HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: gnu.chess
Subject: Mainframe Chess
From: smsst8+@pitt.edu (Steven M Scholnick)
Date: 14 Oct 92 17:17:14 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

Is there a version of GnuChess that can be used on either a unix or a VMS
system?  If there is, where can I ftp to get it.

-Steve
From: spnp@hippo.ru.ac.za (Mr NL Parker)
Newsgroups: gnu.chess
Subject: Re: prep: pub/gnu/gnuchess-for-windows.tar.Z
Date: 13 Oct 92 05:59:02 GMT
Distribution: gnu
Organization: Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

In <9210080359.AA10124@rice-chex> cracraft@ai.mit.edu (Stuart Cracraft) writes:

>GNU Chess for windows has been uploaded to prep.
>Note this is not the most recent version which
>is in the file gnuchess-4.0.pl58.tar.Z.

Thanks for the notice. But for dumbos like me who look at this 
newsgroup only occasionally, could you please indicate what 'prep' is ? 
 

-- 
Neil Parker                                         *
Computer Centre, University of Transkei                 * ~  
Pvt Bag X1 Umtata . Tel (0471)-3022461         *
Email: spnp@hippo.ru.ac.za                     `      *
Newsgroups: gnu.chess
From: ccecks@nuscc.nus.sg (Chua Kong Sian (Mr))
Subject: Bug (?) in Gnuchess 4.0 pl58
Organization: National University of Singapore
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 03:51:37 GMT

I'm in the process of trying to get compile Gnuchess 4.0pl58 on my 386
PC using the Microsoft 7.0 compiler.  In compiling the file genmove.c, 4
warnings about *truncation of const value* arose.  These occurred in
lines 192, 193, 232 and 233.  Here is an example of one of these lines
(line 192 to be precise).

history[SwagHt | i] += 5000;

Unfortunately, history is declared as an unsigned char array, which will
not take in a value of 5000.  

What gives, O development team?  

I'm going to change history to integer and try again.  Maybe this is
more correct.

#include <std.disclaimer>
Newsgroups: gnu.chess
From: cracraft@ai.mit.edu (Stuart Cracraft)
Subject: gnuchess code that won the Uniform Platform Event
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Distribution: gnu
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 16:21:04 GMT

The above code has been placed in:

	gnuchess-3.1.winner-uniform-platform.tar.Z

on prep.

To build the precise version, one would first download 
gnuchess-3.1.tar.Z, then replace the files mentioned in the
platform file on top of those in the gnuchess-3.1.tar.Z file
and then build.

There are only a few critical files in the platform file.
They must be used instead of their counterparts in the standard
3.1 distribution.

Stuart

Newsgroups: gnu.chess
From: md85-epi@byse.nada.kth.se (Urban Koistinen)
Subject: Re: Networked chess machine
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Distribution: gnu
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 11:08:34 GMT

[Original article deleted due to too long lines]

How I want it done

Modify an ordinary alpha-beta searcher like this:

*  Make sure every modification use at most epsilon/3 cpu

*  Make the program use a hash table (if it already does
   then this step is not neccesary)

*  Make the program maintain a semi-ordered lossy list
   of the positions that have the greatest expected
   evaluation time. (send)
   [position, start-time, end-time, alpha, beta, depth]

*  Make the program merge information sent to it with
   the hash table. (receive)

This will make the program at most 1/(1-epsilon) times slower.

Then write programs that will read the list of positions and search
them in parallel, if they are few, making each of them work like
the first (computer #n+1 computer aiding computer #n) might give
acceptable results.

That is, if you don't aim for linear speedup.

To make a program modify it's current search take some more
changes but need not slow it down. (hard to write, easy to run)

-- 
Urban Koistinen - md85-epi@nada.kth.se
From: gerbaudo@jorasses.inria.fr (Pascal Gerbaudo)
Newsgroups: gnu.chess
Subject: gnuchess
Date: 9 Oct 92 09:08:59 GMT
Organization: INRIA, Sophia-Antipolis (Fr)

I play with gnuchess 4.0 usualy.
But I don't know what is his FIDE rating.
I think it's between 2100 and 2200 ELO.

Did someone exactly know the gnuchess 4.0 rating, and other
question: did someone know where there is a public stronger
chess program .
thank a lots.
Newsgroups: gnu.chess
From: cracraft@ai.mit.edu (Stuart Cracraft)
Subject: prep: pub/gnu/gnuchess-for-windows.tar.Z
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Distribution: gnu
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 03:59:01 GMT

GNU Chess for windows has been uploaded to prep.
Note this is not the most recent version which
is in the file gnuchess-4.0.pl58.tar.Z.

