats on any other major service like FacePalm or similar.

    In some sense, Google benefited enormously because, when it started
    out, the web was much, much smaller and so it could grow _with_
    the web. Not so much these days.

    They were also able to keep moving with the times... where a lot of others
    fell by the wayside. Way back when I used to prefer WebCrawler, with Alta Vista as a backup position, but it got to the point you couldn't get anything reasonable out of them.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Nightfox on Tue Oct 4 00:16:55 2022
    I've never seen a Linux desktop at work, and few people that I know w have a computer uses it.

    I used to work at a small company where we all had Linux on our PCs and used it for our software development work. It was a total Linux shop. And that was back in 2003-2007. And currently, where I work now, I've worked on a couple projects that have involved Linux installed on a Raspberry Pi system running a web interface for some software.

    Even some PC gaming companies like Steam are supporting Linux these days.

    Nightfox

    I've worked for produces of medicinal products, so a different industry. I would imagine that software developers may be more likely to use Linux than say, Pfizer. I did see Linux once on an Internet Kiosk computer in a backpackers in Germany, and have maybe seen it once or twice elsewhere, but quite rare.

    The state library were using Sun workstations for a while for their public computers, but that probably doesn't count.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Tue Oct 4 00:22:50 2022
    So you've got a "gated" system for a dieing breed thats enclosed to keep the dinosaurs safe.

    No suggestion that you'd want FacePlant or other social media users generally, that's merely pointing out that they won't be using your BBS unless they're already BBS users. The whole system doesn't fit their modus operandi.



    The reason it was 'gated' was because it was suggested to have a private online space where we could engage in forums and discussions privately without having to worry about 1) Data harvesting 2) Miscreants and 3) Having the platform pulled from under us. This wasn't a "we've got something to hide" kind of thing, it was more a desire to bring back Usenet and the old style discussion forums.

    It's not hard to just provide a .ZIP with SyncTerm and an address book already configured with the BBS and their username and a shortcut which autoconnects.

    It could be done with a Telegram group, but Telegram has its limitations.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Ogg on Tue Oct 4 00:30:52 2022
    But google has become a verb. "I'll google it!". There is no equivalent for BBSing. "I'll BBS-it" ..don't sound right. :D
    .: google wins.


    Don't really know if Google "wins". They are in a different domain.

    The DO have a fine spam-filter function.


    Yeah, which blocks out legitimate e-mails! I would send e-mails to someone with a gmail account and some would just not go through at all. Gmail would silently drop e-mails, not to junk, not to spam, just dropped because they were too simple.

    Google also has high requirements for accepting e-mails from a server. So if you set up your own e-mail server, gmail will likely not accept your outbound e-mails. We may end up in a situation where only the major players are able to send e-mails with the option for people to start their own servers taken off the table.

    But you can ignore the ads.

    Facebook seems to be a simple feature-rich common tool that CAN
    help people stay in touch. Photos, video-chat, voice-chat,
    video/sound messages, etc.

    I'm currently configuring a Fire HD for a senior relative of
    mine who is basically housebound, coping with arthritis and
    rarely gets outside contact except by traditional phone. She
    misses the interactions of friends, their photos, etc. I'm
    hoping that the Fire HD + Facebook will give her that
    opportinity to access what people are normally sharing via
    their phones. A "bbs" experience wouldn't work.


    I was on Facebook, and I found that discussions would tend to turn toxic more easily than in real life. Also, their messages would be buried in feeds. I just look at all the angst that it has caused people, especially young girls, the attention seeking, the way that Social Media has caused many social problems. I admit it is easy, but I think with Facebook and Twitter, it is TOO easy to shout to the world.

    I left Facebook, and I realised that I didn't really connect with people. All the discussion were brief and I didn't really get to know people. Even with MSN Messenger I made new friends. My mum still uses it, and really, she just scrolls through screen after screen of pointless pap, which is how I observe many people use it. It just took a lot of time from people.

    The BBS here is more focused. It takes as much time as it needs for meaningful communication and not more.

    Facebook is like McDonalds. Its easy to access, easy to eat, but ultimately, despite it popularity, generally pretty lousy for your health and wellbeing.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to tenser on Tue Oct 4 00:35:08 2022
    This is anecdotal evidence, and is a common logical fallacy.

    Just because _you_ haven't seen a thing doesn't mean that that
    thing isn't common.

    In _my_ professional career, it's rare to see someone using,
    say, a Windows desktop. That doesn't mean that Windows isn't
    wildly popular as a desktop OS.

    And moreover, when we're talking about Linux, we're talking
    about Linux, which encompasses a lot more than just someone's
    idea of a desktop system.


    Are you a software developer of some description by any chance? Most people in the world are not actually software developers.

    TECHNICALLY, people using Android are using
    the Linux kernel, but that is so vastly different to what we consider be a Linux desktop that the term "Linux user" has little meaning ther

    "We" who, precisely?

    When people say they use Linux, they mean a computer. When people use Android, they say they use Android. Very few Android users say they are Linux users.

    We know this, because there are "Linux Phones" which are called such, despite the fact that Android phones have a Linux kernel. The language people use says it all. A "Linux system" is one which has not only a Linux kernel, but userspace tools typical of a Linux install.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Warpslide@21:3/110.1 to Spectre on Mon Oct 3 08:25:22 2022
    *** Quoting Spectre from a message to Adept ***

    I don't know they were a lot smarter... but I'm specificially looking
    at english skills rather than IQ.. If I had to hazzard it with no
    real data, english reading and comprehension has been in decline
    since the mid to late 70s and its more recently fallen off a
    precipice...

    One only needs to look at the quality of song lyrics for proof of that. I'm afraid before too long we'll have some "#1 Hit" that is a person repeating
    the same word over & over.


    Jay

    ... To the guy who invented zero, thanks for nothing

    --- Telegard v3.09.g2-sp4/mL
    * Origin: Northern Realms | tg.nrbbs.net | 289-424-5180 (21:3/110.1)
  • From Ogg@21:4/106.21 to Warpslide on Mon Oct 3 09:08:00 2022
    Hello Warpslide!

    ** On Monday 03.10.22 - 08:25, Warpslide wrote to Spectre:

    *** Quoting Spectre from a message to Adept ***

    real data, english reading and comprehension has been in
    decline since the mid to late 70s and its more recently
    fallen off a precipice...

    One only needs to look at the quality of song lyrics for
    proof of that. I'm afraid before too long we'll have some
    "#1 Hit" that is a person repeating the same word over &
    over.

    Rianna, "Work, work, work..."

    --- OpenXP 5.0.51
    * Origin: (} Pointy McPointFace (21:4/106.21)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Spectre on Mon Oct 3 11:04:30 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: Spectre to tenser on Mon Oct 03 2022 10:47 am

    I'm at times left to wonder, how much data Google Search actually maintains about the individuals using it. I've found frequently if I swap search engines I cannot get anything remotely like the information I'm looking for while getting all sorts of extraneous junk. While if I go back to the Googl Empire I'll generally get a better result. Usually I'm not looking for anything thats on any other major service like FacePalm or similar.


    I don t know. For general search, Bing/Duckduckgo are quite good. Results don t get better if I switch to Startpage/Google.

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Spectre on Tue Oct 4 09:12:10 2022
    On 03 Oct 2022 at 10:47a, Spectre pondered and said...

    Search is a hard problem and requires vast capital resources to address in a meaningful way. Most of the web is still outside of the walled gardens of Facebook et al, and indexing it is not easy, let alone making the search corpus available to people.

    I'm at times left to wonder, how much data Google Search actually maintains about the individuals using it. I've found frequently if I
    swap search engines I cannot get anything remotely like the information I'm looking for while getting all sorts of extraneous junk. While if I
    go back to the Google Empire I'll generally get a better result.
    Usually I'm not looking for anything thats on any other major service
    like FacePalm or similar.

    If you go to your Google account, you can download everything
    they know about you and all of your data that they're holding
    onto via the "Takeout" service (or whatever they're calling it
    these days). I can say that user data is encrypted at rest
    and that if you delete it, it is fully purged from Google's
    servers (including backups) in something like 30 days.

    In some sense, Google benefited enormously because, when it started out, the web was much, much smaller and so it could grow _with_
    the web. Not so much these days.

    They were also able to keep moving with the times... where a lot of
    others fell by the wayside. Way back when I used to prefer WebCrawler, with Alta Vista as a backup position, but it got to the point you
    couldn't get anything reasonable out of them.

    Yup. That's exactly right.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to boraxman on Tue Oct 4 09:13:26 2022
    On 04 Oct 2022 at 12:16a, boraxman pondered and said...

    I've worked for produces of medicinal products, so a different industry.
    I would imagine that software developers may be more likely to use Linux than say, Pfizer. I did see Linux once on an Internet Kiosk computer in
    a backpackers in Germany, and have maybe seen it once or twice
    elsewhere, but quite rare.

    I promise you Pfizer is running Linux all over the place.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Tue Oct 4 07:34:00 2022
    The reason it was 'gated' was because it was suggested to have a private online space where we could engage in forums and discussions privately without having to worry about 1) Data harvesting 2) Miscreants and 3) Having the platform pulled from under us. This wasn't a "we've got something to hide" kind of thing, it was more a desire to bring back Usenet and the old style discussion forums.

    I can't see anyone doing data harvesting from BBS' its just such a minority it'd have no value other than interest. You'll always get some miscreants, doesn't to much matter what platform it is, its just a matter of dealing
    with them as they arise. If usenet was resurrectable it'd still be a popular platform. Like the BBS end of things its a mere shadow of itself and in continued decline. You're looking for other dinosaurs to join reserve without looking at the bigger picture, without "new blood" they'll die out. You'll eventually have to put up with a level of openess to stay alive.

    It could be done with a Telegram group, but Telegram has its limitations.

    Shrug, I know nothing about telegram. Until last week I'd never heard of it. However it already implies your dinosaur collection is already being diluted
    by other attractions.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Tue Oct 4 07:37:00 2022
    Google also has high requirements for accepting e-mails from a server. So if you set up your own e-mail server, gmail will likely not accept your outbound e-mails. We may end up in a situation where only the major

    Never seen that. IME GMAIL has always been one of the more accepting servers. In fact even being able to use it as a relay to other servers that are persnickety about it.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Ogg on Tue Oct 4 07:40:00 2022
    Rianna, "Work, work, work..."

    Not to mention the umber-ella ella ella... <boggle>

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Arelor on Tue Oct 4 07:44:00 2022
    I don t know. For general search, Bing/Duckduckgo are quite good. Results don t get better if I switch to Startpage/Google.

    So its a your mileage may vary job.. it'll probably depend on where you are
    and what you're searching for. DuckDuck is notoriously poor for me here.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to boraxman on Mon Oct 3 15:19:09 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: boraxman to tenser on Tue Oct 04 2022 12:35 am

    In _my_ professional career, it's rare to see someone using,
    say, a Windows desktop. That doesn't mean that Windows isn't
    wildly popular as a desktop OS.

    Are you a software developer of some description by any chance? Most people in the world are not actually software developers.

    I know I'm not the person you were replying to, but I am a softare developer, and I do see a lot of software developers using Windows. But I've also seen some software developers using Linux, and some prefer Mac. It also seems to depend what people are working on - It seems there are lot of web developers who seem to gravitate toward Mac for some reason. I think there are also perfectly good web development software tools for Windows and Linux.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From unixl0rd@21:2/150 to Nightfox on Mon Oct 3 19:53:47 2022
    I am a web developer, and I use a Mac. It's the system I had to use at my
    first job, and I've just stuck with it.

    ... Do married people live longer, or does it just seem that way?

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Bex on Sat Oct 15 23:32:11 2022
    The problem with anecdotal "evidence" is that it is so easy to bring up alternate examples. My first day at Jabber Inc, my first task was to remove Windows from the laptop I was given and install debian on it. Everyone on the tech side of the company ran linux, even after we were purchased by Cisco. My next two employers after that were dominated by linux workstations (Ubuntu and centos, mostly). The Linux desktop is
    here, just not in places where you've had exposure too.


    Linux does seem much more prevalent in tech circles. I work in the pharmaceutical business, and everything there is straight down the line standard "enterprise" solutions. Doesn't make for a good computing environment.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Bex on Sat Oct 15 23:45:25 2022
    Take random people off the street and ask them if they've used Windows MacOS or Linux, and tell me the result. Ask them what they use at home, what they know.

    That doesn't make any sense at all. Half the Windows users won't know
    what version of Windows they use, there'll be a lot of people who have
    no idea that there's something besides Windows, and a whole bunch of people will answer with the equivalent of "who cares?"



    No, it wan't, your argument said that Linux was a niche product. If you meant your argument to be something else, you should have specified that. Words have meaning, and meaning is important.


    I don't think it really matters because my view is that it is niche. Niche isn't a pejorative, it is simply a statement.

    You're either being unnecessarily pedantic, deliberately taking my argument in bad faith, or genuinely not understanding it.

    No, you just did what you seem to do a lot when someone makes a point
    that you can't refute: you try and change the subject and say we misunderstood your original statement/argument.


    I don't believe I'm disputing any data regarding use rates of Linux, where and who uses

    "Seem to do a lot".

    I don't think so.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Bex on Sat Oct 15 23:46:41 2022
    The ONLY Linux desktop I ever saw at a workplace was the one I had whe I worked in IT support, because I chose to install it. I've worked at many companies, and audited and visited many others.

    In a previous position, I had *three* desktops with Linux on them, one running Ubuntu, one RHEL 6 and one SUSE stacked on my desk. That means that I directly refute your anecdotal "evidence" not once, not twice but THREE times!

    As I've mentioned to you a few times, anecdotal "evidence" is not evidence, it's just a description of one person's experience.

    -*- Bex <3

    I posted data which showed usage rates. That trumps all.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Tracker1@21:3/149 to boraxman on Sun Oct 16 19:30:42 2022
    On 10/15/22 03:32, boraxman wrote:

    Linux does seem much more prevalent in tech circles. I work in
    the pharmaceutical business, and everything there is straight
    down the line standard "enterprise" solutions. Doesn't make for
    a good computing environment.

    WSL+Docker does at least make it more tolerable... if less than ideal.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com (21:3/149)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Tracker1 on Tue Oct 18 13:40:05 2022
    Linux does seem much more prevalent in tech circles. I work in
    the pharmaceutical business, and everything there is straight
    down the line standard "enterprise" solutions. Doesn't make for
    a good computing environment.

    WSL+Docker does at least make it more tolerable... if less than ideal.
    --

    If you have permission to install it. My workstation is pretty locked, so I can get away with a "portable" install of Emacs, and that is about it. It was a little better when we had Macs, as I could at least make use of Unix tooling. But with Windows, it really does feel horribly limited. Worse is the choice of technologies. Teams AND OneDrive AND SharePoint AND some other cloud based file storage for files. Having to open PDF's which are scans of printed pages in order to get information (no real databases), Excel for databases, where there is more focus on formatting it according to our "branding" than making the data accessible.

    And this isn't a small company either.

    I can understand why people who understand computing would use Linux, but in industries which are populated by people who have little to no interest in IT, things take a very different turn, and the systems are pretty lousy.

    Oh, and we're getting an electronic all singing, all dancing, expensive enterprise solution, which I suspect from what I've heard, will just be used like an overpriced SharePoint document management system and JIRA.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Orbitman@21:2/131 to NuSkooler on Thu Oct 20 21:48:56 2022
    On Friday, October 7th boraxman was heard saying...

