HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Scott_Le_Brun@guru.apana.org.au (Scott Le Brun)
Newsgroups: aus.sf
Subject: Re: ST:TNG videos
Distribution: world
Date: 2 Jan 93 15:06:52 +1100
Organization: Guru Meditation BBS

In a message dated Thu  1 Jan 93 17:58, Nick.allan@f395.n634.z3.fidonet.org
wrote:

 Sc> When you find out, tell me! All the video shops around here, only has
 Sc> the first series, with the exception of the "The Best of Both Worlds",
 Sc> "Unifications" and "Q-Who/The Emissary".

 N> Can you tell me what video shop you saw those in. I've only been able
 N> to
 N> find Unification.

The ST:TNG videos were picked up from Major Video (Knox District Centre)
I have seen quite a few Major Video outlets with the videos I mentioned
earlier.

Cheers...

Scott

-- Via DLG Pro v0.995

Newsgroups: aus.sf
From: steve@fulcrum.oz.au (Steve Taylor)
Subject: Re: Political Science Fiction
Organization: The Fulcrum Consulting Group
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 00:30:53 GMT

bongo@DIALix.oz.au (John Bongiovanni) writes:

>Certainly the politics found in science fiction isn't going to be
>conservative or reactionary. Almost by definition, science fiction
>has to have a positive, forward-looking outlook. When it doesn't,
>it's usually a "dystopia" or "cautionary tale", like "Brave New World".

If only. What about rednecks like Jerry Pournelle?


						Steve Taylor
						steve@fulcrum.oz.au
From: morgan@peg.pegasus.oz.au
Newsgroups: aus.sf
Date: 12 Jan 93 16:56 EST
Subject: ST;TNG plot summaries
Nf-ID: #N:peg:508400018:000:1103
Nf-From: peg.UUCP!morgan    Jan 12 16:56:00 1993


Is there anyone out there with an extremly good heart and
a desire to put a frustrated ST>TNG fan out of their misery?

It's like this,I don't have television,I live a long way
from anyone I know who has one, and will probably
die unless I find out what's happening on TNG.
(SLIGHT exageration)
So...
If anyone feels like giving a brief summary, or a long
one if you want, of what happens each week on TNG,I would
be extremly gratefull(bow,scrape,beg,wimper.)
No I don't have any pride at all!
I do happen to have a spare copy of "A Star Trek Catalogue"
Covering all of the original ST Series, which I could give 
to the kind,good,caring soul who takes pity on me.
Please,Please,Please,Please,Please,Please.
(pathetic isn't it)

Live long and prosper.
           O
             \
          O___O  
           \.      MORGAN LEIGH.     Phone: (02) 629 4253 
             \    
          O___O    KELLYVILLE,       Modem: (02) 629 4686 
           \     
            O      AUSTRALIA.        morgan@peg.apc.org
             \     
          O___O
           \  
            O
            |
            O


Newsgroups: aus.sf
From: mwp@iconix.oz.au (Michael Paddon)
Subject: Re: Political Science Fiction
Organization: Iconix Pty Ltd (World Headquarters)
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 00:17:20 GMT

In <dyfl.726473285@phobos> dyfl@kbs.citri.edu.au (Daniel Lam) writes:
>I once heard a talk where the speaker said that science fiction can
>be roughly classified politically as either libertarian (e.g. Robert
>Heinlein, Vernor Vinge) or socialist (e.g. H.G. Wells).

How about right wing (eg. Jerry Pournelle)? There's a growing
body of SF that espouses a political spectrum ranging from imperialist
to facist. This is usually dressed up as military SF.

>What do the SF fans have to say about this?  Can you offer a more
>elaborate classification?  What do you think the impact of science
>fiction has been on political debate?

SF has had a long history of being involved with political debate. To name
a few early works by way of example:

_The Divine Comedy_, Dante
_Utopia_, Thomas More
_Brave New World_, Aldous Huxley
_1984_, George Orwell

Of course four novels is not the whole story. The great majority of good SF
novels, in my experience, have something to say about politics. This is
the natural outcome of depicting a future/past/parallel society that is
different from our own. The author inevitably asks "How can the world work
better?" or, alternatively, "What are the consequences of our fuck ups?"

A book doesn't have to be overtly "political SF" to enter the arena of
debate. Every novel has a subtext and, indeed, those that restrict their
ideology to that subtle level tend to work better at getting the message
across (and not boring the reader senseless).

Another point to note is that it is easier for a writer to get away
with critcising his society by wrapping it up in a fantasic mileau.
Even in our own supposedly enlightened era, society has it's ways of
dealing with troublesome analysis. Jeter points this out most amusingly
(and extremely accurately) in _Dr Adder_.

