Robert St. Amant <stam...@haeckel.csc.ncsu.edu> wrote: +--------------- | This reminds me of an anecdote I ran across in Simon Blackburn's book, | _Think_: In talking with a concert pianist, a fan says, "You are so | lucky to have so much talent!" The pianist responds, "And the more I | practice, the luckier I get." The same probably applies to Feynman, | who seemed to work hard at a lot of things. +---------------
I can't seem to find (or even Google) the reference, but someone once talked about three ways people look at "luck" -- blind, energetic, and practiced -- describing the differences this way:
Blind: "You know, it's *possible* that an airplane might fly over my house and just at that moment a cargo door might pop open and a suitcase full of money might fall out and fall through my roof into my living room, so I'll just sit here and wait for it."
Energetic: "You know, I lost a dollar the other day -- probably fell out of my pants as I was making change, and it's likely that other people have lost money, too, so if I spend all day walking up & down the sidewalks looking in the gutters & corners & doorways, all over town, I'll bet I can find some of that money."
Practiced: A famous golfer [insert favorite name] was playing with a friend when he got stuck in a sand trap just short of the hole. Taking out his 9-iron, he looked very carefully at the lie & the hole & the wind, and effortlessly wedged the ball up and out onto the green, where it rolled for a bit before neatly dropping into the cup. His friend turned to the famous one's caddy and said, "Wow! What a lucky shot!" The caddy replied, "Yeah, it was. And it didn't hurt that he practiced it about a hundred times yesterday, either."
-Rob
p.s. I'm also reminded of the following definition from the "HipCrime Vocab" by Chad C. Mulligan (a character in John Brunner's novel "Stand On Zanzibar"):
Coincidence: What happens when you weren't watching the other half of what was going on.
----- Rob Warnock, PP-ASEL-IA <r...@rpw3.org> 627 26th Avenue <URL:http://www.rpw3.org/> San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
>> I quote Joe Bergin, again: "For professional educators, these patterns >> may seem obvious, even trivial, because they have used them so often." >> He refers to the "positive feedback first" pattern, among others. >> Please note that he is an outstanding professional in his field.
> Yes, for _educators_. Positive feedback is not used to communicate > svada and nada. It is used to reinforce the positive first and help > the trainee to see some light when the situation seems very difficult. > This is not the case when you are engaging someone in a discussion > on equal terms.
This was quite a useful explanation, it had actually given me some new perspectives on this whole issue. Thanks for that.
However, there are still some questions that puzzle me.
How many newbies are participating in c.l.l?
Do we want to attract more newbies? Do we actually want to create more interest in Common Lisp (or Lisp in general)?
Is "education" of the newbies among the goals of c.l.l? Do we want to help them to overcome the hurdles that Common Lisp actually seems to have in the perception of newbies (and even of those who have reached a "medium" level)?
For the sake of completeness: Do my questions convey a misconception?
On Thu, 10 Oct 2002 04:22:06 +0200, Pascal Costanza <costa...@web.de> wrote:
>> This is not the case when you are engaging someone in a discussion >> on equal terms.
This is the perplexing issue. If we discuss at "equal" terms then weight of opinion on only Lisp will vary (as this is cll). If I think x is y and Erik, for example, tells me that x is x, I shall accept his opinion about it (most probably). But this is the case only about CL. In general discussions, it is the merit of the /argument/ which should come forth (though due weight could be given to experience). But that is sadly not the case. The seniors (:some) have a final line like "what do /you/ know twit?"
>This was quite a useful explanation, it had actually given me some new >perspectives on this whole issue. Thanks for that.
>However, there are still some questions that puzzle me.
>How many newbies are participating in c.l.l?
most of them are Lurkers, I suppose. I lurked for more than a year. :-) But that was because I had some fundamental questions to ask and got scolded. Can Lisp be used for this-that, can Lisp do that etc. I was scolded and told to go get "how do I do this in Lisp" kind of problems and then get back [1]. I hold nothing against that advice because those type of questions are asked here all too often and people get bugged. A newbie should search the archives first. But then he is not called a newbie for nothing. I stayed on because the Force was with me. But a lot of other just loose interest and go away. There should be a factfile about Lisp - what it is and what it is not - which can be pointed to the newbie. I am working towards my version - "experiences of learning Lisp - a newbie POV". The "about Compiled Lisp" was in this direction but I got bit :-). No fear I continue. Hope I get to give more time to it.
