T
Twisted
Oliver said:
I'm sorry. I don't see an email address or a toll-free phone number
here. Please hang up and try your call again.
I'm sorry. I don't see an email address or a toll-free phone number
here. Please hang up and try your call again.
B
blmblm
Who said anything about hostility? The thread began with you
posting a question. Where did I say anything else? I did mention
"ensuing furor" .... Well. I suppose a person could interpret
that to mean that I thought the furor was caused by the question
rather than simply coming after it in the same thread. That's not
what I meant. I'm sorry if you interpreted it that way.
Then why did you bring it up? Please clarify the rule you have in
mind here. Off-topic digressions are acceptable, but replies to them
are not?
Well, I don't agree with that -- it's all public -- but for the
record I will say that my reply was based not on a search of Google's
archives for all posts made by you under any of the identities you've
used here but on my recollections of the discussion in comp.text.tex,
a group I also follow.
And I was disagreeing with you on exactly this point. (Okay, I didn't
say anything about the "blatant attempts to sell them stuff", but
I think that's a misleading or inaccurate characterization as well.)
Maybe I *should* apologize to the rest of the group for an attempt
to, um, "defend the honor"? of the regulars in comp.text.tex.
Anyone who's really curious will check the group out for him/herself.
J
Joe Attardi
Even though it will do no good I'm sure, let's try this again:
IT IS RELEVANT.
It shows that, no matter what the topic, you seem to enjoy turning
threads into arguments pretty much every time. Why is that relevant?
Because it demonstrates that we are all wasting our time, because you
are more interested in a fight than any kind of discussion.
I didn't insult you, moron! I cited your behavior in other threads that
shows that you are nothing but an argumentative child.
Aw, I think he's mad.
Presumes? Have you READ everyone else's posts in this thread?
You spelled my last name wrong actually, it's Attardi.
Ohh, I get it! It's a clever witticism because my last name starts with
'Atta' like the word 'Attack'! Ha ha ha ha, that's a good one!
Oh wait, no it's not. You are a huge dumbass.
Twisted, you'll be glad to know that I'm wasting no more time on you
after this post.
You are nothing but a sociopath and a troll. I realize that now. Your
behavior on other discussion threads solidifies your reputation as a
troll.
You twist everybody's words to suit your purposes, to give you
ammunition to lash out at everybody here.
However, while you are a troll, you are also entertaining. I love your
paranoia about your Google Groups account and your continued insistence
that people are engineering your account being blocked. This is
laughable, just like most of everything else you have claimed here.
Maybe you chose to be a troll on purpose, or maybe you became a troll
because you are a dim-witted, lying, self-important fool and it's the
only way you can compensate.
T
Twisted
RedGrittyBrick wrote:
[...]
Much of it.
Time actually clocked using it might be a week or two. Not much IOW.
Whatever. Still seems like overkill.
To you.
I'm saying that I think it's overkill in many of the situations where
people keep recommending it, and that it seems rather involved relative
to the alternatives.
I don't see how, unless you're suggesting either that I should have
just sat down and somehow had the code I didn't know magically pour
forth from my fingers despite my not knowing it or that someone helping
me should have posted such code for me to copy and adapt.
Did you completely miss the bit about how it would gratuitously expose
me to gratuitous attacks? I have enough problems now as it is without
handing some of the other people in this thread ammunition on a silver
platter! (Problem being it doesn't matter if the code is squeaky clean;
the personalities in question will still invent something "wrong" with
it and launch a fusillade, when they might, hope-hope-hope, post one
fewer post attacking me that day otherwise rather than the same number
but with one picking on me for something different.)
My perceptions are colored by my experiences here so far.
Understandably so.
Also, I'm mainly talking about things like:
Q: How do I do X?
A: Why do you want to do X?
Who's asking, Sigmund Fricking Freud? This isn't a psychoanalysis. Just
tell me how to do X please and never you mind why.