Just off the top of my head, here's a list of novels that I found greatly
concerned with the political domain:

_Schismatrix_, Bruce Sterling
_Illuminatus!_, Shea and Wilson
_The LaNague Chronicles_, F. Paul Wilson
_Consider Phlebas_, Iain Banks

Michael
From: abcc@DIALix.oz.au (Adrian Booth Computing Consultants)
Newsgroups: aus.sun-works
Subject: Oz distributor(s) of "SysAdmin" by Manix Systems?
Date: 6 Jan 1993 14:27:46 +0800
Organization: DIALix Services, Perth, Western Australia
Distribution: aus
NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.dialix.oz.au
Summary: Anyone in Australia distribute this package?
Keywords: SysAdmin Manix distributor
X-Newsreader: NN version 6.4.19 #1

I've just been reading a report which mentions the "SysAdmin" package from
Manix Systems. This package apparently allows backup and security to be
controlled over multiple platforms.

Has anyone heard of this package?
Does anyone know how good it is?
Does anyone in Australia distribute it?

Thanks in advance, if there is enough interest I will summarise and post.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 | Adrian Booth					|	                  |
 | Adrian Booth Computing Consultants		|	Ph: (09) 354 4936 |
 | 7 Glenrowan Pl., Willetton WA 6155		|	abcc@DIALix.oz.au |
 | AUSTRALIA                                    |                         |
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
for a in past present future; do
	for b in clients employers associates relatives neighbours pets; do
echo The opinions in this article in no way reflect the opinions of my $a $b.
done;done
Newsgroups: news.future
From: brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: NetNews, a blueprint for survival
Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp.
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1993 23:22:09 GMT

They will.

More to the point, a gigabit link, which probably everybody will have in
a few decades, can easily carry the entire typing output of the human race.

There is a limit to the growth of a text based network.

Of course, some will try video and audio based conferencing networks,
and these will move more data, but just as radio never died (and never
will) nor will text based conferencing be replaced by video or audio
conferencing.

I can read and scan text based material at least a dozen times faster than
I can handle audio or video.   Perhaps 100 times faster when it comes to
quickly scanning over articles with the n key.   While I might accept
video with accompanying text (perhaps even speech-to-text generated text)
I will not likely make much use of a video based conferencing network.

Such a network has advantages of nuance, but what it boils down to is
that it makes it harder for the receiver and easier for the sender.  Since
there is one sender and a zillion receivers, this doesn't work, unless
the sender instead works *very* hard -- profesionally edited video like
we have on TV.

The only video E-conferences most literate people will peruse will be
moderated ones, so you only see the most important video, the video where
the presentation makes a difference.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Sunnyvale, CA 408/296-0366
Newsgroups: news.future
From: mox@vpnet.chi.il.us (William Moxley)
Subject: Old data?
Organization: Vpnet Public Access
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 04:27:23 GMT

If their anywhere I can get old usenet size data?  I'm paticularly
interested in the number of kilobytes each months.  This is for a 
program I wrote that estimates future growth.  Any help would be
appreciated... 

		William Moxley
		mox@vpnet.chi.il.us
From: pvs9@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de (Praktikum Verteilte Systeme)
Newsgroups: news.future
Subject: Re: In the future...
Date: 7 Jan 93 20:54:08 GMT
Reply-To: pvs9@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de (Praktikum Verteilte Systeme)
Organization: TU Braunschweig, Informatik (Bueltenweg), Germany

In article <1013@rc1.vub.ac.be> eluyten@rc1.vub.ac.be (Eric Luyten) writes:
>In article <1992Dec31.091149.7100@catfish.az05.bull.com>, pls@cibecue.az05.bull.com (Paul Schauble) writes:
>|> Pardon a news newbie asking a dumb question...
>|> 
>|> What's a cascade?
>Do you want to know how they're made ?
>
They are SO easy to create !
From: toad@cellar.org (Tony Shepps)
Newsgroups: news.future
Subject: Re: NetNews, a blueprint for survival
Date: 9 Jan 93 20:20:34 GMT
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system

curt@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Curt Welch) writes:
(Responding to the idea that news growth is out of hand)

> You can buy more disk.  You can move news to a larger machine.  You
> can buy faster modems.  You can can buy more phone lines.  It's
> easy to buy and run a machine that can handle a full news feed.  It's
> just a question of whether the cost is worth it to you.

