Java 7 features

[Twisted]

I said that I had run across this usage in other people's posts.
No mention of where. I'm not sure how you'd get from that an
implication that it was in a pop-culture newsgroup. I don't
really follow any of those either, at least by my definition of
pop culture.

[1] "Seinfeld".

That is, if I'm not too much mistaken, pop culture. Or, at least, what
passes for "culture" these days, anyway.

You said (or at least implied) that you found it in a Seinfeld
newsgroup. It's pretty much a given that such a newsgroup is one of
rec.fan, alt.fan, or foreign-language.

But rather than speculate about where this silly thing is used,
how about some data .... Doing a search in Google Groups for
NTTAWWT, sorting by date, choosing the first 100 hits, and
listing newsgroups in alphabetical order, I get this:

alt.buddha.short.fat.guy
alt.fan.kieran-snyder
alt.fan.letterman
alt.religion.kibology
alt.sports.baseball.atlanta-braves
alt.sports.baseball.ny-mets
alt.sports.football.nfl.chicago-bears
alt.sports.hockey.nhl.vanc-canucks
alt.usage.english
comp.lang.java.programmer

It's only ever been used for the first time by you the other day in
CLJP, which nonetheless made #10 on this list. That makes it pretty
darn obscure. Worth noting nearly every other group on the list is a
fan group of some sort -- and I'd class a.r.k. in that category.

The Free Speech Political Forum

What the **** is this -- this isn't any Usenet newsgroup name...

I don't know how you get that. *You* don't recognize it, but another
poster in this thread did (Kurt).

It clearly doesn't have very widespread currency OR I'D HAVE FUCKING
SEEN IT BEFORE YOU NITWIT. Sheesh! I've been using Usenet for
years, so if I haven't seen it before, it's either new or obscure
pretty much by definition.

Your own search results *prove* it's obscure -- cljp made the top ten
hits despite the term having never been used here before last freaking
week!

The latter -- well, using my definition of "insult" anyway.

Why don't I find that reassuring?

Sometimes when you (and that's a generic you) make a guess about
something, even a very logical guess, it turns out to be wrong.
I could make a guess, for example, that you (Twisted) are male,
based on the fact that everyone refers to you as "he" and you
don't correct them. But I don't have any way to know for sure,
and I recognize that there's some possibility that I'm wrong, and
if that turned out to be the case, I'd probably just say "well,
that's interesting" and try to remember the information for future
reference, without thinking that the person who pointed out my
error had insulted me. Perhaps your mileage varies, as they say.

Despite the implied criticism, that either there was a flaw in your
logic (= you are stupid) or you should simply have already known the
answer (= you are an ignoramus)?

Mighty generous of you to let those slide but sooner or later it will
result in your having a reputation for being a stupid ignoramus if
such perceptions about you propagate uncorrected by you, won't it?

 

[blmblm]

I said that I had run across this usage in other people's posts.
No mention of where. I'm not sure how you'd get from that an
implication that it was in a pop-culture newsgroup. I don't
really follow any of those either, at least by my definition of
pop culture.

[1] "Seinfeld".

That is, if I'm not too much mistaken, pop culture. Or, at least, what
passes for "culture" these days, anyway.

You said (or at least implied) that you found it in a Seinfeld
newsgroup. It's pretty much a given that such a newsgroup is one of
rec.fan, alt.fan, or foreign-language.

Here for the record is my first mention of Seinfeld:

All this for a use of an initialism I don't even use very often,
or particularly like. As I understand it, it's a reference to
a TV show I was never a fan of [1]. To bring it full circle:
NTTAWWT [2].

[1] "Seinfeld".

[2] "Not That There's Anything Wrong With That". In case anyone
missed it upthread. Here the "That" refers to being a fan, or
not, of the TV show.

I don't understand how you get from that an implication that I
found this silly thing in a Seinfeld newsgroup. Why would I be
reading such a group, given that -- as I stated -- I'm not a fan?

Anyway, do you never come across references to pop culture
in newsgroups devoted to other topics? I do, and sometimes I
remember them, despite being generally ignorant of pop culture.
I guess I assume that if *I* know a pop-culture reference, most
others will as well. Apparently not .... Well. I'm getting
defensive here, and that's no good.

