Way off topic: Usenet Server vs Google Groups

Hi, everybody,


It's been a very long time since I posted here...which is part of the
problem.

I've been weighing which charges to drop from my credit card, and one
of them is the $11.99/month charge for Supernews, which I have used
for Usenet access for between 15 and 20 years, and I am using it to
post this thread. You may remember I used to post here and mix it up
a lot. Not so much in recent years. So I have been toying with the
idea of dropping supernews altogether. On the one hand it would save
me some money. On the other hand, I am old school in using Usenet,
even preferring Forte Agent as my reader of choice. If Google let you
use a regular reader it would be an easy choice, but no, you have to
use their web site.

I've been lurking for the past couple of days, looking at full message
headers and I can see some people use google but others do not. There
does not seem to be a clear trend. And obviously, I have yet to make
up my mind.

Any thoughts or opinions about this? I came here to ask because I
came here so often and feel I am known (or should be) and can trust
opinions...provided people don't turn snarky.

Thanks.

In article ,
says...

Hi, everybody,


It's been a very long time since I posted here...which is part of the
problem.

I've been weighing which charges to drop from my credit card, and one
of them is the $11.99/month charge for Supernews, which I have used
for Usenet access for between 15 and 20 years, and I am using it to
post this thread. You may remember I used to post here and mix it up
a lot. Not so much in recent years. So I have been toying with the
idea of dropping supernews altogether. On the one hand it would save
me some money. On the other hand, I am old school in using Usenet,
even preferring Forte Agent as my reader of choice. If Google let you
use a regular reader it would be an easy choice, but no, you have to
use their web site.

I've been lurking for the past couple of days, looking at full message
headers and I can see some people use google but others do not. There
does not seem to be a clear trend. And obviously, I have yet to make
up my mind.

Any thoughts or opinions about this? I came here to ask because I
came here so often and feel I am known (or should be) and can trust
opinions...provided people don't turn snarky.

I use Eternal September, which is a free Usenet News server. I
personally hate Google's web page based Usenet News interface.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

On 2020-05-27 10:41 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

Any thoughts or opinions about this? I came here to ask because I
came here so often and feel I am known (or should be) and can trust
opinions...provided people don't turn snarky.

I use Eternal September, which is a free Usenet News server. I
personally hate Google's web page based Usenet News interface.

Jeff


Hi Mike, yes it's been a long time since I've seen a post from you.
If you haven't been following sci.space - sci.space.policy for awhile
you should know the following:

1) Pat Flannery passed away in October 2011.

2) The "OM", Bob Mosley passed away in October 2015.

3) Fred McCall passed away in July 2019.

4) Henry Spencer left sci.space.* news groups nearly two decades ago but
still posts on the ARocket Mailing List:

https://www.freelists.org/archive/arocket/

5) Mary Shafer never posts here anymore. I don't know what her status is
these days.

6) Rand Simberg left sci.space.* newsgroups for his own blog he

http://www.transterrestrial.com/

7) Herb Shaltegger left sci.space.* newsgroups for the forums at
NASASpaceFlight dot com he

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php

8) Greg Moore has taken over moderation of the sci.space.tech
sci.space.science newsgroups. They are pretty much exclusively news
bulletins now from NASA and The Planetary Society, but you can still
post there when Greg approves it.

Like Jeff, I switched from paying a monthly subscription to GigaNews to
Eternal September which is free. I never had a moments problem with
GigaNews, but with traffic here being so infrequent, like you, I had
trouble justifying even the minor expense.

Works fine with the Thunderbird news client that I use under Windows. I
don't see why it wouldn't also work with Forte. I really find the Google
USENET News interface unbearable and worth every minute they (Google)
obviously spent on improving it, which seems something akin to being
vanishingly approaching zero. -(

Good to hear from you. I was not as frequent a poster as even you were
back in those days (90s)...

Whole new ball game in Space with the New Space companies out there
these days. Much for the better I believe. This afternoon will be a
milestone if SpaceX-DRM2 is a go.

There is very little traffic here anymore. Most of the discussions have
moved to the moderated web forums, like NASA Space Flight dot com (see
above).

Millennials look at newsgroups like my generation looked at punch cards!