You can buy, buy, buy.  You can throw money at the problem.  The rest of us
who are not at .mil sites can work out more efficient and better ways to
move the news along.  THAT doesn't cost ANYTHING and the net will be better
for these ideas.

> A lot of people (like us) are using T1 lines to move news.  Do you know
> how much of a T1 line is consumed by a single "typical" full news feed
> in 24 hours?  Less than 5 minutes worth.  It's no big deal.

Oh!  We should have thought of that!  All those small installations with 25
people and a part-time sysadmin should install T1 links!  That'll solve
their problems quickly and easily.  If the nail won't go in we'll just buy a
bigger hammer.  We'll just get a sledgehammer, that should do the trick.

--
Tony Shepps  toad@cellar.org
The Cellar: Public access and thoughtful conversation  +1 215 539 3043
From: matt@wardsgi.med.yale.edu (Matt Healy)
Newsgroups: news.future
Subject: Re: In the future...
Date: 6 Jan 93 22:28:54 GMT
Followup-To: news.future
Organization: Yale University--Genetics

In article <1993Jan03.061859.8419@catfish.az05.bull.com>,
pls@cibecue.az05.bull.com (Paul Schauble) wrote:
> 
> In article <1013@rc1.vub.ac.be> eluyten@rc1.vub.ac.be (Eric Luyten) writes:
> >In article <1992Dec31.091149.7100@catfish.az05.bull.com>, pls@cibecue.az05.bull.com (Paul Schauble) writes:
> >|> Pardon a news newbie asking a dumb question...
> >|> 
> >|> What's a cascade?
> >Do you want to know how they're made ?
> >
> Actually, yes. I understand that, whatever they are, they are undesirable so I
> have no intention of starting one. However, I might well find my self managing
> a usenet node in the near future, so I do want to know how to recognize one
> and what to do about it. Is a .450 Nitro Express adequate?
> 
>     ++PLS

A cascade is when a bunch of joiks post repeated follow-up
articles to a thread.  On most newsreaders you will only
see the header for the first article in a thread until you
open it up.  To remove long cascades you can tell your
news software to purge threads over a certain length.

Trouble is, software cannot easily determine whether there
are many articles in a thread because it's a hot topic or
because several joiks are flaming one another...

Matt Healy
"I pretend to be a network administrator; the lab
 net pretends to work!"

matt@wardsgi.med.yale.edu
From: revell@rodan.UU.NET (James R Revell Jr)
Newsgroups: news.future
Subject: Re: NetNews, a blueprint for survival
Date: 8 Jan 1993 20:19:32 -0500
Organization: UUNET Technologies Inc, Falls Church, VA
Reply-To: revell@uunet.uu.net (James R Revell Jr)
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net

In article <24001@elevia.uniforum.qc.ca> alain@elevia.uniforum.qc.ca (W. A. Simon) writes:
} According to a document published on the net a few weeks back, a
} full news feed taken at UUNET would fill a CD-ROM in 18 days. 

I was under the impression a CD-ROM holds something like 600 MB.  If so,
then a full feed from UUNET would fill it in under 11 days actually.

The followup by Curt Welch <curt@oasys.dt.navy.mil> contained several
good points about the rest of the posting.  I'll try to expand on a
few other items here.

} A full feed is not readable by any one individual.  Too often,
} sysadmins request complete feeds, just in case.

While UUNET provides a lot of full feeds, we provide even more partial
feeds.  Anyone who pays for their feed (whether it's connect time or
just the cost of the call) will trim the feed back when their budget
can not support a full feed.  Many sites operate with this in mind
from day one.

} Another reason for full-feeditis is that news
} configuration gets real simple or, reverse side of the same coin,
} micro-management of the sys file is a pain in the spooler.

That's BS and I feel qualified to say so since UUNET probably does the
most management of sys/newsfeed files (we have three).  The management
gets difficult based on the frequency you make changes, not the size or
number of feeds.

Here comes my main reason for this posting.

} I find it surprising that no system, of the public domain news
} distribution products I have seen so far, permits dynamic
} updating of ~news/sys files at the feeder sites, by the feedee

The main thing keeping people from doing this (assuming both parties
wish to) is authentication of the request.  If I could be sure that
only the proper user(s) at a site had the ability to change their feed
then I could do this at UUNET.  Ultimately this requires some sort of
key server though.   Watch for more on this :)

} I heard that such mechanism was available in a commercial
} product (Dynafeed for ClariNet?).  Isn't it time to give the
} concept wider exposure?  Does anyone know how it is done and how
} [un]practical it is?