[ snip ]

It's only ever been used for the first time by you the other day in
CLJP, which nonetheless made #10 on this list. That makes it pretty
darn obscure.

Not true, according to a quick search of Google's archives -- but
the previous mention was in a post by, um, me, in February 2006.
Hm.

Worth noting nearly every other group on the list is a
fan group of some sort -- and I'd class a.r.k. in that category.

The entry just above cjlp is alt.usage.english. Very likely
that's where I came across this silly thing -- it's a group I
follow, though not always closely. Digging a little deeper into
the archives, I notice that some people there also had to have
the thing explained. Hm.

It clearly doesn't have very widespread currency OR I'D HAVE FUCKING
SEEN IT BEFORE YOU NITWIT. Sheesh! I've been using Usenet for
years, so if I haven't seen it before, it's either new or obscure
pretty much by definition.

I also have been using Usenet for years, and I *had* come across
it -- and not in one of those fan newsgroups, because as noted,
I don't follow those. So we have two people who recognize it,
and one who doesn't.

But much as it pains me to say so, especially after being called a
nitwit, I'll concede that two out of three isn't, in this context,
an overwhelming majority, and you probably have a point that this
silly initialism is not one I should be slinging around in cjlp.

[ snip ]

Despite the implied criticism, that either there was a flaw in your
logic (= you are stupid) or you should simply have already known the
answer (= you are an ignoramus)?

For me it might depend on how the error was pointed out. I don't
think I automatically take "you're wrong" as an insult. But it's
hard to know in the abstract. I don't get corrected in public
very often by peers, only by people lower in the pecking order
(students in my classes -- I teach undergrad CS), and they seem
pretty good at pointing out mistakes politely ("why did you do
it that way?" "because I made a mistake -- glad you caught it").
I don't take these as insults -- I'm mildly embarrassed about
being caught in a mistake, but glad it was spotted.

Mighty generous of you to let those slide but sooner or later it will
result in your having a reputation for being a stupid ignoramus if
such perceptions about you propagate uncorrected by you, won't it?

Well, my thinking is that admitting a mistake in public adds to
my credibility rather than reducing it (because it indicates that
I'm more interested in truth and facts than in being perceived
as always right). I guess if it happened more often than not the
results would be different. And, as usual, your mileage may vary.

 

[Twisted]

I don't understand how you get from that an implication that I
found this silly thing in a Seinfeld newsgroup. Why would I be
reading such a group, given that -- as I stated -- I'm not a fan?

I have no idea. But it's a usenet acronym, and you associated it with
Seinfeld; the intersection of the two yields "a Seinfeld newsgroup" as
the source.

Anyway, do you never come across references to pop culture
in newsgroups devoted to other topics?

I mostly ignore off-topic posts in any newsgroup, except when my
reputation and good name has been dragged into the discussion in some
way, shape, or form and therefore there's something at stake.

Not true, according to a quick search of Google's archives -- but
the previous mention was in a post by, um, me, in February 2006.
Hm.

In other words, yes true. It's obscure. It's used once a year or so
online and by just one person. It doesn't get much more obscure than
that.

The entry just above cjlp is alt.usage.english. Very likely
that's where I came across this silly thing -- it's a group I
follow, though not always closely. Digging a little deeper into
the archives, I notice that some people there also had to have
the thing explained. Hm.

Evidence that it might not be a good idea to assume everyone will
understand it at a glance.

Odd that you'd find such appalling English (gratuitous use of
acronyms, no less!) in alt.usage.english -- maybe because the "alt"
dominates the other terms in the equation.

But much as it pains me to say so, especially after being called a
nitwit, I'll concede that two out of three isn't, in this context,
an overwhelming majority, and you probably have a point that this
silly initialism is not one I should be slinging around in cjlp.

Not if your intent is to communicate clearly and easily, without
overly burdening your readers with the need to ask clarifying
questions (whether of you or of Google).

As for the "two out of three", it's a rather small sample size.

As for "nitwit" that was semi-humorous (there was a smiley in
proximity, too).

For me it might depend on how the error was pointed out. I don't
think I automatically take "you're wrong" as an insult.

Even when stated that tactlessly?

I don't take these as insults -- I'm mildly embarrassed about
being caught in a mistake, but glad it was spotted.


