Subject: Re: MD5 in LISP and abstraction inversions From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 06:25:16 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3214794312426399@naggum.net> * John Foderaro -> Christpher Brown (uncredited in original message) | I keep trying to close down this thread but you keep bringing | me back in. It is not his fault that you keep replying, you dork. Just shut up if you think that is what you should have been doing. I happen to agree violently, but do not let that stop you. The world does not become any better just because you feel you need to post something. It does in fact become a lot worse when you keep posting your drivel. _My_ drivel is of course so valuable to mankind that it will be included in future editions of the Encyclopaedia Galactica. All of it. But nono of yours. Hint.¹ | This is *your* opinion and based on the feedback I've gotten it's | thankfully a small minority opinion. Every lunatic on USENET uses the volume of received e-mail to establish his popularity or that of his views. It has become the most used proof of popularity, sanity, whatever: It matters a great deal what people you have no idea who might be have said in e-mail you have not seen. Of course it does, come one! Random customer endorsement on TV works, so why not on USENET, too? Really! Why would _anyone_ subject themselves to mailing you any form of critical, insightful comments about your moronic macro? Just look at what you do to people who try to make you _think_ in this newsgroup! Man, for someone who makes a moronic point about "proving things", you sure lack the basics in thinking skills when it comes to evaluating the evidence. I wonder if the huge volume of positive feedback is what keeps you going. I wonder if those who mailed you positive feedback feel a little responsible for what you keep doing and now regret it vehemently. Oh, _I_ got a wonderful letter from an author whose book I recommended on USENET not too long ago, and the auhtor said I understood the book. Woohoo! Am I great or what? Of course, I could be lying. In fact, you have _no_ way to know if this is true or not. As such, it has absolutely _no_ value as an argument or even supporting evidence for anything whatsoever -- the author could be misled by the way I expressed myself and it just looked like I had understood the book, or the author could just be overly happy that _somebody_ looked like they understood the book and entice me to into a discussion. But suppose I take it at face value, and suppose it is true, does it have _anything_ but strictly personal value for me? No. Had the author gone public with the comment, it could have. Am I now entitled to speak for the author? No. Can I drop names and impress people with it? No. It has _no_ public value whatsoever. That is the nature of an undisclosed personal mail. Even referring to personal mail must be considered unethical because it carries absolutely _no_ weight in a public forum, but some unthinking people may not see that what such an argument says is _only_ that he who utters it is a jerk with an ego problem. Instead of being remembered as the "prove things" guy, John Foderaro is on his way to becoming known as the "backfire" guy. No wonder he wants this to be over. But did that work? No. This time, it was not _his_ fault that he was "brought back in". Other people will "keep bringing him back in" all the time. Never will he grasp that _he_ needs to sit still and take the abuse like he wants other people to do. But it will be fun, for a couple days or so, to see if he needs to "defend" himself. Now for a scary thought: Maybe he meant all the _positive_ feedback he has received here in comp.lang.lisp? I mean, if he lives in the "real world" where he can "prove things", as opposed to the only one the rest of us live in, who knows what the public disdain for if* translates to. Another scary thought: If people send him positive feedback, does he request that they prove it? If he does _not_ accept negative feedback without accompanying evidence and proof and everything, but _does_ accept positive feedback without any such thing, somebody could simply mail him what looks like positive feedback and just be playing mind games with him. I would do that. I would rattle off a mail like "Yo, dude, I love your if* macro!" and laugh my ass off. This probably accounts for half of the positive messages he has received. Yet another scary thought: For a person who has accused other people of flaming everybody who disagrees with him, let us look at how he sorts his mail: Those who agree with him are considered valuable feedback and are carefully counted. Those who do _not_ agree with him are discarded as "that is *your* opinion". That this arroagnt response does not apply to the feedback that supports his demented view is rather alarming. Of course, those who have provided him with "feedback", real or imagined, deserve a "that is *your* opinion" and be counted at least as carefully as all the Al Gore votes in Florida, like, not. Finally, the last scary thought: John Foderaro _actually_ believes that it helps his case to refer to "feedback" he has received without proof of any kind. For all we know, it just another stupid tactic by the dishonest manipulator to make people who express disagreement with him _feel_ bad, for being in a "small minority". Since he was in a _very_ "small minority" when the ANSI standard was hammered out and his stupid little if* stunt, not to mention the upper-case names issue, was voted on, we can visualize the pain he intends to inflict on people who are in "small minorities": John Foderaro knows how much it hurts to be alone with the world's most brilliant invention, and now it is your turn to feel the pain of being _alone_ with *your* opinion. Ouch, indeed. /// ------- ¹ If you did not understand that this was a joke, get yourself committed TODAY. -- Norway is now run by a priest from the fundamentalist Christian People's Party, the fifth largest party representing one eighth of the electorate. -- Carrying a Swiss Army pocket knife in Oslo, Norway, is a criminal offense.