expectations.

[email hidden] (tsaz) wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

hi. last year I was a sohpmore (15 years old) who ran sprints. my times were 100m - 12.1 200m -
24.4 400m - 54.4

how much better can these times get over a year? these times are not very competitive. should I
quit these races and perhaps start to run longer distances? I took up XC this fall and thinking
maybe I should make a move to 800m. anyone have any advice?

54.4 in the 400m is pretty respectable but you're right, it's probably not going to win you a state
championship. I ran about a 56 sec. 440 (we did it in yards when I was in highschool) which is
close to your time. I ran the 880, mile, and 2 mile every meet (man I hated meets) and did much
better competitively in those events. Cross-country was even better for
me.

So, I'd try the mile (1500m now I guess) and see how you do. You may be a distance runner. The 800m
is usually something you can't escape if you can run the 1500m. Just try not to let your coach make
you run the 3000m too, it makes for a long track meet.

--
- Mark ->
--

Mark A. Odell said:

[email hidden] (tsaz) wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

hi. last year I was a sohpmore (15 years old) who ran sprints. my times were 100m - 12.1 200m -
24.4 400m - 54.4

how much better can these times get over a year? these times are not very competitive. should I
quit these races and perhaps start to run longer distances? I took up XC this fall and thinking
maybe I should make a move to 800m. anyone have any advice?

---At your age, you might improve a lot. It helps if you've been training for these events (strength
training at that distance) over the past year. If you are good at XC and like it, you might want to
try the longer events. The 800m and 1600m are fun events. I did the 3200m too, but that makes for a
tough season if you run it every meet. Are you good at cross? Do you enjoy running more miles in
training than the sprinters do? If so, it might be a good idea. While this might not matter to you
now, distance running is something you can do the rest of your life competitively. Look at all the
people on here. I'm 25 and have been racing continuously since I was 12. Unless you are an Olympic
contender, your sprinting career is done after HS or college. Andy Hass

[email hidden] wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Mark A. Odell said:

[email hidden] (tsaz) wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

[snip]

Quoted message said:

Andy Hass

<rant>

What I find confusing is that by replying to *my* post instead of the OP's post I expected some
comment on my reply to the OP. Instead, there is nothing related to my post. The only part of my
post that you did keep was

Quoted message said:

Mark A. Odell <[email hidden]> wrote:

and then just the OP's text with your response. I fail to understand how people can't learn to
select the actual message they wish to respond to instead of confusing the thread.

Maybe it's just that runners aren't technically savvy. I don't know, just a pet peeve of mine.

</rant>

--
- Mark ->
--

Mark A. Odell said:

[email hidden] wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Mark A. Odell said:

[email hidden] (tsaz) wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

[snip]

Quoted message said:

Andy Hass

Quoted message said:

<rant>

Quoted message said:

What I find confusing is that by replying to *my* post instead of the OP's post I expected some
comment on my reply to the OP. Instead, there is nothing related to my post. The only part of my
post that you did keep was

Quoted message said:

Mark A. Odell <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

and then just the OP's text with your response. I fail to understand how people can't learn to
select the actual message they wish to respond to instead of confusing the thread.

Quoted message said:

Maybe it's just that runners aren't technically savvy. I don't know, just a pet peeve of mine.

Quoted message said:

</rant>
--
- Mark ->
--

---Or maybe you're just a narrow-minded idiot who thinks everybody uses the same newsreader you do.
On mine it doesn't confuse a thing and doesn't matter who I reply to. If you don't like reading my
posts, feel free to delete them as I will yours. I'd be glad to take some technical competency and
IQ tests against you any day, some people on here know what I do for a living. Andy Hass

[email hidden] wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

<rant>

Quoted message said:

What I find confusing is that by replying to *my* post instead of the OP's post I expected some
comment on my reply to the OP. Instead, there is nothing related to my post. The only part of my
post that you did keep was

Quoted message said:

Mark A. Odell <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

and then just the OP's text with your response. I fail to understand how people can't learn to
select the actual message they wish to respond to instead of confusing the thread.

Quoted message said:

Maybe it's just that runners aren't technically savvy. I don't know, just a pet peeve of mine.

Quoted message said:

</rant>

Quoted message said:

---Or maybe you're just a narrow-minded idiot who thinks everybody uses the same
newsreader you do.

I don't remember calling you a name. I'll give you credit for not top-posting but really, threading
newsreaders are many and free.

Quoted message said:

On mine it doesn't confuse a thing and doesn't matter who I reply to.

It does, it's very confusing to see your reply to someone else parading as a reply to me.

Quoted message said:

If you don't like reading my posts, feel free to delete them as I will yours.

If I had a dime for every newbie that wined about being informed about now usenet news netiquette
works I'd be rich.

Quoted message said:

I'd be glad to take some technical competency and IQ tests against you any day, some people on
here know what I do for a living.

I find it odd you would claim this given you don't even know how to use a threaded newsreader, or
worse, if you do have a newsreader that supports threads that you refuse to select the correct
posting to which to reply.

As for IQ, you may have 10x the intellect that I have but you still don't seem willing to admit that
there are basic rules to posting on usenet,
e.g. no top-posting, quote the relevant portions of the article you are replying to, and... reply to
the correct article in the thread.

--
- Mark ->
--

"Mark A. Odell" <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

---Or maybe you're just a narrow-minded idiot who thinks everybody uses the same newsreader
you do.

I don't remember calling you a name. I'll give you credit for not top-posting but really,
threading newsreaders are many and free.

Further investigation of your headers shows you are using 'tin', which is of course threaded. From
their homepage tin.orgtin.orgOpen ↗ it states quite clearly "tin is a threaded NNTP and spool based
UseNet newsreader for a variety of platforms." Time to RTFM on tin, eh?

--
- Mark ->
--

In article said:

Mark A. Odell said:

[email hidden] wrote in

[snip]

Quoted message said:

---Or maybe you're just a narrow-minded idiot who thinks everybody uses the same newsreader you
do. On mine it doesn't confuse a thing and doesn't matter who I reply to. If you don't like
reading my posts, feel free to delete them as I will yours. I'd be glad to take some technical
competency and IQ tests against you any day, some people on here know what I do for a living.

While I don't feel as strongly about it as he does, if you followup to the wrong post, it does screw
up the display in threaded newsgroups, because the thread display makes it look like you are
responding to the parent post of your post. I think you're way off base calling him an idiot.
Pedantic, dogmatic, maybe. But not an idiot.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗

Donovan Rebbechi <[email hidden]> wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

---Or maybe you're just a narrow-minded idiot who thinks everybody uses the same newsreader you
do. On mine it doesn't confuse a thing and doesn't matter who I reply to. If you don't like
reading my posts, feel free to delete them as I will yours. I'd be glad to take some technical
competency and IQ tests against you any day, some people on here know what I do for a living.

While I don't feel as strongly about it as he does, if you followup to the wrong post, it does
screw up the display in threaded newsgroups, because the thread display makes it look like you are
responding to the parent post of your post. I think you're way off base calling him an idiot.
Pedantic, dogmatic, maybe. But not an idiot.

Thanks for the support. I would like to say I don't feel that strongly about it but it seems that I
see it more in this newsgroup than in the technical ones, e.g. comp.sys.powerpc.tech, etc. In
retrospect I should have kept my mouth shut and just let the confusion perpetuate.

--
- Mark ->
--

My 2 cents on this subject:

I have a lousy ISP when it comes to newsgroups (many, many messages do not show up) and I find
google inconvenient and inconsistent. On many occasions, I do not have access to the original post.
So if I think I have something to say that I think the rest of you simply cannot live without, I
have been known to reply to a reply instead of the original (but to me, invisible) post. I don't
know what else to do.

As far as top posting goes: in many instances, I would rather have a response top-posted than
requiring me to scroll down through the message to find new material.

Brian Jones "Donovan Rebbechi" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Mark A. Odell said:

[email hidden] wrote in

[snip]

Quoted message said:

---Or maybe you're just a narrow-minded idiot who thinks everybody uses

the

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

same newsreader you do. On mine it doesn't confuse a thing and doesn't

matter

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

who I reply to. If you don't like reading my posts, feel free to delete

them

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

as I will yours. I'd be glad to take some technical competency and IQ tests against

you any

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

day, some people on here know what I do for a living.

