EH>> You certainly don't act it. You act like you are in your teens.

 ml> now you see what i was seeing when i caught up on the 200+ echos my
 ml> system carries for fidonet ;)

 EH> I can't imagine why anyone would want to read that many echoes. 

i don't necessarily want to but as a sysop and a hub for fidonet, i do
carry them on my system... i've been doing this since before fidonet's
policy 4 was put into place and, in fact, cast a vote in that selection
process... that was back in '89 but i'd been involved with fidonet for
about two years or more before then... i'm thinking at least '87 but may
have been as early as mid-'86...

you asked me previously what my purpose was for being here... well, i guess
you could say that i'm an enabler in similar vein that rossC is... in fact,
he and i were some of the original members of at least one of the fidonet
backbones and i've been a member of two or three others... sometimes
together but most times separately... i'm one of the poor fools that enable
you folks to carry on like savages and children as well as like the decent
adults that most folk are... yes, even when they are acting out their
"baddest" or just antagonizing others for the game and the chase,
they are still decent and good people...

as for reading, i've several reader configurations... the one i'm currently
using takes its configs directly off the master setup... this allows me to
ensure that the mail is flowing and there's nothing out of sync or echos
crossed linked...

something else that comes to mind is that in many places, a sysop is
responsible for what his system contains... this means that one either
monitors everything or nothing... there is no half-way and deity forbid
that a sysop misses something that could bring him down... that, however,
falls into the category of encryption and hiding messages within what
appear to be legitimate messages... some of what i have seen has been
legitimate messages with more than one hidden one within them... real fun
to suss /that/ stuff out... really fun... not!

[trim]

 ml> that'd be tantamount to forcing Yale (or Harvard) folks choose
 ml> (fictional) "Harvard-Yale University" when they went to Yale or
 ml> Harvard...

 EH> That's just not right.

no kidding! that's the way i feel, too...

 ml> damned young'uns don't understand school rivalries like we used to ;)

 EH> I remember when I was a senior and one of our rivals filled our
 EH> courtyard with cabbage. The principle made the jocks clean it up.
 EH> Man it stunk! 

so, what'd you do to pay them back?

this isn't a HS prank but did you hear what happened to CalTech's Flemming
House cannon? ;)

[trim]

 EH>>> I don't pretend to know all the dynamics of trying to stem the flow
 EH>>> of an oil gusher a mile under the sea.

 ml>> why should that be a requirement for coming up with an idea that might
 ml>> help the stem the flow of material from that hole in the ground?? i've
 ml>> definitely not seen that listed as a requirement... have you??

 EH>> It certainly is a requirement for workable ideas.

 ml> say what? having a piece of sheepskin on the wall is a requirement for a
 ml> workable idea to stop the flow of oil? if that's the case, then it is
 ml> easy enough to fulfill... deity knows there's numerous diploma and
 ml> degree spammers out there who will sell ya a piece of sheepskin in a
 ml> heartbeat...

 EH> I didn't say a degree on your wall was a requirement, I said
 EH> knowledge of all the dynamics involved.

right right right... i got lost in the sheepskin rant... my bad... sorry
about that...

 EH> Usually engineers or scientists would have a better idea of what 
 EH> may work and what may not. Just the fact that all the things they 
 EH> have tried and failed shows that it takes more than a casual 
 EH> knowledge of what is going on down there.

ya think?! hehehe... i agree, to a point... that point being that with over
38000 suggestions from all over the world, there may very well be a diamond
in all that coal and it could be that a HS student sent it in... ya never
know...

 EH>> The pressures down there are extreme plus they have to use remote
 EH>> unmanned underwater rovers to do all the mechanical work. Their
 EH>> diamond saw was stuck on one of the pipes and now they aren't sure
 EH>> it's even working now that it's free.

 ml> yes, i watched that via the live feed...

