[LAU] OT: Top Posting [Was: Linux compatible keybord controller?]

[Rustom Mody]

On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 2:46 PM, Chris Bannister
<cbannister at slingshot.co.nz> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 03, 2014 at 10:41:29AM +0530, Rustom Mody wrote:
>> On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 11:17 PM, Ralf Mardorf
>> <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net> wrote:
>> > I will be quiet now, since I try to learn not to follow my bad habit to
>> > write too much mails and to reply to myself :D.
>> >
>> > Just a nice joke, how far opinions could go:
>> >
>> > http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2013-December/255217.html
>> >
>> > :)
>>
>> Thanks Ralf for making me laugh
>
> Do you have to be a non English speaker to understand it?
> I get the '@' symbol means 'at', but don't understand 'get' the reply,
> despite it being poor English. Or is that part of the joke?
> #mystified

When you put it like that, I am not sure I understand either
All I can say is I read it hm.. read it again hmmm... and then I laughed.
Why...???

Well an explanation may be that across widely differing cultures
things that were taken for granted need to be carefully asserted.

Two examples:
1. Outside an elevator is the notice: "Dogs must be carried in the elevator"
Now aside from obvious understanding barriers like:
- not being able to read
- thinking its just a design not a writing/notice
- connecting 'the elevator' with THIS elevator

there is one more (and to me amusing) interpretation:
In order to enter the elevator you must bring a dog which you must carry

2. This is a programming example.
Given an array:
int a[N];
a is sorted iff a[0] <= a[1] <= ... <= a[N-1]

For most programmers this would be enough to specify 'sorted'
but for a math/logic proving software doing
a[0] = a[1] = ... a[N-1] = 42
makes that spec true.  Ruling out such manifestly improper
interpretations turns out to be considerably harder

And that is why that snippet of Ralf reminded me of Culture and Empire
-- more and more I feel we oldies dont get what the modern world is
about. In Douglas Adams words:

1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is
incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career
out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the
natural order of
things and the beginning of the end of civilisation

Rusi

PS. I 'corrected' the To list taking it as an oversight. If not my apologies

--
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