bits and good habits

[Walter Banks]

If I erred, I accede. I remain certain however that I didn't, because I
am as certain as I am likely to become that I correctly counted chevrons
and noted who said what earlier. I'm afraid you won't get more out of me
because I really really don't intend to scour google groups finding all
relevant posts and re-attaching them.

I wrote the posts Richard is correct on this one

w..

 

[James Kuyper]

I suggest not being so quick with accusations of dishonesty. I've
never heard of Operation Ore either.

Me either.

 

[Keith Thompson]

I've been over this before. I am not in the gamne of citing article
references. Anyone who can be bothered can search back a couple of
posts to where richard said something like "I always respond
reasonably to what I regard as valid criticism". Of course I fully
agree the weasel-words "what I regard as" can be used as a get-out.

In other words, you're not in the habit of actually backing up your
claims. It would save us all a lot of time if you'd refrain from
making them in the first place.

I *did* search back a few posts, I re-quoted the article to which you
seem to be referring, and it doesn't support your claim. Either
you've misunderstood it, or you're referring to something else. If
you're unwilling to provide any supporting evidence, I'll gladly
assume that you just don't know what you're talking about.

And I see that you're now backing off from your previous claim,
without actually admitting that you've done so. Your statement "You
claimed that you always responded reasonably to criticsm [sic]" has
now morphed into "I always respond reasonably to what I regard as
valid criticism". Even that is a misquote; Richard did not use the
word "always".

would be quite uncharacteristic of Richard Heathfield, in my opinion.

Your opinion differs from mine. Some years ago I'd have agreed with
you, but having observed RJH's posts here recently, especially in the
tedious threads he engages in with Jacob Navia, I can no longer agree.

I suggest not being so quick with accusations of dishonesty. I've
never heard of Operation Ore either.

Frankly I find that /*absolutely extraordinary*/ because it was _all
over the news_ for some time, [...]
Are you UK-based?

[...]

No, I'm not UK-based. If you want to talk about Operation Ore, please
find someplace else to do it.

RH is right (and I wouldn't be shy about disagreeing with him if I
thought otherwise). You're wrong. That's about it.

 

[Keith Thompson]

On 13/05/09 22:07, Keith Thompson wrote: [...]

No, I'm not UK-based. If you want to talk about Operation Ore, please
find someplace else to do it.

Perhaps, if you engaged your brain, you'd recall the context. Which,
for the hard of remembering, was as a metaphor.

I had no particular objection to the original metaphor; it was clear
enough what you meant even without knowing what Operation Ore was (and
I could have looked it up easily enough). What I object to is (a)
your unfounded accusation of dishonesty, and (b) your insistence on
continuing to discuss it here.

Might I suggest that we just drop this? It stopped being about C some
time ago. Note that the only way to drop this is to stop posting
about it. I'll start.

[...]

 

[jameskuyper]

I've been over this before. I am not in the gamne of citing article
references. Anyone who can be bothered can search back a couple of posts
to where richard said something like "I always respond reasonably to
what I regard as valid criticism".

That's the problem, neither Keith nor I can find such a message, which
is why he asked you to cite one. The closest either of us can find is
the message that Keith has already cited, which made no use of the
word "always", nor any synonym thereof. Instead, it just says "I have
responded positively to what I consider to be valid criticisms".
Logically, it would be sufficient to prove the truth of that claim by
citing a single example of a positive response. More pragmatically, it
can at most be read as a claim that this is routine behavior for him,
not that it's the only way he's ever responded. To prove that this is
not the way he routinely behaves would require a fairly large unbiased
sample, and an objectively verifiable standard concerning what
constitutes a positive response.

Of course I fully agree the
weasel-words "what I regard as" can be used as a get-out.

That's also true. Which means that to disprove his statement also
requires the ability to read his mind (unless you're willing to trust
his own statements on the matter - but if you were willing to do that,
you wouldn't still be arguing this point with him).

....

Frankly I find that /*absolutely extraordinary*/ because it was _all
over the news_ for some time, with several very high profile arrests
from the media world and a number of subsequent mistrials and appeals.
Are you UK-based? If so, have you also been in a cave for the last
decade? Following (possibly duff) intelligence from US law enforcement,
7000 UK suspects were identified, 4000 odd homes searched and 1500
people convicted.

I'm US based, but I read the Washington Post. Because it's the main
newspaper of the US capitol, it has fairly good international news
coverage, for a US newspaper. I don't remember seeing any articles
about Operation Ore. I searched their online archives, and found only
one such article, dated 2003-01-14; the free preview of that article
doesn't even mention "Operation Ore", so the reference must have been
buried pretty deep.

The Wikipedia page for "Operation Ore" cites a US predecessor named
"Operation Avalanche", which I also don't remember reading about.
There are only 4 articles in their archive dated later than 1999 that
matched that search string. Only one of those articles mentioned
"Operation Avalanche" in the free preview.

You shouldn't assume that everyone sees the same news coverage that
you see, not even if they live in the same country.

 

[Antoninus Twink]

Me either.

You guys really ought to check out these great new websites called
Google and Wikipedia one rainy weekend. They'll change your lives, I
promise.

 

[jameskuyper]

Indeed thats true - my mum reads Country Life and Horse and Hound for
instance.

However I really do feel that unless a UK citizen had lived in a hole
in the ground since 1999, didn't watch TV or Radio, didn't read online
news-sites and didn't buy newspapers, and didn't work in the IT world,

Richard Heathfield has already described his situation: he is a UK
citizen, and does work in the IT world. He hasn't mentioned whether he
lives in a hole in the ground, but those two thing are sufficient to
not meet your specification. Nonetheless, he's described a news
blackout sufficiently tight to make it quite plausible to me that he's
heard nothing about "Operation Ore". A blackout that strict could even
have prevented him from learning about the war in Iraq, though I
gather from other comments he's made elsewhere that he's vaguely aware
of it.

Even if you think he's lying about the news blackout, someone who
could truthfully claim to be in such a news blackout would be a clear
counter-example to your claim, so I think you've overstated it.

 

[Richard Bos]

Nice snip. Disingenuous; perfectly demonstrating my point about your
recent behaviour; missing the point.

That's what you get with cult members, especially the new recruits. The
brain washing techniques become a habit that spills over to the rest of
their behaviour.

Richard

 

[Richard Bos]

It is not my experience. I would love to see hard data that shows
missing posts stats.

*Shrug* I have no stats, but I do have my own experience, which shows
that no matter how good your server, sometimes you just _will_ either
see a post turning up hours or days after a follow-up, or not see it
turn up at all. I'm not saying that it happens a lot; but I am saying
that it does happen.

Richard