Honestly, I don't get responses like that. They seem to imply that the
responder thinks any use of X is automatically suspect and the poster
therefore goes on a "moron watch list" full of false positives, not
unlike the "terrorist watch list" and with slightly milder
consequences, like having their every step questioned, nitpicked, and
criticized, well beyond the scope of what they were asking for help
with.
If X is deprecated API, I can see such a reaction, but otherwise?
Please explain; I'm curious to hear what you think about this,
including about the underlying motives and states of mind.
It won't mean that such questions won't put me on the defensive,
though. Whoever else is watching will read the question, read between
the lines, and begin to suspect that maybe I'm a moron, and it will be
up to me to set the record straight on that score lest they actually
start thinking it's true.
Isn't RCS evil and proprietary and unfree and things like that?
Whoa *does double take*
You miss ... vim?
I don't miss the days of having to toggle in the OS and your own code
from scratch every run, and I don't miss the more recent days of having
to fumble around in the dark probing the immediate environment by
typing instructions to a mentally-deficient prompt of some kind instead
of being able to see what the heck I was doing at a glance and easily
find stuff, orient myself, and whatnot. GUIs were like finally finding
the light switch after years of fumbling around with a flashlight all
the time. And now you're saying you prefer clunky,
ten-zillion-things-to-memorize flashlight-fumbling interfaces to a
modern text editor you can just type into and use in a natural way? I
suppose you also prefer nostalgic cars you need to actually crank up to
start, or the quaintness of churning butter or hand-wringing laundry
too.
Let it be known that this is in no way to be taken as any kind of
admission, whether of wrongdoing or of incompetence or of whatever
else; let the record show that I have my own reasons entirely
unconnected with any kind of peer-pressure or any of the specific
things mentioned here earlier. It is because I don't like compiler
warnings, a reason that nobody ever suggested.
I got something like this but it was looking for the project
documentation, not the JRE documentation.
I'll fiddle with it some more and see if I can get it working, of
course. When I have time.
What is that, a mirror of Sun's copy? What's the advantage -- speed or
reliability, or just a backup? I have my own local copy of the API docs
anyway.
[suggestion of ill mental health directed at me]
Aww, and we were doing so well, too!
[...]
Much of it.
Time actually clocked using it might be a week or two. Not much IOW.
Whatever. Still seems like overkill.
To you.
I'm saying that I think it's overkill in many of the situations where
people keep recommending it, and that it seems rather involved relative
to the alternatives.
I don't see how, unless you're suggesting either that I should have
just sat down and somehow had the code I didn't know magically pour
forth from my fingers despite my not knowing it or that someone helping
me should have posted such code for me to copy and adapt.
Did you completely miss the bit about how it would gratuitously expose
me to gratuitous attacks? I have enough problems now as it is without
handing some of the other people in this thread ammunition on a silver
platter! (Problem being it doesn't matter if the code is squeaky clean;
the personalities in question will still invent something "wrong" with
it and launch a fusillade, when they might, hope-hope-hope, post one
fewer post attacking me that day otherwise rather than the same number
but with one picking on me for something different.)
My perceptions are colored by my experiences here so far.
Understandably so.
Also, I'm mainly talking about things like:
Q: How do I do X?
A: Why do you want to do X?
Who's asking, Sigmund Fricking Freud? This isn't a psychoanalysis. Just
tell me how to do X please and never you mind why.
Honestly, I don't get responses like that. They seem to imply that the
responder thinks any use of X is automatically suspect and the poster
therefore goes on a "moron watch list" full of false positives, not
unlike the "terrorist watch list" and with slightly milder
consequences, like having their every step questioned, nitpicked, and
criticized, well beyond the scope of what they were asking for help
with.
If X is deprecated API, I can see such a reaction, but otherwise?
Please explain; I'm curious to hear what you think about this,
including about the underlying motives and states of mind.
It won't mean that such questions won't put me on the defensive,
though. Whoever else is watching will read the question, read between
the lines, and begin to suspect that maybe I'm a moron, and it will be
up to me to set the record straight on that score lest they actually
start thinking it's true.
