Robin Laing posted on Wed, 6 Aug 2025 22:19:08 -0600 as excerpted: > My issue with the large groups is I don't get onto usenet often enough > to expire article after a few days. Real life. :)
Yeah, real life. "Real life" is why I -- unfortunately -- haven't really done binary groups in... it's gotta be well over a decade now. I have... or had, not even sure of the status it has been that long but in theory I still have... most of a 1 GB unexpiring block account left. I was already slowing down on the binaries when I got it but/and figured at my then current usage and usage-slowdown rate that $100 1 GB block might well last me the rest of my life... if I didn't ever seriously get back into binaries again. So far that has been correct, but regardless, the $100 was well-spent, since (as I predicted) it has turned out to be a "security blanket" of "it's there if I need it" (well, assuming it still is...). I've always intended to get back to it, tho, meaning that security blanket has been nice to have. But "real life"... Back in the day when I /was/ still doing binaries, tho, "real life" intruded then too, and as I had alluded to, for many years my news provider was the then-bundled ISP's news provider account, with sometimes only hours' retention on the binary groups. That *really* sucked as even daily downloading often left gaps. Of course that makes me really appreciate the security blanked of a block account with a real news provider with (practically for my purposes) unlimited retention, even if I don't in practice ever actually get around to /using/ it. OTOH, I can't complain /too/ much about "real life" as (other than the death of my folks which unfortunately happens to everyone eventually) it has actually treated me quite well the last decade. Even if it /has/ rather royally screwed up my previous plans over the same period. [Much longer even abridged version of the story dropped as /wayy/ too far in the weeds and off topic.] -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman _______________________________________________ Pan-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pan-users
