more details in the #usenet annoucement here https://news.novabbs.org/computers/article-flat.php?id=445&group=alt.2600#445

🔴⚫ #2600 #Madrid Hacker Meeting - June 6! 🔴⚫

📅 Friday June 6 @ 21:00
📍 La Pianola Bar, Lavapies
🚇 Metro L3 Lavapies

Join us to hack for a more humane, transparent & decentralized future! 💻✊

Topics: #Meshtastic, #Reticulum, #learn2hack mentoring, #usenet_reborn & Telefonica pay phones

🔗 https://2600.madrid
💬 Matrix: #2600_Madrid:hispagatos.org

#hacking #hackers #hackerculture #privacy #FOSS #usenet #rust @2600@mastodon.online @2600@lemmy.world

@stackoverflow.com surely wants to fade into oblivion. In >10 years using this site I’ve never experienced such hostility than in my latest two questions asked. (https://stackoverflow.com/q/79650530/188108)

If search results point me to it – fine. But I will never interact with the site again. Hello, @reddit, hello #AI-based Q&A tools.

Go the way of #Usenet, Stackexchange!

#stackexchange #stackoverflow #programming

Today I found a usenet provider. Almost tempted to sign up

https://frugalusenet.com/

#usenet

I miss Usenet.

#usenet

Mark V. Shaney's descendants

A couple of days ago, LLM generated text was discussed on The Unix Heritage Society mailing list, and this exchange caught my eye:

an LLM is pretty much just a much-fancier and better-automated descendant of Mark V Shaney: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney

I am glad someone has finally pointed that out.

I followed the Wikipedia link and learned that "Mark V. Shaney" was the name used to post markov chain generated usenet articles, made at Bell Labs back in the 1980's.

I wasn't on usenet in 1984, but I do have an archive, so let me look up the Mark V. Shaney articles I can find:

The Wikipedia entry has this information, under Examples:

Other quotations from Mark's Usenet posts are:[3]

• "I spent an interesting evening recently with a grain of salt." (Alternatively reported as "While at a conference a few weeks back, I spent an interesting evening with a grain of salt."[4][5])
• "I hope that there are sour apples in every bushel."[6][7] (see also sour grapes)

Interestingly we can solve the "alternatively reported" issue by going to the source, which is the very first article in the archive, 2980@alice.UUCP, where it says:

When I meet someone on a professional basis, I want them to shave their arms. While at a conference a few weeks back, I spent an interesting evening with a grain of salt. I wouldn't take them seriously! This brings me back to the brash people who dare others to do so or not. I love a good flame argument, probably more than anyone...

(my emphasis).

The second, sour apples quote from the Wikipedia entry is from the article 3062@alice.UUCP, where it is the closing line.

The (almost) full article shown in the Wikipedia Examples section is 3112@alice.UUCP; it looks like Wikipedia is missing the quip below the sign off, "Never attribute to malice what can be found in scientific american, under computer recreations."

The program behind Mark V. Shaney used a third order markov chain, so it makes statistics on triplets of words, and generates the next work by looking two words back. Reading the usenet articles, I want to revisit my little "politisnak" project, which is a basic markov chain looking at tuples of words, and expand it.

Sometimes it's fun to sit on top of a trove of old usenet articles!

Rob Pike added to the exchange on the TUHS mailing list, quoted at the beginning:

My name is Rob Pike and I approve this message.

:-)

@bortzmeyer : Le grand retour en force de #Usenet ?

I noticed there are many #pictures on #mastodon and other #social #media. I know this is done because #media and #pictures get attention, but I want #text , so I disabled all #images in #firefox and it has improved the internet. If I really want to see an image I right click and open in #private #browser window. But it made me wonder if we need a text only social media. Like #usenet but with #hashtags

# My reticulum contact:
==== List of ReK2 LXMF msg address ====
- ReK2 GNU/Linux laptop: lxmf@c6dc6bb3a6b0955d102fde5e7613e2af
- ReK2 GNU/Linux Main computer PC: lxmf@defc6994065d130f8014543edf334093
==== List of ReK2 and Hispagatos Pages ===
- Hispagatos HQ page: 2540b0d0573fd0a78bc5aaff91275e3d:/page/index.mu
- hispagatos home lan router node page: 8f97dd5d3d62e11fd473739e5838b961:/page/index.mu

#lxmf #reticulum #nomadnet #mesh #decentralize #usenet #meshtastic

@StefanMuenz @Gegenwind

Die FU Berlin hat noch eine Möglichkeit, ins Text #Usenet zu gelangen für 10€ Jahr.

https://news.individual.de

Und bei https://open-news-network.org/

geht es Spenden basiert dorthin.

Bin über eigen alte Posts gestolpert, die da liegen.
Und anderes krass 25 Jahre alt und noch da.

Leider keine Volltext Suche möglich.

Vielleicht weißt du noch ungefähr, welche Newsgroup es war.

@harkank @derPUPE Today the #usenet is a quiet space. I like it again.

@johncarlosbaez @CGM
There's a great guide here: <https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Getting_Started_with_Usenet>, it worked for me.

#usenet

Through the pages of John Baez <https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez> (see also <https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com>) I've seen that the sci.physics usenet newsgroup, especially sci.physics.research, always had quite interesting physics discussions; see for instance <https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics>.

Finally I managed to join, but it looks like I'm late to the party. Lots of spam and very insulting posts on sci.physics, and sci.physics.research (luckily a moderated group) seems to have very little activity – unless I'm misjudging the levels of activity of some years ago.

So I'd like to ask @johncarlosbaez (when/if he has time): what happened to these newsgroups? I'd be curious to hear the story. And which other similar newsgroups or venues are available today? Probably I'm not the only one with these wonderings. Cheers!

#usenet #johncarlosbaez

@pglpm It should work in Thunderbird if it’s correctly configured to connect to a suitable usenet server.

An alternative is to use my Newsgrouper website and just go to e.g. https://newsgrouper.org/sci.physics . You can then just Continue as Guest to read, or register if you also want to post.
#usenet

Mastodon is messy like #usenet once was. But that's why we love it, right? 😜

Baffled by Usenet newsgroups

https://lemmy.ca/post/44674692

Does anyone know what are the steps to join and read a usenet newsgroup like sci.physics or sci.physics.research? I tried to simply enter "sci.physics" in Thunderbird's Newsgroup reader, but apparently it doesn't work simply like that...

#newsgroup #physics #usenet

#Usenet über #Satellit 1992. 40 MB am Tag mit 9600 baud.

https://www.tech-insider.org/hackers/research/1992/0926.html