who should read comp.lang.lisp? /civility
Richard Fateman
languages and compiling, in which students are writing
pieces of a compiler using Common Lisp. The course
uses parts of Andrew Appel's Modern Compiler Implementation
(the Java version, since students are supposed to
know Java as well as Scheme from earlier courses).
I also direct them to various
web sites which explain why lisp is appropriate
for various tasks, and is especially handy for
prototyping language implementations.
The reason I'm writing here, is that it would also seem
appropriate to direct students to read comp.lang.lisp
to see some informed discussion of various issues
related to Common Lisp. However the level of discussion
of technical issues seems to degenerate to ad hominem
arguments (i.e. personal attacks) rather more often
than necessary. While we may have varying tolerances
for off topic humor, it seems to me that it does a
disservice to people (like my students) who
might look at this newsgroup as a resource. Instead they come
away with a rather negative impression of the lisp
community.
I am not advocating external censorship,
but just a realization on the part of
the contributors that their messages are perhaps
widely read (and certainly archived for future readers).
Quite a number of threads here are serious and valuable
discussions, at least for a while, and that makes it
tempting to point people this way.
It is in many peoples' nature to try to get
in the last word, or the ultimate zinger. Unmoderated
newsgroups don't really allow this (i.e. the moron can
always respond!). What to do? I think it is
possible to be civil even in the face of incivility,
ignorance, or malice. Often an adequate and civil response
is to not respond at all. I suggest we try to factor
such considerations into our participation, with the
intention of making the newsgroup useful to a wider
audience and perhaps more reflective of what lisp
is about. Thanks.
Richard Fateman
Tim Bradshaw
> While we may have varying tolerances for off topic humor, it seems
> to me that it does a disservice to people (like my students) who
> might look at this newsgroup as a resource. Instead they come away
> with a rather negative impression of the lisp community.
I think that cll is not radically hostile compared to much of usenet.
We hear repeated claims of how hostile it is, but I'm unconvinced.
Compared to some other groups it's quite tame - I used to read (in the
lurk sense) alt.folklore.urban in what was perhaps its heyday in the
early 90s, and it was pretty fierce, and made more so by the refusal
of regular posters to use smileys or any of those cop-out indicators
of humour... Of course afu is not a technical group, but look at,
say, comp.arch. There is a lot of `hostility' there. somp.sys.sun.*
is invariably full of people screaming at each other about linux. I
don't read any other language groups any more, but I'd be surprised if
they were full of sweetness and light.
So I think the answer is that cll is a newsgroup, and it's like
newsgroups are: full of people with no lives or social skills who
scream at each other through a conveniently safe medium: not many
people have been killed by newsgroup articles, no matter how
incandescent.
I don't think people should assume that cll represents any kind of
community other than that of people who contribute to it, and if
they're not used to usenet, well they should be warned about what it's
like, because they'll have the same experience elsewhere.
--tim
JB
> I think that cll is not radically hostile compared to much
> of usenet. We hear repeated claims of how hostile it is,
> but I'm unconvinced.
I think I can judge this, as I received some thorough
beatings here.
Cll is very responsive, knowledgable and full of help rather
than being hostile. If I taught CL, I should most
definitely tell my students to participate in cll. In doing
so, they would learn a lot. Of course Mr Fateman would have
to talk with his students about the experience they have
had (I hope this is good English).
--
J.... B....
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http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
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Joe Marshall
> I suggest we try to factor such considerations into our
> participation, with the intention of making the newsgroup useful to
> a wider audience and perhaps more reflective of what lisp is
> about. Thanks.
I'm sure you are aware that every now and then someone suggests
something along these lines. I'm equally sure you have seen how
effective it is.
Rather than wait for a change in the nature of this group before
directing students here, you might want to give your students a primer
on how to survive comp.lang.lisp
Might I suggest these ideas:
1. Read before posting. If you intend to join the community long
term, it would be a good idea to read it for several weeks before
joining in.
2. Do your homework. If you have a quick question, check the
archives to see if it has already been discussed or answered.
3. At least *attempt* to do your homework. If you have a homework
problem that you can't solve, show us what you have so far.
4. Keep it technical and on topic. If you have a question, ask it.
Remember that opinions are like assholes: everyone's got one, and
no one wants to look at anybody else's.
5. Don't take it personally. You haven't arrived until someone damns
you to eternal perdition or cast aspersions on the genetic makeup
of your ancestors. Remember, it is better to keep your mouth shut
and have people suspect you are an idiot than to open it and
dismiss all doubt.
6. This is comp.lang.lisp, not comp.lang.scheme, comp.lang.perl,
or comp.lang.c++ If you prefer these languages, hang out there.
Believe it or not, many of the people in comp.lang.lisp actually
program in languages other than lisp and are up to date on the
latest trends in computing.
7. Write your own lisp system before complaining about others. There
are people here that hack lisp professionally and have done so for
a *long time*. They don't want to hear criticism from someone who
read about lisp in a book.
Thien-Thi Nguyen
> I suggest we try to factor such considerations into
> our participation, with the intention of making the
> newsgroup useful to a wider audience and perhaps more
> reflective of what lisp is about.
students at the university level would actually benefit
from realizing how irrational (and sometimes entertaining)
people can be, especially in the context of a venerable
computer language, in addition to being logical, precise,
respectful of history, etc. [insert moby dick "world w/o
evil cannot be good" comp.lit essay here.]
the best you can do for them as an instructor is to allow
that old trees gather lots of monkies and moss, and it is
a good idea to cut open the fruit to check for worms.
then work very hard to demonstrate those principles you
favor in behavior and thought. i would be glad to be a
student of yours, then.
thi
Joe Marshall
> the best you can do for them as an instructor is to allow
> that old trees gather lots of monkies and moss,
I wonder which category I fall into. (This is a rhetorical statement.)
Will Deakin
> The reason I'm writing here, is that it would also seem
> appropriate to direct students to read comp.lang.lisp
> to see some informed discussion of various issues
> related to Common Lisp.
resource. But it is more than this and serves a much broader educational
function. If it is *only* common lisp that you would like discussed then
cliki would possibly serve your students better.
> However the level of discussion
> of technical issues seems to degenerate to ad hominem
> arguments (i.e. personal attacks) rather more often
> than necessary. While we may have varying tolerances
> for off topic humor, it seems to me that it does a
> disservice to people (like my students) who
> might look at this newsgroup as a resource.
It is a shame that you see the group only *as a resource* and a *lisp*
resource at that. It *does* serve this function but without the asides,
humour, argument and abuse, c.l.l. would not be as useful *to me* or as
interesting. I would humbly suggest that others may agree.
> Instead they come away with a rather negative impression
> of the lisp community.
(sigh). I would humble suggest that this is the way of it and that `they
should take rough w'it 't smooth.' This is not comp.lang.advocacy.lisp.
> I am not advocating external censorship,
> but just a realization on the part of
> the contributors that their messages are perhaps
> widely read (and certainly archived for future readers).
As a father this is something that has worried and then amused me to
ponder what my children or family might make of my, ahem, contributions.
But again there is no point crying over spilt milk :)
> What to do?
Warn them about the nature of usenet and then point them in this
direction. It far from being one of the harshest newsgroups.
> I think it is possible to be civil even in the face of
> incivility, ignorance, or malice. Often an adequate
> and civil response is to not respond at all.
However, to demonstrate and practise this you must at some point meet
this incivility, ignorance or malice. A robust or even abusive exchange
doesn't actually hurt anything other than, possible, the ego.
> I suggest we try to factor such considerations into
> our participation, with the intention of making the
> newsgroup useful to a wider audience and perhaps more
> reflective of what lisp is about.
I can only speak for myself but in this capacity will undertake to not
to abuse or bait anybody on usenet. But then again I'm not sure I did a
whole lot of this anyway... However, I still think this misses the
broader nature of the education that somewhere like c.l.l. can give.
> Thanks.
`Prego. Non si dice.'
:)w
Zachary Beane
> Remember, it is better to keep your mouth shut and have people
> suspect you are an idiot than to open it and dismiss all doubt.
I used to give this suggestion a lot of weight until Bruce R. Lewis
told me "People are regarded more for the presence of accomplishments
than the absence of stupid questions."
Zach
--
Zachary Beane xa...@xach.com
Thomas F. Burdick
> I'm teaching an upper division class in programming
> languages and compiling, in which students are writing
> pieces of a compiler using Common Lisp. The course
> uses parts of Andrew Appel's Modern Compiler Implementation
> (the Java version, since students are supposed to
> know Java as well as Scheme from earlier courses).
>
> I also direct them to various
> web sites which explain why lisp is appropriate
> for various tasks, and is especially handy for
> prototyping language implementations.
>
> The reason I'm writing here, is that it would also seem
> appropriate to direct students to read comp.lang.lisp
> to see some informed discussion of various issues
> related to Common Lisp. However the level of discussion
> of technical issues seems to degenerate to ad hominem
> arguments (i.e. personal attacks) rather more often
> than necessary.
Yes, but don't forget your students have spent at least 2 years in
Berkeley. To get to the library, they have to pass one or two
screaming lunatics in front of Wheeler. To get to school, many take
the bus down Telegraph, then walk across Sproul. If they study in
Caffe Strada, they get to deal with the creepy
Aryan-mythology/Templar-conspiracy guy who won't take, "Please leave
me alone, I'm studying" for an answer. And presumably you've heard
what sometimes happens to technical discussions among students -- they
sometimes degenerate into similarly pleasant ad hominem attacks as
what you sometimes see here.