Isn't RCS evil and proprietary and unfree and things like that?
Whoa *does double take*
You miss ... vim?
I don't miss the days of having to toggle in the OS and your own code
from scratch every run, and I don't miss the more recent days of having
to fumble around in the dark probing the immediate environment by
typing instructions to a mentally-deficient prompt of some kind instead
of being able to see what the heck I was doing at a glance and easily
find stuff, orient myself, and whatnot. GUIs were like finally finding
the light switch after years of fumbling around with a flashlight all
the time. And now you're saying you prefer clunky,
ten-zillion-things-to-memorize flashlight-fumbling interfaces to a
modern text editor you can just type into and use in a natural way? I
suppose you also prefer nostalgic cars you need to actually crank up to
start, or the quaintness of churning butter or hand-wringing laundry
too.
Let it be known that this is in no way to be taken as any kind of
admission, whether of wrongdoing or of incompetence or of whatever
else; let the record show that I have my own reasons entirely
unconnected with any kind of peer-pressure or any of the specific
things mentioned here earlier. It is because I don't like compiler
warnings, a reason that nobody ever suggested.
I got something like this but it was looking for the project
documentation, not the JRE documentation.
I'll fiddle with it some more and see if I can get it working, of
course. When I have time.
What is that, a mirror of Sun's copy? What's the advantage -- speed or
reliability, or just a backup? I have my own local copy of the API docs
anyway.
[suggestion of ill mental health directed at me]
Aww, and we were doing so well, too!
N
nebulous99
(e-mail address removed) wrote:
[unintelligible stuff snipped]
By you, in other words.
[Stupid and insulting shit deleted, none of which is true]
Trying to disrupt my access to Usenet, fucktard. By the way, trolls are
mythical beings that don't actually exist, moron.
[snip some more content-free blather]
Hrm, there's nothing left. What declarative content your post contained
was laughable. Calling it "sophomoric" would have been a compliment;
it's at the level of 5-year-old playground trash-talking. I've heard
more intelligent hip-hop lyrics!
P.S. Hrm, apparently you do have less overt ways to trick Google into
counting my followups multiply, since following up to your last one
triggered that fucking broken and gamable limit again. Grrr! I don't
care how you are doing it -- stop. Or else.
(Or do you expect me to believe it's coincidence that it tripped
exactly when answering *your* post?)
[unintelligible stuff snipped]
By you, in other words.
[Stupid and insulting shit deleted, none of which is true]
Trying to disrupt my access to Usenet, fucktard. By the way, trolls are
mythical beings that don't actually exist, moron.
[snip some more content-free blather]
Hrm, there's nothing left. What declarative content your post contained
was laughable. Calling it "sophomoric" would have been a compliment;
it's at the level of 5-year-old playground trash-talking. I've heard
more intelligent hip-hop lyrics!
P.S. Hrm, apparently you do have less overt ways to trick Google into
counting my followups multiply, since following up to your last one
triggered that fucking broken and gamable limit again. Grrr! I don't
care how you are doing it -- stop. Or else.
(Or do you expect me to believe it's coincidence that it tripped
exactly when answering *your* post?)
N
nebulous99
Daniel said:
No remaining content. Disconnecting.
N
nebulous99
Chris said:
Untrue.
N
nebulous99
Sure you do. The idea being that the insult is undetected by me, stands
unchallenged, and then you win.
Sorry, no can do. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to
sneak anything past *me*.
Stop accusing me of fallacy or else.
The rule is emphatically not flawless -- it is way too easy to game it
to try to shut up someone you're arguing with.
The length of my posts is irrelevant. Posting in bursts is normal and
therefore also irrelevant.
Unless you have any more knowledge of Google's algorithm than I do,
you're not qualified to make blanket claims about it. Certainly not to
claim that you *must* be right and that I *must* be wrong, not without
any evidence whatsoever with which to settle it!
Since I am, in fact, under goddamn attack I hardly think it is
"paranoia" to *think* I am! (If you think I'm *not*, then read any five
random posts of this thread not by me and then *re*think whether I am
under attack.)
Talk about being either blind or stupid.
[Insults deleted.]
You are getting repetitive. A sure sign you should shut up now.
I'm sure you meant your egregious insult *quite* sincerely. I also
don't give a shit. a) It's false, b) Insulting people is rude, and c)
You're an asshole!
[More elaborate insulting paragraph snipped.]
[Nothing left.]
[The end.]
N
nebulous99
I didn't say anything about *you* being hostile. What happened,
roughly, was this:
You said something about the sad state of this thread now, and implied
that it was somehow my fault.
I pointed out that I didn't throw the first punch.
This was misinterpreted as suggesting I didn't make the first post.
I differentiated between "the first post" and "the first punch".
End of story. I hope.
I didn't. I mentioned c.t.t but at no time did I mention (or invite
reference to) any specific thread therein. Somebody else mentioned a
specific thread. It is that that I considered to be stepping outside
the bounds.
Another reason to respect the comparmentalization people desire and
also to never insult someone here.
Oh, great.
How so? If you're suggesting that what I post outside c.j.l.p is
relevant here, then a hearty **** you! The only possible reason (as I
detailed elsewhere) to drag that kind of thing into any discussion is
for the purpose of twisting it in some way and then launching
ad-hominem attacks against your opponent in the debate, in lieu of such
mature and constructive things as either a) arguing the thing being
debated itself instead of who's an idiot and who is this that or the
other unpleasant comparison or b) leaving well enough alone.
If you're suggesting that newbies don't get bum advice there, then you
obviously haven't been following the group as well as you think you
were. The specific anecdote about the n00b getting some code to paste
in that was incomplete and made their problem worse, for example, is
completely true and not unrepresentative of things I observed.
It isn't. Every other post there seemed to make reference to one of a
few books whose content is not available in any sort of free version,
with the implication that they are to be considered required reading.
If that were actually true it would mean that TeX needed to be dropped
from a load of linux distros that consider themselves pure open source,
since if it's "required" to pay money for a copyrighted
somethingorother (book, disc of data, or whatever) to make use of some
software then that software does not seem to qualify as free software.
Regardless, it's hands reaching for my wallet in a space where I
consider it unwelcome and so, I'm given to understand, do many others.
(Namely, usenet.)
I don't doubt that there are people there that are genuinely helpful
and, in addition, don't mistakenly give out half-baked advice.
OTOH, my personal observation is that there are a larger number of
people giving out half-baked advice (mistakenly or with whatever
motives) and peddling commercial products there than here.
And if you dispute that, it's tantamount to accusing me of being unable
to count to ten competently, since counting is basically all I needed
to do to arrive at my observation. And of course I'd have to take that
as a mortal insult.
N
nebulous99
Joe said:
THE TOPIC IS GIVING AN APPLICATION A WINDOW ICON. THE NEWSGROUP IS
ABOUT JAVA PROGRAMMING. THEREFORE YOU ARE WRONG.
It does not. It shows that in every newsgroup there are people that do
enjoy turning threads into arguments, and that unlike some I will not
quickly capitulate and then let them continue poison the minds of
everyone else present against me with impunity.
Yes, we are all wasting our time, but it is because *you* are more
interested in a fight than in any kind of discussion. If you stopped
posting I'd stop replying in my own defense and that would be that. Why
do you continue? If it's such a waste of your time? Unlike me, you
could just stop and not be effectively admitting to any kind of guilt,
error, or foolishness by doing so.
So why don't you?
Hmm?
You just insulted me again. Moron.
That *is* an insult! Moron!
I'm a fucking saint to have kept my temper as long as I bloody have,
you fucking asshole. I doubt many people would have lasted half as long
when forced to keep blocking the attacks of a mule-headed fuckwit like
you for several whole DAYS. In fact I'd like to see YOU try, with
someone harassing YOU this way, without either capitulating or blowing
up in a much shorter span of time!