>Do we want to attract more newbies? Do we actually want to create more >interest in Common Lisp (or Lisp in general)?
we do !
>Is "education" of the newbies among the goals of c.l.l? Do we want to >help them to overcome the hurdles that Common Lisp actually seems to >have in the perception of newbies (and even of those who have reached a >"medium" level)?
I think this work of initiating the complete newbies is for the not-so-new newbies. I suppose the oldies often forget how they learned. One very good effort I think is the cl-kookbook. Which is actually wonderful and solves /many/ of the teething problems for newbies.
>Do my questions convey a misconception?
NIL
I, at least, appreciate the effort you put in your guide. Thank you for it.
[1] Often people ignore the fact that learning a new language like CL is often not just a hobby. One has to think a lot before leaving such advised things like C++/Java. I was called a fool my 99% of my friends. They all earn ~25x the amount on what I live today.
>> No separation of private from public space. > You brought up the subject with your moronic (your word, I, actually > am learning) attack. You had my name & address. And you lied here. > Naughty naughty.
I don't know if it helps to get an opinion from a third party here.
EN noted that you were "hiding behind an alias", or words to that effect. Disclosing your name etc to *him* does not mean that you have identified yourself *in the public space*. I still don't know who you are, nor do the other readers of cll, so as far as we are concerned, you're still hiding.
Now, a Google search for "quasiabhi yahoo" gave me the name "Abhijit Rao", and another search on that name brought me to <URL: http://abhijit-rao.tripod.com/> (a very nice-looking page, btw).
If that really is you, it is obviously very easy to bypass your alias if one really wants to. I'd say your both right on this particular count: EN is correct in that you haven't disclosed your identity in the public space, and you are right that your identity is not a secret.
Can't you just let this matter drop? EN *is* an acquired taste, but consider this: - he *is* in cll, and he won't go away. - stay technical with him, and he will gladly post lengthy and accurate articles in reply to your questions. - fight with him, and *you* are going to suffer.
Tough, I know, but I think not impossible to live with.
disclaimer: I'm not taking sides here, or stating personal preference. I'm simply trying to dissuade you from continuing a hopeless battle.
quasi <quasia...@yahoo.com> writes: > [1] Often people ignore the fact that learning a new language like CL > is often not just a hobby. One has to think a lot before leaving such > advised things like C++/Java. I was called a fool my 99% of my > friends. They all earn ~25x the amount on what I live today.
I remember people calling me a fool when I moved to the Bay Area and continued working for a little company in Chicago. When we started doing CL work I was subjected to another round of it. Some just wanted an excuse to boast about their salary, some wanted to take a pot-shot at CL, some tried to hire me away with promises of much larger salaries and stock options. For all the talk about learning skills in languages that would help in my future, there seemed to be very little awareness of what the future was really holding, which seemed obvious to me at the time -- a severe contraction in available capital. I think the BA has a special brand of fantasy that is responsible for that. Of those dozens of people, perhaps 4 still have the same job, maybe 3/4s have a job at all. I don't rejoice in this, as many are freinds and it is very stressful for them.
* Adam Warner | In an amazing display of continued restraint Pascal never stooped to your | level of abuse Erik.
Now that you have had time to calm down a bit, I want you to consider your own behavior for a moment. You were replying to an article that had a lengthy and sound argument, yet you /only/ emoted in response. This is fundamentally indecent of you and tells your intelligent readers that you lack self-control. You may wish to /think/ before you react in this way in public.
In response to arguments, one expects counter-arguments. Let us see how your counter-arguments even come close to the arguments to which you have responded.
