On Sun, April 15, 2007 5:05 pm, Mark Seven Smith wrote:
> On 4/15/07, Gus Wirth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Lan Barnes wrote:
>> > http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130717-pg,1/article.html
>> >
>> I also read Slashdot. This is a month old and already fixed.
>> Gus
>
>>From the PCWORLD article:
>
> ""You may be vulnerable if you do not manually patch your
> MadWi-Fi driver," said Butti. Before making it public, he
> shared the flaw with the MadWi-Fi development team,
> who have released a patch. However, not all Linux
> distributions have yet built the patch into their code, said Butti."
>
-snip of a lot of stuff I mostly agree with-
Hey, Mark! Long time no beep! Don't stay away like that, man, I worry
about you.
I kinda agree with what you said about lists and appreciate your leaping
to my defense, but there's a back story to Gus's and my email
relationship. Gus enjoys slapping me up on the list because he thinks I'm
lazy about researching things on my own. He thinks that because, well, I
really can be[0].
Then I push back also on the list because I think he's being cantankerous
(I'm sure I spelled that wrong, but Carl, my other email nemesis, will
ceetainly let me know off list). I think that because, well, ...
That said, no one has been more generous to me and to others with his
knowledge and his time (and occaisonally, his hand-me-downs) than Gus. So
it's a game we play[1].
On the subject of how quickly someone should ask for help or what
constitutes something on topic or "new" enough to deserve posting, I tend
to be on the way-permissive side. Just because I've known something for
years doesn't mean someone else hasn't just struggled with it. Likewise,
what's new to me might be something one of our pioneers has followed for
years and perhaps even originated (Phil Karns and ssh for example).
But others obviously disagree and have recently posted that the
discussions are too trivial for them or lack the buzz of cutting edge
topicality. Everyone's mileage varys.
So I'd recommend you not let the one incident color your attitude about
the list.
[0] It's a philosophical thing, really. Most archives are for-shit useless
("Subject: NEED IMMEDIATE HELP!!!!"). FAQs and wikis with notable
exceptions aren't much better. Half the computer books you buy have lousy
indexes and poor TOCs. The HOWTOs on the LDP tend to be for the writer's
HW and years old.
So the question is, how much of your own time are you honor bound to burn
before you ask? I mean, we're not in school any more -- it isn't
"cheating" to ask. Or do I have to spend a month reading C++ source code
before I can raise my hand?
I figure if you google the error message, try apropos, and scan the index
and TOC of your books and docs, and it's still no closer, just ask.
[1] At least, it's fun for me. It may actually annoy the hell out of Gus,
in which case his generosity is all the more amazing. But if it does, I
don't want to know.
--
Lan Barnes
SCM Analyst Linux Guy
Tcl/Tk Enthusiast Biodiesel Brewer
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
