I went this week to try to use UMN’s Usenet server, so I can get back on that world and start reading comp.object, comp.lang.c++, and comp.lang.functional again. And maybe a few others of interest.

I learned, much to my dismay, that the U decommissioned its USENET service in March of this year.

It’s a shame that our universities can no longer support this discussion forum. Iowa State terminated their service in 2003. UMN this year. How many universities out there still provide USENET?

And no, I don’t want to read my newsgroups through a Web interface. I want a plain old newsreader.