This is a non sequitur. One can certainly be ungrateful for things that others do while doing something else for others. My argument is that Pascal Costanza demands that those who help others put up with all kinds of shit from those who have been helped voluntarily and he argues that those who help them should use more effective communication techniques, and should behave like educators and psychotherapists, professions he use to defend his idiotic policy of dealing with ungrateful miscreants. In so doing, he has placed the entire burden of how advice is received on the shoulders of those who voluntarily and without compensation help another human being in good faith. Instead of gratitude for this aid to the undeserving, Pascal Costanza demands that they take responsibility for how the recipient of their advice "feels". He wants people to use a "warm" language that caters to the readers' emotoins and lists several technical books that those who favor an emotion-free, neutral language that is also devoid of condescension and patronization, would describe as /not/ particular "warm" books, but rather technical and to-the-point. It is thus hard to imagine any measurement of what "warm" means, but Pascal Costanza has also eschewed measurement entirely, and discards the notion so prevalent in science that some method of quantification of results is a good thing in order to know whether you have indeed done better when you feel you have. More often than not, people feel well about their own sense of control, not about the results, so even if people feel better, that does not mean they actually /do/ better. Devoid of measurements and objective standards, Pascal Costanza becomes the arbiter of how people "feel" about the communication. Living up to his demands for a "warmer" languages therefore means contacting him to see how he "feels" about it. I would rather go find water with a divining rod than succumb to this mystical, anti-rational, feel-good policy of communication.
Your entire argument is that he is a nice person who helps others and should not be subjected to fair criticism of his actual arguments and his actual position.
| It is an extremely helpful guide that also contains many links to | worthwhile material, some that I was surprised to discover for the first | time.
Following up on the previous non-sequitur, you now think you can improve your idiotic non-argument by backing it up with more on how you feel.
| Pascal Costanza is "the most ungrateful shithead this newsgroup has ever | seen" because he doesn't worship you.
Now, this is where your rationality, if any, has left you. It is clear from this moronic non-argument that you experience too much emotion for your own good. Your lack of self-control has moved you into a position where you spew hatred and invent things you think will hurt other people. This is a supposed counter-argument to behavior you could not condone by your silence. I'll say. Wow, man. You really know how to argue against bad behavior that you cannot condone by your silence.
Where /does/ a moron like yourself find reason to believe in "worship"? Did you "worship" me when I offered you advice? Did you feel that one person you "worshipped" should have been nicer to another person you "worship"? Is that it? How /did/ you come upon this "worship" idiocy if you do not feel this kind of thing yourself? Do you think it is /bad/ to worship other people? Do you think it is the /recipient/ of your worship that should be branded as a bad guy because of your worship?
How on earth could you even come up with this fantastically moronic shit when your goal was to speak up against someone else's bad behavior? Are you as insane as you appear to me right now? Are you really fucking nuts the way you appear to me? Now, why should I even for a moment consider the criticism about my behavior from some lunatic who invents "worship" as an argument in his favor? Just how dumb do you think I am that would look at your pathetic excuse for an emotional outburst and think "oh, my, Adam Nut sure has a great argument!"? People who behave the way you do when you think you are arguing against bad behavior really show the entire world how /appropriate/ it is with emotional outbursts when you get really pissed off by something. But the staggeringly unintelligent, such as Adam "the Nut" Warner, do not manage to produce /arguments/ when they feel many things at the same time. Perhaps your favorite melody of the entire previous millennium was "Words don't come easy to me" by F. R. David?
| You are unable to maintain neutral language around him because he is the | newest threat to your perceived status as dominant male.
