web.479fb26b821471c45e094060@news.povray.org...

> you know, if you think Bertrand Russel's contribution to mankind is the 
> same as
> some underground band, you are in need of some serious perspective...

It reminds me of some brain-dead discussions at Wikipedia regarding page 
redirections. For instance, some folks apparently thought that the Java page 
should point first to the programming language or at least to a 
disambiguation page, with reasons like this one :

Actual WTF quote:  "I don't believe the island to hold much notability 
compared to coffee or the programming language."

I like geeks, but sometimes they should be forcefully dragged out of their 
cubicles/basements/hobbitholes and sent to work in some paddy fields for a 
while.

G.

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Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> nemesis wrote:

> > nothing like being ignorant and enjoying every bit of it! :P

> Do you know who the lead singer of Space is?

  If he is a professional musician one could perhaps expect him to know,
but since he probably isn't, then no such expectation is fair.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Invisible wrote:
>> you know, if you think Bertrand Russel's contribution to mankind is 
>> the same as
>> some underground band, you are in need of some serious perspective...
> 
> Oh, I see. So you think that I should know about every "important" 
> person in history?

No, it's just that if you choose to enter a discussion on something 
without doing any research (or being completely ignorant to the subject 
being discussed), you should expect to get flamed.

You mentioned Russell's Paradox earlier (which would make for a very 
quick and easy Google or Wikipedia search) and the article posted in the 
link had a link to a good description of it.  Given that much 
information in such a small thread, is there any justification for 
entering a conversation about a topic without knowing what's going on, 
let alone making a post simply saying "I don't know who Russell was or 
what his paradox is?"

I think that's the whole point of the remark that nemesis made earlier. 
  It's not like the information wasn't there, it's just that the 
information wasn't used at all.  Like I said, a brief scan of the linked 
article (followed by clicking a link right near the top of the page) or 
a Google/Wikipedia search would have returned more than enough data.

-- 
-Ian

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"Gilles Tran" <gil### [at] agroparistechfr> wrote:
> Actual WTF quote:  "I don't believe the island to hold much notability
> compared to coffee or the programming language."
>
> I like geeks, but sometimes they should be forcefully dragged out of their
> cubicles/basements/hobbitholes and sent to work in some paddy fields for a
> while.

LOL!  and the coffee got that alias because of?... :D

ok, but be nice to your geeks.  Wasn't it Billy G who said you might one day
work for one?

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>> Oh, I see. So you think that I should know about every "important" 
>> person in history?
> 
> No, it's just that if you choose to enter a discussion on something 
> without doing any research (or being completely ignorant to the subject 
> being discussed), you should expect to get flamed.

Hmm, let's see now. I commented that normal programmers worry about 
practical matters while this Haskell programmer is debating abstract set 
theory. And somebody said "ah, so you know who Russell is then?", and I 
just pointed out that I don't. And now I'm being yelled at. Again.

Who Russell is and what the paradox is about is rather orthoganol to the 
point I was actually trying to make...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
>
> > you know, if you think Bertrand Russel's contribution to mankind is the same as
> > some underground band, you are in need of some serious perspective...
>
> Oh, I see. So you think that I should know about every "important"
> person in history?
>
> You know, there were quite a few of them...

then I'd recommend you to start by the ones notable in your interest fields...
:)

you could start by developing an interest into knowing the why of certain
paradoxes and techniques having funky names, like: Russel's paradox,

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > nemesis wrote:
>
> > > nothing like being ignorant and enjoying every bit of it! :P
>
> > Do you know who the lead singer of Space is?
>
>   If he is a professional musician one could perhaps expect him to know,
> but since he probably isn't, then no such expectation is fair.

I could be a classical pianist and still have no clue of some obscure rock
band... Bertrand Russel is far from being obscure.  The examples don't match.

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>> Oh, I see. So you think that I should know about every "important"
>> person in history?
>>
>> You know, there were quite a few of them...
> 
> then I'd recommend you to start by the ones notable in your interest fields...
> :)

History isn't one of my fields of interest. [Unless you mean geological 
and biological history...] Different things interest different people.

> you could start by developing an interest into knowing the why of certain
> paradoxes and techniques having funky names, like: Russel's paradox,




I'll admit I have often wondered why all the best stuff was invented by 
people who weren't British. Presumably because the cardinality of the 
set of all British people is far smaller than that of the complement set...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>>> Do you know who the lead singer of Space is?
>>   If he is a professional musician one could perhaps expect him to know,
>> but since he probably isn't, then no such expectation is fair.
> 
> I could be a classical pianist and still have no clue of some obscure rock
> band... Bertrand Russel is far from being obscure.  The examples don't match.

True story: A friend of mine left the cinema after watching Titanic, and 
overheard a couple of people talking.

"Did you know it's based on a real story?"

"Don't be stupid!"

"No, seriously. There REALLY WAS a ship called Titanic and it sank."

"Yeah, well, I bet they've exaggerated it a bit..."

Draw your own conclusions.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:


I'll let Gilles handle that... but I spell it quite like "Monsieur"...

> I'll admit I have often wondered why all the best stuff was invented by
> people who weren't British. Presumably because the cardinality of the
> set of all British people is far smaller than that of the complement set...

oh, please!  You're a friggin' geek of the best kind!  How can a geek not get
interested in small irrelevant details?! Like origins and authors of major
breakthrough theories...

it's an aberration!  That's it:  I'm demoding you from your geek privileges!
From now on, you're a freak! :P

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