 EH> I wouldn't want to be the one operating the ROV. The pressure on
 EH> that person must be more than the pressures 5000 feet below them.

i dunno but those guys are damned good at what they do... i've seen those
ROVs just hover there with absolutely no apparent movement... i was
watching one the other day and this thing was dancing all over the place...
then i noticed the depth numbers were not in the 4000's and i said, they
must be surfacing for something... all of a sudden, there we were, lifting
out of the water into some pretty rough seas... the camera was point down
so i couldn't see straight out but it was pretty grey and after some 10 or
15 minutes of being placed on the deck, there was still a lot of water
coming down in torrents... a bit later i saw some feet approach from the
side of the frame and some equipment and tools were set down at the base of
the ROV... some time later i saw that unit was back in the water on its way
to do something other than what it had been doing previously...

very very very interesting stuff... boring as hell, though, between
action... kinda like watching the NASA channel while the crew on the ISS
are sleeping :lol:

 ml> i don't doubt that some knowledge of the pressures and other things
 ml> being run into would be a benefit but geez, these guys don't seem to
 ml> have it all together even with their sheepskins... no one has ever had
 ml> to work at these pressures so this is a learning experiance for all
 ml> anyway... as far as having a sheepskin as a requirement or qualification
 ml> goes, one can wear it as a loincloth for all the good they seem to be
 ml> doing at the moment...

 EH> That's what it looks like watching the feed, but those guys are
 EH> working almost around the clock trying to come up with something
 EH> that will work. 

oh yeah, i'm very aware of this... we won't even mention the time it takes
to ascend and decend when tools and such need to be changed out or
something needs to be taken up or brought down...

[trim]

 EH>>> There you go with that high opinion again. You really
 EH>>> should get help.

 ml>> consider this as my therapy, then :P ;)

 EH>> You need serious therapy.

 ml> but but but... where's your sheepskin, doc?

 EH> I wear it as a loin cloth.

hahahaha! i see you took my suggestion :lol:

 ml>> oh wait! are you telling me that i should "get help" as
 ml>> in getting some others to come in and join the fray?

 EH>> No, you need professional help.

 ml> there are professional shit slingers, ya know... i'll make a phone call
 ml> :P :lol:

 EH> They are all being employed by the White House.

not all of them... there's a bunch out there "on the other side"
(as some would put it) who aren't in the whitehouse like they once were ;)

 ml>> then the question comes to mind of "what are your
qualifications that
 ml>> enable you to tell me in need to seek some sort of assitance for some
 ml>> problem that you think i have?" that also brings the
question of "what
 ml>> qualifications do you have to determine that i (may) have a
problem??"

 EH>> It's just an observation.

 ml> and one highly limited to a tiny section of glass or plastic surrounded
 ml> by a plastic bezel ;) too bad you can't really see or get to know me
 ml> like that... oh well... yer still learnin' ain'cha? ah no ah iz ever
 ml> day... it bees much fun, to! :lol:

 EH> Hey, I have a 23" 1080p LCD monitor here. Lots of real estate. 

but it is still a small portion when compared to really getting to know
someone in real life and in person ;) we won't even get into the emoticon
vs. real body language and vocal inflections stuff but you know what i'm
speaking of :)

[trim]

 EH>> I couldn't care less why you thought it was relevant.

 ml> "couldn't care less" or "could care less"?? one
of those phrases means
 ml> quite the opposite of what most folk think it does when they mistakenly
 ml> use it in place of the other ;)

 EH> If I could care less, I would have said so, but I tried and I
 EH> couldn't. 

ahhh... then you already care as little as you can even if there's less and
less caring you could do ;) that's good to know... at least you haven't
gotten to the bottom where there is no caring at all... that indicates that
you do care some ;) :P

 ml> [trim]

 ml>> where has that been stated by my writtings? i can tell you... no
 ml>> where... maybe you could try another tactic? possibly one that has some
 ml>> bearing on what really happened? are you psychic?

 EH>> You may have tried hard to cover up the fact that you didn't do a
 EH>> search, but it is blatantly obvious from looking at the fact that
 EH>> it took only seconds to find citation with the simplest of search
 EH>> terms.

 ml> terms that you chose to use... obviously they were not the ones i chose
 ml> to use... that or our search settings are highly different from each
 ml> other... do you leave the pr0n filter on or turn it off?

 EH> They were the very words I had posted to you... "Obama
 EH> administration gives safety award to BP Deepwater Horizon"

yeah, see? that's a natural language construct and that's not how google is
actually set up to operate... sure, it works in many cases but... i
definitely wasn't trying to be that "wordy" in my search...
there's no way to repeat the search and have the same results, either...
especially since there's a lot of new stuff that's been indexed and the
rankings adjusted o'er the last week or so...

[trim]

 EH>>> I'm not picking nits, I'm pointing out your lack of honesty.

 ml>> ORLY? you must be psychic... tell us what the winning powerball numbers
 ml>> for tomorrow's drawing, please ;) while you're at it, tell us how you
 ml>> know that i'm being dishonest...