This is /so/ fascinating. We gain a unique insight into a person's value system when he gets angry. I, for instance, consider stupidity and too low intelligence for the task at hand to be one of the most dangerous threat that can befall the human race. Consider momentarily the prospect of the most powerful man in the world, wielding a larger armory than any person before him in the history of the planet, and he is just as dumb as the high-school dropout who got a job at McDonald's only because of his father: He is a much greater threat to the civilized world than the super- terrorist, as he will most certainly continue the legacy of destroying the nation in order to save it. Adam the Emotional Nut, however, appears to believe that nothing is worse in this world than the idiotic behavior of sports fans and primitive people. However, in his emotional zeal, he also forgot everything I have said about dangers of the same thing, that I consider people whose high testosterone levels are only made up for their lack of intelligence to be the most interesting living archeological specimens from the stone age, that the group mentality is the most base and most useless properties of the human psychology after all our basic needs were covered. Your life, livelihood, or even food supply is not at stake when you have the luxury of going on the Internet to engage in an intellectual meeting of minds. To bring homo-erectus-style psychology into this forum the way that Adam the Emotional Nut does here is so out of place that we have to remind ourselves that he actually tries to argue against a position that the person who helps another on Usenet should be held responsible for the emotional development of the person helped.
There is one way to look at this from the point of view of an actual case and argument: Adam the Emotional Nut /demonstrates/ what happens when the person who helped him with technical matters does not hold the poor fool's hand when he continues to read articles by the person who helped him. Scratch up one point for Pascal Costanza here! A beneficiary of voluntary assistance on the Internet, Adam the Emotional Nut depends on others for his emotional well-being, and the hero he worshiped because he helped with his technical problems fails to live up to his standards as hero, and the hero-worshiping idiot who looks upon the dominant male must lash out at his idol for not being nice enough. Lacking the intellectual capacity to deal with his emotions, we see that a combination of worship and the dominant male theory of group dynamics produces a person who feels so ill at ease that he has to tell the group that he shall no longer worship the dominant male because he did not make him feel good enough.
| While you have the goal of "Immortality in our lifetime" the only thing | you are achieving is infamy.
Another /excellent/ argument against my position. The moron now wields a stupid /threat/ instead of using whatever little intellectual capacity he has to argue against a position we are increasingly suspicious that he did not understand at all. But what does understanding matter when you can talk about worshiping and dominant males and make stupid threats like this? Hah! Intellect be damned! Adam the Emotional Nut shows us the way out of our predicament. This is a forum where suck-ups worship the dominant male and where little piss-ants like Adam the Emotional Nut get to vote on who is the dominant male. Let's roll back history about 50,000 years to the time when the emotional equivalent of Adam the Emotional Nut roamed the lands, no strike that, huddled together in little bands of feverishly insecure proto-humans long before their brains grew big enough to become a burden with its excess capacity, and let us look at one small member of the band lash out at the dominant male and for the brief remainder of his miserable life gets to threaten the man with the club. Then fast-forward 50,000 years to see Adam the Emotional Nut sitting behind his computer and feeling oh so smug, because all the way from New Zealand, he can challenge the dominant male that he once worshiped and
* Pascal Costanza | Do we want to attract more newbies? Do we actually want to create more | interest in Common Lisp (or Lisp in general)?
We do that by being a quality forum that discusses something that newbies want to read about. My tack on this is that most newbies do not want to read about your feelings or about how other people feel about me. The more you discuss how newbie-friendly you want to be, the less newbie- friendly you actually /are/, because newbies do not want to read about how newbies are to be treated -- I would find that condescending and patronizing in the extreme in the areas I am a newbie -- they want to read something that can make them stop being newbies and take part in the rich tradition that they may momentarily feel outsiders to. You and the other actually quite hostile feel-good guys make such a stink about the newbies that if I were a newbie, I most certainly would not post for a long time after reading your self-serving crap about how nice you will be to newbies. My God, I would find another language to be a newbie in where they treated people with respect and the expectation that they would be able to learn quickly and would not be newbies for long, instead of going into a forum where I am "marked" as a newbie and then people are supposed to treat me like I'm special or something.
Stop patronizing people, Pascal Costanza! You scare off the newbies who want to stop being newbies. The best you can do with your policy is attract stupid children who think it is OK to be treated like children and pampered and pandered to.
| Is "education" of the newbies among the goals of c.l.l?
Not in the sense that anyone assumes responsibility for anyone else.
| Do we want to help them to overcome the hurdles that Common Lisp actually | seems to have in the perception of newbies (and even of those who have | reached a "medium" level)?
