Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> wrote in
news:20221220174017.1c088c34@nx-74205:

> On 20.12.2022 at 08:17, Mike Easter scribbled:
>
>> Mike Easter wrote:
>> > Aha.  Claws default is 7bit ascii; if you put in an
>> > em-dash, it is going to have to deal w/ that somehow.
>>
>> Actually claws default charset is 'auto' which it uses
>> ascii unless it needs something else, which alternately
>> could be utf-8 but utf-8 won't do an em-dash w/o 'extras'
>> so it uses q-p.
>
> I use UTF-8 everywhere. It's the 21st century, after all,
> and I'm not an American. :p

I don't know how the 'Americans' here don't call you out on your elitism. I don't know if it's
the European in you, or your issues, probably a combination, but...

....joking or not...it's uncalled for.

DanS wrote:
> Aragorn wrote:
>> Mike Easter scribbled:
>>> Mike Easter wrote:
>>>> Aha.  Claws default is 7bit ascii; if you put in an
>>>> em-dash, it is going to have to deal w/ that somehow.
>>>
>>> Actually claws default charset is 'auto' which it uses
>>> ascii unless it needs something else, which alternately
>>> could be utf-8 but utf-8 won't do an em-dash w/o 'extras'
>>> so it uses q-p.
>>
>> I use UTF-8 everywhere. It's the 21st century, after all,
>> and I'm not an American. :p
>
> I don't know how the 'Americans' here don't call you out on your elitism. I don't know if it's
> the European in you, or your issues, probably a combination, but...
>
> ...joking or not...it's uncalled for.
>
I didn't interpret Aragon's remark as 'anti-American'.

I interpreted it as referring to the 'fact' (or situation) that many
agents 'choose' so-called 'us-ascii' whereas modernization has brought
us to UTF-8 with which it is backward compatible, whereas some other
'modernizations' went ISO 8859-1 or ISO Latin 1 as opposed to other 8bit
ISOs such as ISO8859-2 for eastern euro or iso8859-5 for such as
cyrrilic or maybe something mcrosoftie like CP1252 superset of iso8859-1.

That is, I consider utf-8 to be the most 'global' 8bit, not some of
those others, and I don't consider it to be American or anti-American,
whereas some of those others are more 'regional'.

--
Mike Easter

DanS wrote:
> Aragorn
>>
>> I use UTF-8 everywhere. It's the 21st century, after all, and I'm
>> not an American. :p
>
> I don't know how the 'Americans' here don't call you out on your
> elitism. I don't know if it's the European in you, or your issues,
> probably a combination, but...
>
> ...joking or not...it's uncalled for.
>
Oh; wait; I see.

DanS is XNews.

> Xnews does not support UTF-8 (or any other character set encoding),
> making it difficult or even impossible to use for reading or posting
> articles in languages other than English.

So, maybe he is 'sensitive' to what Aragorn posted here w/ a number of
wonky char/s which required his Claws msg to be 'characterized' by UTF-8
and quoted-printable.

But, I don't consider UTF-8 to be 'non-American' so maybe DanS is
calling out Aragorn for the words that implied that maybe Americans (and
the use [by some of them] of antiquated encoding or charsets) weren't
'modern' enough.

I'm flopping around trying to find the 'offense' here :-)

--
Mike Easter

On 26.12.2022 at 22:01, DanS scribbled:

> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> wrote in
> news:20221220174017.1c088c34@nx-74205:
>
> > On 20.12.2022 at 08:17, Mike Easter scribbled:
> >
> >> Mike Easter wrote:
> >> > Aha.  Claws default is 7bit ascii; if you put in an
> >> > em-dash, it is going to have to deal w/ that somehow.
> >>
> >> Actually claws default charset is 'auto' which it uses
> >> ascii unless it needs something else, which alternately
> >> could be utf-8 but utf-8 won't do an em-dash w/o 'extras'
> >> so it uses q-p.
> >
> > I use UTF-8 everywhere. It's the 21st century, after all,
> > and I'm not an American. :p
>
> I don't know how the 'Americans' here don't call you out on your
> elitism.

