[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: The AWK Programming Language, 2nd Ed.: What's new?

[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: The AWK Programming Language, 2nd Ed.: What's new?

[Anthony Martin]

Warren Toomey via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> once said:
> The history of Unix is not just of the technology, but also of the
> people involved, their successes and travails, and the communities
> that they built. Mary Ann referenced a book about her life and
> journey in her e-mail's .sig. She is a very important figure in the
> history of Unix and I think her .sig is entirely relevant to TUHS.

Are you fine with everyone advertising whatever views
and products they want in their signatures or would I
have to be a very important figure?

If I want to say, for example, that the vast amount of
software related to Unix that came out of Berkeley was
so harmful it should have a retroactive Prop 65 label,
would that be okay to have in my signature?

Cheers,
  Anthony

The vast amount of software related to Unix that came
out of Berkeley was so harmful it should have a
retroactive Prop 65 label.

[Quote from some person completely unrelated to Unix.]

[A link to buy my children's picture book about the
tenuous connection between Unix and the NATO terror
bombing of Yugoslavia, direct from Jeff Beelzebub's
bookstore.]

End of signature.

Sorry Warren, I couldn't help myself. I was "triggered"
just like Dan Cross, previously in that thread, who could
not stay silent.

"Silence is violence, folx."
    - Sus of size (a.k.a. postmodernist Porky Pig)

Sent to COFF as Dan should have done.

[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: The AWK Programming Language, 2nd Ed.: What's new?

[segaloco via COFF]

My two cents, anyone is free to express whatever views they want, just as they are free to express opposition to whatever views they want.  Of course, there are lines one can cross and find themselves on the business end of a ban from a mailing list, but at the same time, most folks who mean harm will peter themselves out when they don't get the attention they crave, or it'll become obvious that they stuck their foot in it and they'll try and correct.  The trick is figuring out the nuances of your audience and understanding what does and doesn't contribute value to discussion.  Also, we all have the ability to communicate on or off list.  I'm guilty of this myself with Al Kossow in the past, and I own that, but airing a concern or conflict via reply all is rarely helpful, this is a lesson I myself and still trying to get better about.

As for Mary Ann's sig, personally I'm always happy to see it when she posts.  I'm not very visibily NB but the part of me that wholly rejects the concept of gender has always appreciated that working in and with technology has presented countless folks more opportunity than ever to come out and be done with the closet.  Life is multi faceted, go figure that kids like me that grow up exploring systems thinking and the like sometimes wind up rejecting aspects of our broken social systems :)

- Matt G.

P.S. In keeping with the theme of my message, I'm personally not seeking debate on support for the trans community.  If you take a page from my advice and contact me directly in a combative sense just know you will be at the least ignored, at the most, say something particularly toxic and I probably won't be the only person to know you harbor those thoughts...

------- Original Message -------
On Friday, September 15th, 2023 at 4:28 PM, Anthony Martin <ality@pbrane.org> wrote:


> Warren Toomey via TUHS tuhs@tuhs.org once said:
> 
> > The history of Unix is not just of the technology, but also of the
> > people involved, their successes and travails, and the communities
> > that they built. Mary Ann referenced a book about her life and
> > journey in her e-mail's .sig. She is a very important figure in the
> > history of Unix and I think her .sig is entirely relevant to TUHS.
> 
> 
> Are you fine with everyone advertising whatever views
> and products they want in their signatures or would I
> have to be a very important figure?
> 
> If I want to say, for example, that the vast amount of
> software related to Unix that came out of Berkeley was
> so harmful it should have a retroactive Prop 65 label,
> would that be okay to have in my signature?
> 
> Cheers,
> Anthony
> 
> The vast amount of software related to Unix that came
> out of Berkeley was so harmful it should have a
> retroactive Prop 65 label.
> 
> [Quote from some person completely unrelated to Unix.]
> 
> [A link to buy my children's picture book about the
> tenuous connection between Unix and the NATO terror
> bombing of Yugoslavia, direct from Jeff Beelzebub's
> bookstore.]
> 
> End of signature.
> 
> Sorry Warren, I couldn't help myself. I was "triggered"
> just like Dan Cross, previously in that thread, who could
> not stay silent.
> 
> "Silence is violence, folx."
> - Sus of size (a.k.a. postmodernist Porky Pig)
> 
> Sent to COFF as Dan should have done.