All this is to say that if they can't deal with c.l.lisp, I don't see
how they could have dealt with Berkeley so far. Give them a warning
of what it can be like, and they should be fine.
--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
Marc Spitzer
> Richard Fateman <fat...@cs.berkeley.edu> writes:
>
>> I suggest we try to factor such considerations into our
>> participation, with the intention of making the newsgroup useful to
>> a wider audience and perhaps more reflective of what lisp is
>> about. Thanks.
>
> I'm sure you are aware that every now and then someone suggests
> something along these lines. I'm equally sure you have seen how
> effective it is.
>
> Rather than wait for a change in the nature of this group before
> directing students here, you might want to give your students a primer
> on how to survive comp.lang.lisp
>
> Might I suggest these ideas:
All good ones
The one I would like to add:
In the subject clearly label it as homework. The Idea is that the
student would get a different kind of help then otherwise. And he
would be known as an honest person, which does help here.
marc
ilias
[...]
> The reason I'm writing here, is that it would also seem
> appropriate to direct students to read comp.lang.lisp
> to see some informed discussion of various issues
> related to Common Lisp. However the level of discussion
> of technical issues seems to degenerate to ad hominem
> arguments (i.e. personal attacks) rather more often
> than necessary. While we may have varying tolerances
> for off topic humor, it seems to me that it does a
> disservice to people (like my students) who
> might look at this newsgroup as a resource. Instead they come
> away with a rather negative impression of the lisp
> community.
c.l.l. is only *one* part of the lisp community.
i don't believe that the real experts write in this forum.
you got a few answers from regular posters.
They confirm me once more the unripe thinking of many people here.
e.g.: "Mr. policeman, my neighbour has killed his wife, so where's the
big deal with what i've done? i'm civilized enough to break only the
legs of mine"
Of course, there are some highlights here. Calmy people, with the
awareness of their limits, with respect to individuality and to the
process of sharing knowledge.
-
as long as your students *don't think*, they are not 'in danger'.
yes, they have to stop thinking.
*never* detect a weak point of lisp and publish it.
-
as a general introduction to c.l.lisp, see this article.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=and7hh$k1m$1...@usenet.otenet.gr
the 3 links at the end of the posting have further introduction into the
'ruling' of c.l.lisp.
-
as a general rule, advice students to talk like this:
"helo you brilliant lisp folks. i'm a worthless lisp novice, please
teach me. I don't like to read to much literature, cause i prefere to
taste the wisdom of your expertise."
then they will have no problem.
if you have a genious in your class, advice him to reduce his analytical
strength, so he will not be detected.
-
finally see this topics as a showcase for what happens, if you attack
holy things:
The Scary Readtable () => []
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=amsq4a$cra$1...@usenet.otenet.gr
R5RS Scheme
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=amsm9l$3ua$1...@usenet.otenet.gr
backquote, Error in the specs 0.1 (unclear document, much responses):
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=amc48r$hc0$1...@usenet.otenet.gr
backquote, Error in the specs 0.6 (clear document, no responses)
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=an4ic3$om9$1...@usenet.otenet.gr
-
i write this, as usual, for every person that reads c.l.lisp.
-
i just realise that i should build a small webpage with the organized
links. yes. this i do. so people can see quickly what happens in cll.
-
The Spirit of Lisp.
Can you Feel it?
Raffael Cavallaro
> What to do? I think it is
> possible to be civil even in the face of incivility,
> ignorance, or malice. Often an adequate and civil response
> is to not respond at all. I suggest we try to factor
> such considerations into our participation, with the
> intention of making the newsgroup useful to a wider
> audience and perhaps more reflective of what lisp
> is about. Thanks.
>
> Richard Fateman
Your suggestion is reasonable, but reasonable advice falls on deaf
ears when directed at unreasonably hostile people.
Others, myself included have pointed out what we perceive as a serious
defect with this forum - namely, that it discourages newcomers from
posting for fear they will be unnecessarily eviscerated by those who
seem to live to vituperate.
Your students are precisely the sort of newcomers to this forum who
are most likely to get their heads bitten off by gratuitiously hurtful
correspondents to this forum. Being somewhat irrational, or at best,
social-skills-challenged, these hostile posters are exceedingly
unliklely to comply with your request.
In other words, I wish you and your students the best, but I wouldn't
count on the tone of this newsgroup changing much unless they are an
exceptionally courageous group. Why? In order for newbies to have the
confidence to post here, they have to see other newbies, preferably
many, post either without incident, or at least post and shrug off the
unecessary viciousness. The former, experience teaches us, happens all
too rarely. The latter would require the aforementioned exceptional
courage.
BTW, calls for a c.l.l.moderated have generally been shouted down here
as well. I personally feel that it would be be the best solution,
especially if civil, on-topic threads/posts from the unmoderated group
were cross-posted by the moderator. Part of the problem is finding a
volunteer to moderate.
In any event, good luck to you and your students.
Wade Humeniuk
"Raffael Cavallaro" <raf...@mediaone.net> wrote in message
news:aeb7ff58.02100...@posting.google.com...
> BTW, calls for a c.l.l.moderated have generally been shouted down here
> as well. I personally feel that it would be be the best solution,
> especially if civil, on-topic threads/posts from the unmoderated group
> were cross-posted by the moderator. Part of the problem is finding a
> volunteer to moderate.
>
> In any event, good luck to you and your students.
How about a new moderated group them, say comp.lang.lisp.newcomers
or comp.lang.lisp.q&a or maybe comp.lang.lisp.homework? However it
should be pointed out that newcomer's questions should also be moderated.
(sent back to be rephrased/completed or rejected).
Wade
Joe Marshall
"ilias" <at_...@pontos.net> wrote in message news:aniblp$oov$1...@usenet.otenet.gr...
>
> finally see this topics as a showcase for what happens, if you attack
> holy things:
>
> The Scary Readtable () => []
> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=amsq4a$cra$1...@usenet.otenet.gr
Yes, let's examine this. In message 3D6FD4CE...@pontos.net
you first brought up the question of using square brackets and asked:
``what is the right way???''
My reply was: ``Take a look at the function READ-DELIMITED-LIST
for an example of how to do it.''
And your response was variously:
``i think this is not the right way.''
``*why* should I try it''
``i feel it is the *wrong* way''
``As an experienced lisp coder you should be able to write it in 5"''
``i think you are not able to''
``what he [jrm] said is irrelevant''
----
Apologies to the rest of the group. I am *trying* to bite my tongue.
Coby Beck
"Joe Marshall" <j...@ccs.neu.edu> wrote in message
news:zntvuz...@ccs.neu.edu...
> Richard Fateman <fat...@cs.berkeley.edu> writes:
>
> > I suggest we try to factor such considerations into our
> > participation, with the intention of making the newsgroup useful to
> > a wider audience and perhaps more reflective of what lisp is
> > about. Thanks.
>
> I'm sure you are aware that every now and then someone suggests
> something along these lines. I'm equally sure you have seen how
> effective it is.
>
> Rather than wait for a change in the nature of this group before
> directing students here, you might want to give your students a primer
> on how to survive comp.lang.lisp
>
> Might I suggest these ideas:
>
I think all of Joe's suggestions are excellent ones and if they are followed
your students should be able to benefit a great deal from subscribing to
this group.
From a strictly personal point of view I welcome and strongly encourage
thoughtful questions from newbies and think there is a lot to gain for the
group in general by more of this (keeping in mind Joe's advice).
To answer a couple of the OP's other points:
"Richard Fateman" <fat...@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
news:3D9C7012...@cs.berkeley.edu...
> related to Common Lisp. However the level of discussion
> of technical issues seems to degenerate to ad hominem
> arguments (i.e. personal attacks) rather more often
> than necessary.
I agree that this happens, there is not much consensus here on what exactly
a personal attack is and whether it is a Bad Thing or not (I think it is).
Regardless, I see no reason to expect any change. So the choice is to throw
out the baby with the bathwater or find a way to deal with it. Ultimately,
all it takes is a bit of maturity and the realization that posts by
individuals speak only for that individual and should not be taken as a
group censure.
> Quite a number of threads here are serious and valuable
> discussions, at least for a while, and that makes it
> tempting to point people this way.
I hope you will do so. I personally have gained a great deal of knowledge
about much more than just lisp by participating here.
> always respond!). What to do? I think it is
> possible to be civil even in the face of incivility,
> ignorance, or malice. Often an adequate and civil response
> is to not respond at all. I suggest we try to factor
> such considerations into our participation, with the
> intention of making the newsgroup useful to a wider
> audience and perhaps more reflective of what lisp
> is about.
Good advice, your best hope is giving it to your students. Some of the
regulars here already see things that way, others do not. We have to accept
what freedom of expression brings us, whether we like it or not. And
really, isn't the ability to deal with hostility and insult an extremely
useful skill in the rest of life as well? Especially valuable to the
learning process is the ability to see your own mistake even when it is
presented to you with a healthy dose of "you stupid moron"'s and four letter
explecitives. That is a gift that keeps on giving! ;-)
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ bigpond . com")
Kaz Kylheku
> for off topic humor, it seems to me that it does a
> disservice to people (like my students) who
> might look at this newsgroup as a resource.
You seem to be assuming that the newsgroup exists to perform a service
for you, the failure to do which is a disservice.