I don't consider aligning myself with something the whole world has
agreed upon, accepted and adopted more than two decades ago as
any kind of elitism. As the matter of fact, I'd say that refusing to
adopt such globally accepted standards out of a misplaced sense of
nationalism would be a lot closer to elitism. And arrogance.

> I don't know if it's the European in you, or your issues,
> probably a combination, but...

My "issues", eh? Yes, why not go ad hominem? You've always been so
very good at that.

Could the fact that you're still holding grudges against me after, what
was it now, 10 or 12 years since we kicked your Microsoft fanboy ass
around these parts, possibly be an indication of any issues that YOU
might have?

Don't answer that. It was a rhetorical question.

> ...joking or not...it's uncalled for.

It was not a reference to Americans themselves, but to the fact that
ASCII and ISO-8859-1 were specifically created to cover the English
language — i.e. the Latin alphabet, possibly with a few diacritics
added — as used in the USA, and that despite the fact that the Euro (€)
as a currency has already been in use for 20 years, many American
websites and email providers are still using ISO-8859-1 as their
character encoding, even though said encoding doesn't even cover the
Euro symbol, let alone any other languages than the Western-European
ones.

In fact, a variant of ISO-8859-1 encoding was created — ISO-8859-15 —
which does include the Euro symbol, but even then still, Americans tend
to stick to ISO-8859-1, let alone going with Unicode, which covers all
that's covered in the different ISO encodings, and although different
varieties of Unicode exist, they are all upward compatible with one
another. UTF-8 covers all of the western languages, UTF-16 covers
all of the same things as UTF-8 plus bidirectional script, and so on.

In a way, I liken this conservative trend to stick with ISO-8859-1 to
the American refusal to adopt the metric system, even though everyone
else in the world has adopted the metric system and actively uses it,
in the spirit of international cooperation and trade.

And yes, I'm aware that the USA recognizes the metric system, but
actually adopting it is still a very different thing.

The bottom line is that as a European, ISO-8859-1 and ASCII do not
cover my needs, nor those of the people in the rest of the world.

--
With respect,
= Aragorn

Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> writes:

> On 26.12.2022 at 22:01, DanS scribbled:
>
>> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> wrote in
>> news:20221220174017.1c088c34@nx-74205:
>>
>> > On 20.12.2022 at 08:17, Mike Easter scribbled:
>> >
>> >> Mike Easter wrote:
>> >> > Aha.  Claws default is 7bit ascii; if you put in an
>> >> > em-dash, it is going to have to deal w/ that somehow.
>> >>
>> >> Actually claws default charset is 'auto' which it uses
>> >> ascii unless it needs something else, which alternately
>> >> could be utf-8 but utf-8 won't do an em-dash w/o 'extras'
>> >> so it uses q-p.
>> >
>> > I use UTF-8 everywhere. It's the 21st century, after all,
>> > and I'm not an American. :p
>>
>> I don't know how the 'Americans' here don't call you out on your
>> elitism.
>
> I don't consider aligning myself with something the whole world has
> agreed upon, accepted and adopted more than two decades ago as
> any kind of elitism. As the matter of fact, I'd say that refusing to
> adopt such globally accepted standards out of a misplaced sense of
> nationalism would be a lot closer to elitism. And arrogance.

I'm a USAian, and I don't have any problem with UTF-8.

(I don't like the term "American," because it assumes that only the US
is important out of all the countries in the Americas.)

On 1/1/23 06:37, Bud Frede wrote:
> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> writes:
>
>> On 26.12.2022 at 22:01, DanS scribbled:
>>
>>> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> wrote in
>>> news:20221220174017.1c088c34@nx-74205:
>>>
>>>> On 20.12.2022 at 08:17, Mike Easter scribbled:
>>>>
>>>>> Mike Easter wrote:
>>>>>> Aha.  Claws default is 7bit ascii; if you put in an
>>>>>> em-dash, it is going to have to deal w/ that somehow.
>>>>>
>>>>> Actually claws default charset is 'auto' which it uses
>>>>> ascii unless it needs something else, which alternately
>>>>> could be utf-8 but utf-8 won't do an em-dash w/o 'extras'
>>>>> so it uses q-p.
>>>>
>>>> I use UTF-8 everywhere. It's the 21st century, after all,
>>>> and I'm not an American. :p
>>>
>>> I don't know how the 'Americans' here don't call you out on your
>>> elitism.
>>
>> I don't consider aligning myself with something the whole world has
>> agreed upon, accepted and adopted more than two decades ago as
>> any kind of elitism. As the matter of fact, I'd say that refusing to
>> adopt such globally accepted standards out of a misplaced sense of
>> nationalism would be a lot closer to elitism. And arrogance.
>
> I'm a USAian, and I don't have any problem with UTF-8.
>
> (I don't like the term "American," because it assumes that only the US
> is important out of all the countries in the Americas.)

I can only agree. I live in the USA, a country but North and South
America are full of other nations. And the USA is a collection of
ill-suited allied states. All of us on two continents are Americans
even if not citizens of the USA.

bliss

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

On 01.01.2023 at 09:37, Bud Frede scribbled:

> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> writes:
>
> > On 26.12.2022 at 22:01, DanS scribbled:
> >
> >> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> wrote in
> >> news:20221220174017.1c088c34@nx-74205:
> >>
> >> > I use UTF-8 everywhere. It's the 21st century, after all,
> >> > and I'm not an American. :p
> >>
> >> I don't know how the 'Americans' here don't call you out on your
> >> elitism.
> >
> > I don't consider aligning myself with something the whole world has
> > agreed upon, accepted and adopted more than two decades ago as
> > any kind of elitism. As the matter of fact, I'd say that refusing to
> > adopt such globally accepted standards out of a misplaced sense of
> > nationalism would be a lot closer to elitism. And arrogance.
>
> I'm a USAian, and I don't have any problem with UTF-8.

I knew YOU wouldn't. ;)
> (I don't like the term "American," because it assumes that only the US
> is important out of all the countries in the Americas.)

I agree with that vantage, and in general, I will commonly use the term
"US American" to refer to the inhabitants of the USA, and "North
American" when referring to anyone living in the USA, Canada or Mexico.

Anyway, getting slightly back on-topic, this thread was about Marek
saying "hi", and even though those who knew Marek while he was here
— myself included — were under the mistaken impression for a while
that Marek had passed away due to his embolism, he is alive and well.

The above paragraph then also nicely segues into something I said
earlier on this thread, because I too am now sharing Marek's
health-related fate, namely, I had a (mild) stroke on Boxing Day, and I
was in hospital from Tuesday the 27th until the evening of the 30th.

At the moment, I am "fully functional", but my left knee is very weak,
and my upper left arm is completely numb, as if it has been
anesthetized. This numbness extends upwards onto my left ear and
the rear part of my left cheek, as well as downward to below my
left elbow.

My hands are functioning normally — I can obviously type with both
hands, and I can even still play the guitar — but while I was having
the stroke, my whole left arm was numb and I couldn't move the fingers
of my left hand. It was like my left arm didn't belong to me anymore.
My neck was also numb, and I had a bad headache and a pain in my neck.
My cognitive functions were still fine, though.

According to my neurologist and cardiologist, the stroke was caused by
excessive blood pressure and a too high cholesterol level. There's no
doubt on my mind that my unhealthy feeding habits — and the fact that
I'm an ardent smoker — will have been the primary cause, but there have
in the past couple of months also been some extremely traumatic events
in my personal life that have chased my blood pressure up very high and
that may as such have contributed to the release of thrombotic
particles into my blood stream, ultimately then culminating in this
stroke.

Considering that I'm still well off compared to other people who've had
a stroke — things could have been much worse — I consider it a warning
shot across my bow, and therefore I must drastically change my
lifestyle.

I know I cannot quit smoking, but I can at least cut it down somewhat —
as the matter of fact, I'm already doing that right now. I've also
stopped adding salt to my food — I used to overdo it in that
area — and I've also gone almost entirely sugar-free.

Either way, as a result of the stroke and the very brief reoccurrence of
animosity on this thread, I have now made my choice on account of my
earlier indecision regarding whether or not to leave Usenet, as I had
already touched upon earlier in this thread.