Well, my thinking is that admitting a mistake in public adds to
my credibility rather than reducing it (because it indicates that
I'm more interested in truth and facts than in being perceived
as always right).

That's very strange. It would seem to suggest to people that a) you're
more likely to be wrong in the first place, even if b) you're more
likely to fix it later.

 

[blmblm]

I have no idea. But it's a usenet acronym, and you associated it with
Seinfeld; the intersection of the two yields "a Seinfeld newsgroup" as
the source.

Seems like a stretch to me, for the reason given below. But --
whatever.

[ snip ]

In other words, yes true. It's obscure. It's used once a year or so
online and by just one person. It doesn't get much more obscure than
that.


Evidence that it might not be a good idea to assume everyone will
understand it at a glance.

That was kind of the point of my "Hm". (Maybe you got that.)

Odd that you'd find such appalling English (gratuitous use of
acronyms, no less!) in alt.usage.english -- maybe because the "alt"
dominates the other terms in the equation.

Not that it matters, or that you care, but -- not really, except
in the sense that thread drift is more common than it is in some
more technical groups. I searched again for my silly initialism in
Google's archives of aue, sorting by date rather than relevance,
and found that some of the most recent uses were by newsgroup
regulars whose language is generally very good, and the uses
went unremarked. Maybe that's what contributed to my impression

Not if your intent is to communicate clearly and easily, without
overly burdening your readers with the need to ask clarifying
questions (whether of you or of Google).

As for the "two out of three", it's a rather small sample size.

Oh sure. When I said "in context" I had in mind exactly that.
I could have said that more clearly.

As for "nitwit" that was semi-humorous (there was a smiley in
proximity, too).


Even when stated that tactlessly?

Hard to say without context, but I don't think so.

That's very strange. It would seem to suggest to people that a) you're
more likely to be wrong in the first place, even if b) you're more
likely to fix it later.

Could be. I guess I could try harder to not make mistakes in
the first place, but once a mistake is made, it seems to me
that the sensible thing to do is to acknowledge it and move on.
Insisting that one is always right, or that any mistakes are
somehow someone else's fault -- I generally find this unattractive
behavior, and one of its more likely results is that others become
a little too eager to spot mistakes [*]. I guess that could
sometimes be useful, but it all sounds too confrontational for me.

[*] I think we're observing exactly that response here in this
newsgroup, to your posts.

 

[nebulous99]

Seems like a stretch to me, for the reason given below. But --
whatever.

It's "a stretch" to compute the intersection in a very simple two-
circle Venn diagram?

Not that it matters, or that you care, but -- not really, except
in the sense that thread drift is more common than it is in some
more technical groups. I searched again for my silly initialism in
Google's archives of aue, sorting by date rather than relevance,
and found that some of the most recent uses were by newsgroup
regulars whose language is generally very good, and the uses
went unremarked. Maybe that's what contributed to my impression
that this thing was in wide use. <shrug>

Even seemingly expert users of English may have some flaws or bad
habits, including excessive use of cryptic acronyms or other needless
obfuscation. Indeed, gratuitous and often unconscious obfuscation
seems to be the vice of choice on usenet -- well, second after
excessive pedantry with implied put-downs of peoples' intelligence,
that is.

Hard to say without context, but I don't think so.

Not all of us can afford to be so forgiving. Look how many people seem
to believe nasty things of me, even with the amount of work I've put
into defending against many of the nasty claims -- and consider how
much worse it would be without that mitigating factor. As for what
makes me such a target, I've no idea -- likely it's just bad luck,
since it's certainly not that I'm doing anything wrong, and I'm not
wearing my race, sexual orientation, religion, or anything of that
sort on my sleeve that might provoke attacks from bigots, either. I
chalk it up to the snowball effect: one attacker gets believed by some
people, a few of whom are affected enough to become additional
attackers, and as the volume of attack posts grows, so does the rate
of growth of the set of attackers, unfortunately. Another reason to do
as much as possible to make an opposing viewpoint heard as well --
slow or stop the snowball effect. Even now the snowball is growing,
though the rate has been reduced greatly -- Arne has officially joined
the club with a fairly nasty and off-topic post to another thread in
the last day or two, after a previous borderline-hostile posting that
had me warn him that he was treading close to a line. He crossed it,
unfortunately, within 48 hours; in this case I was evidently too late.

