Why does "cal 9 1752" produce incorrect results?

[Gerben 'P' Vos]

tr at SAMADAMS.PRINCETON.EDU (Tom Reingold) writes:

>Lots of people responded to this question.  Did so many people think
>they would be the only one who knew and was willing to post?
>I suggest that you look at entire thread before posting to prevent
>redundancy.

That's one problem, and it can be overcome (if all readers cooperate -- that's
of course a silly assumption, but anyway...) in the way you mentioned.

The bigger problem is that sometimes news takes a few days to get from
faraway corners of the world (like an obscure site in the U.S. of A.)
to other faraway corners of the world (like Europe, or Australia, or...).

Now, i see an article. I think: "Hey, that's an easy one. Let's hit 'f'".
Then i think: "Oh, let's first see if someone else answered."
I do that, i can't find anything, i go back to the article, i hit 'f'.
I answer the question.
Now, before my followup gets to johndoe at utopia.faraway.com, several days may
pass. In between, someone there thinks: "Hey, that's an easy one. Let's
hit 'f'". Etcetera.

The moral of this story:
That's why replying is so often much better than following-up.
It only floods one mailbox, not the whole network.

Disclaimer: I know i'm guilty of this myself.

-					Gerben.
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--- Gerben Vos - Aconet: BIGBEN!Gerben Vos - Internet: gpvos at cs.vu.nl
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