I don't like cutting ties, and I've been a steady Usenet denizen for
some 24 years now, but the times have changed, and too many of the
familiar faces have already long sought out greener pastures. So,
keeping my health in mind, and the fact that I can't cope very well
with hostilities — I've never been good with that — I've decided that
it's going to be better for my wellbeing if I leave Usenet behind me.

I'm not abandoning the GNU/Linux community, of course. First and
foremost, I will remain a big fan of the GNU/Linux operating system and
a big advocate of Free/Libre & Open Source Software until my dying day,
and I am still a moderator and active helper at the official Manjaro
support forum — until very recently I was also the Manjaro forum member
with the highest number of accepted solutions behind their name, but I
have now been overtaken by one of the forum administrators — as well
that I'm also a mostly lurking but occasionally active member at the
official PCLinuxOS forum, both under the same identity as I'm using
here on Usenet.

(I haven't always been Aragorn on Usenet, though. In the years before
2003 I was posting under the name BeoWulf, with an uppercase "W" in the
middle, but because people in real life started calling me Aragorn due
to what they perceived as a physical likeness between myself and Viggo
Mortensen — if anyone here truly has been living under a rock, Viggo
was the actor who played Aragorn in the "Lord of the Rings" movies — and
because I was also dealing with a very malicious stalker in real life
in those days, I switched my online identity to the one I have now.)

Anyway, if anyone wants to reach me after my departure from Usenet —
just to say "hi" or something — the email address next to my name
does work. It's a simple email proxy — freely available
from and at duckduckgo.com — that automatically redirects everything to
my real email address while stripping out the tracking code from the
emails in the process.

This leaves me to bid you all a very happy 2023, and I mean that,
because 2022 was a stinker of a year, as were 2021 and 2020 before it.

Maybe we'll meet again — who knows? ;)

--
With respect,
= Aragorn

Bud Frede wrote:
> (I don't like the term "American," because it assumes that only the US
> is important out of all the countries in the Americas.)

Language is an evolutionary thing. It has been many decades since I
'griped' about calling the US 'America' -- but, geographically the
Americas consist of N America and S America, and gradually America
(without qualifier) 'came to' mean the US to 'everybody' including all
of those people in all of those other countries of N & S America.

I think saying 'USian' or such is fine, I tend to refer to people of or
their countries by their 2 letter country names when I'm posting msg/s
on usenet, such as .us or .jp.

--
Mike Easter

On 01/01/2023 18:17, Aragorn wrote:
> On 01.01.2023 at 09:37, Bud Frede scribbled:
>
>> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> writes:
>>
>>> On 26.12.2022 at 22:01, DanS scribbled:
>>>

<major snip...>

>>>> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> wrote in
>>>> news:20221220174017.1c088c34@nx-74205:
>>>>
0 before it.
>
> Maybe we'll meet again — who knows? ;)
>

@Aragorn:
Thanks for much useful, sensible advice over the past years (decades?)

Stay well for many more.

Mike

--
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#befor

Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> writes:

>
> I know I cannot quit smoking, but I can at least cut it down somewhat —
> as the matter of fact, I'm already doing that right now. I've also
> stopped adding salt to my food — I used to overdo it in that
> area — and I've also gone almost entirely sugar-free.
>

I smoked for many years, but was finally able to quit about 15 years
ago. It's possible to quit, but you have to really want to quit and keep
at it. I tried quitting many times and then finally it worked.

I hope you get better and remain healthy! I don't know if you'll see
this since you're leaving Usenet...

Bud Frede wrote:
> It's possible to quit, but you have to really want to quit and keep
> at it. I tried quitting many times and then finally it worked.

Funny how that works. I smoked for over 3 decades, from junior high and
never 'tried' to quit. For a trivial reason a decade or two back, I
decided to just 'lay off' for a few days (as opposed to 'deciding' to
quit) and some unexpected 'results' or events caused/motivated me to
'persist' in that layoff indefinitely and I never smoked again.

I used little 'tricks' I had heard about in stifling the 'urge' to
smoke, which went on for some weeks or even months, but it wasn't
actually difficult for me.

I think it is easier if you don't do it at all, rather than cutting down
or 'trying to quit' and deciding it is too much trouble right now or
some such rationalization.

I think the nicotine relationship/craving is *just* one thing, and the
'behavioral' habit is another. Smoking involves some ritualism, some
'breaks', some social aspects that we are accustomed.

Depending on where and how you live today, smoking makes one a pariah.
In my earlier days, 'all of us' smoked everywhere; airplanes, offices,
restaurants. Nowadays we have communities and locations where it isn't
even 'legal' to smoke outside. That would cramp one's smoking 'style'.

--
Mike Easter

On 04.01.2023 at 14:55, Bud Frede scribbled:

> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> writes:
>
> > I know I cannot quit smoking, but I can at least cut it down
> > somewhat — as the matter of fact, I'm already doing that right now.
> > I've also stopped adding salt to my food — I used to overdo it in
> > that area — and I've also gone almost entirely sugar-free.
>
> I smoked for many years, but was finally able to quit about 15 years
> ago. It's possible to quit, but you have to really want to quit and
> keep at it. I tried quitting many times and then finally it worked.

I don't think I have the courage. I've tried quitting a couple of
times as well, but I just couldn't bear it. And, it's my only vice. I
don't drink and I've never done any drugs in my life — not even pot.

My brother has officially quit smoking, but he'll still smoke every once
in a while, when nobody's looking. He just doesn't want his wife to
know that he does it. ;)

> I hope you get better and remain healthy!

Thank you! It's not fun having to go through this. I'm not afraid of
dying, but this was not the way I would have wanted to go.

A stroke is one of the scariest things to go through, because you know
deep down inside that there's a chance you'll end up a vegetable,
having to rely on medical caregivers for everything. I wouldn't want
to lose my autonomy, or for that matter, my dignity.

> I don't know if you'll see this since you're leaving Usenet...
I'm still keeping Claws Mail open until the end of the week, just in
case someone still wants to say goodbye — you never know who of the
long-time regulars might still be lurking but hasn't been posting
anymore in ages. ;-)

--
With respect,
= Aragorn

On 04.01.2023 at 12:17, Mike Easter scribbled:

> I think the nicotine relationship/craving is *just* one thing, and
> the 'behavioral' habit is another. Smoking involves some ritualism,
> some 'breaks', some social aspects that we are accustomed.

Yes, that is very true.

> Depending on where and how you live today, smoking makes one a
> pariah.

And that is most certainly true as well.

> In my earlier days, 'all of us' smoked everywhere; airplanes,
> offices, restaurants.

Yes, indeed. And even in places where you could not smoke, there would
be a designated smoking corner. But that's all gone nowadays.

> Nowadays we have communities and locations where it isn't even
> 'legal' to smoke outside. That would cramp one's smoking 'style'.

It's the same over here in Europe, if not worse.

--
With respect,
= Aragorn =

On 1/4/23 12:19, Aragorn wrote:
> On 04.01.2023 at 14:55, Bud Frede scribbled:
>
>> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> writes:
>>
>>> I know I cannot quit smoking, but I can at least cut it down
>>> somewhat — as the matter of fact, I'm already doing that right now.
>>> I've also stopped adding salt to my food — I used to overdo it in
>>> that area — and I've also gone almost entirely sugar-free.
>>
>> I smoked for many years, but was finally able to quit about 15 years
>> ago. It's possible to quit, but you have to really want to quit and
>> keep at it. I tried quitting many times and then finally it worked
>
> I don't think I have the courage. I've tried quitting a couple of
> times as well, but I just couldn't bear it. And, it's my only vice. I
> don't drink and I've never done any drugs in my life — not even pot.

Please Aragorn do your best to stop smoking. My roomie wha was about
75 died in July 2022. She has started when she was 14 yoa and
stopped about 45 or 50 years later. She was treated for Lung Cancer
and began to recover and had every hope of returning to work last
winter but in February she experienced an inability to find her
words. I hoped it was only a stroke but it turned out that the cancer
had metastasized to her brain. It was treated with radiation and we
hoped that she would get strong enough for chemotherapy but it was
not to be.
Please stop smoking.