A newsgroup is simply an ongoing flow of articles which share a common
identifier in the Newsgroups: line. It's not a service at all. Service
is the performance of some task performed in exchange for some
compensating value.
> Instead they come
> away with a rather negative impression of the lisp
> community.
Don't assume that YOUR impressions are the same as your students'
impressions.
From ``cs.berkeley.edu'', I surmise that you are not teaching a class
of elementary school children, but rather mostly young adults, many of
whom not only do not require protection from hostility, but seek
depictions of it in various entertainment media, such as movies and
popular music.
Why pick on comp.lang.lisp? How about a crusade to protect students
from exposure to Eminem?
Christopher Browne
Wouldn't it be called comp.lang.lisp.no-erik-or-ilias-or-anyone-else?
--
(concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@acm.org")
http://cbbrowne.com/info/linuxdistributions.html
"At least you know where you are with Microsoft."
"True. I just wish I'd brought a paddle."
Erik Naggum
| I am not advocating external censorship, but just a realization on the
| part of the contributors that their messages are perhaps widely read (and
| certainly archived for future readers).
For some reason, you appear to believe that it is OK to be an idiot and
not OK to ask people to think. Your students should instead learn that
it may be OK to be an arrogant ignorant with a chip on their shoulder
among "friends" who "tolerate" you, but out in the big wide open where
monsters roam, you get eaten alive if you (1) act like an idiot, (2) do
not accept criticism of your actions but take them personally (and see
point 1), and (3) defend /yourself/ instead of trying to understand the
technical points raised against your position or claim (and see point 1).
The purpose of a newsgroup is not to prove oneself worthy or to make
people feel validated or to approve of someone's position. The purpose
of a newsgroup is to let people share experiences and knowledge and even
wisdom, to give those who want to learn an opportunity to save themselves
a lot of trouble by listening to the experiences of others instead of
going through the costly process of learning everything by doing. People
who share their experiences tend to socialize, as well, and a community
of people who have experiences worth sharing can be both extremely
rewarding for its members as well as appear exclusive to people who have
no experiences to speak of, yet. But the key is to acquire experience,
not to criticize those who have it for having it.
This goes to "respect for your elders", which all to few brights students
have because they have been able to learn from the great minds that went
before them tens, hundreds, if not thousands, of times faster than these
predecessors learned it. Of course you get cocky and arrogant when you
spend a few months at most on all of the works of Aristtotle, summarizing
his entire life in the week or so it takes to read it all. Of course you
get cocky and arrogant when you enter a world of mathematics that has
taken hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of man-years to develop and
you only spend half a dozen years to a decade before you "improve" on it
with your own doctorate.
The enormously exaggerated pace of the student through people's minds, as
it were, causes the first meeting with Reality to feel like a screeching
halt or a massive chain collision with the rear end of the much slower
pace of today's practiioners. It is when you realize that while you
could learn about everything people have done in your narrow field of
study, doing enough to be worth learning /about/ by somebody else later
on will take the rest of your life and you might end up with a one-line
reference to your entire life's work in the next generation's textbooks
only if you are /really/ good, that you also should realize that your own
advanced education included only the highlights of other people's life
and that the researcher's /real/ life is completely, utterly unglamorous,
but for some strange reason, bright students acquire this arrogance that
they present to the world in "oh, shut up you old fart, I can summarize
your 50 years of experience in a poorly researched term paper", but not
the humility that goes with it, that 50 years hence, some arrogant snot
will summarize /their/ 50 years of experience in a poorly researched term
paper. This brutal meeting with Reality is often excruciatingly painful
for the bright student who has breezed through course after course with
an attitude like "I'm so smart, I don't need to study this". And sadly,
the brighter, the more arrogant, despite their staggering ignorance of
the issue at hand.
Therefore, it is the dury of every practitioner in a field to hold up a
huge "STOP" sign for these arrogant ignorants and to show them that it
takes /years/ of concerted effort by lots of people to actually improve
on anything at all. Those who come to a newsgroup with people who have a
decade or two of actual experience with an "I have this neat idea", get a
priceless favor for free when they are told it was rejected 30 years ago.
The arrogant snot who has read some Scheme and thinks he gets it, is done
a tremendous favor by being told to go stuff it when he argues against a
feature in Common Lisp. In both cases, people who have their nose broken
by running headlong into a door while in an /inconsequential/ setting
like Usenet are both saved from embarrassing themselves in their first
job, and save their employers the cost of teaching them this lesson.
Nothing short of a first, harsh brush with Reality will tell the arrogant
and /relatively/ ignorant student (despite his inflated self-image) that
he is mistaken in his belief that other people's efforts do not matter,
that they can be taken for granted. Just because he has spent the last
half dozen years pushing the proverbial lever and getting the proverbial
pellet of food from his professor or supervisor does not mean that anyone
else is under any obligation to give him any pellets no matter how hard
he pushess his lever. Just because he has spent the last half dozen
years with a very simple, very restricted effort-reward system and has
learned to excel at this game, does not mean that he can play this game
anywhere else in the real world. Most of the time, people who excelled
in something so narrow that only their professor can really value it, are
tremendously ignorant of things outside that narrow field and people
outside their narrow field have an alarming tendency to go "so what?" if
they attempt to flash their credentials. For many a bright student, this
amounts to nothing short of a total reversal of their entire value system.
| It is in many peoples' nature to try to get in the last word, or the
| ultimate zinger.
Surprisingly often, those who enage in this petty game are those whose
weltanschauung has been threatened and they are desperately trying to
recover the ground that vanished beneath their feet. It is the obligation
of those who actually know better to deny them their security blanket and
force them deal with a reality they do not know.
| I think it is possible to be civil even in the face of incivility,
| ignorance, or malice.
But to what end? The arrogant and relataively ignorant punk will not get
the lesson he /needs/ if people kowtow to his arrogance and reaffirm his
stupid notion of superiority over those who have the actual experience of
which he has only learned a brief summary. How many young people have
not had to be put in their proper place when they start to do real work?
Was all of that from malice? Or was it perhaps instead from love of the
field, that although it could be reduced to a paragraph in a textbook for
one who does not study it, it is actually the bread and butter of the
lives of thousands of people and billions of dollars' worth world-wide?
If you take a shower and flushing your toilet for granted, it still means
that a tremendous amount of effort went into the science and engineering
of water and refuse systems and the arrogant ignorant who thinks it was
no big deal to build such an advanced society would literally have no
idea what to do on his own. If he ever got to deal with the people who
not only made this system work for everyone, every single day, everywhere,
but made it /possible/ to take it for granted, which is the ultimate in
technological and social achievement -- should he be allowed to take it
for granted or should they expect this snotty, arrogant jerk to accept an
attitude readjustment?
| Often an adequate and civil response is to not respond at all. I suggest
| we try to factor such considerations into our participation, with the
| intention of making the newsgroup useful to a wider audience and perhaps
| more reflective of what lisp is about. Thanks.
If you love the work you do, tolerating arrogant ignorants is impossible.
If you do not care much about your own work, it is trivially easy to
accept that others do not value it, either. If you want high tolerance
of arrogant shitheads, the only way to achieve that is to ask people to
care less about their work and what other things they value.
Perhaps you should just keep your students more in line and prepare them
for a world that does not care how smart they think they are? The first
thing you should teach your students before they venture out into the
real world and the Usenet that is part of it, is this: They are on their
own. You will not be there to reward them and neither will anyone else
unless they make a /real/ contribution. The /real/ contribution is /not/
being able to think ahead of the educational program and be a lot smarter
than expected. The expectations of competency and skill are not set low
enough that some fraction of the population is going to excel. They are
set so high that if anyone actually excels, it is flat out /unexpected/.
Most A+ students get a C in life. How long would the caring professor
keep that grade a secret to the student? Or would he let the student
know as early as possible so he had a chance to improve his chances?
And despite what many believe because they witness only some people's
meeting the wall at high speed, is that even though their first lesson
may have been extraordinarily painful, they actually /learned/ something
of great value to their life. Time and again, people that I have flamed
for their ignorant arrogance and who were really hurt by it at the time
tell me in private when we meet for the first time that they remember
that time very vividly because it taught them something they have valued
ever since: that it does not matter how much you think of yourself and
how good you are within a closed system of carefully graded challenges
and rewards, they have to prove their worth with real work in real life.
Is a low grade or a harsh comment a /punishment/ or is it a sign that
says you care how well they did and what they need to improve on? Have
you had students that you asked not to take your courses? How does that
compare to /not/ responding to ilias? How do you feel when you fail a
student? Is it any different from telling someone who keeps posting
drivel to a newsgroup that he should go away? Your responsibility to
care about one of your student's feeling has a limitation: You cannot
give a stupid student a good grade because that would make him feel
better. That would be disrespectful to all the /good/ students and it
would make your grading worse than worthless -- it would reward those who
could impose their feelings on you and punish those who took a serious
and professional attitude to actually studying. How often do you meet a
professional community of people who care enough about their newbies to
set them straight and to give them enough feedback to correct themselves
and become good members? More often than not, professional communities
eschew newbies entirely, demanding completed education and approval of
their peers before they can enter. Try being an arrogant student plumber
and see how popular you get in their professional circles. If you were a
teacher of apprentice plumbers and told old-timers in the field to be
nicer to those who ridiculed the profession, thought they could have
opinions because they can produce hot air, and thought they did not need
to go into apprenticeship just because they got good grades in school,
chances are /you/ would receive a pretty harsh treatment, too.
