In article lgate.org,
"Michael Mcneil" writes:

The prick just wants to write to the group never mind what is said. If
he wanted to know anything about such a specialised subject he would
have got hold of some books on it by now.

I seem to remember making a comment about thinking before posting
before thinking some time back. Nobody heeded it, of course. Way
back when, one Mr. Marks suggested a period of some minutes
sitting on one's hands before posting would be a grand idea. In
the last year the signal to noise (which has become noise to
signal) ratio has worsened to the extent that the newsgroup is in
serious danger of becoming unusable. Unfortunately there are
people on this newsgroup who, having nothing to say, say it.
This, of course, dilutes any vestiges of credibility they may
have, and the astute subscribers to the newsgroup already know
that anyone who contributes more than half-a-dozen articles a day
is a wittering idiot. Quality rather than quantity, please.
Darryl Huff's "how to lie with statistics" is rather less than
150 pages long, but it is one of the best books I have ever read.
It may be coming up to its 50th birthday, but by reading it you
will learn more in a morning than you ever did in a year.

steps off soapbox

John Schmitt


--
If you have nothing to say, or rather, something extremely stupid
and obvious, say it, but in a 'plonking' tone of voice - i.e.
roundly, but hollowly and dogmatically. - Stephen Potter