META, [OT] namelessness WAS: Re: [OT] noise (was: Petition against OOXML)

[VirginSnow at vfemail.net]

> Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 18:33:20 -0400
> From: "Ben Scott" <dragonhawk at gmail.com>
> Subject: [OT] noise (was: Petition against OOXML)
> 
> On 7/9/07, VirginSnow at vfemail.net <VirginSnow at vfemail.net> wrote:
> > Actually, that used to be my name, but is no longer.
> 
>   So what do we call you?  "The account formerly known as Dave Montenegro"?

I, personally, don't feel a need to name myself anything.  I am not my
job.  I'm not where I went to college.  I'm not the town I live in.
And I am not my name.  I am who I am, right here and right now.
Everything else is just a distraction ("noise" as you so aptly put it)
obscuring who it is I really am.  It's a Zen thing. (spelled with a Z)

If you REALLY need to call me something, you can call me

  (LAMBDA (&rest args) (apply 'DAVE-MONTENEGRO args))

though "hey you" generally works just as well. :)

> Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 09:11:30 -0400
> From: "Tom Buskey" <tom at buskey.name>
> Subject: Re: The "cent key"

> I don't remember if the Apple ][ had @.  It had " above the 2 key.
> 
> Now if we can get the location of the ~ and ESC keys standardized.  Yes, I
> work on a variety of keyboards :-(  Esp. laptops.

Threads like this one on the cent key - consisting of lots of short,
curious, posts - really make me wish we had a #gnhlug on freenode or
something.

> Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 22:02:19 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Lori Nagel <jastiv at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Summer BBQ sign-ups...

> I think maybe it is getting lost in all the other email on the
> discuss list.  I have to delete most of it because if I spent all my
> time reading that, I wouldn't have time for anything else.  Maybe
> the discuss list should actually be made into more than one list?

This is a commonly recurring point.  Perhaps we could (not suggesting
that we necessarily SHOULD... but that we COULD) move the gnhlug
mailing lists into a newsgroup heirarchy and/or IRC channel...

sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.org
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.admin
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.jobs
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.jobs.announce
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.jobs.discuss
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.irc    # log of all the bantering on #gnhlug
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.linux
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.linux.news
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.linux.help
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.linux.proposals
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.linux.proposals.technology
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.linux.proposals.business
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.linux.surveys
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.linux.politics
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.linux.politics.advocacy
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.linux.humor
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.scifi
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.humor
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.politics
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.politics.advocacy
sci.comp.linux.lugs.gnhlug.discuss.ben
etc....

Then bind each newsgroup in the heirarchy to a correspondingly named
mailing list so that posts to one propagate to the other.  That way,
subscribers could receive/filter just what interests them.

> > Though I'm aware how easy it often is to nudge a thread totally
> > off-topic on this list, it wasn't my intent to hijack this one.
> 
>   Right, you just wanted to post about something completely unrelated.  ;-)

No, my comment was highly relevant to the OP on anti-OOXML advocacy.
So was Ted Roche's well thought-out followup to it.

> Doesn't have anything to do with the thread, though, so that makes it
> off-topic (for the thread).  Likewise your own remarks.  Nothing

That seems to depend whether you're reffering to being off-topic for
the list or off-topic for a given thread.  What does it really mean to
be "on-topic" for a thread?  Remember that threads aren't static.
They are constantly changing and morphing as they grow.  They are
dynamic entities.  Taking that line of thought to its logical
conclusion, threads shouldn't have static names.  So perhaps threads,
too, should be nameless. :)