This is a port of an earlier version of GNU Chess
which has done well. There are bugs in the display
windows interface and various recognition of mate,
stalemate, and promotion.

However, you are welcome to try getting it to
run on your DOS/Windows machine. But since it is
unsupported, please don't expect help.

Stuart
From: drparul@maico.ksu.ksu.edu (TRANSCEND  G O D)
Newsgroups: gnu.chess
Subject: any ftp site for gnuchess or pc based chess
Date: 16 Oct 1992 10:29:45 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: maico.ksu.ksu.edu

  I am looking for any zip file which has powerful processing speed for chess. I would apperciate if someone let me know the ftp site and little detial about file to be aquired....thank you in advance.....shrinath j kotdawala                                                  drparul@matt.ksu.ksu.edu

Newsgroups: gnu.chess
From: oetting@gldfs.cr.usgs.gov (Dan Oetting)
Subject: Re: Networked chess machine
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Distribution: gnu
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 05:03:26 GMT

Sorry about the delay.  I was thinking about my design and realized that I 
would not get the full advantage of Alpha/Beta reductions.  With some 
refinements I think it can still work.  I am also interested in any ideas and 
improvements that you could provide.  Here is the basics of what I have so 
far.  

The idea that I had was to use the transposition tables as message boards for 
evaluations from other systems.  
When a deep evaluation is started on a position, a request will be sent to the 
master to look up the position in the global transposition file.  If the master 
has an evaluation it would be returned otherwise a tag would be placed on 
the position to indicate it is under evaluation.  Any subsequent requests for 
the same position and depth would get an "In-progress" response.  
When a deep evaluation is completed the score is sent to the master which 
updates the global table and forwards the score to all systems that had 
requested the position.
A slave system receiving an evaluation from the master can look up the 
position in the local transposition table to determine what action is required. 
If the position is locked it is on the current evaluation tree so the evaluator 
should roll back to the position and use the provided score.  If the position 
is marked "In-progress" the evaluator will be working on an alternate path.  
The score would be backed up to update the score of the parent position and 
determine if an Alpha/Beta cut should be applyed.  An unmarked position entry
is just updated with the new (deeper) score for future reference.

What I still need to work on is how to divide the work assignments between 
the slave nodes and picking an estimated Alpha/Beta window to start the 
evaluations before the true values are known.

	Dan Oetting	<oetting@gldfs.cr.usgs.gov>
<.sig not found>

Newsgroups: gnu.chess
From: jomp@mentor.dk (Jan Otto Munch Pedersen)
Subject: Re: gnuan feature of gnuchess: questions
Organization: Mentor Informatik A/S, Denmark
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 09:20:45 GMT

mwhite@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (Dr. Michael J. White) writes:
>I don't think "gnuan" will solve a *position*.  This would be
>a nice improvement (hint hint :).  Most of the games I analyze
>have only a few moves that I'm puzzled over (big grin here)
>and I hate to wait a day for "gnuan" just to get to the move.

I hated this too, so I made a small "quick and dirty" update to gunan.c.
The three lines of code:

       flag.force = 0;
       SelectMove (computer, 1);
       Undo ();

appears twice in gnuan.c (from line 825 and 871 in the distribution I have).

In both cases I have replaced them with:

       if( s[ strlen( s ) - 1 ] == '#' )
         s[ strlen( s ) - 1 ] = 0;
       else {
         flag.force = 0;
         SelectMove (computer, 1);
         Undo ();
       }

This has the effect that moves suffixed with # in the input file aren't
analyzed, they are just entered.

Jan
Newsgroups: gnu.gnusenet.test
From: kewasiel@unix.amherst.edu (They call me Ren)
Subject: test2
Organization: Amherst College
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 03:04:48 GMT


vanities, vanities, is there more to life than this?