 EH>> It's easy to see your dishonesty. No psychic powers needed.

 ml> then you are as blind as the proverbial bat... i have no reason not to
 ml> be honest and, quite frankly, i cannot stand a liar so give it up...

 EH> Are you calling me a liar?

you're calling me one... turn about and all that... goose and gander... pot
and kettle... see?

[trim]

 EH>> Yes, you did. You made the claim that you could find nothing,

 ml> that was not a claim... that was a fact... the terms i used resulted in
 ml> nothing related to BP that i could easily see...

 EH> So, you don't know how to do a relevant search?

phuuuleeze... i've been on the 'net since archie and veronica were all the
rage ;) i won't even bring up how much search methods have changed over all
the years :P

 EH>> implying that it wasn't there.

 ml> that's your own stupidity and/or ignorance sticking its foot in your
 ml> mouth... i never implied such and neither did my writen words... you put
 ml> that implication there with your interpretation which should never have
 ml> been done in the first place...

 EH> So, it's my fault you claimed you couldn't find it?

no... read my paragraph again... HINT: it doesn't say anything about it
being your fault that my search failed to turn up anything meaningful... it
speaks directly to your interpretation of what i wrote...

 ml> do you use a left or right handed spinmaster?

 EH> I don't do spin. I gather information and make my own conclusion. 

left handed or right handed?

[trim]

 EH>>> You made the claim, back it up. You are the one claiming I have
 EH>>> heroes and that I emulate them. Either you had some idea who these
 EH>>> supposed heroes are, or you're just shooting in the dark.

 ml>> you made the claim that i'm being dishonest... you made the claim
 ml>> that i stated there was no evidence on the internet of an award 
 ml>> given by the current administration to BP for that oil well... 
 ml>> how's about you start off by backing those up ;)

 EH>> I have backed up every claim I have made.

 ml> no you haven't... not with physical verifiable data and evidence... you
 ml> loose again!

 EH> Huh? verifiable by whom?

let's keep this in context... physical and verifiable data and evidence
concerning my search attempt, what terms i used, and what the results
were...

now that we're clear on that, physical evidence needs to be gathered first
before any type of verifiability can be considered... no matter who may be
qualified for that verification job... since you have no physical evidence
of what terms i used or their results, there cannot be any backing up of
any claim to come from your side of the table... everything else is talk
talk or some might consider it as strawmen or possibly even some sort of
spinmastering to confuse the situation... that's politics and homey ain't
playing that game, either :P :)

 EH>> You, OTOH, have been going in circles trying to keep from backing
 EH>> up any of your claims.

 ml> nope... wrong again... you obviously don't know what i'm doing and
 ml> you're stuck in some mode that won't let you step back far enough to see
 ml> it... sorry 'bout that...

 EH> I doubt you know what you are doing. But, keep on doing it if it
 EH> makes you happy.

hahahaha... i'm gonna have to keep you around... you make me laugh and
laughter is good for the soul :)

[trim]

 EH>>> You think you are clever, but you really aren't.

 ml>> sounds like you have a personal problem there ;)

 EH>> That's right, make your behavior my problem. Typical.

 ml> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... dude! you kill me!! i'm not making my behavior
 ml> your problem... i'm making YOUR behavior YOUR problem...
 ml> GetItTogether! :ROTFLMAO:

 EH> What behavior? You came in here on the attack, that's your problem.

uh... sorry... i've been "in here" since this echo first appeared
on the fidonet backbone... i've been here all the time... was having a
rather decent nap until the neighborhood got all loud and in an uproar...
all i've done is to point out the schoolyard bullying and incessent
attacking of individuals from supposed adults... it doesn't matter if it is
wayne or you who are being attacked... it just so happened that i chose one
of your posts to broach the situation and point out the problem... /that's/
the (kind of) behavior i'm speaking of...

 EH>>>> You make a comment and when challenged, you act like you're too
 EH>>>> smart to deal with such questions. Either back up your claims, or
 EH>>>> crawl back under the rock you came from.

 EH>>> 

 ml>> awww... you didn't like that?

 EH>> I thought it was childish. "Like" has nothing to do with it.

 ml> maybe you'd prefer something like this?

 EH> 

uhhh... i didn't realize that you were NNTP encumbered... switch your news
reader to use a monospaced font and it'll make a lot more sense...
proportional fonts really suck when viewing ASCII charts, graphs and art...
web browsers fail too... especially when they disregard multiple spaces and
tabs ;) try it! i think you'll like it... it is actually pretty good :)

)\/(ark