Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: This fish thing.  What's the big deal?
Message-ID: <6533@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 15 Oct 89 02:09:06 GMT
References: <17127@rpp386.cactus.org> <6517@ficc.uu.net> <17135@rpp386.cactus.org>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 30

In article <17135@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes:
> Peter, you talk about USENET like it is something that can be polluted.

I have two reasons for using the term "pollution". First, to concretize
the discussion by referring to a metaphor that most people are familiar with.
Secondly, because translating the term into an abstract provides a very
apt description of the phenomenon. What is being polluted, ultimately, is
people's time. Time that could be spent productively is wasted skipping
articles, or duplicating the effort spent by other people in designing the
current naming convention.

> And to counter your earlier swipe at me, rpp386 is NOT a C2 secure
> machine.

Well, when you talk about the "C2 secure UNIX system at your desk" it's a
natural conclusion to draw.

> Kindly keep your baseless insults in some other newsgroup.

The flippant response to this is to point out that I *did* keep it in another
newsgroup... comp.unix.questions. A more accurate response is that I'm sorry
you feel insulted by my posting, but I was rather angry at you at the time for
posting the message I was following up to. You did attack my own professional
skills and competance in a rather direct way. I apologise for responding in
kind.
-- 
Peter da Silva, *NIX support guy @ Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Biz: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Fun: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-'
                                                                           'U`
Quote: Structured Programming is a discipline -- not a straitjacket.