This is what we did here until you feel-good guys chose to attack me and started talking about how good people you are when you not like me. Until you shitheads started to make such a ruckus here about how holier than everybody who has actually helped people for years thou art, we have actually succeeded in bringing quite a few people up from inexperienced to experienced in a fairly short amount of time, and we have been very helpful to people who wanted to learn. If today I am regarded as an experrt, it is in no small part because of the people here who helped me. If I had been treated like a newbie, I would have left the community alone. It is because people here are expected to have working brains that they get chided for not using it. If they were expected to be fools with too many emotions for their own good, nobody would chide them, but neither would they stay to discuss things of real importance with them.
| For the sake of completeness: Do my questions convey a misconception?
Your questions convey a deep disrespect for both newbie and experienced reader alike. You know best, you know how to run this show, it could not possibly have worked before you came along, and without your change in style to a positsive reinforcement first style suitable for educators who have responsibility for their students and of psychotherapists who assume responsibility for the /lives/ of their patients, we could not have had a good environment here where people would actually want to get on good terms with those who are in the know. Without your feel-good therapy from experts down to the lowly newbie, we could not possibly have developed our own experts. Thanks to the /lack/ of your feel-good crap, this forum is worth reading for people who do not want to remain newbies.
-- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
* Charlton Wilbur <cwil...@mithril.chromatico.net> | I think there may be a better phrasing than short-term versus long-term | self-esteem, but I can't think of it. No doubt someone will post it, and | it will be obvious in retrospect.
Perhaps pleasure/pain in the short term and happiness/unhappiness in the long term. These seem to cover what I think you mean. Self-esteem being a result of either, in different capacities. It may feel good to win a battle, but if you see that you will lose the war, it may or may not help.
| The jobs I do worst at are the ones where the struggle is entirely | political, or where the technical matters are problems I've already | solved, or where I'm the sole person who is working at a particular | level.
I have come to believe that politics is usually conducted by stupid and incompetent people and therefore do not attract smart and competent people, but if you are a smart and competent person who wants to get something done, it is a actually game worth knowing well, and you can get a lot more done with lots of people backing you than you can alone. If you do not do well in a job where you are the only person at a particular level, the solution seems to work to get more people up to your level. (This is partly my motivation for using Usenet, and it works both ways.)
| Also, the end result needs to be something I care about, or the technical | issues involved need to be interesting, or there's little reward in it | for me. Money is a tremendously poor motivator for me.
Money seems to be a good motivator only up to a certain level. However, the news story written by Alfie Kohn and run by Boston Globe 1987-01-19 gives an important perspective. (In Emacs, hit <help> N to get the NEWS file, then C-x C-f MOTIVATION to get this article. If you do not use Emacs, your very best option is to start using it now, the second best to visit <http://naggum.net/motivation.html>.
| If I don't pay attention, I go for small immediate gratification over | long-term reward every time.
But at least you are aware of it and presumably pay attention when it matters, which makes it a choice. My cat has a funny way of getting between immediate gratification and long-term goals. For some reason, she insists that if the only thing in my line of sight is a newspaper or a book or even a print-out, that should be rectified immediately with a purring furball. Her long-term goal is contant immediate gratification, or so it seems.
-- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
Erik Naggum wrote: > For what does it mean when > Adam the Emotional Nut is the only person in a huge crowd to speak up > because he could not condone some behavior with his silence?
Yeah, Adam, why are you the only one who ever objects to Erik's behavior?
> I mean, > everybody else have kept quiet, and although I am fairly sure that we > will hear from the other emotional nuts pretty soon, that means that Adam > the Emotional Nut is the only one /not/ to condone the behavior with > their silence.
Oops, he sees right through everyone else, too. :(
> Die in shame, Adam Warner.
That is the only punishment fit for someone who hurts Erik's feelings. The poor baby.
<peter.lewe...@swipnet.se> wrote: >EN noted that you were "hiding behind an alias", or words to that >effect. Disclosing your name etc to *him* does not mean that you have >identified yourself *in the public space*. I still don't know who you >are, nor do the other readers of cll, so as far as we are concerned, >you're still hiding.
