🚀 go-pugleaf

On 7/19/2018 12:47 PM, Richard Thiebaud wrote:
> On 07/19/2018 12:25 PM, Charles Richmond wrote:
>> On 7/19/2018 9:33 AM, Dan Espen wrote:
>>> Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> On 7/18/2018 2:27 PM, Stephen M. Jones wrote:
>>>>> The past couple of weeks I've been thinking about MRC a lot.  He was a
>>>>> fixture on alt.sys.pdp10 and I'm sure people thought of him as a 
>>>>> pretty
>>>>> difficult person.  I knew him in person and I know the MRC face to 
>>>>> face was
>>>>> different than what you might come across on alt.sys.pdp10.  I 
>>>>> recently came
>>>>> across a memo authored by BAH regarding 3M and the shortage of 
>>>>> DECTAPES,
>>>>> et cetera and I also came across boxes carefully arranged by MRC from
>>>>> Stanford that had not been opened until now.
>>>>>
>>>>> MRC was a private person and if he was a friend you could get to him.
>>>>> For instance, he once gave me a DTMF code that would bypass his anti-
>>>>> telemarketer setup on his phone when I need to all him on 
>>>>> Bainbridge.  But
>>>>> MRC could also turn on you and if he thought you had nothing to 
>>>>> say, he'd
>>>>> write an SMTP response that you'd get that would say something like:
>>>>>
>>>>> 451: STOP TALKING ABOUT IT ALREADY
>>>>>
>>>>> I think I still have that response somewhere.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ISTM that MRC did *not* "suffer fools lightly"... nor should he have
>>>> done that IMO.  If you asked a question on <alt.sys.pdp10> ... a
>>>> question that showed the asker had *not* worked much on his problem
>>>> ... MRC would deride you and *not* offer any answers (other than to
>>>> suggest you go away).  If a person's question indicated that the asker
>>>> had done a lot of work on the problem, MRC was willing to offer help.
>>>>
>>>> MRC was *not* a baby sitter ... if you understood that, you'd get
>>>> along fine with him.  IMHO
>>>>
>>>> I miss his presence on <alt.sys.pdp10> .
>>>
>>> This MRC fellow doesn't sound like a nice person.
>>>
>>> I've met more than a few people that acted like that and
>>> never found it to be an endearing trait.
>>>
>>> I know I'm smarter than average but don't see any point in
>>> lording over the less gifted.
>>>
>>
>> Mr. Espen, even you can get tired of people with stupid questions... 
>> people who waste your time and talents because they are too lazy (or 
>> not really interested enough) to do a *little* work and look things up 
>> themselves.
>>
> Yes, but he doesn't have to get unpleasant about it.

You need to understand the tone of Usenet back 25 or 30 years ago. 
(That's where the old timers come from.)  Usenet was technical and dealt 
with technical details.  Those who did *not* measure up technically were 
encouraged to go away.  It was sort of self-policing...  people were 
discouraged from being nice to "hangers on".

With the flood of n00bs who know very little, but still presume to post 
and participate, it's understandable that the technically savvy have 
little patience for them.  Unlike many forums and message groups on the 
web, Usenet has a fairly long history...  I recommend trying to 
understand it in this light.

-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com