• Re: [Usenet Improvement Project] Blinky's return?

    From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Fri Aug 22 10:14:31 2025
    Sn!pe <[email protected]> wrote:

    I'm sure that many of you here will remember Blinky the Shark and his
    Usenet Improvement Project.

    It was my understanding that Blinky died ~15 years ago; is that true?
    I ask because somebody claiming to be Blinky has recently appeared.

    After Blinky's death, and to prevent loss of his work, his pages were
    moved to:

    http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

    Alas, it disappeared from that site. According to web.archive.org, the
    last copy of that web page at that site was from Jan 24, 2025:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20250124145634/http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

    Now those pages are over at:

    http://suckmyfuckingcock.com/improve-usenet.org/

    Obviously a really bad choice of domain name having complete absense of professionalism. Blinky's work will probably die over there, too, since
    users are unlikely to visit a web site named as such, and it is some
    joker's personal project, so he'll change his mind, or decide to stop
    paying the domain ransom (you don't own a domain, but instead rent it
    from a domain registrar). Too bad no one upstanding and trustworthy
    grabbed Blinky's content before twovoyagers decided to drop them.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to All on Fri Aug 22 20:12:11 2025
    VanguardLH <[email protected]> posted:
    from a domain registrar). Too bad no one upstanding and trustworthy
    grabbed Blinky's content before twovoyagers decided to drop them.

    It mostly seems to be just slagging off Google Groups as an interface
    to Usenet, which is only of historical significance now.

    --
    Colin Macleod ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ https://cmacleod.me.uk

    FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED
    GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA
    NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Ralph Fox@21:1/5 to All on Sat Aug 23 09:13:39 2025
    On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 11:49:54 +0100, Sn!pe wrote:

    I'm sure that many of you here will remember Blinky the Shark and his
    Usenet Improvement Project.

    It was my understanding that Blinky died ~15 years ago; is that true?
    I ask because somebody claiming to be Blinky has recently appeared.

    FYI, some evidence from 2009

    1. <https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/30863813>
    2. <https://groups.google.com/g/alt.comp.freeware/c/_de0Ex4PpJ0/m/tmp3Cpp5NbcJ> 3. <https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.readers/c/78M6SnIGUW4/m/PmcBsLQhuh4J>
    4. <https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.readers/c/ryggoyeh--A/m/aq_EAVD7MaoJ>
    5. <https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.readers/c/K8W9cZb-D8A/m/KFvwHZsPNbgJ>
    6. <https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.readers/c/AUc4xCcoq0A/m/OvTm5dVHs28J>


    --

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From BlinkyTheShark@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Fri Aug 22 23:49:55 2025
    On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 20:12:11 GMT, Colin Macleod wrote:

    VanguardLH <[email protected]> posted:
    from a domain registrar). Too bad no one upstanding and trustworthy
    grabbed Blinky's content before twovoyagers decided to drop them.

    It mostly seems to be just slagging off Google Groups as an interface to Usenet, which is only of historical significance now.

    Yes, and thanks to my earlier work on this matter, Google Groups was shut
    down.

    If it weren't for me, we all would still have to deal with nasty Groupers.

    My main reason for kook obsessing like a stark raving idiot about Google Groupers, to the point where it was my only concern and the only friends I
    had were online, was that real Usenet users didn't need them around. They didn't deserve a way to access Usenet like we did because they stank and
    didn't groom properly and weren't nearly as smart as old head geezer
    Usenet users.

    We were, and are, a much more advanced life form than anyone who ever used Google Groups. If I could have, I would have taken away their Internet
    access also, not just an easy way to access Usenet.

    In my opinion, these Google Groupers didn't really deserve to live. If
    someone can't setup and use a newsreader, and have to rely on a web
    interface to access our beloved Usenet that belongs to us and only us,
    they weren't really valuable to planet Earth.

    That's why I tried to harm them and hurt them and shut them out from any enjoyment in any way I could. I thought, and think, it's so cool to make people suffer for no reason. It gives me a kick, kind of makes me stiff,
    you know. I feel powerful and in control when I can fuck something up for someone else based on my virtuous and pristine ideals.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Fri Aug 22 23:54:58 2025
    Colin Macleod <[email protected]d> wrote:

    VanguardLH <[email protected]> posted:

    Too bad no one upstanding and trustworthy grabbed Blinky's content
    before twovoyagers decided to drop them.

    It mostly seems to be just slagging off Google Groups as an interface
    to Usenet, which is only of historical significance now.

