[Leica] Perl scripts for LUG reading

[Tom Bryant <boffin@gis.net>]

Hi Luggers,

    I've been lurking for some years, and have been a bit dismayed at the
amount of pure flaming drivel that is deposited here.  But most internet
banter is like that.  This was said around a decade ago:

    Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive,
    difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of
    mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.

                -- Gene Spafford

    Programmer that I am, I've started to read the lug in a different sort of
way.  First, I go through all of the month's accumulated LUG messages, and
clobber unwanted lines (e.g. Do You Yahoo?).  Then I edit out all
copies-of-copies of messages that a writer is answering (we've already read
the originals, so who needs the copies?).  Finally, I take these edited files
over to another directory, and just look for keywords and phrases.  I collect
all articles that contain the desired word/phrase into a file all it's own,
and just read that.  This makes the LUG much more interesting, as I filter out
what I don't want (egregious flames) and what I'm interested in (technical and
photographic trivia)

  I've written a couple of perl scripts to assist me, and a non-programmer
friend suggested that others might find these of use, as he does. 

   I've therefore posted them on my web site:

      http://208.218.135.74/top/top.html

   Click on "Perl for the Lug".

   Some cautionary notes.  These run just fine on my Linux box, and my
friend's mac, (itself a Unix machine).  In theory, they should run just fine
on windoze, (provided you've installed Perl!) but I haven't tested them on
that platform.

   Anyway, enjoy, and hope they're worth more than you've paid for them.

   Tom
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