semi-retired from Usenet

In recent years activity in my favorite Usenet newsgroups* has declined. I think it has reached a point where I can no longer justify paying $15 per month for high-quality access to them. So I’ve closed my newshosting.com account.

Yep, I feel kinda sad about it. But fads in technology change. The telegraph operators used to have interesting textual discussions with one another during the wee small hours of the night when they were not passing commercial traffic. That was then; this is now.

I guess I can still monitor the discussion-oriented groups via Google Groups.

*my favorite groups were:
alt.binaries.world-languages
alt.binaries.mac.applications
alt.language.artificial

UK bureaucracy blasted for excessive translations

The National Health Service in Britain spends 255,000 pounds annually to provide its NHS Direct telephone service in a variety of languages including Cherokee, Akan, Homa and Esperanto.

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, says: “NHS Direct seem to have lost touch with reality… If they have surplus money, ordinary families need it back – there's no reason to waste it on Esperanto medical tips.”

Complete newspaper article under this link.