Note that dyamically updating the sys file is quite different than
everything Dynafeed does.  Dynafeed does allow you to control what
groups you receive from the site fed and to some degree even the
articles within the group, but Dynafeed uses a completely different
method of feeding which I do not believe is efficient enough to be used
on a large scale.  Sites running a number of such feeds are encouraged
to comment.

Both the concept of a dynamic feed and changing a newsfeed from the
site fed are good ones, but they'll need a lot of work before they make
it into mainstream news transport packages.
-- 
James Revell	Network Services Mgr   <revell@uunet.uu.net>   /8^{~
Newsgroups: news.future
From: jhood@smoke.marlboro.vt.us (Lord Yertle)
Subject: Re: NetNews, a blueprint for survival (film at 11...)
Organization: Cthulhu Worship Meeting of Southern Vermont
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 02:27:35 GMT

Some comments on Alain's article for general digestion: I disagree
with his underlying view of Usenet which is the basis for his
proposals.

In article <24001@elevia.uniforum.qc.ca> alain@elevia.uniforum.qc.ca
(W. A. Simon) writes:

>Full feed
>
>A full feed is not readable by any one individual.  Too often,
>sysadmins request complete feeds, just in case.  The only
>justification for such a wall to wall coverage is found when one
>redistributes the feed, whole or in part, and the aggregate
>redistributed coverage includes the whole spectrum.  It is rarely
>so, unless the sites downstreams also indulge in the "ALL, just
>in case" policy.  Another reason for full-feeditis is that news
>configuration gets real simple or, reverse side of the same coin,
>micro-management of the sys file is a pain in the spooler.

Not here.  A full feed is its own justification; one of the best
things about Usenet is all the stuff in it.  If I get less than a
full feed, I'm cutting off from some newsgroups I'll look at someday.
I don't know what they are; I'll find out when I get there, and
they'll be sitting in my news spool waiting for me.

If somebody else besides you, the news admin, reads news, it's hard to
know what they *say* what they want to read, let alone what they
*really* want to read, or what they actually end up reading.

Remember, if nobody's interested in a newsgroup, ipso facto it doesn't
exist, or there's no traffic in it.

>Smaller sites could take over some redistribution duties.  Larger
>sites would not waste resources on (in relative terms) useless
>data.

That last line is aptly descriptive of your view towards Usenet news.
What's useless to you may be quite important to somebody else; people
are using Usenet for all sorts of different reasons.

The problems of Usenet's size are real; my current feed is a 60 mile
long distance call, and I look at Usenet through a little keyhole as a
result.  But to make Usenet more difficult and less pleasant to get
at, *from the user's point of view*, is not the answer.  That's my
objection to systems like dynafeed and its ilk.

Perhaps Usenet can't keep growing till it consumes the output of every
disk manufacturer of the world and the bandwidth of all its comm
lines.  Perhaps we will have to balkanize it by dividing it in the
ways that Alain describes.  But to my eyes, that itself is a problem,
not a solution.

  --jh
-- 
John Hood					Cthulhu-- just imagine it!
jhood@smoke.marlboro.vt.us
Duke U, 1980:  "Okay, so a few systems have the net started. What next?"
Newsgroups: news.future
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: NetNews, a blueprint for survival
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 18:58:06 GMT

curt@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Curt Welch) writes:
>A lot of people (like us) are using T1 lines to move news.  Do you know
>how much of a T1 line is consumed by a single "typical" full news feed
>in 24 hours?  Less than 5 minutes worth.  It's no big deal.

       Excellent point.  A full day of netnews takes less bandwidth than
five minutes of videoconferencing.

					John Nagle
Newsgroups: news.future
From: bartlone@med.ge.com (Michel Bartolone)
Subject: Re: NetNews, a blueprint for survival
Reply-To: bartlone@med.ge.com
Organization: GE Medical Systems
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 19:57:49 GMT


I'm not sure I understand you completely...what if I am at a large site..that doesn't
have any downstream feeds. My site is the 'politics node', but I am interested in
gardening and metalworking..my site doesn't subscribe to those groups thought
because we are 'politics node'...I am new to the net...my site doesn't carry the feeds
I would be interested in because 'no one ever wanted that one before...'and since they
don't carry them all..I never know that there is an emense amount of data onb
my favorite topic....or say only one site in the direct flow above me has access to
the alt.sex groups, but the sys-admin or operation manager doesn't like what they talk
about on alt.sex and therefore doesn`t allow the stuff to pass his site...instead of having
too much data, I think you'd end up with more administrative tasks making sure the folks
that read the news you supply get what they want..

Now if I completely mis-understood your point, or the mechanism you were trying to
propose, please just let me know..
---
sigs are like sound-bites..they never say enough, but frequently
are interpreted as saying too much.....bartlone@gemed.ge.com

Newsgroups: news.future
From: peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva)
Subject: Re: NetNews, a blueprint for survival
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 19:12:34 GMT

In article <24001@elevia.uniforum.qc.ca> alain@elevia.uniforum.qc.ca (W. A. Simon) writes:
> Unless we change something about the way we work it, we are about
> to turn our machines off, out of boredom, frustration and
> disgust.

This is called "negative feedback". When the net volume becomes high enough,
people dropping off will serve to reduce the net volume. Negative feedback
is an integral part of any stable system.

Why does Usenet still grow? Advances in technology keep increasing the point
where the negative feedback becomes significant. Eventually, the growth in
the user base will be limited by technology.

> The first premise that needs reconsidering is that any decent
> feed must be a full feed.

I don't know anyone other than sites directly in the Internet that believe
this. As fewer and fewer sites carry all news, advances in technology like
Dynafeed will become more common.

No problem. If you want to help accelerate the growth of the net, get cracking
on implementing the technology...
-- 
Peter da Silva                                            `-_-'
Ferranti International Controls Corporation                'U` 
Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012 USA
+1 713 274 5180                            "Zure otsoa besarkatu al duzu gaur?"
From: kenh@leps5.phys.psu.edu (Ken Hornstein)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Controlling access to newsgroups
Date: 12 Jan 1993 02:23:01 GMT
Organization: Penn State, Laboratory for Elementary Particle Science

In article <3661@aegis.or.jp> davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane) writes:
>rsalz@rodan.UU.NET (Rich Salz) writes:
>
>>As someone else mentioned, INN can do some access control based
>>on IP address and/or cleartext name/password; these commands can be
>>sent at any time by a reader to vary its access dynamically.
>
>I see the problem. So maybe the only way it would work would be to
>have the person telnet themselves to the server where they would
>have to have an account. Awkward to be sure, but it would only
>have to be for the restricted groups....
>
>Any other ideas anybody?

Two ideas come to mind:

	Use something like RFC931 authentication to verify users (although
RFC931 is really an identification protocol, not an authentication protocol).

	Make a setuid news reader that only people in a special group can
execute, and have the reader bind to a reserved local port, and have the
NNTP server check for a reserved remote port.

Both of these ideas have plenty of problems (an understatement :-) ), but
they would work (at least, I can't see any problems).

--Ken
Newsgroups: news.software.b
From: molenda@i9.msi.umn.edu (Jason Molenda)
Subject: Problem with C News slave/master numbering and Xref'ed articles?
Reply-To: molenda@msi.umn.edu
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 22:51:11 GMT

I just installed the Performance Release of C News on our campus-wide
news servers last weekend and it seems as though something is broken.

I'm calling relaynews with `-g' on our news numbering master machine
and with `-b umn.edu' on our slave news reading machines (the ones
people have access to on campus).

Unfortunately, I'm seeing it where the cross-posted article is
correctly stored on the master machine, but on the slaves it is only
stored in the first group on the list of newsgroups and the Xref header
is stripped.  Additionally, the history entry only lists the first
group.

For example, I posted a test message in `umn.cs.test,umn.news-server.test'
and it shows up in the master's history file as 

<C0pnLn.Fsp@news2.cis.umn.edu>  726791126~-     umn.cs.test/126 umn.news-server.test/214

On the slaves, it ends up being

<C0pnLn.Fsp@news2.cis.umn.edu>  726791314~-     umn.cs.test/126

It is physically only present in the umn/cs/test directory and the Xref
header (which was present in the copy on the master) has been deleted.

I turned newsrunning off and grabbed the article before it was
processed by relaynews on the client and it had a reasonable Xref line.
Specifically, it was 

  ! rnews 586 news2.cis.umn.edu
  Xref: umn.edu umn.cs.test:126 umn.news-server.test:214
  Newsgroups: umn.cs.test,umn.news-server.test

I'm running SunOS 4.1.2 and I believe I applied all of the
known.problems patches.  I'm not using the fast stdio stuff.  Has
anyone seen this?  I find it hard to believe that something like this
has gone unnoticed all this time so I suspect it is somehow my fault.
:-)

Thanks!
-- 
Jason Molenda, University of Minnesota, Supercomputer Inst., Technical Support
SGI Iris Admin        molenda@jason.msi.umn.edu       DoD #1867     '77 CB750F
Xref: sparky news.software.b:3722 news.software.nn:1727