--
karen wasielewski		_|_	   don't tell me what i can't do!
kewasiel@unix.amherst.edu	 |
kewasielewsk@amh.amherst.edu	 | - my boss is a jewish carpenter 
Newsgroups: gnu.gnusenet.test
From: Carlo De Vecchi <carlacio@vxcern.cern.ch>
Subject: Test
Organization: CERN
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1b3
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 10:24:20 GMT

Works?
Newsgroups: gnu.gnusenet.config
From: maxie@mack.geg.mot.COM (Michael Maxie x8958)
Subject: usenet feeds
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Distribution: gnu
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 22:00:47 GMT

Can I subscribe to just gnu.emacs.bugs, gnu.emacs.gnus, and
gnu.misc.discuss?

Xref: sparky gnu.misc.discuss:3314 comp.sys.ibm.pc.games:17250
From: tranter@Software.Mitel.COM (Jeff Tranter)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
Subject: Looking for GNU chess for Windows
Date: 15 Oct 92 15:14:12 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada.

I understand there is a Microsoft Windows version of GNU chess.
Does anyone know of an archive site where this could be found?

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Tranter            internet: Jeff.Tranter@Software.Mitel.COM
Mitel Corporation          uunet: uunet!mitel!software!tranter
Kanata, Ontario, CANADA      tel: (613) 592-2122 X3099
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman)
Subject: Distributing Linux
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Distribution: gnu
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 13:28:29 GMT

The FSF could distribute a system containing Linux
if someone would like to undertake the work of putting
the distribution together and maintaining it.

If you want to volunteer for overall responsibilty for this (which
probably means doing much of the work yourself), please send me mail.

Xref: sparky gnu.misc.discuss:3268 comp.os.linux:12913 comp.unix.bsd:7121
From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: GNUMake 
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 23:55:05 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.154247.22097@medtron.medtronic.com> cc0001@medtronic.COM (Christopher Carriero) writes:
>
>I would like to know if GNUMake is available on PCs
>running any of the folowing operating systems
>
>	SCO Unix   yes (compile for SysV I guess)
>	OS/2       yes 
>	MS-DOS     who cares? :-) seriously, there is a GNU make for MSDOS
		   on wuarchive.wustl.edu:/mirrors/msdos/gnuish

>	
>Thanks
>
>-- Chris
>
>
>-- 
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Chris Carriero			cc0001@medtronic.com
>Medtronic, Inc.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------


-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
 John Paul Morrison                     |  Just another "Enemy of Canada"
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  Say NO/NON to Constitutional
 Electrical Engineering                 |  hegemony and fear-mongering
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  by politicians/scum.
________________________________________|_________________________________
From: tzs@stein.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Suggestions for the free Unix projects
Date: 11 Oct 92 21:46:24 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

>ts> software is going to be big.  Thus is born GNU-Basic for the 8080.  Soon
>ts> to follow is GNU-DOS for IBM.  These are sold as commercial, supported,
>ts> binary-only software.
>
>ts> 	Ten years later, RMS is worth about $5,000,000,000, and GNUSoft
>ts> dominates the industry.
>
>IMHO, this would not work. One of the reasons that GNU (and some other
>free) software is so good is that all users can get the source code
>and can therefore submit patches, extensions and the like.

It worked for Bill Gates!  In the alternate universe I posted about, the
point was not to write good software.  The point was to first get so much
money that you need double-precision integers on 32-bit machines to keep
track of your wealth.  Then you switch to doing good, free, software.

--Tim Smith
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: gip200@sci.kun.nl (gip2 course)
Subject: Re: Making Mach build with non-CMU tools (suggestions)
Reply-To: peter@global.hacktic.nl
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 09:55:47 GMT

In <STEINARB.92Oct5142041@gjerd.idt.unit.no> steinarb@idt.unit.no (Steinar Bang) writes:

>Neither can I, really. So maybe the best solutions for all parties
>would be to make GNU Make support the CMU enhancements.

>*Even* though this might mean cluttering GNU Make with facilities
>needed to compile a single program (ie. the Mach 3.0 microkernel).

Well, those facilities could be surrounded with #ifdef's which are not defined
by default. But I agree that we need a CMU compatible make tool. Changing the
Makefiles whenever a new kernel is released is a pain in the *ss.

>I would be curious to know the opinions of Roland McGrath (GNU Make
>maintainer) and Michael I. Bushnell (GNU Hurd developer) on this
>subject. 

Me too.

Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: klliou@stein.u.washington.edu (Kan-Lee Liou)
Subject: GNUPLOT OS/2
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 04:21:26 GMT

Is anyone using GNUPLOT under OS/2?
How can I get printout? (I tried 'set outout "prn"', but no response)
Can I store the plots in some format (say, bitmap), so I can use them in a document?
Thank you.

klliou@u.washington.edu
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Suggestions for the free Unix projects
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 15:20:33 BST
Distribution: world
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

jprovo@Gnu.ai.mit.edu (The Wandering Pedestal of Angst) writes:
> In article <BRUCE.92Oct5110747@suprenum.uxb.liv.ac.uk> bruce@uxb.liv.ac.uk (B
> >So you can charge a fee for copying it.  At no point do I see any
> >indication that your fee must be "reasonable", or have simply to cover
> >the costs of physically copying the software.  Perhaps it is
> >ambiguous, but you're not going to get sued for trying to make a
> >profit in this way. 
> 
> ...yea and verily, for I did accidentally peruse a _Dr.Dobbs_Journal_ and
> spotted people advertising outrageous prices for gnu-items ported to ibm-ish
> clunks.

Quite.  I'd pay a few quid to get Emacs on my machine, but since people who
have ported it can't be sure of getting more than one customer they have to
bump up their prices accordingly.  End result:  I can't afford Emacs.  Still,
having no software at all is better than having non-"free" software, eh?


mathew
-- 
"Boy, they were big on crematoriums weren't they?"
 -- George Bush, during a tour of Auschwitz, 1987-09-28
From: moller@austin.ibm.com (Chris Moller)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: os/2 support
Date: 7 Oct 92 13:59:39 GMT
Reply-To: moller@austin.ibm.com
Distribution: gnu
Organization: As little as I can get away with.

In article <1992Oct6.4595.4604@dosgate>, "mike frisch" <mike.frisch@canrem.com> writes:
> 
>      Does anybody have a listing of compiled GNU apps available for
> OS/2?  I am aware of GhostScript, GNU C++, GNUplot, and GNUHack.
> 
> Mike.
> 
> +----------------------------------------------------------------+
> |  Mike Frisch                  Usenet:  mike.frisch@canrem.com  |
> |  Newmarket, Ontario, Canada                                    |
> +----------------------------------------------------------------+
> 
> ---
>  ~ OLX 2.2 ~ So crowded in here, I must go outside to change my mind!
> --
> Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
> World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044

look in hobbes.nmsu.edu:/pub/os2   there's a _bunch_ of stuff there.

-- 
IBM pays absolutely no attention to my	|   "The United States is a nation of
opinions, ergo the foregoing cannot	|   laws: badly written and randomly
possibly represent its position.	|   enforced."
					|     -- Frank Zappa
Christian H. L. Moller
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: bhso@fou.tr.statoil.no (Bjorn Halvor Solberg)
Subject: Commercial RCS
Keywords: Profit, copyright protected?
Reply-To: bhso@fou.tr.statoil.no
Organization: Statoil R&D, Trondheim, Norway
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 12:47:44 GMT

I just saw an ad for a product called MKS RCS. Has anyone heard of it
before?  I thought RCS was copylefted under GNU. I don't know if MKS has
developed their RCS from scratch or what, I have only seen the ad. It
supposedly has the same functionality as GNU's (W.F. Tichy's) RCS. Does
anyone know where/what MKS is?

Bjorn.  
(bhso@fou.tr.statoil.no) 
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd
From: gsh7w@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy)
Subject: Re: distributing linux on floppies
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 01:02:52 GMT

terry@cs.weber.edu writes:
#*Not* the sale; *only* the distribution, and *only* for a single markup
#from origin (Ie: use of a multimarkup distribution channel is *not*
#allowed, in that it involves more than one fee).

The GPL no-where says that different people cannot impose their own
fees. 

#The *only* way to sell software you don't hold title to is to mark it up
#or add value... GPL eliminates the middleman, or at least the profit
#motive which causes a middleman to be involved.  The result is no access
#to existing distribution channels.

The GPL does not forbid you from making a profit on "selling" GNU
code. Middlemen can make as much profit as they want.

You seem to be spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt). Are you doing
it intentionally?

--
-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia
 USPS Mail:     Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA
 Internet:      gsh7w@virginia.edu  
 UUCP:		...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: leisner@wrc.xerox.com ( Marty Leisner)
Subject: need message of "why not to use motif"
Reply-To: leisner.henr801c@xerox.com
Organization: Xerox
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 14:29:22 GMT


I recall a message about "why not to use motif" a long time ago.

Can someone please send me a copy of it?