What does Peter Lewerin tell me about you? Or for that matter, Joe Marshall, Edi Weitz? They are names. They are used for identification. They do not /mean/ anything directly - unless you are looking at where the person may come from and what (probable) community he belongs to. Probably if I wanted to know more about you, I could search the WWW. As you tell, you did the same about me. I may find more about all the ones I mentioned and you may find precious little about me. Because I have written no books, taken no part in anything important. Most of what I do I sign as "quasi". Here on cll there is no other "quasi" so there is no question about ambiguity. And I have already posted my WWW URL here. I have avoided no questions about myself. Does this still make you think I am "still hiding"?
>Now, a Google search for "quasiabhi yahoo" gave me the name "Abhijit >Rao", and another search on that name brought me to <URL: >http://abhijit-rao.tripod.com/> (a very nice-looking page, btw).
Thank you.
>If that really is you,
It is indeed me. I have posted that URL here before. I will include it in my signature, I think, now.
> - fight with him, and *you* are going to suffer.
'-)
>Tough, I know, but I think not impossible to live with.
Yes, I agree.
>I'm simply trying to dissuade you from continuing a hopeless battle.
> Harald Hanche-Olsen: > > ... Someone > > summed it up nicely: "Luck favours the prepared mind." I don't know > > who said it, but it does have a Feynmanesque flavour to it.
> Hamming attributes it to Pasteur.
At his inaugural lecture, when he took up his post as professor of chemistry at Lille, in 1854, Pasteur said:
In the fields of observation, chance favors only those who are prepared.
Any-one know the original French? The translation in front of me has Pasteur saying that Lady Luck hands out her favours amongst a select few: those who have prepared. It is not that the prepared get more lucky breaks than the unprepared, the unprepared get no lucky breaks at all! Such a sentiment is in keeping with Pasteur's intense approach to research.
> Is "education" of the newbies among the goals of c.l.l? Do we want to > help them to overcome the hurdles that Common Lisp actually seems to > have in the perception of newbies (and even of those who have reached a > "medium" level)?
> For the sake of completeness: Do my questions convey a misconception?
Yes, I think they do. If I was to be horribly thatcherite I'd say: there is no such thing as cll, instead there is just a group of people with access to a newsreader and newsfeed. Thus it is meaningless to ask what the `goals' of cll are: you need to ask what the goals of the people who post here are. And if you want things to be different, I suggest that the right approach is not to start meta discussions about the goals of a nonexistent entity and what they should be, or about the goals of others and what they should be. Instead, *Just Do It*. If you want to help newbies, help newbies! Your document on Lisp was a good start!
* quasi <quasia...@yahoo.com> | What does Peter Lewerin tell me about you? Or for that matter, Joe | Marshall, Edi Weitz? They are names. They are used for identification.
The point is that it is the same identification everywhere. You choose to be "quasi" here, but and your real life something else. Some people find this annoying. The whole point of this exercise is to see if you can see how other people see you, not whether you can defend yourself.
-- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
>>Is "education" of the newbies among the goals of c.l.l? Do we want to >>help them to overcome the hurdles that Common Lisp actually seems to >>have in the perception of newbies (and even of those who have reached a >>"medium" level)?
>>For the sake of completeness: Do my questions convey a misconception?
> Yes, I think they do. If I was to be horribly thatcherite I'd say: > there is no such thing as cll, instead there is just a group of people > with access to a newsreader and newsfeed. Thus it is meaningless to > ask what the `goals' of cll are: you need to ask what the goals of the > people who post here are.
You have a point here.
> And if you want things to be different, I
> suggest that the right approach is not to start meta discussions about > the goals of a nonexistent entity and what they should be, or about > the goals of others and what they should be. Instead, *Just Do It*. > If you want to help newbies, help newbies! Your document on Lisp was > a good start!
OK, I'll do.
Thanks for your contribution.
Pascal
-- Given any rule, however ‘fundamental’ or ‘necessary’ for science, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite. - Paul Feyerabend
Pascal Costanza wrote: > Tim Bradshaw wrote: >> And if you want things to be different, I >> suggest that the right approach is not to start meta discussions about >> the goals of a nonexistent entity and what they should be, or about >> the goals of others and what they should be. Instead, *Just Do It*. >> If you want to help newbies, help newbies! Your document on Lisp was >> a good start!