You should prepare your students for real life, then let us sort them out
before they screw up in a job where it counts and destroy their career.
It is, in a word, kindness, not necessarily towards the student, but to
the profession. People who make a serious ass of themselves on the Net
are noticed by employers. I have met a few employers who noticed that
firing somebody for incompetence and their having a track record of
fighting with me on Usenet were correlated and thereafter looked for them
on the Net and did not hire those who had fought with me. I know I have
saved some companies large amounts of money this way, by watching idiots
get hired and subsequently screw things up elsewhere. I have made a lot
of money by coming in after idiots had screwed things up and cleaning up
and even rescuing their operations. It is not that I do not want to make
more money that way, but I find it much more rewarding to work with
competent people than with idiots. In a professional forum, the idiots
are as much in the way as they would be in the workplace. Treating them
otherwise tells everyone that you want to work with these idiots, too.
--
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.
ilias
> "ilias" <at_...@pontos.net> wrote in message news:aniblp$oov$1...@usenet.otenet.gr...
>
>>finally see this topics as a showcase for what happens, if you attack
>>holy things:
>>
>>The Scary Readtable () => []
>>http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=amsq4a$cra$1...@usenet.otenet.gr
>
>
> Yes, let's examine this.
go to the topic.
and examine it there.
> In message 3D6FD4CE...@pontos.net
> you first brought up the question of using square brackets and asked:
please place friendly links that work:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3D6FD4CE...@pontos.net
>
> ``what is the right way???''
>
> My reply was: ``Take a look at the function READ-DELIMITED-LIST
> for an example of how to do it.''
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=5b6c9.144967%24aA.32007%40sccrnsc02
>
> And your response was variously:
> ``i think this is not the right way.''
> ``*why* should I try it''
> ``i feel it is the *wrong* way''
> ``As an experienced lisp coder you should be able to write it in 5"''
> ``i think you are not able to''
> ``what he [jrm] said is irrelevant''
not exactly.
full context:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=alpriu%24h89%242%40usenet.otenet.gr
-
you seem to forget quickly.
you can reread the thread.
read-delimited-list does not work in this context.
a few of your friends have agreed to this.
of course silent & not with a direct reply like:
"stranger! ilias! I apologize. Your intuition was right."
-
weak lousy selfrespectless savages.
Erik Naggum
| Your suggestion is reasonable, but reasonable advice falls on deaf
| ears when directed at unreasonably hostile people.
That would be yourself. You extrapolate from yourself to others in a way
that is truly hostile and unreasonable. When you could get sufficient
help to get over your personal problems, you will see that you were part
of the problem and exacerbated it. Until you understand your own role
and think you can blame somebody else for your own behavior, you will
continue to be a part of the problem.
| Others, myself included have pointed out what we perceive as a serious
| defect with this forum - namely, that it discourages newcomers from
| posting for fear they will be unnecessarily eviscerated by those who seem
| to live to vituperate.
You impute intention, purpose, and motive to people that you have made a
serious effort to annoy. From my point of view, you are clearly insane
since you keep believing your preconceived notion the more it is refuted.
| gratuitiously hurtful correspondents
Just because you are too fucking prejudicial to grasp what is going on
does not mean it is gratuitious, you unspeakably hostile shithead.
| Being somewhat irrational, or at best, social-skills-challenged, these
| hostile posters are exceedingly unliklely to comply with your request.
Please quite extrapolating from your severely limited experience.
| unecessary viciousness.
Just because you are too stupid to see the necessity does not mean it is
not there.
| BTW, calls for a c.l.l.moderated have generally been shouted down here as
| well. I personally feel that it would be be the best solution, especially
| if civil, on-topic threads/posts from the unmoderated group were
| cross-posted by the moderator. Part of the problem is finding a volunteer
| to moderate.
Do you think anything you have ever posted to comp.lang.lisp would get
through in a moderated forum? I would favor moderation to get rid of you.
Joe Marshall
"ilias" <at_...@pontos.net> wrote in message news:anikjo$ol$1...@usenet.otenet.gr...
> Joe Marshall wrote:
>
> >
> > And your response was variously:
> > ``i think this is not the right way.''
> > ``*why* should I try it''
> > ``i feel it is the *wrong* way''
> > ``As an experienced lisp coder you should be able to write it in 5"''
> > ``i think you are not able to''
> > ``what he [jrm] said is irrelevant''
>
> not exactly.
Yes, exactly:
> > ``i think this is not the right way.''
Message <3D720C2B...@pontos.net>
> > ``*why* should I try it''
> > ``i feel it is the *wrong* way''
Message <3D7240B7...@pontos.net>
> > ``As an experienced lisp coder you should be able to write it in 5"''
A slight misquote. The actual text was:
``As an experienced LISP-coder you should write it in about 5".''
Message <3D72527C...@pontos.net>
> > ``i think you are not able too'' [sic]
Message 3D726CD...@pontos.net
> > ``what he [jrm] said is irrelevant''
Message 3D726C10...@pontos.net
Coby Beck
"Kaz Kylheku" <k...@ashi.footprints.net> wrote in message
news:cf333042.02100...@posting.google.com...
> Richard Fateman <fat...@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
news:<3D9C7012...@cs.berkeley.edu>...
> > than necessary. While we may have varying tolerances
> > for off topic humor, it seems to me that it does a
> > disservice to people (like my students) who
> > might look at this newsgroup as a resource.
>
> You seem to be assuming that the newsgroup exists to perform a service
> for you, the failure to do which is a disservice.
I read no such assumption in his post, merely the expression of a desire.
> A newsgroup is simply an ongoing flow of articles which share a common
> identifier in the Newsgroups: line. It's not a service at all. Service
> is the performance of some task performed in exchange for some
> compensating value.
You have squeezed the meaning out of "newsgroup" too much. It may be an
adequate definition for a computer program but certainly not for human
usage. It is like defining a novel as a sequence of words arranged in
patterns that follow a specific grammar. It doesn't quite suffice.
I think your definition of service is not correct either in its inclusion of
"exchange for compensation". (I would like to avoid any philosophical
quibbles about the ultimate motivations for an action one chooses though, if
you don't mind, I think you are using "compensating value" in its more
immediate sense.) Nor is an active disservice the necessary alternative to
provision of a service.
But I grant you that a newsgroup does not exist only or even primarily as a
service. It can however provide one. I often use other groups (and have
used this one) as a way to get specific questions answered ie requesting a
free service. I don't think its wrong per se. I am happy to provide the
same service to others when I can.
> > Instead they come
> > away with a rather negative impression of the lisp
> > community.
>
> Don't assume that YOUR impressions are the same as your students'
> impressions.
Its a common enough impression. When I was a lisp student my classmates all
had the same impression. Hopefully people will get over the negative
feelings they have about tome and content of some posts (rightly or wrongly)
and just take the valuable insights and lesson that are here in plenty.
Raffael Cavallaro
Christopher Browne <cbbr...@acm.org> wrote:
> Wouldn't it be called comp.lang.lisp.no-erik-or-ilias-or-anyone-else?
Erik has posted innumerable times with insightful and informative posts,
all of which would show up on a moderated newsgroup. In a moderated
c.l.l. Erik would still top the stats, much as he does now.
Ilias has posted legitimate questions, questions which would appear on a
moderated newsgroup - not all his posts are free verse on the "spirit of
lisp."
I think it's really disingenuous to paint any move toward a
c.l.l.moderated as an attempt to exclude certain posters. Any moderated
newsgroup is an attempt to exclude certain kinds of *posts* -
specifically, those that are off topic. Whether these posts are off
topic because they don't deal with the subject of the newsgroup in
question, or because they are merely abusive attacks on another poster,
in the end, makes little difference. Both are undesirable noise.
I think the main obstacle to a c.l.l.moderated is the lack of someone
qualified enough with enough free time to take on the task, not the
prospect of some devious censor eliminating all of one person's posts
out of spite.
Ng Pheng Siong
> don't read any other language groups any more, but I'd be surprised if
> they were full of sweetness and light.
some language groups have people patting themselves on the back every other
post saying, 'my, what a nice bunch of guys we are'! too sweet, there. ;-)
--
Ng Pheng Siong <ng...@netmemetic.com> * http://www.netmemetic.com
Christopher Browne
Give it a rest.
Some people require such a thrashing with the clue stick that they
wouldn't survive; this appears to be one of those situations.
All you're doing by continuing the conversation is encouraging the
clueless one's continued participation, and encouraging continued
"incivility."
Leave him alone and let him move on to some other language that is
more suited to his interests. Apparently that might be C++...
--
(concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@acm.org")
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/sap.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #152. "I will instruct my fashion designer
that when it comes to accessorizing, second-chance body armor goes
well with every outfit. <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>
Kenny Tilton
Richard Fateman wrote:
> I'm teaching an upper division class in programming
> languages and compiling, in which students are writing
> pieces of a compiler using Common Lisp.