Could be. I guess I could try harder to not make mistakes in
the first place, but once a mistake is made, it seems to me
that the sensible thing to do is to acknowledge it and move on.

There's also the matter of explaining why it could not have been
avoided, though, isn't there? To avoid being blamed for its
consequences. Obviously it wouldn't happen unless it was unavoidable
for some reason, or you would have avoided it. Maybe it was a
statistically inevitable result of insufficient information, or
something. But if you just meekly acknowledge it without explaining
why you were unable to avoid it you may develop a reputation for
incompetence and lazy workmanship, or whatever.

 

[blmblm]

It's "a stretch" to compute the intersection in a very simple two-
circle Venn diagram?

In context? Yes, because in doing so you leave out a significant
point, that I also said I was not a fan of the show.

Even seemingly expert users of English may have some flaws or bad
habits, including excessive use of cryptic acronyms or other needless
obfuscation.

Very true. In alt.usage.english, however, lapses generally earn
the lapser an "Oy!"

But I've already taken this discussion further than I meant to
in the direction of "if I made a mistake, it wasn't my fault!"
I've had ample occasion in this newsgroup to observe how
unattractive that is ....

Indeed, gratuitous and often unconscious obfuscation
seems to be the vice of choice on usenet -- well, second after
excessive pedantry with implied put-downs of peoples' intelligence,
that is.


Not all of us can afford to be so forgiving. Look how many people seem
to believe nasty things of me, even with the amount of work I've put
into defending against many of the nasty claims -- and consider how
much worse it would be without that mitigating factor. As for what
makes me such a target, I've no idea -- likely it's just bad luck,
since it's certainly not that I'm doing anything wrong, and I'm not
wearing my race, sexual orientation, religion, or anything of that
sort on my sleeve that might provoke attacks from bigots, either. I
chalk it up to the snowball effect: one attacker gets believed by some
people, a few of whom are affected enough to become additional
attackers, and as the volume of attack posts grows, so does the rate
of growth of the set of attackers, unfortunately. Another reason to do
as much as possible to make an opposing viewpoint heard as well --
slow or stop the snowball effect. Even now the snowball is growing,
though the rate has been reduced greatly -- Arne has officially joined
the club with a fairly nasty and off-topic post to another thread in
the last day or two, after a previous borderline-hostile posting that
had me warn him that he was treading close to a line. He crossed it,
unfortunately, within 48 hours; in this case I was evidently too late.

As I just said in another post, I agree with those who say that the
person doing the most damage to your reputation is you yourself.

I also have observed, in Usenet groups, a pile-on effect, in which
a put-down from one person attracts put-downs from others as well.
It's unattractive behavior, true. There may be some effective
defense that can be mounted, but IMO what you're doing here isn't

Could be. I guess I could try harder to not make mistakes in
the first place, but once a mistake is made, it seems to me
that the sensible thing to do is to acknowledge it and move on.

There's also the matter of explaining why it could not have been
avoided, though, isn't there? To avoid being blamed for its
consequences. Obviously it wouldn't happen unless it was unavoidable
for some reason, or you would have avoided it. Maybe it was a
statistically inevitable result of insufficient information, or
something. But if you just meekly acknowledge it without explaining
why you were unable to avoid it you may develop a reputation for
incompetence and lazy workmanship, or whatever.

Could be. Maybe this would be a good point at which to comment
that a lot of my thinking about reputation in the workplace was
formed in situations in which people generally pretty much knew
who was competent and who wasn't, based on direct knowledge of
their work, and their opinions weren't much swayed by admissions of
mistakes or self-deprecating humor. The head technical person at
a previous job used to comment, on finding a bug in his own code,
"who wrote this code?!", with a clear implication that he was the
culprit. No one thought worse of him for it; we all knew he was
a lot more than competent. To me this is how things should be.
Sometimes it's not possible -- in my current workplace, people's
work is different enough that sometimes all we have to go on
is what each person says about his/her work. But in technical
newsgroups, it seems to me that one can form opinions based on
people's work rather than on what they or others say about it.

