I've been using usenet for about 15 years with various names. I just read
the announcement from AT&T that they are ending usenet services very soon.
That sucks. But so does growing old in general. Still, quite often it beats
the alternative.
To all of those that I have chatted with over the years and whom I may never
chat again, thanks. It's been fun.
Ed Cregger
Dave Carr - 08 Jun 2009 16:55 GMT
I to have been on the Usenet since before the web. My provider has dropped
Usenet several times and when I contacted them about it , they reinstalled
it saying they didn't think anybody used it anymore. I guess our days are
numbered. The younger generation has different interests I guess. That's the
way it should be, sigh!
Dave Carr
> I've been using usenet for about 15 years with various names. I just read
> the announcement from AT&T that they are ending usenet services very soon.
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Ed Cregger
Ray Haddad - 08 Jun 2009 21:05 GMT
>I've been using usenet for about 15 years with various names. I just read
>the announcement from AT&T that they are ending usenet services very soon.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>To all of those that I have chatted with over the years and whom I may never
>chat again, thanks. It's been fun.
Ed,
Tried to send you an e-mail message which was bounced. Would you
contact me?
--
Ray
Ray Haddad - 08 Jun 2009 21:08 GMT
>>I've been using usenet for about 15 years with various names. I just read
>>the announcement from AT&T that they are ending usenet services very soon.
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>Tried to send you an e-mail message which was bounced. Would you
>contact me?
Never mind. Doh!
--
Ray
Martin X. Moleski, SJ - 08 Jun 2009 21:34 GMT
>I've been using usenet for about 15 years with various names. I just read
>the announcement from AT&T that they are ending usenet services very soon.
>That sucks. But so does growing old in general. Still, quite often it beats
>the alternative.
>To all of those that I have chatted with over the years and whom I may never
>chat again, thanks. It's been fun.
Agreed. If we lose contact with you, fare well!
There are some free and/or inexpensive Usenet news service providers:
http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:news_providers
My college (which acts as my ISP) dropped Usenet years and years
ago. I've gotten news from Newsguy, Astraweb, and/or Supernews
since then.
My Astraweb contract was $10 for 25 GB of data. Since I read
only text newsgroups, I've not put much of a dent in my quota.
I switched to Supernews (paying much, much more) for reasons
that I cannot remember just now. I think my subscription is
in the neighborhood of $40 per year, text only.
If you can stand the interface, r.m.rc.air is available
free from Google:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.models.rc.air/topics?hl=en
I only use Google for research or when I'm totally desperate.
Lastly, RC Universe or one of the other web forums may have a
feed for r.m.rc.air. I think we occasionally see posts from
them.
Marty

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daytripper - 08 Jun 2009 23:04 GMT
>I've been using usenet for about 15 years with various names. I just read
>the announcement from AT&T that they are ending usenet services very soon.
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
>Ed Cregger
No reason to give up the ship yet.
I've been using the free motzarella.org as my one and only news server since
Comcast dropped all usenet service early last fall. As I only follow
discussion groups, the fact that motzarella does not support binary groups is
not an issue for me.
Go to www.motzarella.org and you can find out how to register (very easy) and
configure your news reader...
Cheers
David Hopper - 09 Jun 2009 00:23 GMT
>No reason to give up the ship yet.
>
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
>Cheers
Hey, thanks for the heads up. I went over and signed on and now I'm
using their server. Funny, they wouldn't let me register using my
bellsouth.net email account. I had to use my old reliable mindspring
address.
I haven't missed the binaries since B/S dropped them last year, so
this is good...

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David
Fubar of the HillPeople - 09 Jun 2009 01:55 GMT
Been using aioe.org for months now. Free.
Dan
> I've been using usenet for about 15 years with various names. I just read
> the announcement from AT&T that they are ending usenet services very soon.
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Ed Cregger
Andrey Tarasevich - 18 Jun 2009 20:05 GMT
> I've been using usenet for about 15 years with various names. I just read
> the announcement from AT&T that they are ending usenet services very soon.
> That sucks. But so does growing old in general. Still, quite often it beats
> the alternative.
You _do_ understand, I hope, that the only thing that AT&T is ending is
maintaining and providing their own Usenet access servers. Usenet
itself has absolutely nothing to do with AT&T, it will continue to exist
as if nothing happened and will remain accessible through any
alternative server (non-AT&T) just like it is now before.
Ed Cregger - 18 Jun 2009 23:11 GMT
>> I've been using usenet for about 15 years with various names. I just read
>> the announcement from AT&T that they are ending usenet services very
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> nothing happened and will remain accessible through any alternative server
> (non-AT&T) just like it is now before.
No, there is much that I do not understand about the intracacies of the
internet. Such as what is the incentive to support the newsgroups and how is
it tendered? None of this is obvious to me.
It is good to learn that AT&T's actions will not harm usenet.
Ed Cregger
Martin X. Moleski, SJ - 19 Jun 2009 01:53 GMT
>No, there is much that I do not understand about the intracacies of the
>internet. Such as what is the incentive to support the newsgroups and how is
>it tendered? None of this is obvious to me.
No reason why it should be.
There is very little about Usenet that is self-evident.
Thousands of arbitrary decisions have been made by
the folks who put it together, bit by bit.
Here is are some jumping-off points if you want to
take a peek behind the scenes:
http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:usenet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
>It is good to learn that AT&T's actions will not harm usenet.
The decision won't kill usenet.
It certainly will diminish access and interest for AT&T's
customers.
Marty

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Ed Cregger - 19 Jun 2009 11:31 GMT
>>No, there is much that I do not understand about the intracacies of the
>>internet. Such as what is the incentive to support the newsgroups and how
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
>
> Marty
Thanks, Marty.
Ed Cregger
Doug McLaren - 19 Jun 2009 18:10 GMT
| It is good to learn that AT&T's actions will not harm usenet.
They will harm Usenet -- many users will be cut off and will not find
other ways to get back on. But they won't kill it.

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Doug McLaren, dougmc@frenzied.us
I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.
Six_O'Clock_High - 20 Jun 2009 00:15 GMT
> | It is good to learn that AT&T's actions will not harm usenet.
>
> They will harm Usenet -- many users will be cut off and will not find
> other ways to get back on. But they won't kill it.
Doug,
I could be mean and say that if they weren't smart enough to figure out a
way back 'on' they probably didn't belong here in the first place, but I
promised my wife I would be a nice guy this week.
---Like hell!
Doug McLaren - 06 Jul 2009 17:30 GMT
| > | It is good to learn that AT&T's actions will not harm usenet.
| >
| > They will harm Usenet -- many users will be cut off and will not find
| > other ways to get back on. But they won't kill it.
...
| I could be mean and say that if they weren't smart enough to figure out a
| way back 'on' they probably didn't belong here in the first place, but I
| promised my wife I would be a nice guy this week.
The old saying was `The aggergate IQ of the Internet (or Usenet) is a
constant'.
As for Usenet, if all you want to do is talk about R/C, you might not
care that you lose easy access to rec.models.rc.air -- rcgroups is at
least 100x as big now and comes with pretty pictures.
Hell, last I looked, rcgroups had about 1/3rd the traffic of the
entire Big-8 set of groups on Usenet. (I'll need to look again.)
Usenet is dying the death of 1000 cuts ...

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Doug McLaren, dougmc@frenzied.us
I am a nobody, and nobody is perfect; therefore I am perfect.