Microsoft has been 'Hiring People Like Mad' for third-generation 'Xbox 720'

... snip ...

No, a 1MbpS link is fast. A 56 kbpS link is also fast. A large part of the world does not have access to high speed links, or does not want to spend the fees involved. Today I would concede that a

2400 bpS link is considered slow. Likewise 110 and 300 baud. Even 12 kbPS.

Your technique is cluttering up communications with all dial-up systems, to no good purpose.

Note also that your technique has lost the attributions, which belong at the start of the article ONLY.

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 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: 
            Try the download section.

Didi confusingly top-posted, quoting (I think) Michael N. Moran:

At least I may find out what that mysterious

Isn't it a line in "I am the Walrus" ?

Cheers, Mike. (Who's been a satisfied customer of Teranews for maybe 5 years now)

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      Mike Hore     mike_horeREM@OVE.invalid.aapt.net.au
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I do assume people of reasable judgment.

Ahh, but is it a neglible cost? Having to scroll through extraneous text to get to the next message is small price for any one message, likewise missing attributions. Over multiple messages it adds up.

As I said I find it harder to read and I said why.

That's part of it certainly.

If it was the whole of it, however, we would be using web forums rather than Usenet. A fate too horrible to contemplate :(

The stablished conventions also make it easier to follow conversations even though they often appear in different orders in different places.

Robert

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Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Reasonable.

And sometimes they can even spell correctly.

Robert

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Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

In message , Didi writes

Top posting, removing attributes sig too long

now personal insults.

Are you deliberately trying to piss people off?

Any way do explain how come you have "a number of times your expertise" I assume you are trying to say you have far more experience than me? How do you know that?

Anyway having the experience and being able to communicate in a manner acceptable to society are two differently things. So far you don't appear to have that skill. As yet I have no indication of your superior experience (and I have looked at your web site).

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\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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But the original context is already available at negligible cost. One simply refers back to the earlier messages in the thread. It is, however, rare to have to do this, since most people who read a message will have read the original within recent memory.

When in conversation, I don't generally repeat back what the other person has just said. Newsgroups are only marginally less immediate than that. Frankly, most messages in most groups over-quote to a horrendous extent.

It is indeed, typically. But one of the arguments of the "bottom posting" religion followers is that this is usenet and not a web forum and the context might not be available. Sounds a bit hollow nowadays but rather than scratch my head I just choose to accept it and move on.

Well the quoted part is good for readers entering the conversation at a later point or archive readers etc. Nothing wrong with it.

I 100% agree with that. This is why I choose to provide the complete c>

How about replies with well-trimmed context at the top (using bottom- posting style) followed by a unique delimiter followed by a complete text of the entire quoted subthread; this would make browsing replies in an interactive style easier while still providing full archived context.

My reply does this as an example.

Michael

----------------------------THREAD CONTEXT------------------------------ (NOTE: quoted text's missing attributions are original):

... snip ...

True. However, one principle that should be followed is that all messages should stand by themselves. There is no guarantee, in Usenet, that any previous or future messages are, or will be, visible to the receiver.

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 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: 
            Try the download section.

... snip ...

Then you haven't been reading many messages.

Note that this only quotes the part to which I am replying.

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 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: 
            Try the download section.

Didi writes: [attribution of next line omitted by "Didi"]

You and Bill Gates will get along famously! "Why not waste all the resources possible? The suckers will just go out and buy more hardware." [The IC manufacturers must love M$!]

Not really. His OS needs a DVD (or at least a CD) to install, mine takes a few (well below 10) megabytes, and can be minimized to well below 1M with some functionality stripped.

As usual, the key to being reasonable is doing the math. I did already point out why the cost is negligible. You would have seen that if you wanted to.

If you work hard every day to save a cent, at the end of the month you will have saved a whole 30 cents. What is hard? Well, depends on how much work are you willing to do per month to save 30 cents .... Anything beyond that is hard.