> OK, I'll do.
As a final note on this issue, here is some anecdotal evidence that might be interesting to newbies, and also Lispers in general.
Guy Steele [1] is known to be a very shy and introverted person. He has actually taken acting lessons in the past in order to improve his communication skills. His experiences have influenced another pedagogical pattern by Joe Bergin called "Introvert - Extrovert", that can be found at http://csis.pace.edu/~bergin/patterns/introvertExtrovert.html. Highly recommended!
Pascal
[1] For the newbies: Author of "Common Lisp - The Language", considered by many to be the bible of Common Lisp.
-- Given any rule, however ‘fundamental’ or ‘necessary’ for science, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite. - Paul Feyerabend
>>>>> "AC" == Alan S Crowe <a...@cawtech.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
AC> ozan s yigit <o...@blue.cs.yorku.ca> writes: >> Harald Hanche-Olsen: > ... Someone > summed it up nicely: "Luck >> favours the prepared mind." I don't know > who said it, but it >> does have a Feynmanesque flavour to it. >> >> Hamming attributes it to Pasteur.
AC> At his inaugural lecture, when he took up his post as AC> professor of chemistry at Lille, in 1854, Pasteur said:
AC> In the fields of observation, chance favors only those who AC> are prepared.
AC> Any-one know the original French? The translation in front of AC> me has Pasteur saying that Lady Luck hands out her favours AC> amongst a select few: those who have prepared. It is not that AC> the prepared get more lucky breaks than the unprepared, the AC> unprepared get no lucky breaks at all! Such a sentiment is in AC> keeping with Pasteur's intense approach to research.
It's also a riff on 'fortuna audentes juvat' -- 'Fortune favors the bold' -- which I thought was from the _Metamorphoses_ but which Google informs me is from the _Aeneid_, X.284 and X.458. So much for a classical education; I have been replaced by a massively parallel device....
On 11 Oct 2002 12:12:32 +0000, Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> wrote:
>* quasi <quasia...@yahoo.com> >| What does Peter Lewerin tell me about you? Or for that matter, Joe >| Marshall, Edi Weitz? They are names. They are used for identification.
> The point is that it is the same identification everywhere. You choose > to be "quasi" here, but and your real life something else. Some people > find this annoying. The whole point of this exercise is to see if you > can see how other people see you, not whether you can defend yourself.
Looking at your "argument" only, it does not hold water. How can you be sure that Abhijit Rao is actually my name in real life. I consistently use one psudonium/nickname/handle (whatever you call it). Then I have a legal name. That is about it. And about people seeing me, it is their business. And about defending myself, no. I was defending my "argument", which of far remains unanswered.
But I will make a friendly pact with you. I will stop using "quasi" for "Abhijit Rao", if you stop using "Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway" for "Erik the Exterminator" (or something similarly interesting. --
Erik Naggum wrote in message <3243261753316...@naggum.no>... > The best you can do with your policy is > attract stupid children who think it is OK to be treated like children > and pampered and pandered to.
I do not buy this silk-purse-into-sow's-ear concept of good manners being condescending, Thoreau did provide a cool supporting anecdote: http://eserver.org/thoreau/algash08.html
"Having carried over the dam, he darted down the rapids, leaving us to walk for a mile or more, where for the most part there was no path, but very thick and difficult travelling near the stream. At length he would call to let us know where he was waiting for us with his canoe, when, on account of the windings of the stream, we did not know where the shore was, but he did not call often enough, forgetting that we were not Indians. He seemed to be very saving of his breath,--yet he would be surprised if we went by, or did not strike the right spot. This was not because he was unaccommodating, but a proof of superior manners. Indians like to get along with the least possible communication and ado. He was really paying us a great compliment all the while, thinking that we preferred a hint to a kick."
Commendable, but doesn't in itself make you "open-identity".
> Does this still make you think I am "still hiding"?
