BV> and you still need to ask your deity questions like these ?

PE> Also, he hasn't made a remark along the lines of "... use to see

BTW, I should answer this in part by reference to a story...

I was asking this guy I know from school called Greg Medley
what the minimum sustenance diet was (after all, he'd done
Grade 11 + 12 Biology and I expected answers!).  I eventually
got exact quantities of rice, bran, etc out of him.  I then
needed to know the price of all these things, so got him to
come up with values for them.  At one stage, after saying he
didn't know the price of soya beans 3 times, he said "Let me
guess what is going to happen.  You're going to badger me
about this until I come up with a number, and when I do you
are going to then badger me until I swear on my mother's
grave that that number is absolutely accurate, 100% 
guaranteed".  I thought this was quite amusing, and it is
indeed my style.

Anyway, another one of my favourite people was this electronics
guy at uni in Rockhampton.  I can't actually remember his name,
but anyway, I found him a great source of information which I
found incredibly useful, just the way I like it - tidy.  Anyway,
he once told me "When I answer questions, if I don't know the
answer, I theorize".  This was meant to be a warning to me, but
I didn't mind about that!  [later: his name was Russell -something-]

So now we have Rod, is in fact not the same as either of these
people.  He is in fact someone who knows a lot of stuff, but
for whatever reason, never (or almost never) answers a question
straight.  He answers half of it.  You then have to ask again
for the other half, and then he answers half of that.  Etc, etc
ad infinitum.  You eventually get to a point where you are
happy to put up with 90% of the question answered, and off you
go.  That assumes he actually knows the answer.  If he doesn't
know the answer, the chances are that he knows part of the
answer.  By mixing the part-answer with a bit of stuff you
weren't actually asking, he manages to get the answer to look
the same size as a proper answer.  I think it is a strange
phenomena, but then probably people think the same thing about
my answers (I assume that's why they keep calling me a 
dickhead, anyway).

Unfortunately those other guys aren't in these echos, but Rod is,
so I put up with the ever-decreasing-circles technique.

What would you prefer I did?  I ask questions in public echos,
which means anyone is free to reply.  The reason that 
particular question about stocks was sent directly to him was
that it was actually a continuation of a conversation I had
with him about a year ago.  I couldn't be bothered going and
searching for the "end" of that thread, so just carried on as
though we all knew that that conversation had never ended.

However, this isn't about this thread in particular, you are
questioning why I am always asking Rod.  If you had actually
bothered to look, you will find that the vast majority of my
questions initially go to "All", not Rod.  Of course, if Rod
replies with insufficient information, I reply to him for a
follow-up.  Just as I replied to you when you gave me information
about graphics programming.  The graphics programming was a
good example, because I could tell from your replies that you
actually knew the answer, you just weren't capable of 
answering it in a manner which was acceptible to us both.  *I*
do not buy millions of books, and then read them (BTW, it 
takes me an hour per page or something to read a technical book,
although messages and cowboy books do not have this problem.
The main problem is that I keep going off on a tangent for
every bloody line the bastards write).  *You* do not seem to 
have the ability of summarizing what *you* know, without having
to reference any books, into the space of about a paragraph.
You really should learn to work on that one Brenton, you either
give 0 information, or far in excess of what I asked for (or
want).  When I asked for some example variables that would
represent a "world", what I was hoping you would do is go
something like this, straight from your head:

Briefly, you need something similar to:

char bricks[4000];

struct grooblie1
{
    int xpos;
    int ypos;
    
    int colour;
    char pixelmap[400];
}

I wrote that in less than 1 minute.

That then enables me to look at that, and ask my next question,
which won't be about the pixelmap, nor the colour, nor the
xpos, nor the ypos, since I can guess what all of them are.
The bricks I would probably respond to, with something like:

I suppose I use an enum such as:

enum { HORIZ_BRICK, PLUS_BRICK, ROUND_BRICK };

etc?

Just to make sure you weren't planning on putting a bitmap
pattern in that brick array.  Something like that.  I really
can't tell what the convo would have gone like, because you
basically didn't reply.

If I had wanted the CCIR specs, I would have asked for them,
AFTER you had told me the resolution was .  Actually,
I wouldn't have even asked, I would have just written them
down.  Bob says that no-one checks his figures, he can quote
whatever figures he wants.  This is true.  Asking for answers
to technical questions is not a game, it is a knowledge
gathering process.  Very few people think that it is appropriate
to try to play silly buggers on such an issue.  Of course, we
all know the real reason Bob chose to play silly buggers on
that thread.

Anyway, I realise you don't have time at the moment to provide
straight, simple answer to technical questions, you only just
have enough time to slang off at others who are attempting to
engage in a conversation (funny as it may seem, I am actually
interested in what simple techniques are available to judge
a mining stock.  The reason is that from my own number 
crunching, I came up with a list of 10 stocks.  If I could
refine it down to 3 stocks using some of Rod's methods,
basically there is nothing to lose, I was going to choose
3 of the stocks anyway).  However, when you get some more time,
I would be more than delighted to continue where we left off
with an answer to the game-programming "how to represent a 
world in a program".  If you are interested in that convo, I
will go and find the original question where the thread between
you and I stopped.  If you would prefer to discuss the various
methods available to reduce twinkle on teletext, we can do that
too.  Here is where we were up to on that one:

BV> Stick your fucking teletext up your fucking arse

PE> You stick YOUR fucking teletext up YOUR fucking arse

Or neither.  Or both.  Your call.  Otherwise, just expect to 
see me continue asking Rod questions, since his replies are
FAR more valuable than the information you may or may not
have, but most certainly you are unwilling to tell me, which
is the equivalent of not having it anyway.  BFN.  Paul.
@EOT:

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