Dave

On Wed, 27 May 2020 11:58:17 -0400, David Spain
wrote:

On 2020-05-27 10:41 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

Any thoughts or opinions about this? I came here to ask because I
came here so often and feel I am known (or should be) and can trust
opinions...provided people don't turn snarky.

I use Eternal September, which is a free Usenet News server. I
personally hate Google's web page based Usenet News interface.

Jeff


Hi Mike, yes it's been a long time since I've seen a post from you.
If you haven't been following sci.space - sci.space.policy for awhile
you should know the following:

1) Pat Flannery passed away in October 2011.

2) The "OM", Bob Mosley passed away in October 2015.

3) Fred McCall passed away in July 2019.


OMG! Obviously, I didn't know. My condolences, even this late in the
game.

(And given that the pandemic has made my terror over dying, whenver
that happens, something that hits me hard daily, that news is not
good. Sorry to burden you with my deteriorating mental state.)


4) Henry Spencer left sci.space.* news groups nearly two decades ago but
still posts on the ARocket Mailing List:

https://www.freelists.org/archive/arocket/

5) Mary Shafer never posts here anymore. I don't know what her status is
these days.

6) Rand Simberg left sci.space.* newsgroups for his own blog he

http://www.transterrestrial.com/

7) Herb Shaltegger left sci.space.* newsgroups for the forums at
NASASpaceFlight dot com he

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php


Registered there myself, although I haven't been active there in a
couple of years.


8) Greg Moore has taken over moderation of the sci.space.tech
sci.space.science newsgroups. They are pretty much exclusively news
bulletins now from NASA and The Planetary Society, but you can still
post there when Greg approves it.

Like Jeff, I switched from paying a monthly subscription to GigaNews to
Eternal September which is free. I never had a moments problem with
GigaNews, but with traffic here being so infrequent, like you, I had
trouble justifying even the minor expense.


I was reluctant because it's text only...but on the other hand, I have
never used usenet for anything but text. So I've registered and I am
trying it now.


Works fine with the Thunderbird news client that I use under Windows. I
don't see why it wouldn't also work with Forte. I really find the Google
USENET News interface unbearable and worth every minute they (Google)
obviously spent on improving it, which seems something akin to being
vanishingly approaching zero. -(


I posted to alt.test and it worked. So we will see.


Good to hear from you...

Likewise.

...I was not as frequent a poster as even you were
back in those days (90s)...

Whole new ball game in Space with the New Space companies out there
these days. Much for the better I believe. This afternoon will be a
milestone if SpaceX-DRM2 is a go.

There is very little traffic here anymore...

I know! This seems to be one of the few groups that still serves its
stated purpose. I used to surf in some of the rec.travel groups.
Hardly anything travel related now.

..... Most of the discussions have
moved to the moderated web forums, like NASA Space Flight dot com (see
above).

Millennials look at newsgroups like my generation looked at punch cards!


Kids today.

Thanks for writing. I'll look into eternal september. A free text
only server is better than none.


Dave

On 2020-05-27 4:07 PM, Michael Gallagher wrote:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php


Registered there myself, although I haven't been active there in a
couple of years.


Me too, but except for a few questions posted about the EMDrive I
haven't posted there either.


Kids today.


It doesn't seem that long ago that moniker applied to me!

Dave

"David Spain" wrote in message ...

On 2020-05-27 10:41 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

Any thoughts or opinions about this? I came here to ask because I
came here so often and feel I am known (or should be) and can trust
opinions...provided people don't turn snarky.

I use Eternal September, which is a free Usenet News server. I
personally hate Google's web page based Usenet News interface.

Jeff


Hi Mike, yes it's been a long time since I've seen a post from you.
If you haven't been following sci.space - sci.space.policy for awhile you
should know the following:

1) Pat Flannery passed away in October 2011.

2) The "OM", Bob Mosley passed away in October 2015.

3) Fred McCall passed away in July 2019.

4) Henry Spencer left sci.space.* news groups nearly two decades ago but
still posts on the ARocket Mailing List:

https://www.freelists.org/archive/arocket/

5) Mary Shafer never posts here anymore. I don't know what her status is
these days.

6) Rand Simberg left sci.space.* newsgroups for his own blog he

http://www.transterrestrial.com/

7) Herb Shaltegger left sci.space.* newsgroups for the forums at
NASASpaceFlight dot com he

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php

8) Greg Moore has taken over moderation of the sci.space.tech
sci.space.science newsgroups. They are pretty much exclusively news
bulletins now from NASA and The Planetary Society, but you can still post
there when Greg approves it.

Like Jeff, I switched from paying a monthly subscription to GigaNews to
Eternal September which is free. I never had a moments problem with
GigaNews, but with traffic here being so infrequent, like you, I had
trouble justifying even the minor expense.

Works fine with the Thunderbird news client that I use under Windows. I
don't see why it wouldn't also work with Forte. I really find the Google
USENET News interface unbearable and worth every minute they (Google)
obviously spent on improving it, which seems something akin to being
vanishingly approaching zero. -(

Good to hear from you. I was not as frequent a poster as even you were back
in those days (90s)...

Whole new ball game in Space with the New Space companies out there these
days. Much for the better I believe. This afternoon will be a milestone if
SpaceX-DRM2 is a go.

There is very little traffic here anymore. Most of the discussions have
moved to the moderated web forums, like NASA Space Flight dot com (see
above).

Millennials look at newsgroups like my generation looked at punch cards!

Dave

Now we just have to convince them it's better than reddit and other stuff.
Which, sometimes it is.

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net
IT Disaster Response -
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/

David Spain used thar keyboard to writen:

5) Mary Shafer never posts here anymore. I don't know what her status is
these days.

I believe she still posts on Facebook occasionally, but not about
space. Her husband Ken died the same winter she had complications from
surgery, and there was family stuff for her to be involved in back in
the Old Northwest or thereabouts.

You can probably still find the NASA page remembering Ken's
contributions, but I haven't looked recently.


As an aside, I use Eternal September from home, but GG from work, and
aside from GG not having killfiles, I'm comfortable either way. No
newsreader is perfect, and there have been some I've been eager to stay
away from, but GG works well enough for me (usually in chronological
order, paged view, but the Overview option is useful for drilling into
some past threads).

/dps




--
"That's a good sort of hectic, innit?"

" Very much so, and I'd recommend the haggis wontons."
-njm

On 2020-05-28 12:32 AM, Snidely wrote:
David Spain used thar keyboard to writen:

5) Mary Shafer never posts here anymore. I don't know what her status
is these days.

I believe she still posts on Facebook occasionally, but not about
space.* Her husband Ken died the same winter she had complications from
surgery, and there was family stuff for her to be involved in back in
the Old Northwest or thereabouts.

You can probably still find the NASA page remembering Ken's
contributions, but I haven't looked recently.


Good info, thanks David.

Also forgot to mention: Derek Lyons can be also be found on ARocket.
Rusty Barton has vanished. David Snidely, Jeff Findley and Greg Moore
and "kT" are still regulars here. That's a lot of the old crew, Mike.

Dave

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...

Hi, everybody,


It's been a very long time since I posted here...which is part of the
problem.

I've been weighing which charges to drop from my credit card, and one
of them is the $11.99/month charge for Supernews, which I have used
for Usenet access for between 15 and 20 years, and I am using it to
post this thread. You may remember I used to post here and mix it up
a lot. Not so much in recent years. So I have been toying with the
idea of dropping supernews altogether. On the one hand it would save
me some money. On the other hand, I am old school in using Usenet,
even preferring Forte Agent as my reader of choice. If Google let you
use a regular reader it would be an easy choice, but no, you have to
use their web site.

I've been lurking for the past couple of days, looking at full message
headers and I can see some people use google but others do not. There
does not seem to be a clear trend. And obviously, I have yet to make
up my mind.

Any thoughts or opinions about this? I came here to ask because I
came here so often and feel I am known (or should be) and can trust
opinions...provided people don't turn snarky.

I use Eternal September, which is a free Usenet News server. I
personally hate Google's web page based Usenet News interface.

Jeff

I'll add I now access through Panix which costs me I think $100 a year and
has other advantages (if I wanted to take advantage of them).
They're an old school ISP based out of NYC.

Welcome back.

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net
IT Disaster Response -
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/