From: swbaker@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Texas Bob or Eddie Froman depending on the moon)
Subject: Re: New article(s) and a new WORKING.NEW archive file!
Summary: Wow, yet ANOTHER new one to talk about!
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester MI.
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 21:54:51 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.181123.27565@vela.acs.oakland.edu> swbaker@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Texas Bob or Eddie Froman depending on the moon) writes:

>I've updated the on-going WORKING.NEW article archive file with two
>recently acquired articles:
>
>Library Theft                    (previously posted on alt.g-g)
>Drinking Problems, a Solution to (posted below)

Add to this list another new one:

The Bluffers Guides               (posted below)

This is another nifty article, this time edited/approved by Paul
(aka "...Paul").  Oh, and by the way (in that order), we're now up to
17 articles in WORKING.NEW (available on the FTP directory at Oakland,
and also updated in GUIDE.ZIP and GUIDE.ZIP.UU for all you first-timers).

Here's the _new_ new article (oh, and Paul: please see notes, below!!)

--

%t The Bluffers Guides
%n 1R7R01
%s Independent companion volumes to the Guide
%a Jim Cheetham  (jim@oasis.icl.co.uk)
%d 19921002
%i Bluffing
%i Pretending to know what you're talking about
%i Being more clever than you really are
%i Knowledge, the easy way
%i Swanley, England
%i Steele, Mark
%i Austin Allegro
%i Fiat
%i Ford cars
%i Chrysler Avenger
%e
In the world today there are many specialist areas of knowledge that
the average hitchhiker is expected to know, especially when the entity
that you are hitching from wants to talk non-stop for seventeen hours,
and then ask your opinion.

Nobody with a brain significantly smaller than Jagulon-Beta could possibly
absorb so many fields of knowledge, but luckily a hoopy group of towel
carrying froods have come up with an alternative -- Bluffing!

The successful bluffer remembers key facts and sayings, and by careful
application, manages to present the impression of a full-fledged expert.

For example, in Swanley, Greater London, England, you are not a local at
the pub unless you've been there, drinking, every night, for five years.
Obviously it gets difficult to think of new topics of conversation every
night for five years, and a few things get repeated.  Most common is the
subject of cars -- and note that you are not allowed to be a bloke unless
you also know about cars.  Mark Steele, an aspiring local, learnt a few
basic facts about cars and mentioned them, every now and again.  These
facts were:

"Austin Allegro?  All Rust and Aggro, more like!"
"Fiat? You know what that stands for, don't you?  Fix It Again, Tony!"
"Never get a Ford that's been made on a Friday.  All the lads at Dagenham
 go down the pub on a Friday lunchtime, and make all the dodgy ones in the
 afternoon!"
"Chrysler Avenger?  Chassis rots."

After a couple of years, they all thought he was a motor mechanic.

To help the hitchhiker discover all these basic facts and opinions, a series
of small reference works have been produced by the much-underrated
publishing company Ravette Limited, 3 Glenside Estate, Star Road,
Partridge Green, Horsham, Sussex RH13 8RA, England.  In a clever scam to
disguise their works, they are clasified as Humour.  If the intrepid
hitchhiker wishes to track these down, and finds that the address above
has moved to another universe (as these things are prone to do, over time)
the ISBN reference of _The Bluffer's Guide to Computers_ is given as
ISBN 0-907830-02-1.

Happy Bluffing in Accountancy, Advertising, Antiques, Architecture,
Astrology, Ballet, Bank Managers, Beliefs, The Body, Cinema, Class,
The Classics, Computers, Consultancy, Defence, Espionage, Feminism,
Gambling, High Society, Jazz, Journalism, Law, Literature, Management,
Marketing, Millionaires, Modern Art, Music, Opera, Philosophy,
Photography, Politics, Property, Public Relations, Publishing, Secret
Societies, Selling, Sex, Skiing, Stockbrokering, Success, Teaching,
Television, Theatre, Travel, Wine, World Affairs, The Americans, 
The Australians, The British, The French, The Germans, The Japanese,
Amsterdam, Berlin, Hollywood, Hong Kong, Moscow, New York, Paris,
and quite a few more!
%e
*EOA*

--

Paul, and all interested parties:

I assume the second R in the %n field is for 'revision'?  Thus, your
1R7R01 means 'editor 1, real article 7, revision 01' ??

Nice touch, but not really required if the date field is always kept
"up-to-date"... that is:

1) An article exists with a given article ID field (xRy)
2) The article is updated; the date field of the article (ID: xRy) is
     modified to a later/more-recent date
3) The article is then re-added to (or re-parsed by) the system
4) ... Then any self-respecting article reader program (ala "The Guide!"
     for IBM/DOS, etc) will instantly recognize that an existing article
     has been UPDATED, and will REPLACE the existing one (with the older
     date) with the new one (with the newer date)

Thus, unless the second 'R' is for something else, then the date field
can be used to differentiate between revisions...

HERE'S THE CATCH (and a valid point in favour of the 'revision' thing):

BUT ("everybody's got a big but; let's talk about _your_ big but" - Pee Wee)
--- a system using the above-described date/revision method doesn't have any
    explicit means of tracking how many revisions have been made; is this
    fact important to anyone?  IF that's the case, THEN a second 'R' for
    'revision' may be required...

    But... who _cares_ how many revisions have been made?  Aren't there
    enough meaningless statistics out there, especially since the invention
    of Major League Baseball, which has such meaningless stats as the number
    of left-handed batters who strike out more times in a given month than
    the rest of the league walks in all other months combined (??)...

    My point (on this big but) is unless someone wants to do some type of
    time-per-revision, or frequency plot, or something henious like that,
    the number of revisions may be superficial at best... (IMHO, anyway)

    A well-designed system will always keep the most recent revision anyway,
    so knowing how many previous releases of a given article there were seems
    trite... (oh well, enough rambling...)

Comments?  Questions?  Money?  (not necessarily in that order :^> )

Steve
--
******************************************************************************
  you have just    |"For those who look for meaning, and form as they do fact,
 been bothered by  | we might tell you one thing, but we'd only take it back.
 Texas Bob and/or  | Not back like in a box, back; not back like in a race;
   Eddie Froman    | not back so we can keep it; but back in Time and Space!"
(based on th'moon) |                                             -- HEAD, 1968
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