While I don't feel as strongly about it as he does, if you followup to the

wrong

Quoted message said:

post, it does screw up the display in threaded newsgroups, because the

thread

Quoted message said:

display makes it look like you are responding to the parent post of your

post.

Quoted message said:

I think you're way off base calling him an idiot. Pedantic, dogmatic,

maybe. But

Quoted message said:

not an idiot.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗

"Brian Jones" <[email hidden]> wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

My 2 cents on this subject:

I have a lousy ISP when it comes to newsgroups (many, many messages do not show up) and I find
google inconvenient and inconsistent. On many occasions, I do not have access to the original
post. So if I think I have something to say that I think the rest of you simply cannot live
without, I have been known to reply to a reply instead of the original (but to me, invisible)
post. I don't know what else to do.

I can see this too. However, Andrew, snipped the tread such that there was nothing but the OP's
post. If he had left the thread intact and replied to the portion of interest with a comment that he
couldn't rebuild the current thread I'd have understood.

Quoted message said:

As far as top posting goes: in many instances, I would rather have a response top-posted than
requiring me to scroll down through the message to find new material.

Kind of like reading a script backwards, eh?

--
- Mark ->
--

Mark A. Odell said:

If I had a dime for every newbie that wined about being informed about now usenet news netiquette
works I'd be rich.

---I'm far from a newbie. I think etiquette would also dictate that you stay to the relevance of the
thread, which you obviously aren't so I guess I'm not the only one who can't follow the "rules".

Quoted message said:

I find it odd you would claim this given you don't even know how to use a threaded newsreader, or
worse, if you do have a newsreader that supports threads that you refuse to select the correct
posting to which to reply.

---If such little things confuse you, you have bigger problems than someone else not following the
way YOU want things done. Maybe you have hours of time to waste going back to the original message
to post (not always easy and quick on TIN) but I have work to do. This is a 3-minute luxury for me
and I'm not going to waste my time trying to satisfy some computer geeks who doesn't like the way I
post. I need to get done and go home to TRAIN. Andy Hass

In article said:

Mark A. Odell said:

If I had a dime for every newbie that wined about being informed about now usenet news netiquette
works I'd be rich.

---I'm far from a newbie. I think etiquette would also dictate that you stay to the relevance of
the thread, which you obviously aren't

His response is relevant to the post he is following up to (unlike yours, which wasn't)

Quoted message said:

so I guess I'm not the only one who can't follow the "rules".

Quoted message said:

I find it odd you would claim this given you don't even know how to use a threaded newsreader, or
worse, if you do have a newsreader that supports threads that you refuse to select the correct
posting to which to reply.

---If such little things confuse you, you have bigger problems than someone else not following the
way YOU want things done.

There you go again, with the attacks on the other guy's intelligence. Whether or not the other guy
is a genius or a moron is completely beside the point, which is that *again*, the way you posted in
that thread messes up the threading.

Quoted message said:

Maybe you have hours of time to waste going back to the original message to post (not always easy
and quick on TIN)

Then use a better newsreader or something.

Quoted message said:

but I have work to do.

We all have limited time resources. Using proper etiquette when posting is likely to save time for
all of the people reading the thread, even if it does cost you a little time.

Quoted message said:

I'm not going to waste my time trying to satisfy some computer geeks who doesn't like the
way I post.

You would have saved yourself and others considerable time by doing it right in the first place, and
avoiding the confusion that inevitably follows from this sort of thing.

In hindsight, perhaps this "waste of time" would have actually saved you some time.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗

(tsaz) said:

hi. last year I was a sohpmore (15 years old) who ran sprints. my times were 100m - 12.1 200m -
24.4 400m - 54.4

how much better can these times get over a year? these times are not very competitive. should I
quit these races and perhaps start to run longer distances? I took up XC this fall and thinking
maybe I should make a move to 800m. anyone have any advice?

