XPost: comp.theory

On 12/19/2020 6:22 AM, Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020 11:57:28 GMT, James Harris <james.harris.1@nospicedham.gmail.com> wrote:

On 17/12/2020 06:41, Frank Kotler wrote:

...

Hi Pete,

As moderator of this newsgroup, I am very reluctant to reject your
messages just because I'm not interested (but I'm not). Woifgang's
message makes me think I'm not the only one...

Could I ask you to not post on this topic here?

Could I ask Wolfgang (and others) to simply ignore messages you don't
like? It only takes you a second to click "next".

Sounds a sensible approach.

There's an "issue" here. If clax86 is on the lost of newsgroups, it
comes to my attention. If I reject it - NONE of the messages get
posted! If it were up to me, it wouldn't work this way, but it isn't.

Thanks for what you are doing, Frank. IIRC you are the only one who
took up the challenge of moderating this group and what you do for us
is appreciated.

At the risk of continuing a thread that is already off the topic of
x86 asm I wonder if there's not some way the rest of us could make the
job of the moderator easier. Maybe that's something we should discuss.

Is there any need for moderating? Just ignore any religious posts.

My post was not totally off-topic because the most important part of
this post is examining the semantic meaning of the execution trace of
this sequence of x86 instructions:

---[000005e6](01) 55 push ebp
---[000005e7](02) 8bec mov ebp,esp
---[000005e9](01) 51 push ecx
---[000005ea](03) 8b4508 mov eax,[ebp+08]
---[000005ed](01) 50 push eax
---[000005ee](03) 8b4d08 mov ecx,[ebp+08]
---[000005f1](01) 51 push ecx
---[000005f2](05) e8effdffff call 000003e6 --CALL [000003e6] ---[000005e6](01) 55 push ebp
---[000005e7](02) 8bec mov ebp,esp
---[000005e9](01) 51 push ecx
---[000005ea](03) 8b4508 mov eax,[ebp+08]
---[000005ed](01) 50 push eax
---[000005ee](03) 8b4d08 mov ecx,[ebp+08]
---[000005f1](01) 51 push ecx
---[000005f2](05) e8effdffff call 000003e6 --CALL [000003e6]
Input Aborted because of INFINITE RECURSION from [000005f2] to [000003e6]

Every time that the same function is called from the same machine
address a second time without any control flow instructions in-between
(within an execution trace) is a case of infinite recursion. This is
shown at execution trace lines 1-16 above.

People on other groups do not know the x86 language well enough to
understand that this execution trace does specify infinite recursion.

--
Copyright 2020 Pete Olcott

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre
minds." Einstein

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On 12/19/2020 3:18 PM, Terje Mathisen wrote:

olcott wrote:

On 12/19/2020 6:22 AM, Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020 11:57:28 GMT, James Harris
<james.harris.1@nospicedham.gmail.com> wrote:

On 17/12/2020 06:41, Frank Kotler wrote:

...

Hi Pete,

As moderator of this newsgroup, I am very reluctant to reject your
messages just because I'm not interested (but I'm not). Woifgang's
message makes me think I'm not the only one...

Could I ask you to not post on this topic here?

Could I ask Wolfgang (and others) to simply ignore messages you don't >>>>> like? It only takes you a second to click "next".

Sounds a sensible approach.

There's an "issue" here. If clax86 is on the lost of newsgroups, it
comes to my attention. If I reject it - NONE of the messages get
posted! If it were up to me, it wouldn't work this way, but it isn't. >>>>

Thanks for what you are doing, Frank. IIRC you are the only one who
took up the challenge of moderating this group and what you do for us
is appreciated.

At the risk of continuing a thread that is already off the topic of
x86 asm I wonder if there's not some way the rest of us could make the >>>> job of the moderator easier. Maybe that's something we should discuss. >>>>

Is there any need for moderating? Just ignore any religious posts.

My post was not totally off-topic because the most important part of
this post is examining the semantic meaning of the execution trace of
this sequence of x86 instructions:

---[000005e6](01)  55                  push ebp
---[000005e7](02)  8bec                mov ebp,esp
---[000005e9](01)  51                  push ecx
---[000005ea](03)  8b4508              mov eax,[ebp+08]
---[000005ed](01)  50                  push eax
---[000005ee](03)  8b4d08              mov ecx,[ebp+08]
---[000005f1](01)  51                  push ecx
---[000005f2](05)  e8effdffff          call 000003e6       --CALL
[000003e6]
---[000005e6](01)  55                  push ebp
---[000005e7](02)  8bec                mov ebp,esp
---[000005e9](01)  51                  push ecx
---[000005ea](03)  8b4508              mov eax,[ebp+08]
---[000005ed](01)  50                  push eax
---[000005ee](03)  8b4d08              mov ecx,[ebp+08]
---[000005f1](01)  51                  push ecx
---[000005f2](05)  e8effdffff          call 000003e6       --CALL
[000003e6]
Input Aborted because of INFINITE RECURSION from [000005f2] to [000003e6]

Every time that the same function is called from the same machine
address a second time without any control flow instructions in-between
(within an execution trace) is a case of infinite recursion. This is
shown at execution trace lines 1-16 above.

People on other groups do not know the x86 language well enough to
understand that this execution trace does specify infinite recursion.

(To any comp.theory readers: I am getting this as scatter noise in the moderated clax86 newsgroup where it is totally offtopic. :-( )

And you _really_ have no idea whatsoever about mathematical proofs if
you think that dressing your "proof" up as x86 asm makes _any_
difference at all. You could just as well have been trying to refute the second law of thermodynamics. :-(

A few days ago you even provoked a math guy to explain why your idea is totally bonkers.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof", what you have is
similar to my math teacher in secondary school who thought he had
invented a construction which could trisect an arbitrary angle. Even at
that time (i.e. when I was about 14/15 years old I found it quite easy
to prove that what he had was a method which quickly brought the error
down to well less than his pencil line thickness, but that's like
claiming that a specific rational number is equal to sqrt(2).

Again, this has nothing to do with x86 asm.

Terje

All that I am asking members of the comp.lang.asm.x86 group to do is
explain that the above execution trace does specify infinite recursion.

If you don't know the x86 language or software engineering well enough
to answer this then you can simply refrain from responding.

--
Copyright 2020 Pete Olcott

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre
minds." Einstein

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XPost: comp.theory

olcott wrote:

On 12/19/2020 6:22 AM, Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020 11:57:28 GMT, James Harris
<james.harris.1@nospicedham.gmail.com> wrote:

On 17/12/2020 06:41, Frank Kotler wrote:

...

Hi Pete,

As moderator of this newsgroup, I am very reluctant to reject your
messages just because I'm not interested (but I'm not). Woifgang's
message makes me think I'm not the only one...

Could I ask you to not post on this topic here?

Could I ask Wolfgang (and others) to simply ignore messages you don't
like? It only takes you a second to click "next".

Sounds a sensible approach.

There's an "issue" here. If clax86 is on the lost of newsgroups, it
comes to my attention. If I reject it - NONE of the messages get
posted! If it were up to me, it wouldn't work this way, but it isn't.

Thanks for what you are doing, Frank. IIRC you are the only one who
took up the challenge of moderating this group and what you do for us
is appreciated.

At the risk of continuing a thread that is already off the topic of
x86 asm I wonder if there's not some way the rest of us could make the
job of the moderator easier. Maybe that's something we should discuss.

Is there any need for moderating? Just ignore any religious posts.

My post was not totally off-topic because the most important part of
this post is examining the semantic meaning of the execution trace of
this sequence of x86 instructions:

---[000005e6](01)  55                  push ebp ---[000005e7](02)  8bec                mov ebp,esp ---[000005e9](01)  51                  push ecx ---[000005ea](03)  8b4508              mov eax,[ebp+08] ---[000005ed](01)  50                  push eax ---[000005ee](03)  8b4d08              mov ecx,[ebp+08] ---[000005f1](01)  51                  push ecx ---[000005f2](05)  e8effdffff          call 000003e6       --CALL
[000003e6]
---[000005e6](01)  55                  push ebp ---[000005e7](02)  8bec                mov ebp,esp ---[000005e9](01)  51                  push ecx ---[000005ea](03)  8b4508              mov eax,[ebp+08] ---[000005ed](01)  50                  push eax ---[000005ee](03)  8b4d08              mov ecx,[ebp+08] ---[000005f1](01)  51                  push ecx ---[000005f2](05)  e8effdffff          call 000003e6       --CALL
[000003e6]
Input Aborted because of INFINITE RECURSION from [000005f2] to [000003e6]

Every time that the same function is called from the same machine
address a second time without any control flow instructions in-between (within an execution trace) is a case of infinite recursion. This is
shown at execution trace lines 1-16 above.

People on other groups do not know the x86 language well enough to
understand that this execution trace does specify infinite recursion.

