Ponderings in the shop

[bridger]

ya know, dave...

you're kind of like a busted clock. right twice a day, every day, but totally useless.

[Dave Hinz]

So, killfile me, and get on with life.

[rcook5]

Actually it is not 'normal' communication style. It is a convention which has been adopted for newgroups.

You don't repeat everything that's been said in a conversation before you add your bit, do you? If you're writing a reply to a letter you don't quote the whole letter first, do you? Why should everyone wade through what's already been said in the topic before getting to the most recent addition. You'll notice that bottom posting is far less common in e-mail.

Fundamentally the convention of bottom posting is a relic of the early, academic, days of the Internet when there was a wide variability in how long it took for a message to be received and they often arrived out of order.

Since bottom posting is a convention, it makes good sense to follow it

-- if you're not going to carefully trim and interpost your comments. But it is about as outdated and maladaptive as a QWERTY keyboard on a computer.

Thank you. I feel much better now.

--RC

Sleep? Isn't that a totally inadequate substitute for caffine?

[Dave Hinz]

Right, within the context of Usenet, it's the normal communication style.

Nope. It seems that people not trimming as appropriate is the problem. I've never seen a top-poster do anything but put their answer at the top and leave the rest of it in place.

Yes, and yes, in that order.

As opposed to Usenet, where message order and delivery is guaranteed? Um....

It makes sense to answer points after the points being answered, so the person answering the response can see what the context is.

I tried DVORAK for a while, but switched back when I got my first sysadmin job, and had to type on 20 or 30 different terminals in a typical day. (long time ago, before terminal servers existed). Too much switching.

Dave Hinz

[Scott Lurndal]

Conversations happen real-time. There is no need to recap.

Usenet is far from real-time - it may be several days or weeks between visits to a newsgroup. Many newsreaders make it hard or timeconsuming to see prior (already read) posts. Many news spools have retention times less than a week.

A letter is a conversation between two people. A usenet thread is a conversation between many people with some starting with the thread and others entering mid-thread. Context is imperitive.

Why should everyone wade

Only because some idiot at Microsoft decided to place the cursor above the message in Outlook. EVERY SINGLE MAIL USER AGENT prior to outlook used bottom posting as the default.

The the words of the famous Col. Potter - Horsehockey.

Your opinion is noted. It's wrong, but noted.

scott

[Tom Watson]

"das glasperlenspiel"

Regards, Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.) tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[bridger]

Fun, huh?

[Tom Watson]

It would be more fun if I did not rue the cost of time involved for those who spend more of their lives in front of a CRT than a workbench.

This newsgroup only exists because we are not in the shop.

I come home from my job of telling other people what to build and how to build it, and I vent my frustration at not being able to simply build the stuff myself.

Most of the people who were worth a damn on this newsgroup have moved on.

It's a damned shame to say it but it's true.

There is the making and only the making - everything else is bullshit.

When I see people argue the fine points of newsgroup etiquette, it makes me want to puke.

Grab a saw, sharpen it, cut some wood, plane it, make some joints, plane it all smooth - find a finish that works for your piece - give something to someone who means something to you.

Amen.

The last thing that this newsgroup should be about is about how to act on a newsgroup.

There should be much more interesting fish to fry.

There are more than a few posters who seem to me as though they have never worked a piece of wood in their lives - yet have worked wonders in their heads.

I have no respect for that.

Regards, Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.) tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[J.B. Bobbitt]

Riiiiiiiiiight..... like the way they trained those beavers to be hats.

(From an OLD Johnny Carson routine).

[Chris Melanson]

I could not agree with you more on this Tom. If more people would just concentrate on woodworking and not on all the BS.This would be a far more useful newsgroup. I have pretty well stopped trying to help anyone here by answering questions as it seems everyone just wants to be negative about any thing and everything that is posted.I find my time better spent in other ways than trying to help someone with a genuine question about woodworking and then to have some half wit who has spent more time in front of there PC than in a shop want to start an argument over something totally of topic. I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way and in the end the only people who lose are the poor souls who never get there question answered because of all the BS. Maybe there should be a group called rec. arguments or something like that for people who just want to be negative and argumentative all the time.

Just my 2 cents worth Chris Melanson BLH Millwork LTD

[max]

Cool Dude! For the most part I agree with you. But... There are people who have no experience, little money for tools, an undeveloped imagination or a fear of some kind,(failure, getting hurt ridicule etc) who learn by the discussions that go on here. I am an experienced wood cutter but I can ask other people about tools or answer questions from amateurs who don't have a clue how to get some of this info or even how to evaluate the info they get. Seeing it discussed to death here gives them a well rounded picture of how many ways there are to connect two pieces of wood, round an edge or buy a hammer. While I empathize with your impatience, I have been thinking about how many pro's took time away from there work to answer stupid questions from a newbie. Amateur, roughly translates to "for the love of" I strive to be an amateur. max

[Dave Balderstone]

Which explains why you only post about making, right Tom?

You post as much off topic bullsh*t as anyone else, Sirrah. DAGS.

And ya know what? It doesn't bother me one whit. I enjoy your posts.

There's an amazing number of *on-topic* posts here. Hundreds a day. HUNDREDS! The off-topic shit I don't want to read is so simple to filter it doesn't bear mentioning. And as you and many others pointed out during the rec.woodworking.all-ages episode, you like SOME of the off-topic shit. So who made you the arbiter of off-topic shit, Tom? Off-topic shit is equal, but some off-topic shit is more equal than others? GMAB.

Why some people (including you) get bent out of shape about the minimal noise in an amazingly active newsgroup that's 90-95% signal makes me shake my head...

If you want a nice quiet newsgroup, alt.woodworking is only seeing 3 -5 posts daily. Lots of opportunity. If you want your own community, it's easy enough to form one.

Personally, I'd rather you learned how to filter and ignore, and stuck around, but dropped the sanctimony.

Just my opinion. I could be wrong...

[Brett A. Thomas]

I know that's most of the time I spend here. Simply do a Google search for my address and you can figure out when my shop's working. If it's not (or I'm not), I'm in here. If it works and I basically know what I'm doing, most of my woodworking-Jones time is spent in the shop.

Unfortunately I had knee surgery recently _and_ my shop is still full of boxes from my move, so I'm hanging out in here because all I want to do right now is woodwork and this is the closest I can get without being able to stand up on my own.

Hopefully I'll have everything running not long into the new year and it'll be at least another two years before I'm here on a regular basis, again. :)

-BAT

[Charlie Self]

Brett Thomas responds:

Ain't it fun. Three times, one left, two right, just had lubricant (Hyagel?) injections in both sides (series of 6 fun shots, 3 per knee, one per week). Eventual left knee replacement, but the surgeon wants me to peel off pounds, in the meantime telling me that the lubricant can be repeated every 6 months if needed. It seems to work well for me--he also tells me it only works for half the people who get it. Knees are much better. Not young enough for running, but much better. So there's less pain in your future, too, I'd guess.

Good luck with the recovery.

Charlie Self "Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good." H. L. Mencken

[Swingman]

There should be a corallary to Godwin's Law for that tired old BS. What's "true" is that your own internal estimation of what constitutes "worth a damn" changes, along with your expectations ... everything else remains the same.

[Tim Douglass]

"Top posting because that is where the cursor happens to be is the equivalent of crapping your pants because that's where your asshole happens to be"

Don't know who I'm quoting, but it was the best commentary I've ever read on the topic.

Tim Douglass

[Tom Watson]

balderdash.

Learn to read, dweeb. The comments were made in reaction to a discussion about top posting.

Regards, Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.) tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[Dave Balderstone]

I understand you much better now.

[Tom Watson]

You need to get a grip, Swing. Saying it's bullshit doesn't make it bullshit.

The Steady State Theory sucks.

Regards, Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.) tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[Mike Marlow]

Damnit! Stop that. You guys - this is s'pposed to be a serious group.