    If your client retrieves old articles, it will also get those where
    Google Groups was the injection node. Did you configure your NNTP
    client to retrieve new articles only after Feb 22, 2024?

    The GG filters can also be applied to other Usenet sources, like AIOE
    (which died at the end of Jan 2023, but their old articles still exist)
    and paganini (which became the new GG source with their free and
    unregistered server).

    Many users don't know how to define filters, and even fewer understand
    regex, so examples help those users. While I started with the filters
    listed by Blinky, I came up with better filters, and on other headers,
    and using regex to reduce false positives. Users need to start
    somewhere, and then grow.

    Note that Blinky's site disappeared LONG before Google disconnected from Usenet. His web pages disappeared from twovoyagers a year after Google
    walked away. If the criteria for removal was when Google left Usenet,
    why wait a year later to eliminate the information?

    After Google left Usenet, did I delete my GG filters? Hell no.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to All on Sat Aug 23 09:00:20 2025
    BlinkyTheShark <[email protected]> posted:

    In my opinion, these Google Groupers didn't really deserve to live. If someone can't setup and use a newsreader, and have to rely on a web
    interface to access our beloved Usenet that belongs to us and only us,
    they weren't really valuable to planet Earth.

    Better grab your smelling-salts then - I operate a web interface to usenet
    at https://newsgrouper.org . It certainly doesn't rival Google Groups in scale, and it tries to be more respectful to usenet norms, but it does offer easy access to the hoi-polloi!

    --
    Colin Macleod ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ https://cmacleod.me.uk

    FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED FEED
    GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA
    NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From s|b@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Sat Aug 23 19:58:36 2025
    On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 10:14:31 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

    After Blinky's death, and to prevent loss of his work, his pages were
    moved to:

    http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

    Alas, it disappeared from that site. According to web.archive.org, the
    last copy of that web page at that site was from Jan 24, 2025:

    FWIW after his death I used HTTrack to copy both blinky.net as well as improve-usenet.org. I still have them on my hard drive.

    --
    s|b

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From s|b@21:1/5 to All on Sat Aug 23 19:56:17 2025
    On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 22:44:32 +0100, Sn!pe wrote:

    Thank you again, Ralph. Sadly, that is indeed the confirmation
    that I expected. RIP, Blinky The Shark, an example to us all.

    So someone really sick is impersonating him...

    --
    s|b

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From issdr@21:1/5 to All on Sat Aug 23 23:12:58 2025
    Sn!pe wrote:

    A guess is that it's one of the alt.usenet.kook crew from way back
    in its gory days before the Novins lawsuit. I have a name but I'd
    better not divulge it in public in case I'm wrong. (email works)

    no way to investigate based on that?

    it's disgusting what they're doing.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From BlinkyTheShark@21:1/5 to issdr on Sun Aug 24 00:14:17 2025
    On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 23:12:58 +0200, issdr wrote:

    Sn!pe wrote:

    A guess is that it's one of the alt.usenet.kook crew from way back in
    its gory days before the Novins lawsuit. I have a name but I'd better
    not divulge it in public in case I'm wrong. (email works)

    no way to investigate based on that?

    it's disgusting what they're doing.

    Turns out, when I supposedly died alone, forgotten, and unloved by real-
    life people who really knew me, four delusional souls showed up at my
    pitiful funeral. My ex-wife and her brother and two weird and disgusting
    slobs from Usenet.

    That's what I get for being a complete and total asshole and underhandedly devoting all my life and time and efforts to harming new users of Usenet
    who weren't "cool" enough to use a newsreader.

    What a sad motherfucker I really was, looking back. I didn't realize it
    then, because I am slightly mentally retarded, but I was a pretentious, overbearing, ostentatious, acrimonious, virulent prick whose main goal in
    life was to prevent others from enjoying life online in any way possible.
    Why should anyone else be happy if I couldn't be?

    Only on Usenet would people celebrate that type of person and hold him up
    as an everlasting symbol of honorable intentions and pristine values. In retrospect, I was right at home in these bloody, nasty, polluted, foul
    waters of Usenet where a demonic character is celebrated as ethical.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Blueshirt@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 24 17:21:58 2025
    s|b wrote:

    On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 22:44:32 +0100, Sn!pe wrote:

    Thank you again, Ralph. Sadly, that is indeed the
    confirmation that I expected. RIP, Blinky The Shark, an
    example to us all.

    So someone really sick is impersonating him...