--
marty
leisner.henr801c@xerox.com  
Member of the League for Programming Freedom
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: Fortran Is Not Dead, Unfortunately
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 01:47:15 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.195247.15624@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> S_TITZ@iravcl.ira.uka.de (Olaf Titz) writes:
>>  As far as an answer to the question "Is Fortran dead?", I can only
>>  suggest that if the availability of GNU Fortran doesn't kill it,
>>  nothing will!  :-)
>
>Well, just this morning, I was asked for advice by a math student
>which of the two beginner programming courses he should take -
>FORTRAN or PASCAL. I do not repeat here what I explained to him why he
>should take Pascal, I assume you know the arguments ;-) but the fact
>remains that universities today still offer beginner programming
>courses in Fortran. Sigh :-(

I hope that GNU f77 will be a very high class FORTRAN compiler.
There's wads of heavy duty numerical code that just can't be written off,
or ported to C. A free, fast, numerically reliable compiler will be much
appreciated by the scientific and engineering community.

nope, FORTRAN ain't dead yet.
>
>MfG,
>        Olaf

-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
 John Paul Morrison                     |  Just another "Enemy of Canada"
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  Say NO/NON to Constitutional
 Electrical Engineering                 |  hegemony and fear-mongering
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  by politicians/scum.
________________________________________|_________________________________
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: wcs@anchor.ho.att.com (Bill Stewart +1-908-949-0705)
Subject: Has anybody done a GNU look ?
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs Random Organization Name Generator
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 22:25:25 GMT
Keywords: textutils

look is a V7 / BSD utility that looks up a pattern in a sorted file,
using binary search, which is much faster than *grep when it works.
I'm currently using the Sun version of look, which is presumably
unmodified from the original, and it does ugly things like
truncating lines that are too long and exceeding array boundaries
and having limits on how long the patterns can be.

So I either need to rewrite it or find a public-domain or free version.
The BSD source code I have is ugly, and I want to stay out of the
Net2/BSDI fight so the lawyers don't kill me.
The 1988 Minix source is a lot more primitive, though I could use it;
it's got only a subset of the features because that's all they cared about,
and it seems to be uncopyrighted doesn't-say-if--it's-public-domain
like real software :-), which might be an issue with our company lawyers
if I want to release my improved code.

But if there were some GNU code there I could start with,
it would probably either already do what I want,
or be a starting platform that would require me to free it.
Has anybody done one?
--
				Pray for peace;      Bill
#Bill Stewart 908-949-0705 wcs@anchor.ho.att.com AT&T Bell Labs 4M312 Holmdel NJ
# Trickle-Down Economics: Giving money to government bureaucrats 
#	and hoping some will trickle down to the people who need help.
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: os/2 support
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Distribution: gnu
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 08:19:17 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.4595.4604@dosgate> "mike frisch" <mike.frisch@canrem.com> writes:
>
>     Does anybody have a listing of compiled GNU apps available for
>OS/2?  I am aware of GhostScript, GNU C++, GNUplot, and GNUHack.


There is GNU C and C++ (two versions: "GCC/2" and EMX/GCC. EMX is better:
the C library works, it supports both native OS/2 .obj and .lib, as well as UNIX
style .o and .a files, GDB, it has fork() and other UNIXisms, C library
in a dynamic linked library (ie shared library), curses, ar, ld etc.)

GNU make
Nethack (GNU?)
GNU text utils (tr, cat, pr, ...)
GNU file utils (ls, mv, du ....)
GNU perl, awk, flex, bison
GhostScript, GNU Plot
GNU bc, db
groff, gnu man
GNU emacs 18.58.3
TeX (gnu??)
less
zoo
find, f2c, p2c, sed, diff, info, tar, grep, m4, rcs, cpio etc.

that's all I can think of, there's probably more.

missing: bash (use korn shell if you're desperate), mtools (that would be
brain damaged) Taylor uucp (use uupc OS/2)

in progress: BSD sockets (a free one, at least one $$$ version is available)
more korn shell fixes, possibly bash.

commentary: if you want a lot of UNIXisms without the scary prospects of
Linux or BSD/386, OS/2 is a pretty safe and CHEAP alternative.
>
>Mike.
>

-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
 John Paul Morrison                     |  Just another "Enemy of Canada"
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  Say NO/NON to Constitutional
 Electrical Engineering                 |  hegemony and fear-mongering
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  by politicians/scum.
________________________________________|_________________________________
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss