Mxx Observation

We used to call that the "infinite monkey theorem", which has since been
diproved by the internet.

Al G


"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...
Sort of like the old axiom that says;
"If you sit a chimp down in front of a typewriter and let him bang away,
sooner or later if he dosen't run out of food he'll manage to write War
and Peace :-)
Dudley Henriques

"Al G" wrote in message
...
You're right, of course, Dudley. I particularly liked Jay's comment,
"That pig will learn to sing yet."

Al G


"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
news
What I find interesting are the various reactions to this poster. The
bandwidth expended on this person is unbelievable.
My read on it is this FWIW;

This scenario is nothing new to Usenet. This type of thing has been
going on in Usenet for as long as I can remember.
Each person encountering someone like Mxsmanic has to make up their own
mind how and/or even if they want to interact with him (her or
whatever).
Personally, I ran across this person on another newsgroup and formed an
opinion after a few exchanges that led to a decision simply to not post
to him/her/whatever.
On Usenet, you make these decisions right or wrong based on what is
exchanged between you and another poster and how the exchange goes
between you and that poster. Mutual respect and mutual common courtesy
are easy enough to recognize both if present or absent, and if you
believe these things are missing, you just disengage.
Sometimes this poses a secondary decision if the poster you wish to
disengage with reposts again to you. The process is simple really. You
judge these things and make these decisions on a constant basis on
Usenet.
In this specific case, involving this poster, I simply feel there is
nothing to be gained from any interaction between the two of us. I don't
hate this poster, nor do I even dislike this poster. I simply have made
a calculated decision based on my initial exchanges with
him/her/whatever, that nothing of value would result from further
exchange.
Far be it from me to advise others how to deal with these things, but it
seems fairly clear to me that much might be gained for the group at
large by those heatedly engaged with both this poster and each other, if
they would simply pass on his postings instead of engaging them.
There will always be those who for their own reasons, will engage a
poster like this one. Perhaps they find worth in the posts being made.
Perhaps they feel the need themselves to engage....who knows really?
It's no crime for this poster to post on Usenet on any group with any
question or comment. Usenet is a free form of human discourse and as
such attracts all kinds of posters. As individuals, we'll like some of
these people, and some of them will just rub us the wrong way.
In the end, it's not the individual poster who runs down a newsgroup.
It's really the responders who accomplish both the good and the bad on a
newsgroup. The unwanted poster has a natural right to remain and be as
nasty, unfriendly, stupid, moronic, idiotic, pedantic, or as friendly,
knowledgeable, and respectful as he/she/whatever wants to be within the
confines of the newsgroup charter. It's up to the responders to control
these "situations". In the end analysis, if it's as bad as this one
seems to be, those wishing to avoid this poster should just do so and
those wishing to engage this poster should by all means be allowed to do
so without written penalty from the group.
As I said, personally, I fall into the category of one who has chosen to
avoid this particular poster. I surely wouldn't want to push this
decision on others, so I simply pass on the situation unless I have
something specific I want to say that's basically non-threatening, as I
have done here. I feel no need to "plonk" the poster either. In fact, as
I have said in the past, I find the entire situation quite humorous at
times. :-)
Dudley Henriques

"Al G" wrote in message
...

Reading MXx's responses to our answers, ****ed me off a bit, and I
began to wonder why.

Somewhere I got the idea that if I didn't know something, and
asked someone who did, I might actually profit from respectfully
listening to their answer. While I might have some further questions,
my original ignorance pretty much precludes my disregarding the answer
all together, and/or telling the person I first asked, that he doesn't
know ****. This became more pronounced after I scared the crap out of
myself a couple of times.

Although Pilots in general are a pretty confident lot, they are
aware that they can get seriously killed doing this, and are actually
pretty humble in the face of "New Knowledge" or "Mother Nature". They
generally treat someone who has "Been there, Done that, and survived"
with a little respect. None of this applies to Mx...... He has no
actual experience, has never been scared, and has acquired no humility.
Were I his instructor, he would be my number 1 pick to go bump in the
night. Since my students and I fly actual aircraft in a real world,
normally this is a self solving situation. Natural selection seems to
work, and when I am faced with a trainee that has become "a legend in
his own mind", I don't normally have to listen to his crap for very
long.

I used to wonder where the French came by the stereotype of
Arrogant, Ignorant, Self righteous, Pompous, frogs. With these
exchanges, I have accepted the "New Knowledge" offered, and I no longer
wonder. What an ambassador.

Al G

Al G wrote:
We used to call that the "infinite monkey theorem", which has since been
diproved by the internet.

Sometimes I'll add in a quote if it moved me at the time. Found this
one in the archive:

"We've heard that a million monkeys at a million
keyboards could produce the Complete Works
of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet,
we know this is not true."
--Robert Wilensky, University of California

Al G

We used to call that the "infinite monkey theorem", which has since been
diproved by the internet.

No it hasn't. The "war" part is being written right now, in this
newsgroup.

Jose
--
"There are 3 secrets to the perfect landing. Unfortunately, nobody knows
what they are." - (mike).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

("Dudley Henriques" wrote)
Sort of like the old axiom that says;
"If you sit a chimp down in front of a typewriter and let him bang away,
sooner or later if he dosen't run out of food he'll manage to write War
and Peace :-)


From The Simpsons:

Last Exit to Springfield (...one of the best Simpsons episodes)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Exit_to_Springfield

Mr. Burns: This is a thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters.
Soon, they'll have written the greatest novel known to mankind. (reads one
of the typewriters) "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times"?!
You stupid monkey! (monkey screeches) Oh, shut up.

One of my favorite Simpsons lines:

The Front (Season 4)
http://www.citizenlunchbox.com/monkey/tv/simpsons.php

Itchy & Scratchy's Roger Meyers shouts at his Harvard-graduate writer, "You
call this writing?!? If I puked in a fountain pen & mailed it to the monkey
house I'd get better scripts!"


Montblanana :-)

Priceless!! :-)) "Tis a far better thing I do than I ever did........
yesterday"

Dudley Henriques


"Montblack" wrote in message
...
("Dudley Henriques" wrote)
Sort of like the old axiom that says;
"If you sit a chimp down in front of a typewriter and let him bang away,
sooner or later if he dosen't run out of food he'll manage to write War
and Peace :-)


From The Simpsons:

Last Exit to Springfield (...one of the best Simpsons episodes)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Exit_to_Springfield

Mr. Burns: This is a thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters.
Soon, they'll have written the greatest novel known to mankind. (reads one
of the typewriters) "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of
times"?!
You stupid monkey! (monkey screeches) Oh, shut up.

One of my favorite Simpsons lines:

The Front (Season 4)
http://www.citizenlunchbox.com/monkey/tv/simpsons.php

Itchy & Scratchy's Roger Meyers shouts at his Harvard-graduate writer,
"You
call this writing?!? If I puked in a fountain pen & mailed it to the
monkey
house I'd get better scripts!"


Montblanana :-)

Dudley Henriques wrote:
Sort of like the old axiom that says;
"If you sit a chimp down in front of a typewriter and let him bang away,
sooner or later if he dosen't run out of food he'll manage to write War and
Peace :-)

There are some who say that the Internet is absolute proof that
thousands of chimps typing away will NOT eventually create great novels
;-)

Kev

"Kev" wrote in message
ups.com...

Dudley Henriques wrote:
Sort of like the old axiom that says;
"If you sit a chimp down in front of a typewriter and let him bang away,
sooner or later if he dosen't run out of food he'll manage to write War
and
Peace :-)

There are some who say that the Internet is absolute proof that
thousands of chimps typing away will NOT eventually create great novels
;-)

Kev

There's a great story I like about James A. Mitchener.
The story goes that he was in grade school and was late one day. The teacher
told him that the next day he would have to show up with a note from his
mother.
Not to be undone, the story goes that Mitchener wrote his own note and the
next day handed it to the teacher.
She began to read,
"In the beginning of it all, dinosaurs roamed the earth and there was an
upheaval of fire upon the land"
"James", she said, .........is this going to be a long story?"

DH

Unless you meant that as a joke about the people using the internet ,
the infinite monkey theorem holds true from a purely mathematical
standpoint. IIRC, number of keystrokes that would likely be required
to produce any book would be several orders of magnitude greater than
the number of atoms in the universe, but when working with purely
theoretical statistics those types of things don't matter.

If the monkey truly had infinite time, and hit the keys completely
randomly *eventually* he'd type anything you choose . As a matter
of fact, eventually he would not only write Hamlet (the piece usually
described), but eventually he'd reproduce every work Shakespeare wrote,
in the order he wrote them, and then provide what would look like some
interesting commentary behind them . He'd also eventually type out
this very discussion we're having ourselves too .

Mike Gaskins

Al G wrote:
We used to call that the "infinite monkey theorem", which has since been
diproved by the internet.

Al G

Montblanana :-)

Sliced, diced, and puried no doubt.
Jim

("Jim Burns" wrote)
Montblanana :-)

Sliced, diced, and puried no doubt.


My tummy hurts, I must have eaten too many green ones ...but hey, check out
my new prehensile tail.


Montblack
Zippered, velcro'd, glued, then stapled for good measure.

"Um, has anyone seen the glue bottle lately?"