(To any comp.theory readers: I am getting this as scatter noise in the moderated clax86 newsgroup where it is totally offtopic. :-( )

And you _really_ have no idea whatsoever about mathematical proofs if
you think that dressing your "proof" up as x86 asm makes _any_
difference at all. You could just as well have been trying to refute the
second law of thermodynamics. :-(

A few days ago you even provoked a math guy to explain why your idea is
totally bonkers.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof", what you have is
similar to my math teacher in secondary school who thought he had
invented a construction which could trisect an arbitrary angle. Even at
that time (i.e. when I was about 14/15 years old I found it quite easy
to prove that what he had was a method which quickly brought the error
down to well less than his pencil line thickness, but that's like
claiming that a specific rational number is equal to sqrt(2).

Again, this has nothing to do with x86 asm.

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

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On 12/19/2020 07:22 AM, Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020 11:57:28 GMT, James Harris

...

At the risk of continuing a thread that is already off the topic of
x86 asm I wonder if there's not some way the rest of us could make the
job of the moderator easier. Maybe that's something we should discuss.

Is there any need for moderating? Just ignore any religious posts.

Thank you,,,

Unfortunately, without approval from a moderator, nothing will get
posted at all. I am advised that removing the group from moderation will
make matters worse. Perhaps we should try it?

comp.lang.asm - the unmoderated group - may still exist. We could try
that. Last I tried it, it worked. Your server may not carry it.

I would like to have an "assistant" - if I can even remember that
address - just to have a moderator in line when I kick off. The mailbox
is the real moderator. Terje is providing the mailbox and may be stuck
with it. Any "approved:" header works... you may need special permission
to post with such a header. Depends om the server, I think.

Meanwhile, I'll try to approve the on-topic stuff - just ohnore the
off-topic stuff that slips by me...

Best,
Frank

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XPost: alt.lang.asm

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020 19:13:31 -0500
Frank Kotler <fbkotler@nospicedham.myfairpoint.net> wrote:

On 12/19/2020 07:22 AM, Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

Is there any need for moderating? Just ignore any religious posts.

Thank you,,,

Unfortunately, without approval from a moderator, nothing will get
posted at all. I am advised that removing the group from moderation
will make matters worse. Perhaps we should try it?

Well, I seem to recall asking for a casual "vote" on this a few times,
but no one ever really did state their preferences ... Is everyone just indifferent about CLAX's future?


Option A: keep comp.lang.asm.x86 (CLAX) alive
1) auto-approve all messages to CLAX
2) alternately, find a backup moderator

Option B: kill the group
1) halt approval of all messages to CLAX

Option C: move the group
1) auto-approve everyone posting to CLAX
2) but, post all messages to a different newsgroup
3) optionally, set message follow-ups to the new newsgroup

comp.lang.asm - the unmoderated group - may still exist. We could try
that. Last I tried it, it worked. Your server may not carry it.

I don't see comp.lang.asm (CLA) on either of two free-to-read Usenet
servers. Google Groups now requires an account to read or search Usenet
groups there. The CLA group is also not listed for Eternal-September's
webpage Usenet hierarchy search. Personally, I would prefer to have CLAX traffic re-routed to alt.lang.asm (ALA). ALA has seemed to be widely
available over the past fifteen years or so, and has less traffic than
CLAX. IIRC, you sent rejected messages there in the past. The only
disadvantage - besides nuisance posts - is that ALA is on alt.*
hierarchy instead of comp.* hierarchy. I.e., some servers might not
have the alt.* hierarchy because of binaries, and I don't recall ever
seeing Terje post there. IIRC, Herbert is the only one to get a
non-moderator Approved header through, or was that Wolfgang? ...

--
The EU mocked the US response to Covid in the spring of 2020. With a
massive resurgence of Covid in the EU, they aren't laughing now.

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On 20/12/2020 00:13, Frank Kotler wrote:

On 12/19/2020 07:22 AM, Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020 11:57:28 GMT, James Harris

...

At the risk of continuing a thread that is already off the topic of
x86 asm I wonder if there's not some way the rest of us could make the
job of the moderator easier. Maybe that's something we should discuss.

Is there any need for moderating? Just ignore any religious posts.

I think there is. I appreciate the moderation. It stops this group being flooded with posts which are completely off topic as is happening to
other groups.

That said, I wonder if those of us who post here could make the job of
the moderator a bit easier. Specifically:

For me, the best thing about moderation is that it filters out the
garbage which is unquestionably spam. I mean things such as adverts for
manuals or for medicines etc. Personally, I don't mind topics like
olcott's which are only vaguely related to asm programming: such things
could be a problem if the group was very busy with them but it's not.
And it's no problem at all for the rest of us to delete or ignore any
messages we personally feel are too far away from x86 asm.

Don't get me wrong. It would be nice to have only the 'right' messages
here but IMO that's an unnecessary ask of a moderator. For one thing,
each person will have his own idea as to which messages are 'right'. For another, each of us can decide for himself which messages to read. It's
no great trouble to do so.

So ISTM (and this is just my view) the best balance is to whitelist
those who write about anything vaguely connected with x86 assembly,
causing all spam (adverts etc) to be filtered out, and to leave it to
the members of the group to deal with questions of what they consider to
be strictly on topic or not.

Further, if a whitelisted poster goes rogue and starts to try to use the
group to proselytise or publish other clearly off-topic writings that he
knows it's wrong to post I would be happy to see him removed from the
whitelist without mercy! And to be kept off for a long, long time. There
is at least one unmoderated asm group for such people to use.

AISI that lot would ask the least of the moderator while also keeping
the group clear of spam.

But that's just my view.

...

comp.lang.asm - the unmoderated group - may still exist. We could try
that. Last I tried it, it worked. Your server may not carry it.

I don't think there's a comp.lang.asm but there is an alt.lang.asm which
is unmoderated.

...

Meanwhile, I'll try to approve the on-topic stuff - just ohnore the
off-topic stuff that slips by me...

Thanks for what you've been doing for us, Frank.


--
James Harris

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On 2020-12-20 00:13, Frank Kotler wrote:

On 12/19/2020 07:22 AM, Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020 11:57:28 GMT, James Harris

...

At the risk of continuing a thread that is already off the topic of
x86 asm I wonder if there's not some way the rest of us could make the
job of the moderator easier. Maybe that's something we should discuss.

Is there any need for moderating? Just ignore any religious posts.

Thank you,,,

Unfortunately, without approval from a moderator, nothing will get posted at all. I am advised that removing the group from moderation will make matters worse. Perhaps we should try it?

Probably not before someone's figured out what would happen... I'm pretty sure I
once read that making a group moderated is easier than undoing it!

comp.lang.asm - the unmoderated group - may still exist. We could try that. Last
I tried it, it worked. Your server may not carry it.

That's a big show-stopper, Eternal September doesn't carry it, just as is doesn't carry comp.lang.pascal, whereas is does carry all its "comp.lang.pascal.*" descendants!

I would like to have an "assistant" - if I can  even remember that address - just to have a moderator in line when I kick off. The mailbox is the real moderator. Terje is providing the mailbox and may be stuck with it. Any "approved:" header works... you may need special permission to post with such a
header. Depends om the server, I think.

Just explain what's involved being a moderator. If it's merely a matter of ticking some boxes, more than a few of us would probably be willing to give a hand!

I'm an admin on <http://zos.efglobe.com/index.php> and weeding out the spam would just take a few minutes of my time. (Would, because we've closed to forum (for now/ever?) as the z/OS system is no longer available)

Meanwhile, I'll try to approve the on-topic stuff - just ohnore the off-topic stuff that slips by me...

I like the earlier posted suggestion of an approved-poster list.

Robert
--
Robert AH Prins
robert(a)prino(d)org
The hitchhiking grandfather - https://prino.neocities.org/indez.html
Some REXX code for use on z/OS - https://prino.neocities.org/zOS/zOS-Tools.html

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Robert Prins wrote:

On 2020-12-20 00:13, Frank Kotler wrote:

On 12/19/2020 07:22 AM, Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020 11:57:28 GMT, James Harris

...

At the risk of continuing a thread that is already off the topic of
x86 asm I wonder if there's not some way the rest of us could make the >>>> job of the moderator easier. Maybe that's something we should discuss. >>>>

Is there any need for moderating? Just ignore any religious posts.

Thank you,,,

Unfortunately, without approval from a moderator, nothing will get
posted at all. I am advised that removing the group from moderation
will make matters worse. Perhaps we should try it?

Probably not before someone's figured out what would happen... I'm
pretty sure I once read that making a group moderated is easier than
undoing it!

comp.lang.asm - the unmoderated group - may still exist. We could try
that. Last I tried it, it worked. Your server may not carry it.

That's a big show-stopper, Eternal September doesn't carry it, just as
is doesn't carry comp.lang.pascal, whereas is does carry all its "comp.lang.pascal.*" descendants!

I would like to have an "assistant" - if I can  even remember that
address - just to have a moderator in line when I kick off. The
mailbox is the real moderator. Terje is providing the mailbox and may
be stuck with it. Any "approved:" header works... you may need special
permission to post with such a header. Depends om the server, I think.

Just explain what's involved being a moderator. If it's merely a matter
of ticking some boxes, more than a few of us would probably be willing
to give a hand!

I'm an admin on <http://zos.efglobe.com/index.php> and weeding out the
spam would just take a few minutes of my time. (Would, because we've
closed to forum (for now/ever?) as the z/OS system is no longer available)

Meanwhile, I'll try to approve the on-topic stuff - just ohnore the
off-topic stuff that slips by me...

I like the earlier posted suggestion of an approved-poster list.

This seems like a no-brainer:

Three lists:

White - pass through automatically.
Grey - require manual approval, increment good/bad counters until N
messages. Here I would guess that N = 3 is sufficient as long as they
are all of the same type. Maybe require something like

(good >= 3) && ((good-bad)/all > 0.8)

Black - remove automatically

A former good poster who starts spamming would then be given an email
warning and moved to the grey list with initial good/bad counts of 0/0.

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

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On 12/20/2020 04:40 PM, Terje Mathisen wrote:

...

This seems like a no-brainer:

Three lists:

White - pass through automatically.

This is what I've got. I'm thinking of changing the name to
karenlist" so it won't be so racist (joke).

Grey - require manual approval,

This is everything else.

increment good/bad counters until N

messages. Here I would guess that N = 3 is sufficient as long as they
are all of the same type. Maybe require something like

  (good >= 3) && ((good-bad)/all > 0.8)

???

Black - remove automatically

With one exception, I do not automatically reject anything. When I first
got into this, there were many messages - several per day - with the
word "Viagra" in the subject line. Those I rejected. Doesn't happen any
more - there are very few "bad" messages. I don't know why. Once in a
while, a long (50k or more) "binary" (no regular linefeeds) message
named "Confirmation of your order" or so. Malware, I assume. Only a few
that want to sell us a fake watch or a fake diploma. An occasional gal
who has seen our profile and wants to be our girlfriend... Used to be
much more... I can't predict the names. so can't have a "blacklist". I
just delete 'em by hand,

A former good poster who starts spamming would then be given an email
warning and moved to the grey list with initial good/bad counts of 0/0.

I think there is only one individual who has been permanently removed
from the whitelist. (not Rick - he is very cooperative!). He was
insulting to a member (Rod). If he'd posted something on-topic_he would
have been back on, but he just wanted to argue with me. There is no
point in arguing with a moderator... you might be right, but you won't
win. :)

Then there are certain messages from Pete, which are - at least
sometimes - "sorta" on-topic or "almost" on-topic. but which we don't
seem to want to see here. I'm hoping I can leave Pete on the whitelist
and ask him not to post them here and ask the rest of us to be tolerant.
One way or another I hope it'll work out...

Best,
Frank

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On 19.12.2020 22:25, olcott wrote:

All that I am asking members of the comp.lang.asm.x86 group to do is
explain that the above execution trace does specify infinite recursion.

If you don't know the x86 language or software engineering well enough
to answer this then you can simply refrain from responding.

you wont see any answer to this because of "unknown call target".
it's only recursive (error stack overflow) if 05e6 is part of 03e6.
there are much easier ways to produce such errors.
__
wolfgang
sorry Frank, I cannot stay quiet on illogical assumptions.

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On 12/22/2020 02:05 AM, wolfgang kern wrote:

On 19.12.2020 22:25, olcott wrote:

All that I am asking members of the comp.lang.asm.x86 group to do is
explain that the above execution trace does specify infinite recursion.

If you don't know the x86 language or software engineering well enough
to answer this then you can simply refrain from responding.

you wont see any answer to this because of "unknown call target".
it's only recursive (error stack overflow) if 05e6 is part of 03e6.
there are much easier ways to produce such errors.
__
wolfgang
sorry Frank, I cannot stay quiet on illogical assumptions.

Okay Wolfgang - I w0n't remove ya from the whitelist. :)

This seems "on-topic" to me. Weren't you one of the ones who was
complaining? Apologize to Terje! (seriously - hope this isn't a problem)

Best,
Frank

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