BCS wrote:
> Reply to Jarrett,
>> Google Groups does this already, but Walter does not want to have the
>> digitalmars news server indexed by it for fear of spam.
> I'll trust him on that one seeing as more spam gets through my spam filters in a month than I've seen on the NG,... ever


It's interesting how the spammers don't seem to bother much with newsgroups that are not on usenet. Guess it's too old skool for them!

There was someone last summer who repeatedly tried to spam our n.g., but I'd delete them within minutes, and he gave up after a couple weeks.

Bill Baxter wrote:
>> Google Groups does this already, but Walter does not want to have the
>> digitalmars news server indexed by it for fear of spam.
> 
> More than that, there's the little problem that Google is apparently
> not interested in indexing newsgroups that aren't on standard Usenet
> servers.

Except that they do index many of them, apparently on a case-by-case basis. They never replied to my repeated requests that they index our n.g., and after a while I thought perhaps that was best.

"Walter Bright" wrote
> Somehow, though, I doubt anyone is going to pay me for my leet skillz at 16 bit DOS programs ever again :-(

I work mainly with writing tests/initialization scripts for x86-based systems for issues before my company ships them.  For some ungodly reason, most hardware vendors insist on providing DOS-only firmware loading tools and hardware testing tools for their components.  So we have a dos-based PXE boot which mounts a CIFS network drive with all the scripts and tools necessary to load firmware, run drive tests, etc.  Even network card vendors STILL provide network drivers for new cards in DOS!!!

Don't give up hope yet ;)

-Steve

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> "Walter Bright" wrote
>> Somehow, though, I doubt anyone is going to pay me for my leet skillz at 16 bit DOS programs ever again :-(
> 
> I work mainly with writing tests/initialization scripts for x86-based systems for issues before my company ships them.  For some ungodly reason, most hardware vendors insist on providing DOS-only firmware loading tools and hardware testing tools for their components.  So we have a dos-based PXE boot which mounts a CIFS network drive with all the scripts and tools necessary to load firmware, run drive tests, etc.  Even network card vendors STILL provide network drivers for new cards in DOS!!!
> 
> Don't give up hope yet ;)

I get about one customer a year who asks me a question about the DOS capabilities of DMC.

Walter Bright wrote:
> Sean Kelly wrote:
>> I think there must be a generation gap here.  The first thing I look for is a
>> newsgroup dedicated to a subject.  After that, a mailing list.  I have basically
>> no interest in web forums.
> 
> Ah, those whipper-snappers with Twitter accounts!!
> 
> (Is there anything more useless than twitter?)

If there is, I haven't seen it :-)  I try to stay somewhat up on trends just to be current, but I've yet to see a point in telling people what I'm doing from minute to minute.


Sean

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Sean Kelly <sean@invisibleduck.org> wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>>
>> Sean Kelly wrote:
>>>
>>> I think there must be a generation gap here.  The first thing I look for
>>> is a
>>> newsgroup dedicated to a subject.  After that, a mailing list.  I have
>>> basically
>>> no interest in web forums.
>>
>> Ah, those whipper-snappers with Twitter accounts!!
>>
>> (Is there anything more useless than twitter?)
>
> If there is, I haven't seen it :-)  I try to stay somewhat up on trends just to be current, but I've yet to see a point in telling people what I'm doing from minute to minute.

I think it makes a lot more sense if you are young and have basically
nothing useful to do with your time.
(but .. wait, Sean, wasn't your last post here just minutes ago?  :-P )

As kids we face the struggle of how to combat boredom.
As adults we face the struggle of how to get more of that thing we
used to call boredom.

At least that's been the case for me. :-)
--bb

Sean Kelly wrote:
> If there is, I haven't seen it :-)  I try to stay somewhat up on trends just to be current, but I've yet to see a point in telling people what I'm doing from minute to minute.

The site itself said that one use was to tell people when you're drinking a cup of copy. bleh.

Bill Baxter wrote:
> I think it makes a lot more sense if you are young and have basically
> nothing useful to do with your time.

I go jogging regularly, and in order to avoid being hit by cars I look at the driver to see if he sees me. These days, odds are better than even they're yapping on their cell phones. Even backing out of the driveway, they're on the phone.

I once read that one of the worst jobs in the world was to be a phone wiretapper. You had to listen all day to the crushing banality of everyday conversation.

Walter Bright wrote:

> Sean Kelly wrote:
>> If there is, I haven't seen it :-)  I try to stay somewhat up on trends just to be current, but I've yet to see a point in telling people what I'm doing from minute to minute.
> 
> The site itself said that one use was to tell people when you're drinking a cup of copy. bleh.

It is up to you to use twitter for something useful - saying there is nothing useful on twitter is like saying there is nothing useful on blogs. Not everyone write blogs about their last cup of tea, and neither do everyone tweet about it. In particular I know that many open source projects use twitter as a way to collect mini-reports from the community, and do mini-reporting themselves aka "just added the l33t feature foo too app bar".

A good or interesting twitter account will probably get very many followers to show for it. What I find weird are those that themselves follow equally many accounts (hundreds) - they have spare time issues :)

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango

On Thu, 11 Dec 2008, Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:

> Walter Bright wrote:
> 
> > Sean Kelly wrote:
> >> If there is, I haven't seen it :-)  I try to stay somewhat up on trends just to be current, but I've yet to see a point in telling people what I'm doing from minute to minute.
> > 
> > The site itself said that one use was to tell people when you're drinking a cup of copy. bleh.
> 
> It is up to you to use twitter for something useful - saying there is nothing useful on twitter is like saying there is nothing useful on blogs. Not everyone write blogs about their last cup of tea, and neither do everyone tweet about it. In particular I know that many open source projects use twitter as a way to collect mini-reports from the community, and do mini-reporting themselves aka "just added the l33t feature foo too app bar".
> 
> A good or interesting twitter account will probably get very many followers to show for it. What I find weird are those that themselves follow equally many accounts (hundreds) - they have spare time issues :)
> 
> -- 
> Lars Ivar Igesund
> blog at http://larsivi.net
> DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
> Dancing the Tango

While I don't use twitter either, it could be thought of as a pubsub broker with a rather bizarre api.

That some people feel the need to publish their drinking events, and others feel the need to subscribe to someone's drinking behavior.. well, to each his own.

However, since it really is a pub/sub system, it'd be interesting to look for interesting one -> many programatic use cases that could take advantage of it.

Later,
Brad