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From: Anthony Potts <potts@afsmail.cern.ch>
Subject: Re: Do philosophers have brains? Or what? 
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Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 16:59:15 GMT
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On Sun, 28 Jan 1996, Brian J Flanagan wrote:

> On Sun, 28 Jan 1996 zare@cco.caltech.edu wrote:
> 
> > >
> > What the hell was this? First, you posted private e-mail. This is
> > considered extremely rude; see news.announce.newusers . Second, you
> > didn't send me a copy directly. Third, your post is still completely
> > irrelevant to the numerous newsgroups to which you posted. Except for a
> > correct use of the word "hebetude", your post had no value whatsoever.
> > Please learn some netiquette unless you want to continue projecting
> > boorish cluelessness to hundreds of thousands of people. 
> > 
> > Douglas Zare
> > 
> 
He certainly does. Mr Zare sent me a few emails demanding an apology a 
while back when he thought that I had posted inappropriately. He seems to 
be under the impression that there are a set of rules governing the 
usenet, and that he is the self appointed policeman who enforces them. If 
you poke him a bit, you will be treated to some spectacular displays of 
arrogance and bluster. It is very easy, all you need is a simple piece of 
equipment such as a viewpoint which disagrees with him, or something 
which is slightly at a tangent to what he thinks a thread is about. You 
simply light the fuse, stand well back, and wait for the explosion to 
happen. If it does not happen, you are probably safe to try re-lighting it.

Another good game is to see if you can spot the mistakes in my grammar 
and spelling as quickly as he does. Whilst trying out his air of humbly 
looking for an apology, he will snidely try to pick faults in your 
typing, as though he thinks that this is the Times letter page rather 
than a newsgroup. All in all, he provided me with an interesting view 
into the life of a person who is obsessed with trivia to the extent that 
a single line of poorly arranged text is of more importance to him than 
what is going on in the real world. It was quite educational and amusing 
really.

I hope that you all have fun at home with this experiment. Tune in next 
week when I will be showing you how to make a dog whistle from an empty 
paper cup and a half kilogram of plutonium.

Cheers,

Anthony Potts

