If you don't peruse Usenet, you can ignore this post.

For those of you who may not check Usenet frequently, about a month ago one of the larger Usenet providers started re-posting a crap-ton of stuff from about 2009/2010 timeframe. Groups that had been mostly dead for years all of the sudden had a bunch of stuff in them.  It's still going on.  Someone in one of the groups I download from tracked down which provider it was (I don't remember which one, but it doesn't matter).  Most Usenet trackers only go back a couple of years, so if you weren't active back in 2009 or 2010, you may not have seen some of this stuff.  I've pretty much been a regular Usenet user since 1998 (originally started in 1983), so I've already seen this stuff.  However, some of my musical tastes have changed, so I'm finding a few things here and there to download.  One note though... not everything is 100% there.  Not only are parts missing on some files, entire files are missing.  It's been frustrating to download an "album" but it's missing a few tracks.  I'm having about an 80% success rate on the stuff I've tried. Happy hunting.

I had no idea that this was a black art. 

I want a Roman shade, linen, with cord.

Besides being $200+, they are difficult to find.

sora.chatgpt.com

Been having fun making pictures
Here is a Lincolnized Mustang

A Grumman F7F Tigercat with Jet Engines


An attempt without being specific enough

A bluetooth speaker shaped like a Classic mac

I know he's probably busy but I've seen as handful of people get their old username restored after the forum swap. I sent 2 PMs and an email last week. Anything more I can do or just get used to my "new" username?

Jerry®

Found it while cleaning....any use for it anymore?

Singing the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" with Robert Smith.

https://youtu.be/MDTlUtrzeFI?si=YnHknKS2Fi35k1-I

PS Dang! Robert Smith is looking bad. Sometimes Rockers just need to give up the hair/wigs and makeup!

Deficits don't matter!



Next: Forcing Powell out so Trump's stooge can drop interest rates on this massive steaming pile of rich man's debt.

But, Bezo's ability to rent Venice for his next wedding will not be hindered.

Apple's iPhone came out 18 years ago and changed the world .

Compared to today's iPhone 16 Pro Max and what we know of the forthcoming iPhone 17 range, the very first iPhone that went on sale 18 years ago today was startlingly slow and incredibly limited — yet it changed the world. 

It was on June 29, 2007, that the original iPhone went on sale in the US, and arguably that was the day that it truly began shaking up what users expected from a phone. 

We and the phone industry had already known all about it for over five months. But it wasn't until you could buy it that the impact of this little device began to be felt — even inside Apple. 

"[Going on sale] is a happy moment, but it's also a stressful one," Apple's Tony Fadell told the Wall Street Journal for a video released in 2022. "What's going to happen when it goes out into the world?" 


This is an interesting, if not thorough, retrospective of the development of the 'Phone. 

There probably won't be an new material for those who've followed development closely, but I saw a couple of thing I hadn't seen so it was worth my time.

Much more at https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/...-years-ago

another stretch of record heat hits USA

Trump stands strong with U.S. decision to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine!...on the wrong side of history AND the wrong side of humanity.


Putin tells Trump he won't back down from goals in Ukraine, Kremlin says
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/put...025-07-03/

MOSCOW, July 3 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin told U.S. President Donald Trump in a phone call on Thursday that Moscow wants a negotiated end to the Ukraine war but will not step back from its original goals, a Kremlin aide said.

In a wide-ranging conversation that also covered Iran and the Middle East, Trump "again raised the issue of an early end to military action" in Ukraine, the aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters.


"Vladimir Putin, for his part, noted that we continue to seek a political and negotiated solution to the conflict," Ushakov said.

Putin briefed Trump on the implementation of agreements reached between Russia and Ukraine last month to exchange prisoners-of-war and dead soldiers, Ushakov said, and told him that Moscow was ready to continue negotiations with Kyiv.

"Our president also said that Russia will achieve the goals it has set: that is, the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs, to the current acute confrontation, and Russia will not back down from these goals," he added.

There was nothing in the Kremlin readout to suggest that Putin had made any shift in Moscow's position during the conversation with Trump, who took office with a promise to end the war swiftly but has voiced frequent frustration with the lack of progress between the two sides.

The phrase "root causes" is shorthand for the Kremlin's argument that it was compelled to go to war in Ukraine to prevent the country from joining NATO and being used by the Western alliance as a launch pad to attack Russia.

Ukraine and its European allies say that is a specious pretext for what they call an imperial-style war, but Trump in previous public comments has shown sympathy with Moscow's refusal to accept NATO membership for Ukraine.