The 500-mile email (2002) • Hacker News Board

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#141

Post by chatmasta » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 8:30 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #137

chatmasta wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the old saying, "it's better to stay silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and confirm it." It's also a reason why short business emails are better than longer ones. You can always go more in depth. It takes skilled restraint to touch on only the most relevant details without losing the larger point.

I don't think he's confirmed he's a fool so much.

Yes, sorry! Apologies if it sounded that way. The author is definitely no fool. If anything he proved the saying wrong. :-)

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#142

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 8:48 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #120

If only every bug report that I received had been processed by a geostatistician... Usually I get a "hey, I can't get X to work". One of three responses from me usually fixes it: "Is your computer on?", "are you online?", and "try hitting refresh". I am actually surprised the sysadmin in this scenario thought it was a bad thing that the statistics department did their research and presented a well documented error.

[deleted]

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#143

Post by ilaksh » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 8:59 PM UTC

If you're a sysadmin and someone brings in a consultant who gets root access and upgrades the whole OS to a new operating system which then almost takes out email.. wouldn't that be a problem?

If I were the sysadmin and that happened, I would need to have a meeting with some people. What's the point of being a sysadmin if he operating system is randomly going to be completely changed without someone telling you?

I have a fair amount of built up rage. This seems like one of those situations where it is actually your responsibility to rip people a new one.

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#144

Post by vacri » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 12:17 AM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #120

If only every bug report that I received had been processed by a geostatistician... Usually I get a "hey, I can't get X to work". One of three responses from me usually fixes it: "Is your computer on?", "are you online?", and "try hitting refresh". I am actually surprised the sysadmin in this scenario thought it was a bad thing that the statistics department did their research and presented a well documented error.

Reminds me... when I post a support request to Google Apps, the issue description header says "in as much detail as possible"... but the field is limited to 1000 characters. When you're dealing with anything other than simple first-level support issues, a user simply can't put in a usefully descriptive amount of detail...

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#145

Post by mobiplayer » Mon, Apr 13, 2015, 12:06 PM UTC

motoboi wrote: post #84

mobiplayer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably mean something else (RTT?) but definitely not TTL, which is a completely different thing :)

TTL is involved when dealing with routed networks. The farther the destiny, you normally get more hops on the way. If the starting TTL is low, you won't reach the destiny. So, TTL values cause problems like this, although the radius wouldn't be so precise. Damn statisticians!

Hehe yeah, I know what's TTL and how it works :) hence why I was pointing out (as politely as I could) that the previous comment was wrong.

But I tend to agree with your conclusion. Damn statisticians! :)