You sound like I was in HS. I tried the sprints as a sophmore and was simply too slow. I moved up to
mostly the 800 as a junior and then the mile as a senior. I hated the 800. Don't make the mistake
that I made when I was your age. Don't think you can run seriously only during track and XC season;
you need to run all year long and increase the miles between the two sports.

In article <[email hidden]>, Mark A. Odell

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

If I had a dime for every newbie that wined about being informed about now usenet news
netiquette works I'd be rich.

---I'm far from a newbie. I think etiquette would also dictate that you stay to the relevance of
the thread, which you obviously aren't so I guess I'm not the only one who can't follow the
"rules".

I had my first unix shell account with a 14.4kB/s dial up modem. This predated the web. I had to
use gopher to find information. Do you remember gopher? I remember when Mosaic was first released,
do you? I'm just trying to help improve the readability of the thread content. Sorry to have
offended you so. Clearly there is no use trying to teach people how usenet works.

Hardly. The web is at least as old as common use of 9600 baud modems. But the topic at hand is
Usenet, _not_ the web. Usenet goes back to when I was primarily using a 1200 baud modem and
occasionally a 300 baud acoustically coupled modem.

People who don't know the difference between Usenet and the web really shouldn't try to
give lessons.

--
Robert Grumbine radix.net~bobgOpen ↗ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much evidence and ease; this
great facility makes them less appreciated than they would be had they been presented in a more
abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

In article <[email hidden]>, Mark A. Odell

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] (Robert Grumbine) wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> ---I'm far from a newbie. I think etiquette would also dictate that you stay to the relevance
> of the thread, which you obviously aren't so I guess I'm not the only one who can't follow the
> "rules".

I had my first unix shell account with a 14.4kB/s dial up modem. This predated the web. I had to
use gopher to find information. Do you remember gopher? I remember when Mosaic was first
released, do you? I'm just trying to help improve the readability of the thread content. Sorry to
have offended you so. Clearly there is no use trying to teach people how usenet works.

Hardly. The web is at least as old as common use of 9600 baud modems.

But the topic at hand is Usenet, _not_ the web. Usenet goes back to when I was primarily using a
1200 baud modem and occasionally a 300 baud acoustically coupled modem.

People who don't know the difference between Usenet and the web really shouldn't try to give
lessons.

Why do you think I don't? I know the difference quite well. I said nothing about usenet in my post.

What's this sentence then?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Clearly there is no use trying to teach people how usenet works.

Quoted message said:

I was merely stating my internet experience started before the web and Mosaic existed to establish
some non-newbie-ness.

My inference was that someone who thinks internet experience says anything about Usenet experience
(non-newbie-ness) doesn't know much about Usenet.

--
Robert Grumbine radix.net~bobgOpen ↗ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much evidence and ease; this
great facility makes them less appreciated than they would be had they been presented in a more
abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

In article said:

In article said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Mark A. Odell

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

>> If I had a dime for every newbie that wined about being informed about now usenet news
>> netiquette works I'd be rich.
>
> ---I'm far from a newbie. I think etiquette would also dictate that you stay to the relevance
> of the thread, which you obviously aren't so I guess I'm not the only one who can't follow the
> "rules".

I had my first unix shell account with a 14.4kB/s dial up modem. This predated the web. I had to
use gopher to find information. Do you remember gopher? I remember when Mosaic was first
released, do you? I'm just trying to help improve the readability of the thread content. Sorry to
have offended you so. Clearly there is no use trying to teach people how usenet works.

Hardly. The web is at least as old as common use of 9600 baud modems. But the topic at hand is
Usenet, _not_ the web. Usenet goes back to when I was primarily using a 1200 baud modem and
occasionally a 300 baud acoustically coupled modem.

People who don't know the difference between Usenet and the web really shouldn't try to give
lessons.

Your ad-hominem and your chest-beating in no way alters the fact that he does, in this case, happen
to be correct.

The chest beating was Mark's, not mine. (If you read more carefully, I only dated the Usenet by
modem technology, not my use of the Usenet. But the time I discovered usenet myself, I was using
9600 baud modems.)