Yes, unlike some people here who seem to keep not reading large chunks
of my reasoning, and then continue to spout the same nonsense I'd just
wasted a load of time debunking, with the same exact logical mistakes
or false premises and everything.
[Further insults deleted.]
Hallelujah!
[Yet another batch of insults deleted.]
Just because you repeat it six zillion times doesn't make it true,
jerkwad.
[Calls me a liar among other things, with (sigh, so predictable)
another innuendo about my mental health]
This is getting old (and ridiculous). Feel free to shut up now, liar.
Oh. You did. There's nothing left.
J
Joe Attardi
I'm sorry, I had to respond to this. Retardi? Are you kidding me? I was
called that in first grade. That speaks volumes about your maturity
level, I guess.
I notice you called me a liar. What exactly did I lie about?
W
wesley.hall
Please... insult me, I will leave it unchallenged, then you 'win'.
Perhaps then this thread's morbid hold on me with be released and I can
go back to doing more important things. Thanks.
O
Oliver Wong
Twisted said:
Two rebuttals:
(1) If it were ten thousand links, tools and file types, then yes I'd
probably be overwhelmed too. If it were more like 50, then I can dedicate a
30 seconds google search to each, and it'd take less than half an hour to
get a basic understand of each of them.
(2) As an alternative to judging them by their cover, you could withhold
judgment until the next day, week, or month, after which point you WILL have
spent that 30 seconds doing the google search and learning enough to avoid
making arbitrary guesses about the nature of the link/tool/file-type in
question.
For example, rather than saying "There's no way a search for 'ant' could
return any information on the Ant tool", you could spend literally 7 seconds
(I timed myself) entering "ant" into google, and reading the summary that
comes up: "Apache Ant - Welcome: Pure Java build tool, simpler and easier to
use than GNU Make." to confirm that, yes, they are talking about the build
tool, and not the insect.
In contrast, it takes me longer than 7 seconds to type "There's no way a
search for 'ant' could return any information on the Ant tool" (it took 9
seconds). So if your concern is optimal allocation of your time, you'd do a
lot better to investigate the links/tools/file-types presented to you, than
posting on the newsgroup about how you don't know anything about these
links/tools/file-types.
- Oliver
O
Oliver Wong
Twisted said:
Assuming you're using Windows (the hint was the mention of WinAmp), you
can right click on a file and choose "properties" to see a window which will
display what the OS thinks the type of the file is, as well as what program
will open it. For example, when I do this on a PDF file, it gives me "Type
of file: Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Document" and "Opens with: Adobe Reader 7.0".
If that's too slow for you, you can also right click on the file, and
highlight the "Open With..." menu, in which case a pop-up submenu will
appear, listing the programs known to be able to open this file. In my case,
it shows "Adobe Reader 7.0" and "Firefox".
- Oliver
O
Oliver Wong
Twisted said:
I guess you're screwed then. =P
- Oliver
D
Daniel Pitts
Wow, you actually spent some effort to reply to me
Have you tried using ClassLoader.getResource() yet?
O
Oliver Wong
Twisted said:
I'd rather see the exact words I wrote. No offence, but I find you tend
to misread things I write. So hearing your version of what I said is like
playing a game of broken telephone.
[...]
And also, you weren't giving a lecture, but asking a question. Yeah,
it's different, but the fact that you can say "Ok" and go on with your life,
without having your life become worse off is the same.
If the other scientists wanted to hear Einstein's lecture, after a
repeated interjection of "idiot", the entire crowd would get upset and ask
the person to leave. If the other scientists agreed with this person that
Einstein was an idiot, and didn't want to hear the rest of the lecture, then
Einstein would be wasting his time giving the rest of it, and should just
pack up and leave, heading towards the next conference, giving the next
lecture there.
I forget why I told you this fictional story, though. =P I never
realized how much I depended on being able to check the parent and
grandparents of a post in a thread until now that it's unavailable to me.
What if the game was seeing who could walk away the fastest?
Learn to become him. Obviously, this is probably impossible in the
context of actual warfare and firearms, but it's certainly possible in
usenet forums. Learn to become invulnerable to insults slung your way.
Right, but you forgot about secret strategy 3.
3:
Someone insults you.
You ignore it.
Everyone else ignores it.
Your life remains as happy as ever.
The benefits of 3 over 2 is that you don't even get that temporary dip
where you happiness falls for a short while and comes back up.
Yes. And I now recall that a lot of people claim that they are unable to
do this. I think I may have a slight advantage here because I have
high-functioning austism, so I don't seem to go through emotions the same
way other people do. However, it certainly is doable by so called
"neuro-typical" people. Buddhism, for example, is all about learning to
control your emotions, and I'm sure a lot of Buddhist monks are
non-autistic.
Perhaps in theory, but in practice, unless you do something really bad
(e.g. slaughter Jewish people), it's very unlikely that *everybody* will
hate you. So this problem very rarely comes up.
Tell me, sir, what drugs are you on? Perhaps I should try them.
See below...
I claim that meditation, prayer, or really frequent masturbation, will
not result in shitty real-world conditions, such as a slum or a cell. As for
the drugs I take, I suppose you could call it a combination of those three
things, though I don't "actively" meditate or pray in the sense of actually
setting out a time to be in a quiet location alone with my thoughts. I get
plenty of opportunities to just let my mind wander (which is basically what
meditation is) on the subway on the way to work or going back home.
If you want to be in this happy state, but don't want your life to go to
shit, take responsibility for something. Depending on your age, join a Big
Brothers or Big Sister organization, or raise a pet, or if that's too big of
a commitment jump, take care of a plant. Because you're responsible for some
other form of life, you won't allow your own life to go to hell, but you'll
still have all opportunities to be happy as you did previously.
It sounds like this particular incident had a very dramatic effect on
your outlook on life. In my experience, relatively few people fall into this
category. For me, the vast majority of people fall into the "Don't care"
category listed below. If I'm reading through a newsgroup, and I see a
message written by "Jack" and it says "Jill is an idiot", I'll notice that I
have no idea who Jack is. I have no idea who Jill is. And frankly, I don't
really care what Jack thinks of Jill. So this message will not leave a very
lasting impress on me, except perhaps that Jack tends to post off-topic
messages.
I'm believe that most other people on usenet feel this way too, and from
my experience so far, it seems that this belief is correct.
Now as to how this relates back to your situation, I suspect that the
vast majority of readers here won't remember you as (and I'm going to assume
you're male for the moment) "Twisted... he's that guy who made that thread
that blew up into over 300 posts, right?", as opposed to "Twisted... he's
that guy who valiantly defended himself against every attack of his
character. Every one of his posts was logically impeccable, and thus all
accusations against him were unfounded. Obviously, he's no idiot."
Notice here that what (I hypothesize that) they remember about you has
very little to do with the actual content of the messages themselves;
rather, they'll only remember the size of the thread as a whole. As further
evidence of this, notice how you need to constantly repeat yourself to
newcomers to the thread, who have obviously not bothered to read your other
messages.
I think most people here will also fall into the "Don't care" category.
I suspect what typically happens is that they'll read 3 or 4 messages to
establish some minimal context, with the last message being an unanswered
leaf. They'll notice a(n implied) request for more information, and they'll
chime in if they know the answer, but they really don't know, or care to
know, what was said in the 290 other messages in this thread.
I was afraid of that.
How do I convince people not to fantasize all kinds of weird crap and
then treat it as factual? For example, if I say "not now", not to
fantasize that I really meant "not ever" and then behave as if I
actually said "not ever" (which seems to have actually occurred here
recently).
In general, you can't. There's no sure-fire way to prevent
misunderstandings in human communication.
