SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (07/30/87)
OK, I've been getting an education in path addresses, and I'm even getting mail through (or at least I've gotten it so lost that the mailer-deamons haven't been able to find their way back to me with their "host unknown" and "user unknown" messages). I've also begun to realize what a major source of the difficulty often is. If I get a message directly from someone, that's one thing (sometimes a puzzle all by itself), but should I want to send something to someone who sent a message via comp.sys.apple (info-apple) -- <don't ya just love those: "send me email I ain't gonna read the net list" requests?> -- then what I'm looking at is a routing from sender to brl.arpa and from brl.arpa to me (that is the "return path" isn't from the sender to me; it's routed through arpanet. Someone tacked up a message saying sending to a UUCP address from bitnet over arpa is "illegal." See you in court over that. How's a novice like me gonna know whether !peculiar!timbuktu!heriIis is on arpanet, csnet, UUCP, or whatever? I am only BEGINNING to get some notion of where some of these things are. On top of that, there are gateways like jade.berkeley.edu that are (if I understand what I'm getting) on bitnet, aprapnet AND UUCP. Shoot, I've discovered the most parsimonious (and from the path data apparently most direct) path to pro-sol is via bigbang.UUCP. Now, I haven't any idea where that mailer actually is; however the gateway to UUCP through psuvax1 can find it, and bigbang can find crash (naturally - crash is just a little bang). Now, for the real crusher. I'll bet that it turns out that the most efficient way (from the point-of-view of netloading) for me to read info-apple will be for me to subscribe to it from a bitnet LISTSERV (if listserv's make any sense at all). HOWEVER, I've seen a couple of LISTSERV feeds. Guess what? LISTSERV decides that all those route tags are a waste of bytes; so it tosses them out (logical actually, I do the same thing when I bunch mail up and send it to the printer for hard copy). What I get is a simple "received by Mailer at NDSUVM1" and a route from there along with a (ahem) "Warning -- message originally sent by info-apple@brl.arpa" Now that's real cute if I don't want to send an answer back, but hooboy how would I EVER have found out that Patt Haring is at dasys1.UUCP????? Now, if I got this right folks, you can complain to me at: ARPA: sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@wisc.wiscvm.edu UUCP: sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@psuvax1 or sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (someone on UUCP yell at me if either is not a correct path - and DO tell me what it should be instead)