    I installed Linux for my wife, but to her its just a web browser with files on the desktop and a few games. She doesn't care what she's us because she's not really "using" the operating system as such.


    My daily driver is Ubuntu 22.04 and my wife has no problem using it
    whatsoever. She can do pretty much what she wants to do (which isn't really much).

    Yep, I have my mother running Linux. It saves her from malware and the like, and just like your wife, she uses it for what she wants and
    doesn't notice the difference. I even gave her a "Windows-like" desktop
    so the 'start' button, apps, etc. are familiar. Never looked back.

    I recently did the same thing for my Mom. I took her old Win 'puter and put Ubuntu on it. She loves it! All she does is email, web surfing, pay some
    bills and social media (Fakebook). No worries about her getting malware or stupid windows errors. All the hardware was supported including the printer (HP printer). For her, it just works...and that's plenty good for me.

    ----
    Thanks!
    Orbitman (Allen)
    Orbit BBS, Opp, AL USA
    orbitbbs.ddns.net:7210

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/32)
    * Origin: Orbit BBS-Opp, AL. USA | orbitbbs.ddns.net:7210 (21:2/131)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Arelor on Sat Oct 22 08:36:00 2022
    Arelor wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    Replacing working hardware in order to make it fit your software deployment sounds so, so wasteful to me.

    Luckily, in muy mom's case, I was able to get her a Brother laser printer
    with a sensible control panel and use her non-supported (on ChromeOS)
    printer for my wife - it's a better fit on her desk.

    I run mostly OpenBSD at home, yet I have never discarded working
    hardwae just because I could not make it work for my deployment. I
    either adjusted my deployment so I didn't have to purchase more
    electronic junk or found a new use for the hardware I was about to discard.

    The only issues I've run into with *nix have been really old Thinkpads that don't support processor PAE, and even then were were workarounds.


    ... Abandon desire
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to NuSkooler on Sat Oct 22 08:44:00 2022
    NuSkooler wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-


    poindexter FORTRAN around Tuesday, October 11th...
    I want my old HP Inkjet 500 back. 300 dpi, built like a tank.

    I'm actually really wanting to get my paws on a nice dot matrix that at least feels retro enough, but that I can get ink and paper for!

    I still see Okidatas and Panasonics on Craigslist, and I'm sure ribbons are available online - especially for the Okidatas which I still see in retail here and there.


    ... Have you ever seen anything like this place?
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Spectre on Sun Oct 23 08:51:00 2022
    Spectre wrote to Atreyu <=-

    Woah! Hotmail is still a thing? I don't think I've seen anyone using a hotmail account in the last ten years. Might be a local thing though.

    It's outlook.com now, but if you had a hotmail address it carried over.


    ... Don't avoid what is easy
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Nightfox on Sun Oct 23 11:46:00 2022
    Nightfox wrote to Spectre <=-

    I thought Microsoft is now requiring a Hotmail email address to create
    a user account in certain versions of Windows? Unless maybe Microsoft
    has another email service they're using. I think they actually renamed Hotmail to Outlook not too long ago. But yes, it's still a thing.

    With Windows 10, you could back out of it, but I think 11 requires an
    account. In exchange, you get profile, wallpaper and bookmark sync, which is *ok*, but I'm sure others would like to choose.

    My hotmail address goes to user@outlook.com. Outlook for the web is a decent webmail service, and when you have a Microsoft365 account you get all of the bells and whistles you get with Exchange, like calendars, notes, tasks and
    so forth.




    ... Simple subtraction
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Bex on Sun Oct 23 11:47:00 2022
    Bex wrote to boraxman <=-

    Words are important.

    I agree; with some of the bizarre word usements I structure I've had to
    spend much time in preparing.


