On Wed, 04 Sep 2019 04:59:12 -0500, Randy Wang
<abuse@localhost.localdomain> wrote:
>In article <dgvtmetdrgprh2hapn3ebian5v5ogpr1si@4ax.com>,
>SL <SerpentLord@Evil.Incarn8> wrote:
>
>> There are times when making a dx makes real sense, it's too
>> time consuming though and for a good majority you can use the cover
>> image as a selection guide.
>
>The main thing about indexes is that they're left over from the era
>of dialup, when most people were forced to pick and choose what to
>download. In olden times, it took far too long to download a few
>selected full-size pics from a set to see whether you wanted to get the
>entire set (and getting the entire set would take many minutes).
>That's all over, and the need for indexes has faded away with it.
>
>There are many groups whose charters are absurdly out of date and need
>to be revised because they have too many rules from the era of dialup,
>like restrictions on the number of files or the volume (in megabytes)
>that should be uploaded in one batch or within 24 hours or whatever.
>However, that's only an observation, not a recommendation (I'm not
>saying "Go revise the charters"), because we are (sadly) in the endgame
>of Usenet binaries and there's just no point in doing any of that
>maintenance stuff any more. I'm not predicting the imminent death of
>Usenet binaries; it's obvious that the groups will go on for some
>further number of years, until the server-operating corporations have
>had enough and they pull the plug and shut down our playground.
>(There's no such thing as a small Usenet binaries server any more;
>for many years it has been a big business, requiring many millions of
>dollars for the servers and the disk farm in each instance. That's why
>the vast majority of Usenet servers are now owned and operated by a
>very small number of companies, Highwinds being the most obvious
>example with dozens of brand names selling access to its servers.)
>
>Anyroad, back to indexes: There's also no point in those any more.
>Personally, I don't mind creating index files for my relatively few
>uploads, but it would certainly get to be an annoying chore if my
>upload volume were higher. For anyone whose downloading routine always
>includes getting the indexes and vgrepping them for individual files
>to download selectively, that's OK as far as it goes, but it seems
>obsolete to me, probably just an old habit, and I suggest trying a
>different approach a few times to see whether it works OK for you:
>In the article list in your newsreader, just choose some pics somewhat
>at random scattered throughout the set, give the command to download
>them all, view 'em (if you have a really good newsreader, that part can
>be done in the newsreader also), and decide whether to grab the entire
>set.
>
>I can see only two likely reasons for not doing that: a very slow net
>connection or an absurdly small traffic quota from your ISP or from
>your news server. I have to assume that those things are rare, except
>that unfortunately some ISP craporations are getting nasty lately about
>capping the download volume. Download quota from NNTP servers is
>monthly charge, no contract), and as for net connections ... har!
>We can all see how that's going these days. Gigabit is all the rage.
>And I'm definitely not speaking from any privileged situation; my net
>connection is very slow DSL, as cheap as I can get it because I can't
>afford anything better. *But* it also works just fine for the stuff
>I'm talking about. Beyond that, if you have 25 megabits or faster,
>you've got nothing to worry about unless your ISP is one of those
>especially nasty cap-imposing fuckers (like Comcast/Xfinity).
>
>ticket, take the ride." Why not take a chance and download the entire
>set (excluding the index files if they exist!); what the hell. Look at
>the set eventually and decide whether to keep it. If you delete it,
>then what have you lost? A few minutes of downloading time, while
>you're doing other things on the computer? Or some NNTP download quota
>that's worth a few pennies? What's the big deal? Live a little. :->
>
>OBTW, disk space is also dirt-cheap ... looking only at the relatively
>low-capacity drives (not 10 TB or anything), the price point is now
>$80 for each 4-terabyte chunk. That's peanuts.
>
>P.S.: Speaking of net bandwidth, other than Usenet, if you think you
>need gigabit, or even a hundred megabits, for streaming videos, check
>this out:
>
><https://stopthecap.com/2019/08/20/
>wall-street-journal-says-faster-internet-not-worth-it-
>but-they-ignore-bottlenecks-and-data-caps/>
I choose to honor the Charter for .pubes because I don't want
any fucking excuses for staying On Topic there..."well, you broke the
Charter too!" situations.
I dL all of Bucks sets without looking at their covers first.
It's faster to judge them later. Others, I'll check out, sometimes.
In the .wallpaper groups there's definitely some whiners
there. I post to duplicates because there's a 50 pic limit in
(straight).wallpaper. Unclear about indices. They had people all
over the World in remote areas(The Outback) at times so in the end the
group played to the lowest common denominator. I don't know what the
situation is there now...it's basically fallen apart, but there's that
damn rule in the way! People will cling, so instead of being KF'ed, I
post to .duplicates.
I can't tell you how much longer ng's will be around. I've
prophosied about things in the Past and either I'm flat dead wrong or
I've eaten crow(the exact opposite happens!). We all know how
business works though: when it's no longer profitable they'll SHUT
THE MOTHERFUCKER DOWN! We may not even get a kiss goodnight!
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