And I really don't see any _ad_hominem_ in my note. I thought, for reasons given at more length in
my response to Mark, that he was missing the distinction between Usenet and web. That's a
statement of knowledge/fact, not a matter of character. At least in my mind it isn't ad hominem to
suggest that someone doesn't know something, based on evidence from the person in question.

Whatever it is that you think he's correct about, that's nice. I haven't followed the thread much
except to know that it seems to have started when Mark got holier than thou [there, I'll be a
little ad hom.] to Andy about how Andy posts, and wouldn't relent. The carrier pterodactyl I use
for Usenet doesn't have any problems with Andy's posts, so I'm not concerned. If it's a problem
for you two, ok, it's a problem for you. I gather that by now Andy has been thoroughly lectured on
how to 'do things right'. He will or he won't, but that horse has been thoroughly beaten.

Quoted message said:

Anyway, I was using computers in the days where the internet was a distributed system of abucuses
interconnected by a network of smoke-signals, so there.

You had an abacus! You youngsters had it easy.

--
Robert Grumbine radix.net~bobgOpen ↗ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much evidence and ease; this
great facility makes them less appreciated than they would be had they been presented in a more
abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

In article said:

[snipped]

Quoted message said:

I think this horse is not only dead but fermenting in the damn glue bottle.

Or we're sniffing the glue bottle, or something.

Anyhow, in a different group I frequent, a former regular who had taken a few years off and came
back, he said, to the same arguments involving the same people. As was put (I don't remember
whether by him or someone else):

Usenet is a place you can see people beating the ground where years ago there was a dead horse.

--
Robert Grumbine radix.net~bobgOpen ↗ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much evidence and ease; this
great facility makes them less appreciated than they would be had they been presented in a more
abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

[email hidden] (Robert Grumbine) wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

---I'm far from a newbie. I think etiquette would also dictate that you stay to the relevance of
the thread, which you obviously aren't so I guess I'm not the only one who can't follow the
"rules".

I had my first unix shell account with a 14.4kB/s dial up modem. This predated the web. I had to
use gopher to find information. Do you remember gopher? I remember when Mosaic was first released,
do you? I'm just trying to help improve the readability of the thread content. Sorry to have
offended you so. Clearly there is no use trying to teach people how usenet works.

Hardly. The web is at least as old as common use of 9600 baud modems.

But the topic at hand is Usenet, _not_ the web. Usenet goes back to when I was primarily using a
1200 baud modem and occasionally a 300 baud acoustically coupled modem.

People who don't know the difference between Usenet and the web really shouldn't try to give
lessons.

Why do you think I don't? I know the difference quite well. I said nothing about usenet in my post.
I was merely stating my internet experience started before the web and Mosaic existed to establish
some non-newbie-ness. I think I used trn back then to read usenet. I paid a hefty price for that
14.4kB/s modem (9600 baud modems *were* the common modem at the time as you say).

--
- Mark ->
--

In article said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Mark A. Odell

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

> If I had a dime for every newbie that wined about being informed about now usenet news
> netiquette works I'd be rich.

---I'm far from a newbie. I think etiquette would also dictate that you stay to the relevance of
the thread, which you obviously aren't so I guess I'm not the only one who can't follow the
"rules".

I had my first unix shell account with a 14.4kB/s dial up modem. This predated the web. I had to
use gopher to find information. Do you remember gopher? I remember when Mosaic was first released,
do you? I'm just trying to help improve the readability of the thread content. Sorry to have
offended you so. Clearly there is no use trying to teach people how usenet works.

Hardly. The web is at least as old as common use of 9600 baud modems. But the topic at hand is
Usenet, _not_ the web. Usenet goes back to when I was primarily using a 1200 baud modem and
occasionally a 300 baud acoustically coupled modem.

People who don't know the difference between Usenet and the web really shouldn't try to give
lessons.

Your ad-hominem and your chest-beating in no way alters the fact that he does, in this case, happen
to be correct.

Anyway, I was using computers in the days where the internet was a distributed system of abucuses
interconnected by a network of smoke-signals, so there.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