    ... Simple subtraction
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Bex on Sun Oct 23 11:48:00 2022
    Bex wrote to Adept <=-

    Adept said to Spectre: <=-

    Every generation thinks the generations after them are lacking in education, intelligence, morals, etc. It's time for us GenXers to start doing the same thing to millenials and gen-Zers, unfortunately. I had hoped we were above such things.

    Funny, I keep hoping the next generation will get things like race relations right.


    ... Simple subtraction
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Oct 23 13:02:35 2022
    Re: Re: Community
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Sun Oct 23 2022 11:46 am

    I thought Microsoft is now requiring a Hotmail email address to

    With Windows 10, you could back out of it, but I think 11 requires an account. In exchange, you get profile, wallpaper and bookmark sync, which is *ok*, but I'm sure others would like to choose.

    For those who still use dialup or don't have internet access at all on the PC, I wonder how it works.. It seems weird for an OS to require an internet connection just to get into the OS.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Tracker1@21:3/149 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Oct 23 17:09:16 2022
    On 10/23/22 11:46, poindexter FORTRAN wrote:

    With Windows 10, you could back out of it, but I think 11 requires an account. In exchange, you get profile, wallpaper and bookmark sync, which is *ok*, but I'm sure others would like to choose.

    My hotmail address goes to user@outlook.com. Outlook for the web is a decent webmail service, and when you have a Microsoft365 account you get all of the bells and whistles you get with Exchange, like calendars, notes, tasks and
    so forth.

    There's a couple work-arounds you can use with win11 to get a local user account, but it's a pain.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com (21:3/149)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Oct 24 22:54:31 2022

    Woah! Hotmail is still a thing? I don't think I've seen anyone using hotmail account in the last ten years. Might be a local thing though.

    It's outlook.com now, but if you had a hotmail address it carried over.


    ... Don't avoid what is easy

    I still have a hotmail address, though I lost my original one. I used hotmail back when it was stylised as HoTMaiL. Ahh, that takes me back, my first e-mail address.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Mon Oct 24 06:45:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    I still have a hotmail address, though I lost my original one. I used hotmail back when it was stylised as HoTMaiL. Ahh, that takes me back,
    my first e-mail address.

    Back in the 2000s, recruiters used hotmail accounts as throwaways, then fill them up with resumes and have them bounce mail once they were full.
    Annoying.


    ... Only one element of each kind
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Oct 25 19:26:47 2022
    I still have a hotmail address, though I lost my original one. I use hotmail back when it was stylised as HoTMaiL. Ahh, that takes me bac my first e-mail address.

    Back in the 2000s, recruiters used hotmail accounts as throwaways, then fill them up with resumes and have them bounce mail once they were
    full. Annoying.


    Recruiters are the Real Estate Agents of the employment world.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Avon@21:1/101 to All on Fri Jan 26 18:24:58 2024
    What makes a community?

    Been thinking just now about this subject.

    Is it common interests, similar values, just plain on length of time spent together (in person or virtually), other intangibles I can't put my finger on, some or all of the above, or perhaps none of it? Talk about having a bob/dime/cent each way eh? ;)

    But in reflecting on this, and in the context of BBSing, I realise I've been active in the BBS world since 2013 (I think it was) and with old fsxNet that arrived end of 2015 so lordy that's coming up towards 10 years soon-ish..

    And during my time in online BBS spaces and places I've met a ton of nice people via echomail and netmail chat, sometimes over a webcam call, sometimes a voice only one, I don't think any folks in person... New Zealand is a long way away from many places and my jet plan budget is exhausted... well there was never a budget ha! :)

    As some names come and go I lament their departure, others I wonder how they are, doing OK in life, still alive?

    In sum, what *this* echomail and BBS hobby banter is (for me at least) is all rather special and something I'm rather proud to have been associated with over the years.

    They say you should do the things you enjoy, and I'm glad I still enjoy this medium and the social contact (and help when you ask for it on stuff your stuck on in life or tech or... )that comes with it.

    So thanks guys.