Super. More Lispers the merrier. But asking us to behave better is
exactly the kind of inflammatory material we do not need. I mean, it's
fine that you said it, but only if you meant to start a firefight.
most of all, I think you are wrong statistically, tho "degenerate to ad
hominem arguments...rather more often than necessary" is hard to pin
down. The /volume/ of degenerate threads once started is impressive, but
most (by far) threads run to completion without bloodshed.
i also think the idea of anyone judging the CL community by c.l.l. is a
reach, but if they do, sorry, the technical strength and even writing
here is wonderful. if someone misses that because of one or two ongoing
battlethreads, they probably also think hockey is about fighting.
btw, i have a theory, and you can help. my theory is that the only
reason c.l.l. seems feisty is that there relatively few posters (regular
or newbie) and that as CL takes over the world in the next couple of
years and we get more traffic, the flamewars will get averaged out.
your wave of newbies themselves may produce the result you desire (and,
again, which i think we already have: comp.lang.lisp.kindler-gentler
but don't warn them or coach them on etiquette or anything, just send
them in and let's see what happens.
:)
kenny
clinisy
ilias
unfriendly links again.
-
*weak* *lousy* *selfrespectless* *savages*.
Vassil Nikolov
[...]
> The reason I'm writing here, is that it would also seem
> appropriate to direct students to read comp.lang.lisp
I do not agree with that. It may be appropriate to direct them to
read the _archives_ of comp.lang.lisp (or a selection thereof),
provided that you find their contents beneficial to their education
as your students. As to the living group, the future content
posted in which is fairly unpredictable, and where active
interaction is what matters most, it may at most be appropriate to
_inform_ them of its existence (and they may very well know already
about it), and let them decide, as responsible adults, whether they
will participate in it or not, possibly supplying them with
(pointers to) information what Usenet in general and comp.lang.lisp
in particular are (again, unless they already know, of course).
The teacher is responsible for directing the students to
appropriate resources for learning; but nobody can be responsible
for ensuring the appropriateness of the content in an unmoderated
newsgroup.
[...]
> I am not advocating external censorship,
> but just a realization on the part of
> the contributors that their messages are perhaps
> widely read (and certainly archived for future readers).
This, however, sounds like advocating self-censorship, and in my
eyes that is not a good thing either.
---Vassil.
Will Deakin
> Wouldn't it be called comp.lang.lisp.no-erik-or-ilias-or-anyone-else?
:)w
Xah Lee
aren't you the one who got kicked out by the moderated forum
comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica?
aren't you the one who badmouthed The New Kind of Scientist Stephen
Wolfram in sci.math in a off-topic kind of way, your foe and your
pain, who has touched almost every existing area of science, and quite
a bit besides?
look at your sorrow, beseeching civility in comp.lang.lisp but
begetting acrimony. And your folly, for being the progenitor of a
complete line of off topic confabulation. Dear mister troll, can you
reflect this? Imagine your hippie students, upon discovering things
for themselves, found that their sensei got rebutted to death in the
very forum of their subject, hmmm?
ain't University of California Berkeley renowned for their free speech
zeal and fuck America attitude? The breeding ground of political
incorrectness and make love not war?
i'd be delighted, if you acquaint me on the subject of troll.
http://xahlee.org/Writ_dir/comp_lang_lisp/troll_toxicity.txt
tell your studs to seek my articles, for i may very well be their
mentor and leader for a bloody revolution in computing.
Xah
x...@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html
----------
From: Richard Fateman <fat...@cs.berkeley.edu>
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 09:28:02 -0700
Subject: who should read comp.lang.lisp? /civility
I'm teaching an upper division class in programming
languages and compiling, in which students are writing
pieces of a compiler using Common Lisp. The course
uses parts of Andrew Appel's Modern Compiler Implementation
(the Java version, since students are supposed to
know Java as well as Scheme from earlier courses).
I also direct them to various
web sites which explain why lisp is appropriate
for various tasks, and is especially handy for
prototyping language implementations.
The reason I'm writing here, is that it would also seem
appropriate to direct students to read comp.lang.lisp
to see some informed discussion of various issues
related to Common Lisp. However the level of discussion
of technical issues seems to degenerate to ad hominem
arguments (i.e. personal attacks) rather more often
than necessary. While we may have varying tolerances
for off topic humor, it seems to me that it does a
disservice to people (like my students) who
might look at this newsgroup as a resource. Instead they come
away with a rather negative impression of the lisp
community.
I am not advocating external censorship,
but just a realization on the part of
the contributors that their messages are perhaps
widely read (and certainly archived for future readers).
Quite a number of threads here are serious and valuable
discussions, at least for a while, and that makes it
tempting to point people this way.
It is in many peoples' nature to try to get
in the last word, or the ultimate zinger. Unmoderated
newsgroups don't really allow this (i.e. the moron can
always respond!). What to do? I think it is
possible to be civil even in the face of incivility,
ignorance, or malice. Often an adequate and civil response
is to not respond at all. I suggest we try to factor
such considerations into our participation, with the
intention of making the newsgroup useful to a wider
audience and perhaps more reflective of what lisp
is about. Thanks.
Richard Fateman
Tim Bradshaw
> How about a new moderated group them, say comp.lang.lisp.newcomers
> or comp.lang.lisp.q&a or maybe comp.lang.lisp.homework? However it
> should be pointed out that newcomer's questions should also be
> moderated. (sent back to be rephrased/completed or rejected).
In order to do this you need to do two things: (1) find a moderator;
and (2) go through the group creation protocol.
(2) is pretty easy to drive, and I'm sure you know how to do it or
where to find TFM. I'm mentioning it because I get slightly
annoyed by the requests for some new
friendlier/better/just-different variant of cll: if someone wants
one of these variant groups then they should go through the ritual
of formally asking for one and see what happens.
(1) is a sticking point. Even if a moderated group gets created, you
need a moderator. If that moderator is `lazy' (in the
not-willing-to-do-lots-of-unpaid-work sense), biased or in other
ways deficient, then the group will fail. If they are none of
these things then the group may still fail, but they will
certainly have a hard and thankless task. Who would volunteer for
this (not me, not even if you paid me (well, maybe if you paid me
*a lot*...)).
--tim
Wolfgang Mederle
> While we may have varying tolerances for off topic humor, it seems to
> me that it does a disservice to people (like my students) who might
> look at this newsgroup as a resource.
Don't send them to usenet without pointing them to the necessary sources
of newbie information. It's crucial to get a grasp of how usenet works
before starting to participate. This group is not different from any
other technical group where the regulars do care about the topic. (Maybe
it's different in the higher intellectual level of even the flame wars,
but that makes it just more are joy to read.)
I'm mostly a lurker here, but whenever I posted a question, people
patiently pointed out my errors and answered in great detail. This is
the only newsgroup dealing with a programming language that I read for
more than a few weeks. And it's one of the reasons why I still try to
become a good Common Lisp programmer even though I'm the only one in my
department who uses the language.
> Instead they come away with a rather negative impression of the lisp
> community.
It's crucial to give a newsgroup more than just a quick look at the
latest threads. That's like watching 15 minutes of a science fiction
TV series episode and then complaining that you didn't get why this
weird looking alien's feelings are hurt when another one calls him a
P'tak.
> I am not advocating external censorship, but just a realization on the
> part of the contributors that their messages are perhaps widely read
> (and certainly archived for future readers).
So you think anyone seriously using this medium wouldn't know? If it was
so easy as to simply be nice and ignore stupidity, abuse, or
misinformation, it would be done. Usenet is only words, so only words
can rule.
--
Wolfgang Mederle
Joe Marshall
"Christopher Browne" <cbbr...@acm.org> wrote in message news:anitf5$ep17c$2...@ID-125932.news.dfncis.de...
I'm trying. Honest!
Will Deakin
> Some people require such a thrashing with the clue stick that they
> wouldn't survive; this appears to be one of those situations.
:)w
Pekka P. Pirinen
> incivility, ignorance, or malice.
Since some posters don't think this is a virtue and can't be persuaded
otherwise, the best you can do is to teach this virtue to your
students. Lest they learn the wrong attitude.
And instruct them to use a killfile. Yes, really. It's much easier
than self-restraint.
But do tell them to come. The only way we get more future
contributors is to teach them the value of sharing the knowledge.
--
Pekka P. Pirinen
Pick your enemies carefully. They're harder to get rid of than friends.
Thomas F. Burdick
> Imagine your hippie students
> ain't University of California Berkeley renowned for their free speech
> zeal and fuck America attitude? The breeding ground of political
> incorrectness and make love not war?
Nota bene, it has been 30 years since 1972.
--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
Erik Naggum
| Since some posters don't think this is a virtue
Since Pekka P. Pirinen does not think others think this is a virtue,
| and can't be persuaded otherwise,
and his opinionated and arrogant self does not know how to /behave/ in a
way that would persuade /anyone/ to follow his lead,
| the best you can do is to teach this virtue to your students.
the best people can do is kill-file the snotty bastard who only comments
on other people and not on Lisp issues, ayway.
| But do tell them to come. The only way we get more future contributors
| is to teach them the value of sharing the knowledge.
Yeah, and disrespect for other people. We sure need a lot more of that.
People who /volunteer/ their disrespectful opinions about others in a
discussion about civility should really have their heads examined.
Tim Josling
> ...
> Therefore, it is the dury of every practitioner in a field to hold up a
> huge "STOP" sign for these arrogant ignorants and to show them that it
> takes /years/ of concerted effort by lots of people to actually improve
> on anything at all. Those who come to a newsgroup with people who have a
> decade or two of actual experience with an "I have this neat idea", get a
> priceless favor for free when they are told it was rejected 30 years ago.
