On Wed, 2004-09-01 at 10:38, Jason Clinton wrote:

http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html

<RANT>

Ok, I may be a bit out of place here, maybe not, but after months of seeing people's questions, and your 'answers', Jesus Christ, Jason!!!

I took a glance a that link, and NCSA did a decent job of covering BASIC HTML for Dummies. Don't see how that will help Jonathan figure out this streaming audio scripting problem.

Besides that, this is a *discussion* list, somewhere that people of a similar mind and intrest can come and *discuss* problems, and situaitons, to get answers or possibilites that may help them.

You always seem to be some sort of pompus 'super-professor' sitting behind a big bare desk, that when a question is asked, you reach back behind you to your wall-to-wall library and throw a book at their head instead of answering the question. That's just plain insulting.

You've probably read a lot of books, websites, and other resources I haven't read, and the same can be said about me and just about everyone else here on this list. *BUT*, if I've read something relevant to a discussion in a 900 page book, I'm not going to tell the person to

**go read the 900 page book yourself; you can find it on the 5th shelf to the right, 3rd shelf down in the computer books seciton at the Borders on 95th & Metcalf**

like you would -- I'll tell them the things I gathered from the book that's relevant to them, and if that possibly helps, then great! (And, of course, site the book/website, so if I can't go into the depth the book/website goes into, they can find it, and read the relevant secitons themselves.)

That's sharing knowledge. Most of the time, links *do help*, so they can go somewhere that goes much farther in depth than a simple email reply could or should, but if you've come across it in your endeavours, then, SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF IT, dont' just send a link to some obscure website.

If it's something you may have just come across and said 'oh, that's interesting' as in an article on some website, then mention it as such, not a statement of fact, otherwise, give some info about it, explain it in your own words as best you can, and THEN provide a link to where they can learn more.

This list should be like a better Google of real experience. If you had a question ('How could people possibly fly??' or 'How can I get from point A to point B faster??'), which would you rather do, ask if someone else already knows, or has done it before?

Or are you going to go, hit the books, do your math and try and build a primitive Wright Flyer while seeing everyone else fly overhead at 35,000 in a 747, or try to contemplate pi and invent the wheel, while other people in cars are wizzing by at 65Mph because you'd like to do the same??

Next time you have a question, I've a whole book case of books (including a full set of encyclopedia), and a full folder of website bookmarks I'm just going to start throwing at your head, one at a time, tell you to read them (since I have already) and tell you it's somewhere in these books, figure it out yourself.

And if you do continue to just send nothing but links, at least send relevant ones.

<shakes head></RANT>

Disclaimer: I have *not* read my entire set of encyclopedia...

-Lucas

(Sorry if this is a bit windy, guys. Jason and I have enjoyed a number of good arguments here, but lately he seems kinda cranky. Maybe he's not getting enough sleep.)

On Friday 03 September 2004 12:24 pm, Jason Clinton wrote:

I'll simply, more clearly point out that HTTP has long had a STANDARD for handling content distributed from a web server and further, for handing those links off to applications that can handle it. It's called MIME and I could be wrong but anyone that claims to have been administering Linux servers "since you were watching Barney on TV" (direct quote) should know that.

Linux servers are not necessarily web servers.

claiming one minute to know better than everyone else and the next asking questions on topics that he ealier professed to be an expert over.

So once expertise has been achieved, no more questions need to be asked? I see many people who assume that a large body of knowledge is necessarily comprehensive - in other words, people who think because they know a lot, they know everything. I'm not one of them.

As it turns out, he knows nothing about HTML or CSS and was just talking through his ass.

I know a good deal about HTML, and not much about CSS, which is not the same as HTML. I wrote my first web page in about 1992, and still mostly stick with very basic, early standards, some of which are obsolete.

I am further spiteful because I offered to fix all of this two years ago and they weren't interested.

Maybe because you approached them a s a self-righteous "crusader" instead of actually offering to help. When I approached them earlier this year, they were hard pressed for resources to work on the project, but interested in help, standardization, and reaching non-Windows users.

Thanks for the suggestion that using the correct mime type for the link might do the trick, however oblique it was. I'll check that out, and maybe we'll get them straightened out.