Re: Pointers to news sources and other mailing lists
At 11:27 AM +0200 7/31/01, Eugene Leitl wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Tim May wrote:
I think most of the "pointers" are just symptoms of laziness. It looks like people just think "cross-pollinating" without analysis is the thing to do.
Some of the pointers are also symptoms of a bad connectivity. I've got only a very lagged ssh link at *work*, zero connection at home.
I think there's definitely value in a dedicated cpunx news sink (Choategrams included), so if you have no objections, I'll go ahead, and make one at yahoogroups.
First, you will of course find that no one but yourself will check the "yahoogroups" ghetto site. (If you are not familiar with the history of such ghettoes, "alt.cypherpunks" was an example of such a ghetto created half a dozen years ago. Someone even created "alt.cypherpunks.technical" and a few other sub-ghettoes. I don't think they got much propagation, even in a world of 80,000 newsgroups, and they may have been pulled...haven't seen mention of them in years. Yahoo is just the latest place for such ghettoes, where a handful of people will ask "Why isn't there any discussion here?") Second, I'm confused. You say you have bad connectivity at work and no connection at home. If you can take Choate's URL pointers and follow them, why can you not go directly to the source (Yahoo, Slashdot, CNET, Wired, etc.)? And how will you access Yahoo groups with poor/zero connectivity? (I assume you're not saying that your connections are so bad that you are counting on Choate to pre-screen material for you? The math doesn't work out, not to mention the aesthetics.) In any case, the larger issue is not whether you have good connectivity, or are counting on Choate to keep you informed on Martian microbes and Teslas physics or whatever. The larger issue is that Cypherpunks cannot survive as a mere dumping ground for URLs. Asking Choate to dump his URL pointers into a Yahoo chat room is a worthy thing, but not likely to make him change his evil ways. And the problem goes beyond Choate. With many here subscribed to a dozen or more heavily-overlapping groups (covering crypto, copyright, etc. issues), the tendency is strong to simply bounce pointers around. In fact, the motivation for my article was seeing _your_ posting of several messages yesterday with nothing more than URLs. "Oh, no, Eugene's gone Choatian on us!" If you connectivity is so bad, why are you sending _us_ URL pointers? Careful with that ASCII, Eugene. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
At 11:00 AM -0700 7/31/01, Tim May wrote:
Second, I'm confused. You say you have bad connectivity at work and no connection at home. If you can take Choate's URL pointers and follow them, why can you not go directly to the source (Yahoo, Slashdot, CNET, Wired, etc.)? And how will you access Yahoo groups with poor/zero connectivity?
And the problem goes beyond Choate. With many here subscribed to a dozen or more heavily-overlapping groups (covering crypto, copyright, etc. issues), the tendency is strong to simply bounce pointers around. In fact, the motivation for my article was seeing _your_ posting of several messages yesterday with nothing more than URLs. "Oh, no, Eugene's gone Choatian on us!"
If you connectivity is so bad, why are you sending _us_ URL pointers?
Careful with that ASCII, Eugene.
OK, I checked what you sent to us yesterday and last week, and you posted more than just URLs. I was wrong about that. But you forwarded articles (and URLs) from other lists, other news sources. I saw one from the Extropians list, another from Yahoo/CNET, one from Dave Farber, etc. This is in some sense better than just dumping URLs on us, but it's not needed. We can read Yahoo to read about Singapore cameras. And so on. Unless there is some new twist for Cypherpunks, or some urgency, why make the CP list a dumping ground for what is better read with browsers? As I said, I'm confused about how you say you're doing this because you have poor connectivity at work and zero at home? And yet you clearly found these articles in the first place, so how does mailing them out to Cypherpunks help you with connectivity problems? Puzzled, --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
On Tue, 31 Jul 2001, Tim May wrote:
First, you will of course find that no one but yourself will check the "yahoogroups" ghetto site. (If you are not familiar with the
Possible, but at least I've got an archived list of cpunx-related material, which I can reference later (with other newssources, this happens rather frequently). So, in case none of you is running a newssink, I'll just go ahead, and make a new one, even if it's just for my private use.
Second, I'm confused. You say you have bad connectivity at work and no connection at home. If you can take Choate's URL pointers and follow them, why can you not go directly to the source (Yahoo, Slashdot, CNET, Wired, etc.)? And how will you access Yahoo groups with poor/zero connectivity?
I'm at work: where I'm supposed to work. Apart from the fact of lacking time to waste, the ssh link to a remote machine tends to sudden lapses into 10 sec latency, making mail writing a chore if not impossible. I hope to have at least a dialup at home by tomorrow, thus removing any good excuses for being lazy.
If you connectivity is so bad, why are you sending _us_ URL pointers?
My web connectivity over loaded ISDN is actually better than my realtime editing ASCII connectivity over ssh over said link.
participants (2)
-
Eugene Leitl -
Tim May