> The arrogant snot who has read some Scheme and thinks he gets it, is done
> a tremendous favor by being told to go stuff it when he argues against a
> feature in Common Lisp. In both cases, people who have their nose broken
> by running headlong into a door while in an /inconsequential/ setting
> like Usenet are both saved from embarrassing themselves in their first
> job, and save their employers the cost of teaching them this lesson.
>
This is sometimes valid, but newcomers have in fact provided major advances to
a range of fields. While existing experts may have an accumulation of
knowledge and in some cases even wisdom, often they may also have an
accumulation of prejudices and an arrogant unwillingness to consider new
ideas.
As the saying goes, "Science advances, funeral by funeral".
But as anyone who has had any role evaluating new ideas will know, most of
them are rubbish. For every theory of relativity there are a thousand
perpetual motion machines.
Teaching people that they have a lot to learn is useful if they don't alteady
know that but it can be done in several ways.
Blankly saying "You are wrong; you are an idiot" may not be optimal.
It would IMO be more useful all around to say, as most people do, something
like:
"This question is misconceived because it assumes xxx which is not true,
actually yyy is the case; this was tried in xxx and didn't work; see xxx for
why this is wrong; look at the newsgroup archives; this is in the FAQ at xxx".
If you wish, by all means then insult the person and tell them they have a lot
to learn before becoming a zen master.
It might help avoid silly questions if the FAQ were posted to the group
regularly. It used to be but isn't any more. Many people might assume that
there is no current FAQ, as I did, because of that. See for example Bill
Perry's posting on 28 June.
Tim Josling
Wade Humeniuk
"Tim Bradshaw" <t...@cley.com> wrote in message news:ey38z1e...@cley.com...
> (1) is a sticking point. Even if a moderated group gets created, you
> need a moderator. If that moderator is `lazy' (in the
> not-willing-to-do-lots-of-unpaid-work sense), biased or in other
> ways deficient, then the group will fail. If they are none of
> these things then the group may still fail, but they will
> certainly have a hard and thankless task. Who would volunteer for
> this (not me, not even if you paid me (well, maybe if you paid me
> *a lot*...)).
Since Richard Fateman wants to send his students, maybe he
could create and manage a moderated forum. He could invite participation
from c.l.l and then shut it down when the course is finished.
What are the common rules that moderators apply to posts? Is the
moderator allowed to edit content?
Wade
Thien-Thi Nguyen
> Nota bene, it has been 30 years since 1972.
but what is that in radians?
thi
Erik Naggum
| This is sometimes valid, but newcomers have in fact provided major
| advances to a range of fields.
Well, duh. Einstein was a newcomer to his field once. That does not
mean he was ignorant of the past theories. Quite the opposite is true.
| While existing experts may have an accumulation of knowledge and in some
| cases even wisdom, often they may also have an accumulation of prejudices
| and an arrogant unwillingness to consider new ideas.
And this affects what? Is your behavior towards more experienced people
who help you based on such prejudices?
| Blankly saying "You are wrong; you are an idiot" may not be optimal.
But nobody /does/ that. Could you please try to focus more on reality
and less on your fantasy world? Clearly, your emotional responses and
that of our more hostile forum member extends far beyond observation and
well into a fabricated fantasies. People are /not/ treated harshly until
they turn hostile towards people who have tried to help them. Do you
think I give all the fantastically evil people who attack me /grounds/ to
attack me? If so, I have a choice between feeling insulted or believing
you must have cabbage for brains. If you had better observational skills
and less willingness to project your fantasy onto reality, you would
actually have observed this. But paying attention is obviously too much
to demand of those of you who are more than happy to join the fight club.
| If you wish, by all means then insult the person and tell them they have
| a lot to learn before becoming a zen master.
This is what actually happens. You apparently value your fantasy world
much higher than your observations. Why is this? People do get a few
chances to understand but they are given technical replies, not touchy-
feely handholding, as befits a technical forum. Some cannot handle this,
and go bananas when someone points out that something they believe to be
true is actually false. Because of such fantastically hostile idiots as
Ray Blaak, Erann Gat, Raffael Cavallaro, and their ilk, some people come
to believe that they have a right to assume hostility where there is only
cold, hard technical answers to technical issues. If you want somebody
to hold you and comfort you while you read news articles that address the
topic of your articles in line with the purpose of the forum you read,
get a dog, cat, or friendly human being. If you do not feel sufficiently
well because nobody took note of your sweet personality, at least do not
post hate mail directed at the people who have helped you.
Is this really too much to ask of "newcomers"?
Is paying attention and checking that you what you say is factually
correct really too much to ask of you, Tim? Could you please explain
what you expect people to do when you repeat lies about them? Do you
do this in real life? Do you join lynch mobs and gang up on people you
hate in your community and accuse them of heinous crimes they have not
committed in order to stir up a frenzy? Is this how you want to live?
Erik Naggum
| Since Richard Fateman wants to send his students, maybe he could create
| and manage a moderated forum. He could invite participation from c.l.l
| and then shut it down when the course is finished.
He could also run a moderated news server where he has to approve
articles before they are visible to other readers and before the articles
posted locally are forwarded to the Net. Various automated tools could
be used for this purpose. E.g., if Erann Gat responds to anything I
write, that article and all articles with its message-ID in the References
header can and should not be made visible to "protected" readers.
| What are the common rules that moderators apply to posts? Is the
| moderator allowed to edit content?
Generally, yes. Suitable notes to that effect are usually added.
Ray Blaak
> Because of such fantastically hostile idiots as Ray Blaak, Erann Gat,
> Raffael Cavallaro, and their ilk, some people come to believe that they
> have a right to assume hostility where there is only cold, hard technical
> answers to technical issues.
We don't assume it. We witness it.
To recap: moron demonstrates their claim to being a moron and attacks you. You
go into your "I have been provoked unfairly" mode and go ballistic. That is
hostile.
Your creative insults (which are pretty juicy, I must admit), go way overboard
what is necessary to chastize the moron. That execessiveness demonstrates your
hostility.
It is analogous to having some stupid oaf bump into you on the street and you
pulling out a gun and shooting them in response.
--
Cheers, The Rhythm is around me,
The Rhythm has control.
Ray Blaak The Rhythm is inside me,
bl...@telus.net The Rhythm has my soul.
Tim Bradshaw
> But as anyone who has had any role evaluating new ideas will know, most of
> them are rubbish. For every theory of relativity there are a thousand
> perpetual motion machines.
In case there is any confusion about relativity and `newcomers',
Einstein wasn't. He *was* quite young, but theoretical physicists
typically are, but he wasn't some kind of outsider, as the myth often
has it.
--tim
Erik Naggum
| We don't assume it. We witness it.
And you in particular are trustworthy /why/?
| To recap: moron demonstrates their claim to being a moron and attacks
| you. You go into your "I have been provoked unfairly" mode and go
| ballistic. That is hostile.
To "recap" what? Your halucinations?
| Your creative insults (which are pretty juicy, I must admit), go way
| overboard what is necessary to chastize the moron. That execessiveness
| demonstrates your hostility.
Nothing happened in between, I see.
| It is analogous to having some stupid oaf bump into you on the street and
| you pulling out a gun and shooting them in response.
I think it analogous to giving them the one-finger salute, then observing
that they ram me repeatedly on purpose, and then I shoot them to avoid
being killed. A nutjob like yourself would never understand the
intervening events, which you have so eloquently demonstrated above.
/You/ are the problem, Ray Blaak. Without your fucking obnoxious
behavior, there would be far less hostility here. However, because you
are insane, you actually believe that you are justified in your open
hostility against me. You attack me. You are in fact so stark raving
mad that you make it my fault that you attack me. This kind of inability
to accept responsibility for your own actions is what puts people in
hospital wards for the criminally insane in real life.
Shut the fuck up and give this newsgroup a rest. It will quiet down only
after you, Erann Gat, and Raffael Cavallaro have quit attacking me. You
three are able to keep eachother going with your incredible hatred for
weeks on end. And in the name of civility and respect for people and out
of concern for how people feel! What about me? What on /earth/ made you
shit-for-brains decide that it is OK to attack me the way you do? What
kind of justice do you want for your own lives? The kind of blind hatred
and lynch mob mentality that plague you guys is extremely strong evidence
of serious mental illness and massive maladjustment to society. Which is
why you gang up on what you perceive as the authority figure. Fucking
retarded children! You should have been aborted when it was still time.
Misbehaving children of your caliber need physical disciplining.
Wade Humeniuk
"Erik Naggum" <er...@naggum.no> wrote in message news:32427591...@naggum.no...
> * Wade Humeniuk
> | Since Richard Fateman wants to send his students, maybe he could create
> | and manage a moderated forum. He could invite participation from c.l.l
> | and then shut it down when the course is finished.
>
> He could also run a moderated news server where he has to approve
> articles before they are visible to other readers and before the articles
> posted locally are forwarded to the Net. Various automated tools could
> be used for this purpose. E.g., if Erann Gat responds to anything I
> write, that article and all articles with its message-ID in the References
> header can and should not be made visible to "protected" readers.
>
I really like this option, I think an experiment in censorship would
be eye-opening for everybody involved. I am hoping Richard will give it a try.
Wade
Kurt B. Kaiser
> In case there is any confusion about relativity and `newcomers',
> Einstein wasn't. He *was* quite young, but theoretical physicists
> typically are, but he wasn't some kind of outsider, as the myth often
> has it.
