Re: Need help for Engineering Management project

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

<clay.maffett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1174786582.092297.197820@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Wellll, I had a quite lengthy response to all of the discussion that I
> believe I had posted yesterday, but it didn't go through or I didn't
> hit send or something...

Welcome back, Clay!  On-line editors like the ones the Google and Yahoo use
are notorious for losing messages just the way you describe.  I found that
all I had to do to lose everything that I had typed into Yahoo's message
editor was to hit the escape key once.  Everything vanished!

> Is there a moderator for this newsgroup who might have screened me?

No.  This Usenet group is unmoderated, as are many, if not most.  Google
*appears* to "own" Usenet, but that's an illusion.  They merely provided a
front end to access Usenet without software called a "newsreader" as well as
providing search access to an incredible amount of Usenet posts spanning
over a decade.

> Guess I'm just an idiot for not drafting a long post on word or something.

I'm a charter member of the group of people who once trusted on-line editors
until the frustration factor got to me.  Now I compose in Word (partly
because of the automatic timed backup feature, partly because of the custom
spelling checker).  You're not an idiot, you're just gaining experience!

> Oh well, I'll try agiain tomorrow or something.

There's a great line from the book "The Mythical Man Month" whose central
premise is that no matter HOW many people you assign to a project like a
pregnancy, it still takes nine months to make a baby.  Anyway, the quote
that applies here is "Build one to throw away because you will end up doing
that anyway!"  In writing out your first reply you've created a your
prototype.  Now you get to refine it.  I believe that the act of typing out
the reply, although lost, has set "thought loops" in motion in your head and
that your second try at a response will both be more cogent as a result of
having time to reflect and will be more likely to make it through to this
newsgroup because you'll have a copy saved in Word.

As for the somewhat uncivil tone you might be seeing in other threads, I
leave you with this thought:  Posters unwilling or unable to sheath the
sword of their uncivil behavior often end up impaling nothing but their own
credibility upon it.

There was a very interesting article about Apple in today's NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/24/technology/24online.html  (reg. free but
req'd)

Apple Cult Becoming a Religion

<<Perhaps most intriguingly, Mr. Kahney points to Apple?s steadfastness in
keeping its products proprietary as a main reason for its success. Apple for
decades has weathered criticism that the reason it was marginalized by the
likes of Microsoft was its refusal to allow third parties to develop related
products. But ?Apple?s traditional closed system,? Mr. Kahney writes, ?is
now a selling point.?>>

--
Bobby G.