Re: What are you people using to download multipart binaries?

From: Arthur Hagen (art_at_broomstick.com)
Date: 09/02/05 

Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 19:02:00 -0400

NunYa Bidness <nunyabidness@nunyabidness.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2005 08:40:37 -0400, "Arthur Hagen" <art@broomstick.com>
> Gave us:
>
>> AJP <AJP@nospam.net> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I was wondering what you people use to download multipart binaries
>>> from newsgroups.
>>
>> We normally don't.
>
> Who is "we", Kimosabe?

We The News Admins, Tonto. Those of us who *built* Usenet and run and
administer the servers you see as a free means to get your daily fix of
pr0n and mp3's. Those of us who pay for the bandwidth and disk space to
do so, spend hours maintaining and tweaking the systems to ensure
availability, and still does it *despite* people like you, because we
see the importance of Usenet as an uncensored forum. That "we".

>> Multipart binaries on newsgroups is inconsiderate
>> bandwidth hogging,
>
> This has to be the most uninformed, retarded remark I have seen on
> Usenet.

As a long time Usenet administrator, I take offense to that. Without
people volunteering their hardware, lines and time, there would have
BEEN no Usenet, binaries or not. A single binary takes up as much
bandwidth and storage space as hundreds if not thousands of text posts.
There's a good reason why Usenet servers in 2005 don't carry the
articles from five years ago. That reason is bandwidth hogging
binaries, which started appearing in volume as late as the mid 90's.
Before then, retention was measured in *years* and not *days*, even with
much MUCH smaller storage devices.

>> causing delayed propagation and decreased retention
>> of real posts.
>
> There are binary specific newsgroups, so it most certainly IS one of
> the features of Usenet.

No, what the groups are *used for* doesn't imply it's one of Usenet's
*features*. The binary specific newsgroups were created to get most of
the September babies *away* from the discussion groups.

>> Usenet was never designed for this use,
>
> Bull***. It most certainly WAS one of the primary goals, and
> binary to text conversion and file transfers have taken place since
> the very beginnings of Usenet, and even before that by the military,
> when it was ARPANET.

Except that Usenet *wasn't* an ARPANET/DARPA project. In fact, it was
designed to bring message propagation to machines that were *NOT* part
of DARPA. It was created as an alternative, and never relied on
Internet or its predecessors (it started out using UUCP, and you *still*
find sites that propagate news using UUCP).

> You need to BONE UP on the facts, and quit making *** up as you go.

I was running Usenet servers probably long before you had *heard* of
Internet -- I have no need to make things up.

The encoding of binaries in a *text-only* format should give you a small
clue here. If it had been designed to handle binaries, it would have
accepted binaries without them having to be encoded into and camouflaged
as text post.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Binary_content
Also take a look at RFC1036

>> Thus, I would
>> think that most selfish uses with little regard for others as long as
>> they get THEIR pr0n would use Windows.
>
> You're an idiot. This is where some would declare "plonk", but I
> already know how to ignore ineffectual internet idjiiots.

Please plonk me. Then at least it will be mutual. 

-- 
*Art