Oh, sure he was. A spotty academic career, failed to acquire a proper
teaching job at the University, finally through influence of friends
landed a job in the Swiss patent office.
Five years later he published the amazing three papers (which he was
lucky to get published at all) in one volume of Ann.d.Physik.
Received the Nobel (much later) for the one the insiders could
understand. Not for relativity theory.
It was another four years before the insiders began to invite him in.
By the 1920's he was a leader of the physics community. By the
thirties he was pretty much outside, again.
My favorite Einstein quote, 1905, still at the patent office,
regarding the rest of the physics establishment:
"[They] are out of [their] depth."
Weber to Einstein ca. 1900: "You are an intelligent young man,
Einstein, a very intelligent young man. But you have one major
fault -- one cannot tell you anything."
KBK
Ray Blaak
> Shut the fuck up and give this newsgroup a rest. It will quiet down only
> after you, Erann Gat, and Raffael Cavallaro have quit attacking me.
I have been following this group for at least the last four years. There is
always some sort of bickering thread that you are involved in.
The last time I recall real quiet was when you took your little leave of
absence earlier this year.
You seemed to be doing quite well for a while upon your return. I guess the
moron level got to you eventually. Whatever happened to your said practice of
writing up ranting responses and *not* posting them?
JB
> He *was* quite young, but theoretical
> physicists typically are, but he wasn't some kind of
> outsider, as the myth often has it.
Actually, I think he was the typical outsider /before/ he
published "Zur Elektrodynamik von bewegten Körpern". All
his fellow students were given jobs at the university after
their exams, but Einstein had to leave.
This changed to some extent when he went to Berlin, but even
after that he remained an outsider, now for different
reasons. (In WW1, he refused to suport the German side, he
did not sign that famous memorandum that soon proved
infamous, etc.)
--
J.... B....
-----------== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Uncensored Usenet News ==----------
http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----= Over 100,000 Newsgroups - Unlimited Fast Downloads - 19 Servers =-----
Erik Naggum
| I have been following this group for at least the last four years. There is
| always some sort of bickering thread that you are involved in.
Yeah, my mistake. I should call you guys on your tactics much sooner.
Go away, Ray Blaak. This is a forum for Lisp, not for your emotions.
Michael Sullivan
This is probably preaching to the choir, but what I think happens is
that newcomers, who have just come to a reasonably complete
understanding of a field, sometimes have groundbreaking ideas. You
can't generally have a groundbreaking idea without that understanding.
Or you might have the idea before that, but you've got to go through the
study to find out whether it's potentially groundbreaking and worth
pursuing, or a dead end that somebody worked out 50 years ago, or even
one that becomes obvious to a person with complete knowledge.
It's true that the great ideas often come from relative newcomers, and
sometimes the old guard has to die or retire before they are accepted,
but that doesn't translate to the modern idea (which I don't think Tim
J. holds) that it's all about luck and "fresh thinking" -- that any
layperson with a passing interest can foment a scientific revolution as
easily as a PhD in the field. To borrow from Edison, you can have the
1% inspiration, but you don't know what to do with it unless you've done
the 99% perspiration.
Newcomers with great ideas are not laypeople who've read aught but an
introductory text in a field. They are people who have ravenously
devoured a broad section of the canon (whether formally, or informally),
and emerge at the end with an idea (of which 1 in 10000 might be of real
importance). Often they are people who are already deeply accomplished
in another field. Great revolutions have happened when experts in one
field study another that turns out to be related in an important way
that it took an expert in both to first understand.
The value of "newcomers" who make advances is not generally the value of
some mythical tabula rasa, but instead the value of their very real and
deep accumulation of knowledge outside the field, -- knowledge that
turns out to hold a clue to something new. The outsider's advantage is
in their *knowledge* of other things, not their lack of knowledge of the
subject.
Michael
Joe Schaefer
> Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> wrote:
> >
> > In case there is any confusion about relativity and `newcomers',
> > Einstein wasn't. He *was* quite young, but theoretical physicists
> > typically are, but he wasn't some kind of outsider, as the myth often
> > has it.
>
> This is probably preaching to the choir, but what I think happens is
> that newcomers, who have just come to a reasonably complete
> understanding of a field, sometimes have groundbreaking ideas. You
> can't generally have a groundbreaking idea without that understanding.
Yes, but this is only part of the story. Ground-breaking ideas
usually come from attacking an interesting problem that turns out
to be *solvable* with modern machinery. Newcomers, even well-
prepared ones, cannot ferret out the manageable problems from
the unmanageable ones. That's what an advisor is there for :-)
> Or you might have the idea before that, but you've got to go through the
> study to find out whether it's potentially groundbreaking and worth
> pursuing, or a dead end that somebody worked out 50 years ago, or even
> one that becomes obvious to a person with complete knowledge.
Which is why it's so important to ask around (judiciously) before
committing all that time and energy into a potential dead end.
> It's true that the great ideas often come from relative newcomers, and
> sometimes the old guard has to die or retire before they are accepted,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
But by the early 1900's, the scientific community at-large had
progressed far beyond this feudal state. In Einstein's case, he
was not ostracized as a young academic; he simply hadn't done
anything worthy of merit prior to 1905. The importance of his 1905
thesis was recognized immediately.
More than a few years ago I had the opportunity to attend a graduate
seminar on analytic number theory. The professor was/is a preeminent
mathematician, and he is interested in solving the Riemann Hypothesis
(RH). One day he started off be telling the class (which of course
included other members of the faculty) that he just received a 200+ page
manuscript from a physicist/friend who claimed to have a proof
of RH. The professor mused that Riemann's zeta is a function of
_s_, and no one could possibly solve RH without knowing *that*.
(Naturally the physicist's manuscript starts off by defining zeta
as a function of "z". The professor's delivery of the "punch line"
was far better than I'm describing here.)
Now after the class was over, one of his students wanted to meet with
him to discuss a thesis problem. But the professor told him that he
didn't have time that day because he was going to mine the manuscript
for new ideas (it turned out that there were plenty of interesting
ideas in the paper). To my mind, this is the sort of behavior that
distinguishes a serious professional from his peers. Poking a little
fun at someone's naivete is just fine, but missing out on a potentially
pregnant idea just because it isn't neatly packaged is plain old stupid.
[...]
> The value of "newcomers" who make advances is not generally the value
> of some mythical tabula rasa, but instead the value of their very real
> and deep accumulation of knowledge outside the field, -- knowledge
> that turns out to hold a clue to something new. The outsider's
> advantage is in their *knowledge* of other things, not their lack of
> knowledge of the subject.
Very well said.
--
Joe Schaefer
Tim Bradshaw
> Actually, I think he was the typical outsider /before/ he
> published "Zur Elektrodynamik von bewegten Körpern". All
> his fellow students were given jobs at the university after
> their exams, but Einstein had to leave.
I don't think so. He didn't get a position after 1900 because he
didn't do very well at ETH. He worked with a number of people from
1900 to 1905, notably Grossman. Various people tried to find him an
academic position, but it was (and is, and not surprisingly so) hard
to find one based on claimed genius but poor concrete results.
Following the three papers of 1905 he was pretty rapidly offered
positions.
Between 1905 and ~1920 he worked *intensively* with a number of other
people, notably Grossman (whose contribution to GR is terribly
underrated by people not very familiar with the history of the
subject) to develop the mathematical framework needed for GR (tensor
analysis, to which he was introduced by Grossman). After 1920 he was
involved pretty closely in the group of people doing QM &c. By 1930
or so he had withdrawn somewhat, but he was 50 in 1929 - very old for
a theoretical physicist to be doing new work. As some older
scientists had been unable to accept GR in 1915, he, himself now an
older scientist, had been unable to accept QM.
The claim (in another article in this thread) that he was given the
Nobel prize belatedly and for the only paper that people could
understand is just silly. Nobel prizes are almost always given many
years after the work concerned in any case, and, despite the glamour
surrounding relativity, the discovery and explanation of the
photoelectric effect was *extremely* important, as it led directly to
QM. The special relativity paper of 1905, while obviously important,
actually contained almost no new concrete results - the Lorentz
transformations were already known at that point. What the work he
did in 1905 did do was to provide a good `physical story' for special
relativity, and to begin the process that led to general relativity 10
years later. It would have been very hard for the prize to have been
given for special relativity, as many people had a claim (notably
Lorentz, who was still alive). It would have been downright
impossible to award the prize for GR as at that point the theory had
hardly any experimental tests, despite its obvious attractiveness.
His explanation of the photoelectric effect may in fact have been the
most inspired work Einstein ever did.
My point is not that Einstein wasn't a genius - he *clearly* was - but
that his work was done in the heart of the physics community not as
some lonely outsider. It's far more romantic to view him as an
outsider, of course, but it's not really true.
There is an excellent scientific biography of Einstein, I think by
Abraham Pais, called `Subtle is the Lord'.
I'm about to be away for a while so I won't be able to followup to any
responses to this.
--tim
Erik Naggum
| Between 1905 and ~1920 he worked *intensively* with a number of other
| people, notably Grossman (whose contribution to GR is terribly underrated
| by people not very familiar with the history of the subject) to develop
| the mathematical framework needed for GR (tensor analysis, to which he
| was introduced by Grossman).
Another person whose work and influence is grossly underrated, is his wife.
Tim Josling
>
> | Blankly saying "You are wrong; you are an idiot" may not be optimal.
>
> But nobody /does/ that.
*You* do this. Often.
