From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Moderated List????
Date: 22 Jan 1993 23:12:45 GMT
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Distribution: world
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <2202@bdrc.bdrc.bd.com>, woody@bdrc.bd.com (Woody Muller) writes:
>Carl Lydick writes:
>>That's where you and I differ.  I think someone too bloody stupid to realize
>>that if he wants help, he needs to tell us EXACTLY what he did and EXACTLY what
>>happened, deserves to be flamed.  [Carl Lydick]
>
>There's more to a user group like this than the black-white EXACTNESS
>which exists in your monocular world.

Sorry, jackass, but computers DO work EXACTLY (unless, of course there's a
hardware failure).  If, for a given version of the software, in a given
environment, you issue a particular command and get a particular response,
then, you'll always get that same response when you issue that command in that
environment.

>It's a very sad commentary on your
>lack of breadth of experience that you've never met, say, an expert
>molecular chemist who had no love for her machine but just wanted it
>to work.  She might specify a question incompletely, but that doesn't
>mean she's stupid.  Just in need of some enlightenment.

If she thinks that she can get a useful answer to a questiuon of the form:
	My program doesn't work.  Why?
Without her providing any additional information, then she ought to be in
parapsychology, not molecular biology.  If she's incapable of realizing that
the input to the computer and the output might somehow be correlated, then
she's probably incompetent as a scientist as well.

>I've seen a number of hotheads like you over the years, though rarely in
>the professional newsgroups (comp, sci, etc).  Apparently having nothing
>better to do with your day, you hover over the group with a mallet,
>playing whack-a-mole like at the arcade.

No, shit-for-brains.  I try to answer the questions posted to the group. 
When some jerk-off like yourself tries to encourage people to treat computers
as if they work by magic, I get somewhat annoyed.

>We can already tell who the less-informed contributors are, Carl.  We also
>recognize the psychotic ones.  You're searching so hard for the stupidity
>you crave to find,

With you "contributing" to the list, the search is not at all difficult.

>>I see.  You're yet another of the PC pop-psych folks who believes that someone
>>using a computer shouldn't be forced to have even the vaguest idea of how the
>>computer works; [...]   [Carl]
>
>I see the computer as a tool for the use of scientists and engineers,
>and not always as an end in itself.  As such, its best use is
>often by specialists who have their minds on other things like astronomy,
>chemistry, or engineering.

True.  The computer is a tool.  Why the hell are you advocating that people use
a tool with absolutely *NO* comprehension of how it works?  For that *IS* what
you're advocating when you deny that any competent person should have the
brains, when presenting a problem, to:
	1)  Present the commands/code that led to the problem;
	2)  Present the error messages and any other results of executing the
	    commands/code.

>These people are called applications users.
>Sometimes they are called upon to do something a little outside their
>field of expertise.  Do *you* ever do anything outside *your* field
>of expertise, Carl?

Yes, I do.  When I do so, I make an attempt to learn something about what I'm
doing before actually doing it.

>>My understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).
>
>Try reading a few books on the subject, or chat up an astronomer.

And that's going to get my understanding of astronomy above the amateur level? 
I don't think so, turkey.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.