But it's happening an awful lot, even where I'm not in the least
unclear in my language. And it's causing nasty side effects.
"Misunderstandings happen" is a cop-out, not a constructive suggestion
or even a genuine explanation.
A genuine explanation would probably be extremely complex, dipping into
psychology, group psychology, linguistics, etc. and beyond my abilities to
derive and provide. As for a constructive suggestion, I wasn't aware that
you were asking for one, but now that you did ask for one explicitly above,
I'm affraid I'm going to have to say I have no suggestion for avoiding these
misunderstandings, other than the ones you don't seem to approve of already.
(i.e. the one which you call lying or being dishonest).
Is it against the rules to bite the knees of other participants in
Basketball? If not, then I suppose that's a valid basketball strategy for
pygmies to use. If not, then I suppose that if the pygmies are going to
cheat anyway, there's nothing we can really do to enforce them to obey the
rules. Certainly, banning them from rec.games.basketball will not stop them
from biting people's knees.
So now that you see from (b) that people do not nescessarily behave the
way you think they should behave, maybe it's time for you to revise your
strategy... or better yet, revise the rules of the game you're playing in
such a way so that you end up winning with less risk or effort.
- Oliver
O
Oliver Wong
Notice though that it's not ad-hominem if the topic of debate is one of
the debaters themselves.
For example, consider this fictional debate:
A: I never lie.
B: You lied just yesterday!
A: Ad-hominem! Discuss the arguments, not the people!
Here, A is misapplying the ad-hominem label. B *is* allowed to bring up
the behaviour of A, specifically because it is A's behaviour which is under
debate.
I think part of the debate in this thread on comp.lang.java.programmer
has to do with your (Twisted/Nebulous') behaviour, so it isn't necessarily
ad-hominem to bring up your past behaviour and use it as evidence for an
extrapolation to present or future behaviour.
Of course, your behaviour (past, present or future), should not be used
as arguments in either direction as to whether it's better to hardcode
resources, or use the classloader's getResource() method, which is a
separate discussion altogether.
- Oliver
B
blmblm
Pretty much (end of story, that is). In the discussion above, I was
talking about the thread in c.t.t. that I *thought* you had brought up.
I think you're talking about the current thread. There's no point in
continuing, since we're talking at cross purposes.
Here's what you said, as part of the post that I originally replied to:
That sounded to me like a reference to a specific thread. If I was
mistaken, okay.
That was probably me, but again, it sounded to me like you had already
made reference to a specific thread.
[ snip ]
No. But this misunderstanding is my fault. What I'm disagreeing
with is your characterization of c.t.t. That wasn't clear from where
I put my reply with regard to quoted text.
So apparently when I described my skimming of c.t.t. as "following
the group" it came across as meaning that I follow it closely, which
wasn't what I meant. I don't read every thread in the group by
any means. I guess I *do* assume that the ones I do read, or skim,
are a representative sample with regard to how helpful (or not) the
regulars are. But there's no way I can think of to be sure about
that without reading them all. If you read all of them, then your
observations carry more weight than mine.
[ snip ]
O
Oliver Wong
Twisted said:
I feel the need to warn you that I think this will be a losing strategy
for you. MAD only works if the mutual destruction is actually assured. I
think you'll be taking a big risk getting into a flame war here. In fact, I
think your destruction will be assured (in the form of mass plonking), while
others will not (they will not plonk each other, and thus be able to
continue their participation in this newsgroup unfettered).
[...]
Probably yes. I would assume it's okay to provide unsolicited advice or
questioning outside the original question, unless the OP specifically states
they don't want this to occur.
[...]
Yeah, this is probably what happened. Though people (myself included)
would disagree about the "misguided" and "attack" labels.
So how would you phrase it?
[...]
Pretend the above paragraph was written by someone else and read it
again in that context.
Right. It's a losing game. Time to change the rules of the game.
Right. But people do stuff that they shouldn't do. And one needs to
learn to deal with it. That's life.
- Oliver