scirocco's recent activity

  1. Comment on What are your favorite series that are not from the US or UK and also not popular anime? in ~tv

    scirocco
    Link Parent
    Broen/Bridge was excellent from an english subtitles perspective.

    Broen/Bridge was excellent from an english subtitles perspective.

  2. Comment on What service are you using for domain names? in ~comp

    scirocco
    Link Parent
    Absolutely true about the UI. But. It works well enough that I can buy a joke domain on a whim, in a bar, using my phone. So for me, that's good enough.

    Absolutely true about the UI. But. It works well enough that I can buy a joke domain on a whim, in a bar, using my phone.

    So for me, that's good enough.

  3. Comment on Battery life of AAA batteries that come with the original products seem unusually long in ~tech

    scirocco
    Link
    I bought a Toto Washlet bidet seat at Christmas 2007 Changed the OEM batteries in it's remote last year, finally. The remote functioned perfectly, but the LCD base were fading. I guess enough...

    I bought a Toto Washlet bidet seat at Christmas 2007

    Changed the OEM batteries in it's remote last year, finally.

    The remote functioned perfectly, but the LCD base were fading. I guess enough current to run the IR led when needed, but not enough voltage to keep the LCD excited.

    RIP Panasonic AA batteries 2007- 2022

  4. Comment on What service are you using for domain names? in ~comp

    scirocco
    Link
    Does anybody but me use joker.com? I've had domains there for.. well, pre-2000 so a good while. Maybe not particularly beginner friendly but super strong (from what I can see) privacy and no...

    Does anybody but me use joker.com?

    I've had domains there for.. well, pre-2000 so a good while.

    Maybe not particularly beginner friendly but super strong (from what I can see) privacy and no particular problems at all.

    Maybe I'm just still there out of inertia.

  5. Comment on Does anyone here use Usenet as an actual news reader anymore? in ~tech

    scirocco
    Link
    I haven't used USENET in a long, long time but am very curious if folks still do. Hopefully some folks who are currently active in USENET will appear

    I haven't used USENET in a long, long time but am very curious if folks still do.

    Hopefully some folks who are currently active in USENET will appear

    2 votes

  6. Comment on What is Usenet? in ~comp

    scirocco
    Link Parent
    Certainly that's true in terms of volume --- any binaries are going to be massively huge compared to human-readable text.

    Certainly that's true in terms of volume --- any binaries are going to be massively huge compared to human-readable text.

  7. Comment on Reddit appears to be down during blackout day 1 in ~tech

    scirocco
    Link
    down for me currently...

    down for me currently...

    7 votes

  8. Comment on What is Usenet? in ~comp

    scirocco
    Link Parent
    I think of usenet as similar to an old listserv --- mailing lists where you join the list, and you recieve email from everyone else on the list. If you send an email, everyone else on the list...

    I think of usenet as similar to an old listserv --- mailing lists where you join the list, and you recieve email from everyone else on the list. If you send an email, everyone else on the list gets a copy.

    If you send a binary (attachment) to the email list, it is converted into an asci/text form using an encoding system like uuencode --- the binary data is converted to large blocks of simple text, then sent just as plaintext in the body of the email. The receiving mail client converts it back into a binary attachment and displays it as such. It's a pretty baroque and magical system that just-works well enough that many/most people have never really been aware that SMTP email is (was) technically plaintext-only. No fonts, colors, formatting or attachments.

    NNTP is very, very similar, even using uuencode for binaries. The difference is that instead of being addressed to particular users/people via an email address like name@domain.com, these (often giant) text messages are organized into things like macos.comp.sci

    The messages are copied from NNTP server to NNTP server as peers, so something you post into a newsgroup will be copied to your server's peers, and those peers copy it to their peers etc. Messages 'ripple' across USENET in this fashion, and in the early days every NNTP server would carry/copy/forward all newsgroups.

    Nowadays of course there could be all sorts of risky stuff in there, and most NNTP only carry a selection.

    AND yet still, most of usenet now is large pirate binaries, used as a file-sharing system that is technically very different from bittorrent, but functionally somewhat similar.

    3 votes