[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: The AWK Programming Language, 2nd Ed.: What's new?

[Larry McVoy]

I think Mary Ann gets a bit of a pass because she is part of the Unix 
history.  That said, I'm not a fan of people pushing their personal
issues into the commons.

It's a hard one, you want to support Mary Ann, and people like her, but
it's also a bit much to have .signatures pushing their books.

I really don't know how to make a call on this, not that it is my place
to do so, I'm just trying think it through.

Personally, I'd like things to stay more about Unix and COFF stuff and
less about personal stuff.  Your personal business is your personal
business and I'm not a big fan of people making their personal business
my business.  But that might be just me.


On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 04:28:17PM -0700, Anthony Martin wrote:
> Warren Toomey via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> once said:
> > The history of Unix is not just of the technology, but also of the
> > people involved, their successes and travails, and the communities
> > that they built. Mary Ann referenced a book about her life and
> > journey in her e-mail's .sig. She is a very important figure in the
> > history of Unix and I think her .sig is entirely relevant to TUHS.
> 
> Are you fine with everyone advertising whatever views
> and products they want in their signatures or would I
> have to be a very important figure?
> 
> If I want to say, for example, that the vast amount of
> software related to Unix that came out of Berkeley was
> so harmful it should have a retroactive Prop 65 label,
> would that be okay to have in my signature?
> 
> Cheers,
>   Anthony
> 
> The vast amount of software related to Unix that came
> out of Berkeley was so harmful it should have a
> retroactive Prop 65 label.
> 
> [Quote from some person completely unrelated to Unix.]
> 
> [A link to buy my children's picture book about the
> tenuous connection between Unix and the NATO terror
> bombing of Yugoslavia, direct from Jeff Beelzebub's
> bookstore.]
> 
> End of signature.
> 
> Sorry Warren, I couldn't help myself. I was "triggered"
> just like Dan Cross, previously in that thread, who could
> not stay silent.
> 
> "Silence is violence, folx."
>     - Sus of size (a.k.a. postmodernist Porky Pig)
> 
> Sent to COFF as Dan should have done.

-- 
---
Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: The AWK Programming Language, 2nd Ed.: What's new?

[Bakul Shah]

People expressing their individuality/personality/opinons in their
signature doesn't bother me. I hang out in this community because
we do have much in common (computing wise) but it would be a boring
world if every one was the same. Another reason is that many computer
people are curious by nature and dive deep in more than one field and
usually offer well thought out opinions. Kind of modern versions of
the Renaissance men (regardless of their gender). Such people also
tend to be more "far out" from the norm. They have a unique way of
looking at the world is why they are innovators, artists, scientists
etc. People who write a filesystem / applications / drivers / packages /
windowing system are not interesting just because of what they produced
but because they likely have so many more interesting sides to them!
So I certainly want to know more about them (without being nosy).
I don't have to agree with them on everything (or anything) but I can
still respect them and do (unless they do/say things to lose that).

So let us have more interesting discussions and not dwell on such things
nor get bent out of shape by people expressing whatever they care about
in their signature.

> On Sep 15, 2023, at 6:04 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> I think Mary Ann gets a bit of a pass because she is part of the Unix 
> history.  That said, I'm not a fan of people pushing their personal
> issues into the commons.
> 
> It's a hard one, you want to support Mary Ann, and people like her, but
> it's also a bit much to have .signatures pushing their books.
> 
> I really don't know how to make a call on this, not that it is my place
> to do so, I'm just trying think it through.
> 
> Personally, I'd like things to stay more about Unix and COFF stuff and
> less about personal stuff.  Your personal business is your personal
> business and I'm not a big fan of people making their personal business
> my business.  But that might be just me.
> 
> 
> On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 04:28:17PM -0700, Anthony Martin wrote:
>> Warren Toomey via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> once said:
>>> The history of Unix is not just of the technology, but also of the
>>> people involved, their successes and travails, and the communities
>>> that they built. Mary Ann referenced a book about her life and
>>> journey in her e-mail's .sig. She is a very important figure in the
>>> history of Unix and I think her .sig is entirely relevant to TUHS.
>> 
>> Are you fine with everyone advertising whatever views
>> and products they want in their signatures or would I
>> have to be a very important figure?
>> 
>> If I want to say, for example, that the vast amount of
>> software related to Unix that came out of Berkeley was
>> so harmful it should have a retroactive Prop 65 label,
>> would that be okay to have in my signature?
>> 
>> Cheers,
>>  Anthony
>> 
>> The vast amount of software related to Unix that came
>> out of Berkeley was so harmful it should have a
>> retroactive Prop 65 label.
>> 
>> [Quote from some person completely unrelated to Unix.]
>> 
>> [A link to buy my children's picture book about the
>> tenuous connection between Unix and the NATO terror
>> bombing of Yugoslavia, direct from Jeff Beelzebub's
>> bookstore.]
>> 
>> End of signature.
>> 
>> Sorry Warren, I couldn't help myself. I was "triggered"
>> just like Dan Cross, previously in that thread, who could
>> not stay silent.
>> 
>> "Silence is violence, folx."
>>    - Sus of size (a.k.a. postmodernist Porky Pig)
>> 
>> Sent to COFF as Dan should have done.
> 
> -- 
> ---
> Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: The AWK Programming Language, 2nd Ed.: What's new?

[Tomasz Rola]

On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 04:28:17PM -0700, Anthony Martin wrote:
> Warren Toomey via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> once said:
> > The history of Unix is not just of the technology, but also of the
> > people involved, their successes and travails, and the communities
> > that they built. Mary Ann referenced a book about her life and
> > journey in her e-mail's .sig. She is a very important figure in the
> > history of Unix and I think her .sig is entirely relevant to TUHS.
> 
> Are you fine with everyone advertising whatever views
> and products they want in their signatures or would I
> have to be a very important figure?

Absolutely not ok with "whatever", no matter how important the
advertiser is. I have some limits myself, so weapon shops, for
example, would not be cool for me, but I do not think I would go so
far as to complain. Well, maybe adverts about non-lawful behaviour or
proposing mass slaughter of wild animals etc could tick me off.

However, I am always looking onto other people's sigs. This helps me
to build a mental model of the person. 

Also, I think there is software to filter such things off, if they are
not desired by someone (to the point that they do not even want to
know about it). Heck, this is a group for Unix groupies and the subject
is AWK.

All in all, if their messages are useful/meaningful and their
signatures are small by comparison and not offensive/distasteful, I do
not think I personally may have much problem, even if maybe I would
not go for a beer with this or that particular sender, because of gray
zone of "not quite offensive but". Or, on a sunny day, I might
actually drink that beer because more optimism about human nature and
everybody deserves a chance.

[...]
> The vast amount of software related to Unix that came
> out of Berkeley was so harmful it should have a
> retroactive Prop 65 label.

You can be sure you would be asked for explanation. BTW if this is not
joke, please explain.

> [Quote from some person completely unrelated to Unix.]

Out of curiosity, is there a quote of Adolf Hitler which would be
related to Unix? Just the first unrelated person which came to my mind...

> [A link to buy my children's picture book about the
> tenuous connection between Unix and the NATO terror
> bombing of Yugoslavia, direct from Jeff Beelzebub's
> bookstore.]

Oh. Does your (inner?) child propose it happened because of Unix or
some software error? From what I have read, there is a chance paper
index cards were more involved in those events than computers. I am
always interested in learning some more (mostly as someone who has
problem with managing personal information rather than a future
would-be planetary dictator).

No offence meant, if you are one of those easily triggered. Mostly, it
is just my curiosity playing.

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com             **