Subj : perl files for fidonet
To   : Maurice Kinal
From : Russ Johnson
Date : Wed Jun 13 2001 01:57 pm

> Hey Russ!
> Jun 10 14:26 01, Russ Johnson wrote to Maurice Kinal:
>> Well, since I frequent several sites on a regular basis, I know that
>> it's getting better.
> Yes but my point is and was that any half decent http sites are few and far
> between. 

Obviously, you aren't frequenting the right sites. I'm speaking of interactive 
sites, like slashdot. Some of the news sites take the place of a newspaper in 
my house. 

> Once you've been there a few times there is nothing new. 

Like I said, you don't look at the right sites. Slashdot is different in about 
15 minutes. Thousands of people, posting their comments daily. 

> Is any of
>that content worth running a browser for, especially a browser such as Netscap
> that hogs a healthy portion of your HD, crashes and chokes on it's own
> bloatedness, and other such nasty things?  I say it isn't, even a simple
>browser such as Lynx isn't worth the bytes given the limited usefullness of th
> www.

I use Opera. It's free (ok, I have an ad on my screen.. I don't even notice it) 
and it works well. Mozilla is coming along too, but Opera is faster and 
smaller.

>> Yes, there will probably always be the commercialism on some sites. The
>> best thing about it is that you can choose where to go.
> Or you can choose not to bother in the first place.

That is a choice. As Geddy Lee says, "If you choose not to decide, you still 
have made a choice."

> Possibly.  But perhaps the reason for the loss of sysops is that there isn't
>any good reason to maintain a Fido node.  What are you going to tell these new
> people when they ask why anyone should want a Fido node?

Better quality message areas. Among other things. Closer knit community.

>And that is the way Fido really works?  What about software?  Can I run my nod
>on cable?  What benefits are ther to running a node as opposed to just logging
> into a BBS as a user?  What software would I need to do that?  etc.  I think
> you get the idea.

Yes, you can run your node on cable. Warren Hrach in LA does just that. 

What benefits were there before? The same ones apply now. 

> Backwards compatibility in this particular case is a very bad joke.

The only backward compatiblity is the packets. There's nothing wrong with the 
packet format. 

Russ

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