> People do get a few
> chances to understand but they are given technical replies, not touchy-
> feely handholding, as befits a technical forum.
Based on this and you other postings, you seem be believe that because this is
a technical forum, one can ignore the fact that the participants are human
beings with human feelings.
I have found that even in technical forums this is not the case.
> Is paying attention and checking that you what you say is factually
> correct really too much to ask of you, Tim? Could you please explain
> what you expect people to do when you repeat lies about them?
I have been paying attention and I certainly have not been telling lies about
people.
Looking back over your past postings, few contained useful information.
Welcome to my killfile.
Tim Josling
Tim Josling
Sorry I was using relativity as an example of a good theory - whether Einstein
was an outsider I don't know. He certainly knew how to manage his public
image.
A better example might be Pasteur and his germ theory of disease.
Music is a good example. Oldies often produce the best music but innovations
tend to come from youngsters.
Tim Josling
Will Deakin
> Music is a good example. Oldies often produce the best music but innovations
> tend to come from youngsters.
I can think of a large number of musicians or composers who would have
done themselves a real favour by taking up pyrography or growing ugly
ear hair at the age of about 35 -- Felix Mendelssohn, Bob Dylan, John
Lydon and so on. Clearly there are counter arguments -- JS Bach and
Alfred Brendal -- but for me it about balances out.
:)w
Kurt B. Kaiser
> > Actually, I think he was the typical outsider /before/ he
> > published "Zur Elektrodynamik von bewegten Körpern". All
> > his fellow students were given jobs at the university after
> > their exams, but Einstein had to leave.
>
> I don't think so. He didn't get a position after 1900 because he
> didn't do very well at ETH.
The main reason was that he seriously aggravated Weber. Mileva also
suspected anti-semitism.
> He worked with a number of people from 1900 to 1905, notably
> Grossman.
Grossman was a very close friend at ETH. His detailed class notes
allowed Einstein to skip most of his classes to study the literature
at home. You are correct about his being underrated. His role appears
to be friend, teacher, and sounding board, not collaborator.
Einstein's intellectual network was primarily the "Olympia Academy", a
group of friends with similar interests founded by Habicht, Solovine,
and Einstein; Besso, Grossman, and, as Erik points out, Mileva.
"It was while at Bern that Einstein did some of his most creative work
even though he was afforded no contact with the leading physicists of
his day." [0]
"Working dutifully at his job Einstein reserved his iconoclasm for the
evenings and weekends which he devoted to physics." [1]
It's well known that Einstein came to appreciate this situation
because it gave him the freedom to work independently and without
distractions.
> Various people tried to find him an academic position, but it was
> (and is, and not surprisingly so) hard to find one based on claimed
> genius but poor concrete results. Following the three papers of
> 1905 he was pretty rapidly offered positions.
He was not offered a position for four years after that. His
subsequent ascent was rapid:
U. Zurich Associate Professor 1909
U. Prague Full Professor 1910
ETH Zurich 1912
U. Berlin / Kaiser Wilhelm Institute 1913
> Between 1905 and ~1920 he worked *intensively* with a number of
> other people, notably Grossman (whose contribution to GR is terribly
> underrated by people not very familiar with the history of the
> subject) to develop the mathematical framework needed for GR (tensor
> analysis, to which he was introduced by Grossman). After 1920 he
> was involved pretty closely in the group of people doing QM &c. By
> 1930 or so he had withdrawn somewhat, but he was 50 in 1929 - very
> old for a theoretical physicist to be doing new work. As some older
> scientists had been unable to accept GR in 1915, he, himself now an
> older scientist, had been unable to accept QM.
>
> The claim (in another article in this thread) that he was given the
> Nobel prize belatedly and for the only paper that people could
> understand is just silly.
Yeah, that was way overstated. I should have said something like,
"could agree on." There were a lot of physicists who didn't
understand or accept SR. Even Planck, Einstein's first major
promoter, never accepted the elimination of the ether in SR. Note
that Einstein's Habilitationsschrift to U. Bern (a copy of the SR
paper) was rejected in 1907 with the comment by one reviewer "I cannot
at all understand what you have written." [2]
The Nobel citation reads, "...for his services to Theoretical Physics,
and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric
effect." "This general statement on Einstein's scientific work
permitted the Swedish Academy to avoid taking a `stand on the
relativity theory'." [3]
S. Arrhenius' presentation on the occasion stated, "It will be no
secret that the famous philosopher Bergson in Paris has challenged
(Special Relativity)." [4]
> Nobel prizes are almost always given many years after the work
> concerned in any case, and, despite the glamour surrounding
> relativity, the discovery and explanation of the photoelectric
> effect was *extremely* important, as it led directly to QM. The
> special relativity paper of 1905, while obviously important,
> actually contained almost no new concrete results - the Lorentz
> transformations were already known at that point. What the work he
> did in 1905 did do was to provide a good `physical story' for
> special relativity,
This is an understatement of the importance of the SR paper, which
abandoned the mechanistic approach to electrodynamics adopted by
Lorentz and his associates, abolished the necessity for an ether,
established that space and time are relative concepts, and began the
association of physical theory with space-time geometry, a necessary
precursor for the development of GR. The concepts in this one paper
have affected virtually all fields in physics.
> and to begin the process that led to general relativity 10 years
> later. It would have been very hard for the prize to have been
> given for special relativity, as many people had a claim (notably
> Lorentz, who was still alive). It would have been downright
> impossible to award the prize for GR as at that point the theory had
> hardly any experimental tests, despite its obvious attractiveness.
> His explanation of the photoelectric effect may in fact have been
> the most inspired work Einstein ever did.
>
> My point is not that Einstein wasn't a genius - he *clearly* was - but
> that his work was done in the heart of the physics community not as
> some lonely outsider. It's far more romantic to view him as an
> outsider, of course, but it's not really true.
He was not an outsider in the sense of some kook who comes up with a
theory without bothering to master the field or be consistent with its
experimental results. Einstein was fully up to speed on
Electrodynamics and the work of Maxwell (whose theory was not taught
at ETH!!), Hertz, Lorentz, and Mach, among others, and the major
experimental results. His specialty at the Patent Office was
electromagnetic machinery.
He was an outsider in the sense that prior to 1905 he was working
essentially by himself without contact or correspondence with the
players in his field. He was still virtually unknown to the physics
community, despite having published five papers on thermodynamics in
Ann.d.Physik. If Einstein was "in the heart" of physics, then where
were Lorentz and Abraham?
He was definitely /not/ an outsider after 1910, though his theories
were controversial and met with limited acceptance at first.
> There is an excellent scientific biography of Einstein, I think by
> Abraham Pais, called `Subtle is the Lord'.
Yes, really excellent, thankfully back in print. Pais has another one
on quantum theory called "Inward Bound."
> I'm about to be away for a while so I won't be able to followup to
> any responses to this.
It will keep ;-)
KBK
[0] J. T. Cushing, Philosophical Concepts in Physics, p. 227
[1] A. I. Miller, Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity:
Emergence (1905) and Early Interpretation (1905 - 1911), p. 7
[2] ibid. p. 4
[3] ibid. p. 257
[4] ibid. p. 248
Erik Naggum
| *You* do this. Often.
Your observational skills are clouded by your emotions to such an extent
that you believe you see things you feel should exist, but they do not.
| Based on this and you other postings, you seem be believe that because
| this is a technical forum, one can ignore the fact that the participants
| are human beings with human feelings.
Your inability to understand what you read suggests that you should
return to children's books for the time being.
| I have been paying attention and I certainly have not been telling lies
| about people.
That is, you are so unable to examine your own thinking and feelings that
you do not even know when you are lying.
| Looking back over your past postings, few contained useful information.
| Welcome to my killfile.
Great! I love not being read by assholes.
Charlton Wilbur
TJ> Music is a good example. Oldies often produce the best music
TJ> but innovations tend to come from youngsters.
I started out prepared to disagree with this, but then I
reconsidered. The simple fact is, not everything that is new and
innovative is good, just as not everything that is good is new and
innovative. Given a choice, I'd go for good.
Charlton
Matt Curtin
> The reason I'm writing here, is that it would also seem appropriate
> to direct students to read comp.lang.lisp to see some informed
> discussion of various issues related to Common Lisp.
I tell my students (Ohio State University, "Programming in Lisp") to
read comp.lang.lisp.
I tell them it's Usenet, where people need to have thick skin. I tell
them not to make assertions they cannot back up. I tell them to study
everything that Erik Naggum says on any technical topic.
Then I tell them they can do whatever they want, adding that if Usenet
is too much for them to handle, they probably should become farmers,
because working in technology is no place to work if one wishes to
avoid opinion, confrontation, or hubris.
--
Matt Curtin Interhack Corporation +1 614 545 HACK http://web.interhack.com/
ObPlug: Author, /Developing Trust: Online Privacy and Security/ (Apress, 2001)
There are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary and those who don't.
Stig Hemmer
> > Nota bene, it has been 30 years since 1972.
> but what is that in radians?
Approximately 188.5.
Stig Hemmer,
Jack of a Few Trades.
Thien-Thi Nguyen
> Approximately 188.5.
(* 365 (- 188.5 (* 30 2 pi))) => less than two days
^^ really?
no wonder thievery and provacative lying is the norm (again).
no wonder powers that be can slam you upside the head, in secret (again).
no wonder ignorance of process means only burning monks mean anything (again).
"... same as the old boss."
thi