This item is for system announcements (new computer equipment on Grex, 
system upgrades, Grex meetings, etc.).  Personal announcements should go 
back in item 2; Grex system *problems* belong in the next item (#4). 

78 responses total.

I've installed Backtalk version 1.1.5 here on Grex.  Nearly all the
changes are really minor bug fixes or portability improvements.  There
main change in pistachio is that the old "Preview" button next to the
"Post" button has turned into a "Spelling" button.  It still previews,
but also does spell checking.

I also installed the "bubblegum" interface.  It was designed as a
"fewer, bigger buttons" version of Backtalk to be used by elementary
school kids in Canton.  I don't think it will draw many converts from
Picospan, but I had it so I tossed it into the stew.

Janc...a spell checker. If you had told me that backtalk would come over 
to my house and clean it from top to bottom while also mowing the yard 
and cooking me a great dinner, I wouldnt be happier. Ok, I am lying but 
the spellcheck thing is still pretty good :)

Is there a way to edit what you've posted?  I had something all nicely
formatted when posting in backtalk, and once it posted, all my formatting went
to hell.

Backtalk is technically capable of editing past posts, but that isn't enabled
on Grex.  Enabling that would be a policy issue, not a technical issue.

And we've all been down that road before......

I upgraded Grex's ispell spell checking program to a newer version with
more languages.  It now spellchecks American English, British English,
French, German, and Dutch.  I tried but failed to install the spanish
dictionary.  I might install more once we have a bit more disk space,
just for the fun of it.  Backtalk lets you spell check in any of these
languages.

I upgraded the version of vim installed here from 4.6 to 5.8.  I set it up
not to start in "vi compatible mode" by default, because if you want to use
vi, we have the real thing.  Personally I've gotten to like vim better than
vi.

Hm.  Just tried out vim and noticed that it supports a mouse
(in xterm, anyway).  Not too many Grex programs can make that
claim.

Even if you can't edit your post, can you at least edit the items you 
create?

Again, that is a political question.  If you think you can convince a lot of
Grexer's that that would be OK, then raise it in the 'coop' question. 
Historically the resistance against such ideas has be substantial.

Well, it's an opening item in the new version of Inferno, that hasn't been
opend up to the public yet.  All I want to fix is the setup, not the actual
wording...the actual wording is pretty cool. :)

Stuff that a fw has posted in a not-yet-opened-to-the-public cf. can be
treated somewhat differently.  As fw, i believe that you can use the 
'kill' command to delete it, then re-enter it.  If that doesn't work 
(or makes the first item #2), let me know. 

But I'm too lazy to do that!  :)

Well, I'll try that then and see what I can do. 

Well I killed it, and now the first item is number two.

<snorts> That's funny . . .But why . . .It was fine other than the 
formatting.

I'm not necessarily in favor of being able to edit the contents of the 
item one has posted once it's public.  <sighs>  I supose the bottom 
line is, aside from formatting issues, is simply to make sure it's the 
way you want it before you send it off.

If this isn't a public cf yet, why not just ask cfadm to get rid of all
the items & the sum file, & start over?

Or the FW could kill all the items and then "set nosum" and "set sum".

Well, its all covered now anway.  I killed it and rewrote it the same way,
except for the formatting issues.

I'm all in favor of no editing once they are posted....but it's the opening
item of my new baby....I want it to be perfect. :)  (And it really wasn't
public yet....)

(If the cf. hasn't been open to the users yet, there's no moral difference
between "scribbled on a piece of paper on your desk" and "posted in the new
cf.".)

That was my thinking, actually. :)

'

The Grex Inventory is now in a database online, which is queryable by
anyone.  Go to:
/---------------------------------------------\
| http://www.cyberspace.org/~invent/index.cgi |
\---------------------------------------------/
to view it.  Unfortunately it's a bit slow on Grex.  You can query based on
item type, or manufacturer, or status, among other things, and you can view
the personal property tax report which is generated from the data.

I did a lot of work to make it viewable with Lynx, too.  Of course it still

looks a lot better in a real browser, but if you're used to Lynx, the
database will probably look better than most things.

If we can keep the database current, it will make it a lot easier to pay
personal property tax in the future.

I shut Grex down for several hours Saturday night to do some rearranging of
the disks.  We now have a lot more space on /bbs and /usr/local.  There will
probably be another similar session to enlarge some of the other system
partitions sometime soon.  After that, I'll start adding more user space.

        Thanks for the explanation and the good work.

I should apologize for not giving advance notice of this kind of thing, but
basically my ability to spend 6 hour chunks of time in the pumpkin depends
on Arlo's sleep patterns and many other random variables, and I don't usually
know very far in advance when I am going to be able to do it.

Thanks to the big new /bbs partition that janc has given us, i was able
to undo the kludge of splitting off & compressing the old agora20 through
agora29 conferences.  (Done when we were running out of disk space back in
February.)  All the old agoras are back in one piece on /bbs and it doesn't
look like anything got lost in the process.

I moved /var to a much bigger partition which will let us do some more
logging.  I created a new partition for user space, called /d.  I moved
several staff members who like to keep a lot of system stuff in their
directories (like STeve's vast collection of reap logs) to their own
partition, called /s, freeing up a mess more space for users.

Re #27 (sort of): keesan might know this one, I was too twp
to learn Latin at school.  Is the plural of agora agorae?!

If it's the well-behaved first-declension noun that it looks like, then yes.

I thought agora was greek.

D'oh.  Yes, it is.  Making the plural "agorai" (pronounced the same, spelled
differently).  

Now nobody go and tell me that it's Sanskrit.  At the rate I'm agreeing with
people, I just might believe you.

"Agora" *is* the plural.  The singular is "agorum".

        How can one be in more than one agorum at a time?
Wouldn't then the collection of all agora*.cf s be the agora?

I don't think so, John.  Last I heard, 'agora' was the marketplace, the town
square.  Hmmm . . . the Great Scott is across the room.  Why don't I go get
it . . . "agora" is singular, and means "assembly", later "marketplace":
tousin d' out' agorai boulephorai (roughly, "in the assembly of counselors"),
from the Odyssea, 9.112.

While John may be incorrect (or joshin') in this case, a plural of a plural
is not unheard of. Given that "agora" does refer to a collective, it's
plausible that there's a singular which means whatever it is that's collected
in an agora.

I can't find anything that supports' John's comment, though, so I dunno.

All the stuff I have read (in English) on ancient Greece refers
to "agora" as a singular noun.

Well then.  Maybe I just made it up.

That would be shocking. I've never known you to pull anyone's leg. You're
almost as straightforward as I am.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss