| I've never seen so many old cranks in any other NG.

I have. I find the crowd here to be mostly intelligent
and courteous. Many of the tech groups I've visited
have a high population of what I'd call unsocialized geeks,
who tend to be mean-spirited, close-minded, and barely
literate. I recently decided to check out philosophy groups,
but ended up dropping them because even when someone
posted a coherent, interesting post, most discussion tended
to degenerate into "atheist mania". (I never knew "atheists"
were such an irrational, steamed-up bunch. They hang around
in the philosophy groups, awaiting any opportunity for a
bilious outbourst about their inflamed belief that they don't
believe anything.

| Is anybody here under 60 years old?

I am, but just barely. I find that an interesting point.
I think the people in most newsgroups are mostly older.
The baby boomers know the Internet as a public information
and sharing medium. Younger people have grown up in
a commercial culture. They spend their youth in commercially
owned shopping malls and live their social lives hosted by
corporate service companies like Facebook. For the most
part, these are people who have no experience of citizenship
in any part of their lives. They know themselves and others
as "consumers". They go online to "consume" services from
Facebook, Foursquare, etc, in lieu of a social life.

I find the whole thing both fascinating and scary.
Newsgroups are a simple, text-based conversation medium
that can provide help in almost all areas of life, yet their
"unofficial", non-commercial nature -- the fact that the
participants pretty much make the groups what they are --
makes them virtually invisible to people who live as
consumers.

And what about you? Surely you must have something
*useful* to contribute? Are you handy? Do you have skills
that might be helpful to others? Do you need any help
with handyman issues?