I realize that you may very well conclude from the paragraph
above that you're right and I'm wrong, and I'm admitting it, and
so you win. Go ahead. I'd still rather be known as someone who
admits to mistakes when she makes them than as someone who wlll
never, ever admit to being wrong.

 

[blmblm]

[ snip ]

Could be. Maybe this would be a good point at which to comment
that a lot of my thinking about reputation in the workplace was
formed in situations in which people generally pretty much knew
who was competent and who wasn't, based on direct knowledge of
their work, and their opinions weren't much swayed by admissions of
mistakes or self-deprecating humor. The head technical person at
a previous job used to comment, on finding a bug in his own code,
"who wrote this code?!", with a clear implication that he was the
culprit. No one thought worse of him for it; we all knew he was
a lot more than competent. To me this is how things should be.
Sometimes it's not possible -- in my current workplace, people's
work is different enough that sometimes all we have to go on
is what each person says about his/her work. But in technical
newsgroups, it seems to me that one can form opinions based on
people's work rather than on what they or others say about it.

I realize that you may very well conclude from the paragraph
above that you're right and I'm wrong, and I'm admitting it, and
so you win. Go ahead. I'd still rather be known as someone who
admits to mistakes when she makes them than as someone who wlll
never, ever admit to being wrong.

Why does it happen so often that I think of a few more points
I maybe should have made, *after* dispatching a post into the
ether .... Well.

Sure, I'm often tempted to respond to criticism with "if I made
a mistake, it wasn't my fault!" Sometimes that's even valid
and necessary. Often, though, it strikes me as an unattractive
unwillingness to admit to error, an introducing of ego into a
discussion that should be about something technical.

As for whether X's reputation is based more on facts or on what
X and others say about him/her -- I guess I believe that the
latter is imperfect at best, wrong-headed at worst, most often
engaged in by those who aren't competent to evaluate the facts,
and therefore not something I want to pander to. Maybe that's
unrealistic. <shrug>

 

[Lew]

As for whether X's reputation is based more on facts or on what
X and others say about him/her -- I guess I believe that the
latter is imperfect at best, wrong-headed at worst, most often
engaged in by those who aren't competent to evaluate the facts,
and therefore not something I want to pander to. Maybe that's
unrealistic. <shrug>

All this concern over one's reputation when one is anonymous is a bit of a red
herring, plus the conclusions here are tossed about while no one checks
objectively if there is indeed /any/ correlation between what's said on, say,
this newsgroup and the influence on any anonymous poster's reputation.

Obviously there's more likely to be an impact if someone reveals their real
name. Even there we lack objective evidence as to whether rabid defense of
one's reputation against perceived slights helps one's actual reputation.
Obversely we lack objective evidence as to whether failure to respond to
perceived slights harms one's reputation. Or whether these acts of omission
or commission even affect one's reputation.

We need to start with a verifiable metric of "reputation".

 

[nebulous99]

In context? Yes, because in doing so you leave out a significant
point, that I also said I was not a fan of the show.

An irrelevant point. You don't need to be a fan of it to have run into
it or its newsgroup -- or even to be purposely hanging out there, if
you've got some sort of bone to pick regarding the show. Running into
a x-post in another newsgroup that originated there is even more
likely, given the amount of random and spurious crossposting that goes
on these days.

Ex-fan is another reasonable possibility.

As I just said in another post, I agree with those who say that
[insults my competence yet again]

Oh, do grow up.

I also have observed, in Usenet groups, a pile-on effect, in which
a put-down from one person attracts put-downs from others as well.

I can prove that it does more than that; that it actually alters, over
time, what people feel or believe about the target, and not in a way
the target is likely to desire unless masochism is their kink.

Could be. Maybe this would be a good point at which to comment
that a lot of my thinking about reputation in the workplace was
formed in situations in which people generally pretty much knew
who was competent and who wasn't, based on direct knowledge of
their work, and their opinions weren't much swayed by admissions of
mistakes or self-deprecating humor.

This is a set of circumstances approximately diametrically opposite
those observed on the internet (namely an enormous number of
pseudonymous people that are strangers to one another, plus the people
who don't know you well yet who will one day google you).

It's unsurprising that what works for you in the one set of
circumstances would be totally inappropriate and worse-than-useless in
the other.

But in technical
newsgroups, it seems to me that one can form opinions based on
people's work rather than on what they or others say about it.

This is a strange claim, since most of us here see very little of one
another's work, save the odd snippet of example code. And all of that
is likely shoddier than our usual code output, despite being on public
display, because the nature of the medium is such that it's generally
written in haste into something that doesn't lint it as we type it and
never compiled or tested first.

(Worse for us GG users, where it's written into something that doesn't
even have "save as draft" or similar options -- just "send" and
"discard", and if the power goes out or the browser goes bang before
you finish it and hit "send" ... not an environment conducive to proof-
reading and careful copy-editing, nor to anything but type it in as
quickly as possible and send it before Something Goes Wrong(tm).)

 

[nebulous99]

Sure, I'm often tempted to respond to criticism with "if I made
a mistake, it wasn't my fault!" Sometimes that's even valid
and necessary. Often, though, it strikes me as an unattractive
unwillingness to admit to error, an introducing of ego into a
discussion that should be about something technical.

The introduction of ego happens when someone raises the issue of fault
or blame and points a finger at you; at that point your ego has been
targeted, and it's probably been done so that the attacker can inflate
his.

As for whether X's reputation is based more on facts or on what
X and others say about him/her -- I guess I believe that the
latter is imperfect at best, wrong-headed at worst, most often
engaged in by those who aren't competent to evaluate the facts,
and therefore not something I want to pander to. Maybe that's
unrealistic.

In an ideal world, reputation would be based purely on deed and
there'd be no need to worry about any of this stuff.

Unfortunately, we live in the real world, where gossip about someone
can have a significant effect on their eventual fortunes in work,
love, and other areas that involve other people in some manner. In
this newsgroup it is likely that sufficiently bad slandering of
someone may cripple their job prospects in the future, or even affect
their current working relationships, given that it's likely that that
someone works or may in the future work in the Java programming field.
Of course this might be mitigated by that someone taking the sensible
self-protective step of using a pseudonym whenever possible online,
where it's so easy to get a snowball effect of insults from the
slightest perceived provocation of billions of the anonymous masses
elsewhere on the planet. Of course, that mitigation is threatened if
anyone pries into the question of what the person's real name might
be, and especially if one day some such person manages to actually get
it right.

 

[nebulous99]

All this concern over one's reputation when one is anonymous is a bit of a red
herring

Lest you forget, some asshole keeps trying to expose my real name.
He's made a (wrong) guess which he's hung up on and keeps repeating,
but if he keeps up sooner or later he might actually get it right just
by pure dumb luck.

Concern over one's reputation when someone is making a concerted (if
half-assed) attempt to remove their anonymity at the same time seems
only sensible.

Obviously there's more likely to be an impact if someone reveals their real
name. Even there we lack objective evidence as to whether rabid defense of
one's reputation against perceived slights helps one's actual reputation.
Obversely we lack objective evidence as to whether failure to respond to
perceived slights harms one's reputation. Or whether these acts of omission
or commission even affect one's reputation.

Conversely. And you don't have to go far to see that objective
evidence you're looking for. Try New York City, specifically, Wall
Street. Ever seen rumors cause a stock price to rise or drop, as well
as official responses by the company whose reputation (stock) is at
stake also affecting it?

We need to start with a verifiable metric of "reputation".

The ticker on the bottom of the TV screen when you tune to the
business news has all the hard numbers you could ever want, and even
little colored arrows to tell you what the short-term trends are for
each of them.

So there's at least one place where things like this are being tracked
in a quantitative manner. And you can't tell me that the changes in
those numbers don't affect the fortunes of the entities affected.

And as it is with them, so it is with the more informal calculus of
personal reputation.

 

[Lew]

Conversely.

Obversely. The two statements were logically equivalent, so they aren't
converses. The second was formed by the double negation of the two clauses of
the first, which is the definition of the logical obverse.

"rabid defense" => "failure to respond" -- negation #1
"helps one's actual reputation"
=> "harms one's reputation" -- negation #2

A converse is the inversion of an implication, which was not done here.

 

[Lew]

... GG ... doesn't
even have "save as draft" or similar options -- just "send" and
"discard", and if the power goes out or the browser goes bang before
you finish it and hit "send" ... not an environment conducive to proof-
reading and careful copy-editing, nor to anything but type it in as
quickly as possible and send it before Something Goes Wrong(tm).)

Wow.

The more I hear about Google Groups, the gladder I am that I've never used it.

 

[nebulous99]

[vicious attacks again, as usual lately]

We can infer the following about Lew:
1. He has no need of sleep.
2. He has no need of work; he sits in front of his computer 24/7
reloading one usenet newsgroup to see if a particular person has
posted, so as to immediately post an attacking followup within two
minutes, no matter what hour or day of the week.
3. He's a lazy bastard then.
4. Also obsessed.
5. And an arsehole.

A converse is the inversion of an implication, which was not done here.

Sure it was. X causing Y versus not-Y indicating not-X. And you threw
in a false dichotomy of your own invention, to boot. No action and
defense are not an exhaustive list of options. There's certainly no
"obverse" here.

Now stop gratuitously attacking me and go play in traffic with Attacki
and blmblm. Or some other threesome activity. I don't care, so long as
I'm not involved against my will, nor is anybody else, and in
particular this newsgroup is spared any more off-topic nonsense about
me from any of you.

Ever.

 

[blmblm]

An irrelevant point. You don't need to be a fan of it to have run into
it or its newsgroup -- or even to be purposely hanging out there, if
you've got some sort of bone to pick regarding the show. Running into
a x-post in another newsgroup that originated there is even more
likely, given the amount of random and spurious crossposting that goes
on these days.

Ex-fan is another reasonable possibility.

What are we arguing about here, anyway? Do you want me to concede
that your guesses are reasonable? I'm not sure they are, but
even if they were -- they're still wrong, and, snob that I am,
I'm mildly insulted by the suggestion that I would care enough
about this silly TV show, one way or another, to hang out in a
fan newsgroup. I've told you what the likeliest explanation is --
a mention in alt.usage.english -- but ....

Well, let me try to wrap this up, for myself anyway: I'm heartily
sorry I used the silly initialism, or acronym, or whatever we
should call it, in the first place, and even more sorry I let
myself get drawn into this pointless wrangle.

[ snip ]

 

[Lew]

Sure it was.

I've thought about it, and you were right - converse is a much better term
here than obverse was. I was wrong.

 

[nebulous99]

I've thought about it, and you were right - converse is a much better term
here than obverse was. I was wrong.

Thank you.

 

[nebulous99]

On Sep 13, 10:50 am, (e-mail address removed) <[email protected]>
wrote:

[snip some insulting suggestions that are false]

I'm mildly insulted by the suggestion that I would care enough
about this silly TV show, one way or another, to hang out in a
fan newsgroup.

Now *that's* just plain silly.

Anyway, why did you associate it with that "silly TV show" if you not
only aren't a fan but actively dislike it and anything associated with
it?

Well, let me try to wrap this up, for myself anyway: I'm heartily
sorry I used the silly initialism, or acronym, or whatever we
should call it, in the first place, and even more sorry I let
myself get drawn into this pointless wrangle.

The main thing to apologize for, aside from turning it into a federal
case, is using it without expansion or other explanation around an
audience comprised substantially of people that don't recognize it on
sight. And even that's a relatively minor thing, really; it puzzles me
that it turns into such a long discussion just about every time it
happens. Of course, I couldn't give a rat's ass what TV show's fan
base the acronym's associated with. That's not even relevant to the
original issue.

 

[blmblm]

On Sep 13, 10:50 am, (e-mail address removed) <[email protected]>
wrote:

[snip some insulting suggestions that are false]

I'm mildly insulted by the suggestion that I would care enough
about this silly TV show, one way or another, to hang out in a
fan newsgroup.

Now *that's* just plain silly.

Yes, it is, but apparently you're not the only one in this
newsgroup who thinks it's important to correct wrong statements
made about him/her. Sort of a .

Anyway, why did you associate it with that "silly TV show" if you not
only aren't a fan but actively dislike it and anything associated with
it?

I mentioned the TV show because, as I understand it, it's the source
of the silly phrase abbreviated NTTAWWT (Not That There's Anything
Wrong With That). I suppose I thought the (possible?) etymology of
the phrase might be of interest.

I think we can stop now?

[ snip ]