    A pointless impersonation, as GG's access to Usenet has now
    been disconnected... which was pretty much the aim of Lee's
    UIP. So what's the point in pretending to be him now?!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to BlinkyTheShark on Sun Aug 24 14:52:19 2025
    BlinkyTheShark <[email protected]> wrote:

    On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 23:12:58 +0200, issdr wrote:

    Sn!pe wrote:

    A guess is that it's one of the alt.usenet.kook crew from way back in
    its gory days before the Novins lawsuit. I have a name but I'd better
    not divulge it in public in case I'm wrong. (email works)

    no way to investigate based on that?

    it's disgusting what they're doing.

    Turns out, when I supposedly died alone, forgotten, and unloved by real-
    life people who really knew me, four delusional souls showed up at my
    pitiful funeral. My ex-wife and her brother and two weird and disgusting slobs from Usenet.

    That's what I get for being a complete and total asshole and underhandedly devoting all my life and time and efforts to harming new users of Usenet
    who weren't "cool" enough to use a newsreader.

    What a sad motherfucker I really was, looking back. I didn't realize it then, because I am slightly mentally retarded, but I was a pretentious, overbearing, ostentatious, acrimonious, virulent prick whose main goal in life was to prevent others from enjoying life online in any way possible.
    Why should anyone else be happy if I couldn't be?

    Only on Usenet would people celebrate that type of person and hold him up
    as an everlasting symbol of honorable intentions and pristine values. In retrospect, I was right at home in these bloody, nasty, polluted, foul
    waters of Usenet where a demonic character is celebrated as ethical.

    Paganini, Blinky the Forger's injection node into Usenet, has become the
    new Google Groups. Tis what happens with free UNregistered providers,
    like AIOE and paganini: they appeal to trolls, peuriles, forgers,
    malcontents, and other dross.

    Just as with GG, filtering out other garbage sources, like on the
    injection node in PATH, gets rid of Blinky The Forger, and his ilk
    through the new Google Groups aka Paganini BOFH. The Usenet Improvement Project still has value today, but for more than GG noise that the real
    Blinky helped to delete at the client end.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From BlinkyTheShark@21:1/5 to Blueshirt on Sun Aug 24 19:42:32 2025
    On Sun, 24 Aug 2025 17:21:58 -0000 (UTC), Blueshirt wrote:

    A pointless impersonation, as GG's access to Usenet has now been disconnected... which was pretty much the aim of Lee's UIP. So what's
    the point in pretending to be him now?!

    It's kind of ironic, isn't it? I dedicated my life to preventing new
    users from becoming familiar with Usenet because I have a very small penis
    and it made me feel more like a strong man.

    The irony, other than that my life's work amounted to nothing, is that
    even though GG users were disconnected from Usenet, so was I, and a lot
    earlier than they were.

    Life sure is a bitch, isn't it?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Ralph Fox@21:1/5 to Blueshirt on Mon Aug 25 08:52:49 2025
    On Sun, 24 Aug 2025 17:21:58 -0000 (UTC), Blueshirt wrote:

    GG's access to Usenet has now
    been disconnected... which was pretty much the aim of Lee's
    UIP.

    Blinky did not want to discontinue GG's *access* to Usenet for reading,
    only to discontinue GG's *posting* to Usenet. Blinky defended Google
    Groups as a an archive, loudly objecting to people doing (or even
    discussing) things that would make posts unreadable on Google Groups.

     *  See this post, where Blinky wrote: "Why are you using XNA so that
        any good information you might post is lost to those who might be
        able to benefit by it?"
        <https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.readers/c/OpmOep1Rv4E/m/4dZM0KPHQW4J>

     *  See this post, where Blinky described the "X-No-Archive" header as
        "anticommunity".
        <https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.readers/c/OpmOep1Rv4E/m/L2ASIIe8ji4J>

     *  See this post, where Blinky wrote: "XNA just diminishes the archive,     and the archive itself is not the problem. GG posting is."
        <http://al.howardknight.net/?ID=170278150600>
        <https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.readers/c/vnU7tSH00xY/m/B9lFRByPZ-8J>


    The ghoul did not know this. The ghoul was so obviously a forger.


    --
    Kind regards
    Ralph Fox
    🦊

    Shew me a liar, and I'll shew you a thief.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From BlinkyTheShark@21:1/5 to Ralph Fox on Sun Aug 24 23:54:47 2025
    On Mon, 25 Aug 2025 08:52:49 +1200, Ralph Fox wrote:


    Blinky did not want to discontinue GG's *access* to Usenet for reading,
    only to discontinue GG's *posting* to Usenet.

    Right. I also don't want to prevent men from being able to urinate, I
    just don't want them to urinate using their penis.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)