And I would mourn you more than the roomie.

bliss - PCLinux is how I get here but Linux is the thing.

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

>

Bobbie Sellers wrote:
> On 1/4/23 12:19, Aragorn wrote:
>> On 04.01.2023 at 14:55, Bud Frede scribbled:
>>
>>> Aragorn <telcontar@duck.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> I know I cannot quit smoking, but I can at least cut it down
>>>> somewhat — as the matter of fact, I'm already doing that right now.
>>>>   I've also stopped adding salt to my food — I used to overdo it in
>>>> that area — and I've also gone almost entirely sugar-free.
>>>
>>> I smoked for many years, but was finally able to quit about 15 years
>>> ago. It's possible to quit, but you have to really want to quit and
>>> keep at it. I tried quitting many times and then finally it worked
>>
>> I don't think I have the courage.  I've tried quitting a couple of
>> times as well, but I just couldn't bear it.  And, it's my only vice.  I
>> don't drink and I've never done any drugs in my life — not even pot.
>
>
>     Please Aragorn do your best to stop smoking.  My roomie wha was
> about 75 died in July 2022.  She has started when she was 14 yoa and
> stopped about 45 or 50 years later.  She was treated for Lung Cancer
> and began to recover and had every hope of returning to work last
> winter but in February she experienced an inability to find her
> words.  I hoped it was only a stroke but it turned out that the cancer
> had metastasized to her brain.  It was treated with radiation and we
> hoped that she would get strong enough for chemotherapy but it was
> not to be.
>     Please stop smoking.
>
What happens to your body when you quit smoking

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-01-body.html

On Wed, 04 Jan 2023 21:25:20 +0100, Aragorn wrote:

> On 04.01.2023 at 12:17, Mike Easter scribbled:
>
>> I think the nicotine relationship/craving is *just* one thing, and the
>> 'behavioral' habit is another. Smoking involves some ritualism,
>> some 'breaks', some social aspects that we are accustomed.
>
> Yes, that is very true.
>
>> Depending on where and how you live today, smoking makes one a pariah.
>
> And that is most certainly true as well.
>
>> In my earlier days, 'all of us' smoked everywhere; airplanes, offices,
>> restaurants.
>
> Yes, indeed. And even in places where you could not smoke, there would
> be a designated smoking corner. But that's all gone nowadays.
>
>> Nowadays we have communities and locations where it isn't even 'legal'
>> to smoke outside. That would cramp one's smoking 'style'.
>
> It's the same over here in Europe, if not worse.

I was a three pack a day smoker for years...I quit when they were 60
cents a pack. The only way to quit is cold turkey. You are and I was a
nicotine addict, I do not mean that in a bad way, it is just a fact. The
only way to beat the addiction is to stop. It takes about 2 weeks for
your body to no longer be addicted to nicotine, however after that it is
a very long and difficult road to changing you habit. A couple of my
habits were whenever the phone ranf (landline phone) I would reach in my
pocket and search for my pack of cigarettes (weird huh) another one was
hanging out in the local bar, shooting pool and having a beer, bars are
full of cigarette smoke, so that was the best place to test my resolve to
quit, that I was a pretty good pool player.

Still to this day when I walk thru cigarette smoke that someone has
exhaled I still have to urge to smoke one. It is a fleeting urge, and
quickly disappears, but it is still there after all these years.

So my advice to you is to just quit. Not easy to do, but it is the only
way forward.

Good luck, I'm going to miss your many intelligent and helpful posts on
usenet.

--
Pull my finger

On Sun, 1 Jan 2023 17:17:36 +0100, Aragorn wrote:

> Anyway, getting slightly back on-topic, this thread was about Marek
> saying "hi", and even though those who knew Marek while he was here —
> myself included — were under the mistaken impression for a while that
> Marek had passed away due to his embolism, he is alive and well.

I think this is made-up bullshit. Nobody just completely gives up
computers and related things like that, and switches to Windows and
"studies languages".
> The above paragraph then also nicely segues into something I said
> earlier on this thread, because I too am now sharing Marek's
> health-related fate, namely, I had a (mild) stroke on Boxing Day, and I
> was in hospital from Tuesday the 27th until the evening of the 30th.
>
> At the moment, I am "fully functional", but my left knee is very weak,
> and my upper left arm is completely numb, as if it has been
> anesthetized. This numbness extends upwards onto my left ear and the
> rear part of my left cheek, as well as downward to below my left elbow.
>
> My hands are functioning normally — I can obviously type with both
> hands, and I can even still play the guitar — but while I was having the
> stroke, my whole left arm was numb and I couldn't move the fingers of my
> left hand. It was like my left arm didn't belong to me anymore.
> My neck was also numb, and I had a bad headache and a pain in my neck.
> My cognitive functions were still fine, though.
>
> According to my neurologist and cardiologist, the stroke was caused by
> excessive blood pressure and a too high cholesterol level. There's no
> doubt on my mind that my unhealthy feeding habits — and the fact that
> I'm an ardent smoker — will have been the primary cause, but there have
> in the past couple of months also been some extremely traumatic events
> in my personal life that have chased my blood pressure up very high and
> that may as such have contributed to the release of thrombotic particles
> into my blood stream, ultimately then culminating in this stroke.
>
> Considering that I'm still well off compared to other people who've had
> a stroke — things could have been much worse — I consider it a warning
> shot across my bow, and therefore I must drastically change my
> lifestyle.
>
> I know I cannot quit smoking, but I can at least cut it down somewhat —
> as the matter of fact, I'm already doing that right now. I've also
> stopped adding salt to my food — I used to overdo it in that area — and
> I've also gone almost entirely sugar-free.

What a complete dumb-ass. Has a stroke and has *ALL* the classic causes
of such a thing, and decides to not change much. Your next stroke will
be right along...

> Either way, as a result of the stroke and the very brief reoccurrence of
> animosity on this thread, I have now made my choice on account of my
> earlier indecision regarding whether or not to leave Usenet, as I had
> already touched upon earlier in this thread.
>
> I don't like cutting ties, and I've been a steady Usenet denizen for
> some 24 years now, but the times have changed, and too many of the
> familiar faces have already long sought out greener pastures. So,
> keeping my health in mind, and the fact that I can't cope very well with
> hostilities — I've never been good with that — I've decided that it's
> going to be better for my wellbeing if I leave Usenet behind me.

Great news. Good riddance.
> I'm not abandoning the GNU/Linux community, of course. First and
> foremost, I will remain a big fan of the GNU/Linux operating system and
> a big advocate of Free/Libre & Open Source Software until my dying day,
> and I am still a moderator and active helper at the official Manjaro
> support forum — until very recently I was also the Manjaro forum member
> with the highest number of accepted solutions behind their name, but I
> have now been overtaken by one of the forum administrators — as well
> that I'm also a mostly lurking but occasionally active member at the
> official PCLinuxOS forum, both under the same identity as I'm using here
> on Usenet.

....<YAWN>...
> (I haven't always been Aragorn on Usenet, though. In the years before
> 2003 I was posting under the name BeoWulf, with an uppercase "W" in the
> middle, but because people in real life started calling me Aragorn due
> to what they perceived as a physical likeness between myself and Viggo
> Mortensen — if anyone here truly has been living under a rock, Viggo was
> the actor who played Aragorn in the "Lord of the Rings" movies — and
> because I was also dealing with a very malicious stalker in real life in
> those days, I switched my online identity to the one I have now.)

No one cares about stupid bullshit like that.
> Anyway, if anyone wants to reach me after my departure from Usenet —
> just to say "hi" or something — the email address next to my name does
> work. It's a simple email proxy — freely available from and at
> duckduckgo.com — that automatically redirects everything to my real
> email address while stripping out the tracking code from the emails in
> the process.

No one cares about doing that, either.
> This leaves me to bid you all a very happy 2023, and I mean that,
> because 2022 was a stinker of a year, as were 2021 and 2020 before it.

Bugger off, loser.

--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".
"Bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet pulled out the Anal Intruder.
Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/
Thanks, Obama: http://brandybuck.site40.net/pics/politica/thanks.jpg