In principle, *yes*. OTOH, as already established, you aren't really trying to stay hidden. And...
> It is indeed me. I have posted that URL here before. I will include > it in my signature, I think, now.
...for me, that's enough. I have no problem with you being "quasi", "pseudo", or whatever if I can find out more about you by following that reference.
Charlton Wilbur wrote: > It's also a riff on 'fortuna audentes juvat' -- 'Fortune favors the > bold' -- which I thought was from the _Metamorphoses_ but which Google > informs me is from the _Aeneid_, X.284 and X.458. So much for a > classical education; I have been replaced by a massively parallel > device....
You *are* a massively parallel device.
-- Gareth McCaughan Gareth.McCaug...@pobox.com .sig under construc
* quasi <quasia...@yahoo.com> | Looking at your "argument" only, it does not hold water.
You are still defending yourself instead of getting the point. Why?
| How can you be sure that Abhijit Rao is actually my name in real life.
You can produce any number of idiotic "problems" in your own defense. Until you demonstrate that you /understand the point/, your defense means exactly nothing, however. In this case, the point is that we can be very certain that your full, legal name is /not/ "quasi". This is why you are asked to discontinue it.
| And about defending myself, no. I was defending my "argument", which of | far remains unanswered.
Will all due respect, the person who refuses to understand the position of his opponent cannot possibly defend his argument. When you invent problems with an approach that people actually prefer, you demonstrate only one thing: that you do not get the point.
| But I will make a friendly pact with you. I will stop using "quasi" for | "Abhijit Rao", if you stop using "Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway" for "Erik | the Exterminator" (or something similarly interesting. --
There were a lot of people here who thought you were not insane. They have lost some of their reason to believe that and who now have reason to believe that you are a mental case. They had reason to suspect this when you refused to use your full name and went by a nickname, but suspicion is not sufficient. You have provided sound evidence that you should enter a lot of people's kill-files with the last idiotic comment.
Why do you guys work so hard to make yourself look so goddamn screwed-up when you could simply have gotten the point and said something more honest like "I don' wanna!" instead of trying to poke holes in the basis for the request, which just looks really, really retarded. *sigh*
-- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
In the last exciting episode, Gareth McCaughan <Gareth.McCaug...@pobox.com> wrote::
> Charlton Wilbur wrote: >> It's also a riff on 'fortuna audentes juvat' -- 'Fortune favors >> the bold' -- which I thought was from the _Metamorphoses_ but >> which Google informs me is from the _Aeneid_, X.284 and X.458. So >> much for a classical education; I have been replaced by a >> massively parallel device....
> You *are* a massively parallel device.
I'm sure there's a way of interpreting that as being a really obtuse insult :-). -- (concatenate 'string "chris" "@cbbrowne.com") http://cbbrowne.com/info/oses.html UNFAIR Term applied to advantages enjoyed by other people which we tried to cheat them out of and didn't manage. See also DISHONESTY, SNEAKY, UNDERHAND and JUST LUCKY I GUESS. -- The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan
On 12 Oct 2002 00:32:13 +0000, Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> wrote:
> In this case, the point is that we can be very certain that your full, > legal name is /not/ "quasi". This is why you are asked to discontinue it.
And my point what(why) does it matter by what I sign myself. When anyone, if they are so interested, can know my real name. You have bypassed my question that even if I sign with a /seemingly/ legal name, you have no way to acertain if it indeed is my legal name. Which beats your point above.
Can you, for example only, tell me if you are certain that Pascal Costanza is the legal name of the person who uses it here? Or is it just because it /seems/ legal you are satisfied? Bah.
One's judgment of others affect one's own self. If people want to add me to their killfiles I have no control over it nor any interest in it.
And regarding me being insane, well, I guess we all could be called that...
On 12 Oct 2002 00:32:13 +0000, Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> wrote:
> There were a lot of people here who thought you were not insane. They > have lost some of their reason to believe that and who now have reason to > believe that you are a mental case.
... ... if the insane humour goes from the eyes you can see the stark emptiness that lies in the vast void behind called the cave of my mind...