    /reflective mode off

    :)

    Kerr Avon [Blake's 7] 'I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid and I'm not going' avon[at]bbs.nz | bbs.nz | fsxnet.nz

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Ben Collver@21:1/149 to Avon on Fri Jan 26 10:33:49 2024
    Re: Community
    By: Avon to All on Fri Jan 26 2024 06:24 pm

    I enjoyed reading your musings on community, and i feel enthusiasm for
    the potential of building community here. Below are some relevant
    quotes from my reading about the nature of community.

    Community is a group of people who observe the individual's growth.
    Being seen and responded to enable a person to behold voices within, confirmed by the voices of the community without. Where mentors and
    elders are lacking, where initiation in one form or another is not recognized, there can be no support system capable of curbing the
    intense sense of aloneness that haunts the psyche of the modern
    person. Purpose begins with the individual, and the sum total of all
    the individuals' purposes creates the community's purpose. A
    community is held together by the emotional ties that result in a
    conscious feeling of connection... A sense of community grows where
    behavior is based on trust and where no one has to hide anything.

    --Malidoma Some

    If we are going to use the word [community] meaningfully we must
    restrict it to a group of individuals who have learned how to
    communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper
    than their masks of composure, and who have developed some
    significant commitment to "rejoice together, mourn together," and to
    "delight in each other, make others' conditions our own."

    The facets of community are interconnected, profoundly
    interrelated. No one could exist without the other. They create
    each other, make each other possible. What follows, then, is but
    one scheme for isolating and naming the most salient
    characteristics of a true community.

    * Inclusivity, commitment, and consensus
    * Realism
    * Contemplation
    * A safe place
    * A laboratory for personal disarmament
    * A group that can fight gracefully
    * A group of all leaders
    * A spirit

    --M. Scott Peck

    One of the strongest needs of the soul is for community, but
    community from the soul point of view is a little different from
    its social forms. Soul yearns for attention, for variety in
    personality, for intimacy, and particularity. So it is these
    qualities in community that the soul seeks out, and not
    like-mindedness and uniformity.

    Loneliness can be the result of an attitude that community is
    something into which one is received. Many people wait for members
    of a community to invite them in, and until that happens they are
    lonely. There may be something of the child here who expects to be
    taken care of by the family. But a community is not a family. It
    is a group of people held together by feelings of belonging, and
    these feelings are not a birthright. "Belonging" is an active
    verb, something we do positively.

    -- Thomas Moore
    --- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
    * Origin: The Fool's Quarter, fqbbs.synchro.net (21:1/149)
  • From Avon@21:1/101 to Ben Collver on Sat Jan 27 11:28:16 2024
    On 26 Jan 2024 at 10:33a, Ben Collver pondered and said...

    I enjoyed reading your musings on community, and i feel enthusiasm for
    the potential of building community here. Below are some relevant
    quotes from my reading about the nature of community.

    Thanks for the kind feedback. I was in a ponderous mood when I penned this.

    taken care of by the family. But a community is not a family. It
    is a group of people held together by feelings of belonging, and
    these feelings are not a birthright. "Belonging" is an active
    verb, something we do positively.

    -- Thomas Moore

    This one resonates with me.

    Kerr Avon [Blake's 7] 'I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid and I'm not going' avon[at]bbs.nz | bbs.nz | fsxnet.nz

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Nigel Reed@21:2/101 to Avon on Fri Jan 26 17:18:56 2024
    On Fri, 26 Jan 2024 18:24:58 +1300
    "Avon" (21:1/101) <Avon@f101.n1.z21.fidonet> wrote:

    What makes a community?

    Been thinking just now about this subject.

    Is it common interests, similar values, just plain on length of time
    spent together (in person or virtually), other intangibles I can't
    put my finger on, some or all of the above, or perhaps none of it?
    Talk about having a bob/dime/cent each way eh? ;)

    Safety in numbers :)
    --
    End Of The Line BBS - Plano, TX
    telnet endofthelinebbs.com 23
    --- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
    * Origin: End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com (21:2/101)