Subject: Re: (endp lst) or (null lst) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 05 Jan 2003 00:50:42 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3250716642954145@naggum.no> * Oleg <oleg_inconnu@myrealbox.com> | I do not like the feel-good aliases that a hex editor provides. I | think a real programmer needs to be fluent in thinking about bits | and should write his code as ones and zeros. I have been trying to understand your puzzling messages of late, but I find myself stumped. On the one hand, you appear to be an ESL speaker with zero appreciation for anything but the most concrete, plain meaning of the words, no ability to detect humor, no ability to understand any relationships or contrasts that are intended to impart something other than their most obvious meaning, generally no appreciation for the English language and human communication. And then you produce the above. Considering your track record as a humorless twit with no ability to read deeper meaning into your own or anyone else's words, and who has even attacked people viciously and rudely because /you/ fail to grasp their message, I believe the most likely reading of the above paragraph from you is that you mean it literally, but this marks you as a stunningly stupid person, in my view disgustingly retarded. Now, such an interpretation usually gives rise to the interpretation that it is /not/ meant literally, but you do not appear to have the non-literal-meaning module loaded, so the question becomes one of deciding whether your ability to read the real meaning in other people's messages is in any way related to your ability to say what you do not actually mean, as in advanced literary tools like irony, sarcasm, etc. If I were inclined to be generous to you, which I am really not considering your behavior towards me, I would simply believe that you were so stupid that you only understand your own humor, and that the above is actually an attempt on your part to be funny, which only failed. Instead, I think of you as someone who not only laughs at his own jokes even while others try to move away, but who lambasts people who make good jokes that make others laugh because you do not get it and are so stupid that you think you are the butt of all the jokes you do not get. Maybe you have been, maybe you are, for all I care, but using a public forum for your personal problems is not really a good idea if you want people to laugh /less/ at you. If someone shouts over a crowd "are there any morons in the house", taking personal offense at it is not smart. You know, "Oleg", I think humor is a good personality indicator. The problem is that different personalities tend not to understand each other's humor very well, or at all. I have this theory that there are "humor strata", and that people who are not communicating in the same humor statum would tend to take offense at what other people think are funny. But one quality appears to be common regardless of stratrum: The willingness to accept that something that would be too stupid or too ridiculous were it interpreted literally, might in fact be told in jest. I think you lack this willingness, and should consequently not depend upon others to have it towards you when you see so much hostility and negativity where there is none. In brief, you see only your own hostility in others. See a man with a degree and ask him to repair you, "Oleg". -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.