Dimiter

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Everett M. Greene wrote:

I don't think the absence of *guarantees* is a problem.

If we are talking about contributors to a thread, it is to be hoped that (somehow) they are following the thread they are replying to and it is unlikely that they'll lose the thread the day after they start contributing to it.

The worst case is finding a thread several years after the event, but if the archive you are using was good enough to dig out one message from several years ago, it can probably dig out the others. Most conversations lose their importance after a few years, but for those that don't, the context is usually there if you're willing to hunt a little.

The Beatles "Come Together" lyric "... one and one and one is three ..." is taken *way* out of context... add a geek twist having to do with boolean logic and a little quasyi C syntax and you can "clearly" see that (1 & 1 & 1) == 1 ... or put another way (1 & 1 & 1) != 3 and therefore The Beatles are wrong ;-)

Appologies ...

The problem is that the change is one that *you* have made and it has not following ... religious or otherwise.

Therefore, as I said previously, you have introduced a new convention rather than simply conforming to either of the (at least two) existing conventions. The result is more churn and less communication.

IOW, change can be good unless it begets thrashing.

I'm hardly a religious fanatic ... in fact I rarely weigh-in on issues of style.

I'm not really concerned about bandwidth, although wasting anything doesn't appeal to my inner tree-hugger ;-)

I knew there was something wrong with *me*. What is this normal thing to which you refer? ;-)

Well, I've learned that people tend to become more entrenched in their own opinions the more they are badgered by others... so I'll not say anything more.

And I certainly won't be ignoring your posts, since I find your on-topic experience is valuable with an interesting point-of-view. Something about throwing a baby out with bathwater...

--
Michael N. Moran           (h) 770 516 7918
5009 Old Field Ct.         (c) 678 521 5460
Kennesaw, GA, USA 30144    http://mnmoran.org

"So often times it happens, that we live our lives in chains
  and we never even know we have the key."
"Already Gone" by Jack Tempchin (recorded by The Eagles)

The Beatles were wrong: 1 & 1 & 1 is 1

Thanks! This is apparently one of the few texts of theirs I have not memorized, probably because I never liked that song that much and I have been last listening to it last many years ago, when my English was not good enough to get the words... I guess I'll give it a go now, may be to find out I am still unable to get the words (mind you, I am capable to clearly understand say interviews of English football players and coaches - with some exceptions, W. Rooney and A. Ferguson coming to mind first... :-).

Dimiter

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Michael N. Moran wrote:

Nothing breaks the train of thought faster than having to search through a message looking for content while reading a thread. Lost and misplaced messages in newsgroups are rare nowadays.

Leaving the context following is a way to tie it all together if needed.

Walter..

CBFalc> Ken Hagan wrote:

Exactly. And placing replies before the quotes (i.e. top-posting) and thus failing to properly snip, is one of the ideal ways to break it all up.

Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all irrelevant material. I fixed this one. See the following links:

(taming google) (newusers)

--
 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: 
            Try the download section.

Yes it is. It may not be a frequent problem. Usenet is delivered on a 'best efforts' model. A message is transmitted to another station. If it gets there, fine. If it is refused, or fouled, there is no need to retry it, and it may be lost IN THAT PATH. The mechanism also means that replies to a query may arrive before the query does.

--
 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: 
            Try the download section.

So you thought Walter never saw one of your unending messages of this kind and you felt you had to add some more clutter to the group.

And you thought the first ton of such messages you wrote me was not enough so it was time to start with the second ton.

Come to think of it, there is not a single contributor to this group who has produced a remotely comparable amount of useless clutter to the amount that you have authored.

Please restrict your "do not top post" posts to newcomers, the rest of us know the contents of your posts with reasonable certainty before you have even started to type them....

Hopeless? I guess so.

Dimiter

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CBFalc> Walter Banks wrote: ** and t> >> Ken Hagan wrote: