Printers??? Oh, hell no...
on
HP Buys Compaq
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· Score: 2
HP's greatest strength in computer technology is its printers.
What are you smoking? HP's greatest strength is computer technology are those kickass calculators! The HP-48 is the sole reason I passed some of my physics courses! After those, then come the printers.
(Okay, okay, mostly kidding... I agree with you that HP makes better printers and plotters than anybody else out there. My friends and I were just talking the other day how there hasn't been a new calculator from HP lately.)
Why does every email client feel the need to re-invent the vacation(1) program? Holy fuck, people, it's 8 years old!
The problem with Outlost's Out-of-Office Autoreply is that as far as we can tell, it bypasses all the Rules settings. So even if you have the Rules set up to be a poor imitation of procmail (oh look, another reinvention of the wheel -- why can't Rules do what procmail has done for years?), and your mailing list traffic is redirected to various folders, too bad. The OoO Autoreply takes precedence, and sends replies to lists traffic. Really really annoying.
After about a week of messing with Rules, OoO, and general Outlook stupidity, we moved everything to a Unix box. Procmail is far smarter than anything that can possibly run on Outlook right now, and mutt as a mail client will do all the things you asked for in your post.
If they drop the ball on this one, maybe we should move to an elected judiciary.
You make it sound easy. Or even possible.
When was the last time the American people agreed on anything enough to change a facet of our national government? When was the last time we replaced Form X of government with Form Y, because Form X wasn't working? When was the last time the people actually had that much power to start with? 1776?
Come on, the old adage is true: if voting could change anything, they'd make it illegal.
The Silmarillion was collected together by one of his sons, based on notes and unpublished stories, and then published posthumously. A large part of the actual prose -- the part that reads like the 1980's VCR instructions -- was actually written by Christopher as glue text. Think of the contents of the Sil. as simply one snapshot from a massive CVS repository.:-) Even Christopher said later that parts of it aren't "true".
Tolkien's notes were extremely confused and contradictory at the time of his death. I am amazed (and thankful) that Christopher was able to make any sense out of them at all. Tolkien had actually started to make heavy rewrites (again!) in sections of the Middle-Earth mythology that we like to think of as set in stone; Christopher had to deliberately ignore the inconsistencies, and publish the intended changes in a later series of books.
Keep in mind also that the events of the Quenta Silmarillion and Akallabeth (probably misspelled that second one, it's the atlantis reference with one of the biggest "pun" setups in English literature) were Tolkien's real story; the one he spent his lifetime dreaming about. The Lord of the Rings was intended to just be a Hobbit sequel, but the Sil. was where his soul lived. It was bound to change a lot.
(One of my favorite aspects of the First and Second Ages is that nearly all the action took place west of the Blue Mountains. If you look at the maps in LOTR, you'll say, "Huh? The Blue Mountains stand on the west coastline! There's no land there!" To which the answer is, "There's no land there anymore...")
There's an
article over on Yahoo! that gives a good summary of Linux and its position in the computer industry. Yes, it's written by Reuters for J. Random Consumer, but it's pretty accurate. It also talks about strengths and weaknesses, Linux-based companies going bust, and where Linux might find its niche.
Sure there's documentation, on Sun's doc site for one. That site is basically just a full install of the AnswerBook2 software that comes with Solaris, plus all the docs for all the products. (Usually you run your own AB2 server locally, and it only displays the doc collections for stuff you have installed.)
Forth is small and efficient enough that the UltraSPARC PROMs contain a small interpreter. You can write Forth code and store it non-volatile RAM, to be executed at powerup.
Perhaps you missed, or chose to ignore, the fact that the links you posted to the CVSweb filter are calling files out of the Attic.
The Attic is for deleted files.
So, bitchslap and modslap aren't being used anymore. Yeah, the spirit of consorship probably lives on in other pieces of/. but you do your cause a disservice by pulling up deleted code and treating it like it's live.
That's incorrect. In most places you can restrain and report to the police anyone you see who commits a crime. This is what a "citizen's arrest" is.
It's my understanding that every citizen has the right to detain another until an officer of the peace arrives. Or, and this is more likely to vary by local (where local == non-federal) law, to transport the detainee to such an officer.
'Twould be a sucky state indeed which prohibited its residents from policing themselves. Although that does pretty much sum up California.:-)
Trying to find anything related to a previous antitrust decision was basically fruitless
Excellent. Maybe an actual unbiased decision can come out of this. If she were on record as always siding for the little guy, MS would use its money to get a different judge (possibly justifiably). If she were on record as always going with the corporate behemoths, we'd be screwed.
That the case is receiving some new blood and a fresh point of view is reassuring.
Geez, more right-wing, "We need good Christian Prayer in schools crap".
Ah, spoken like someone who can't see the irony in a good joke. You can clip the last line if you like, makes no difference to me, and the point will still be made.
Actually, lest I be accused of being a right-wing radical now that I've posted the joke, I'll also post the following snippet from a.h.b-o-u, which sums up my view of school prayer. (You should search Google/Deja for the full article and author; I've lost it.)
I'm all in favor of school prayer, as long as they're _FAIR_ about it.
The Christian kids get to appeal to Jesus, the little Moslems get to
bow to Mecca, the little Buddhists get to meditate, the little Hare
Krishnas get to chant until everyone else wants to wallop them, the
little Scientologists get to try to sell their classmates useless
books, the lettle Santerians get to sacrifice the class guinea pig to
the Loa of Knowledge, the little Atheists get to harangue everyone
else for being gullible saps, the little agnostics get to grab a
little more study-time, the little Wiccans get to dance naked aorund
the classroom...
...but that's generally not what the proponents of 'school prayer'
mean, is it?
"Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning."
"Not only that, I'm to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, behaviorally modify disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and T-shirt messages."
"I am to fight the war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for guns and raise their self-esteem. I'm to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, and fair play, how and where to register to vote, how to balance checkbook and how to apply for a job."
"I am to check their heads occasionally for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of potential anti-social behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, encourage respect for the cultural diversity of others and, oh yeah, always make sure that I give the girls in my class 50 percent of my attention."
"I'm required by my contract to be working on my own time summer and evenings at my own expense toward advance certification and a master's degree; and after school, I am to attend committee and faculty meetings and participate in staff development training to maintain my employment status."
"I am to be a paragon of virtue larger than life, such that my very presence will awe my students into being obedient and respectful of authority. I am to pledge allegiance to supporting family values, a return to the basics, and to my current administration. I am to incorporate technology into the learning, and monitor all Web sites while providing a personal relationship with each student."
"I am to decide who might be potentially dangerous and/or liable to commit crimes in school or who is possibly being abused, and I can be sent to jail for not mentioning these suspicions."
"I am to make sure all students pass the state and federally mandated testing and all classes, whether or not they attend school on a regular basis or complete any of the work assigned. Plus, I am expected to make sure that all of the students with handicaps are guaranteed a free and equal education, regardless of their mental or physical handicap."
"I am to communicate frequently with each student's parent by letter, phone, newsletter and grade card. I'm to do all of this with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a 45 minute more-or-less plan time and a big smile, all on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps in many states."
"And you want me to do all of this and expect me not to pray?"
Also what's at the other end of that geforce...
on
The New Athlons
·
· Score: 2
After getting to use a flat-panel LCD at work, I won't use anything else. I can actually look at the screen for more than an hour without my eyes getting tired. No glare. No funky reflections. I'd trade a 21" monitor for a 17" flat-panel in a heartbeat.
I'm spec'ing out a home computer. The 17" flat-panel is more than the rest of the machine put together...
It's all about combinations. The great thing about this system is that you can replace bits with other bits.
For example, if it's the GNU utilities plus the Linux kernel, it's GNU/Linux. Replace the Linux kernel with the HURD kernel[*], and it's GNU/HURD. Or replace the GNU bits with something else, and it's SomethingElse/Linux.
Analogies with otehr operating systems dont' really work, because they aren't as configurable. We have the Mr. Potato Head of computer systems. Don't like the ear? Don't like the brain? Replace them. And rename them, so people know what the fsck you're talking about.
Having said that, I don't much care for RMS' in-your-face stance and general arrogant attitude. But on this issue he does have a clue.
And it has nothing to do with politics. Mozilla won't stay up and running when a textbox is active (e.g.,/.'s comment area), so I won't try and find a specific URL. Just search the gcc archives over the last two or three months for glibc. It's not a huge problem. Just quite techincal.
...this was just touched on yesterday in a slashdot post... anyhow.
Ulrich is only one of the maintainers of glibc; there are many others. All of them (including Ulrich) are very very skilled programmers, and all of them (including Ulrich) are basically decent people.
I've worked with Ulrich a very little bit before, for the GNU C++ library. Personally, I found him to be a bit abrupt and condescending, but there's no question that he knew what he was talking about.
I am a little surprised that he would post his rant as part of the glibc release notes, rather than as a separate message. That does seem rather unprofessional.
Enh... none of us are perfect. I too have ranted in public inappropriately, and I didn't contribute a kernel or system library to make up for it.:-) Those members of the OSS community who perform great service are entitled to some leeway.
Grief, that's serious FUD you're spouting there.... but anyhow. After Dr. Stroustrup's interview here, there were lots of comments here on/. (duh), and somebody else mentioned it during a newsgroup discussion. Here's part of his response:
That response was one of the most spectacular exhibitions of ignorance and
prejudice that I have seen in a long time. Slashdot anonymous comments are
not famous for their balance and objectivity, so one shouldn't be too
surprised. My impression was that a majority of postings (objectively)
demonstrated a complete ignorance of what have been done in the C++ world
for the last decade. "Ignorant and proud of it" could have been a motto
for many.
Look on archives for comp.std.c++ on the 5th of June. Google allows you to search on message-id, but stupidly has no way to display the message-id of an article once you find it (making the searching capability almost useless).
Your post here seems to continue in the exact same vein.
...that when this marketing-ploy-disguised-as-a-movie is revealed to suck, it will forever be remembered as Episode II: Send In The Clones??
GCC just pulled itself back on track...
on
KDE 2.2 Tagged
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Fewer "massive" changes that take 2 years to complete
Yeah, like everybody's favorite compiler... It stalled for a year or so due to political arguments, hence the EGCS fork. After the FSF formally handed control of GCC to EGCS, the team got the 2.95 series out the door... but it still took forever to get 3.0 released. Afterwards, everybody sat down and said, "Okay, now that that's done, what could be improved?" and the result is the new development plan. The 3.0.1 code should be freezing in another ten days or so.
I suspect that this is just part of the growth of projects. A massive growth spurt (fast development) followed by a slowing and ossifying, followed by a clean-out-the-crap cycle which leads to a growth spurt...
and more "evolutionary" style.
You realize that can mean anything you want it to mean, right? It's way too vague of a term.
Desperately hoping for non-Linux support
on
KDE 2.2 Tagged
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Great. I'm very glad to see that KDE is making headway. (Now if they'd just fix the minor security hole in their screensavers...) I'll be upgrading my Linux desktop for 2.2 pretty soon.
I just wish installing KDE on Solaris was as simple. Non-Linux situations just don't receive as much attention as they need to if KDE is really going to live up to its cross-platform promise. I've converted some of my Solaris users to KDE on the strength of the 1.1.2 release alone; if I can give them 2.2 on the SPARCs as soon as it appears on the x86s, I'll have won them over, I think.:-)
(They really like browsing the contents of a tar file in Konqueror. But they still laugh when the "system information" screen complains that it can't find the IRQs in use, or the game controllers, or any of the other all-the-world's-a-PC things. Enh, it's a start...)
Granted, I agree that we shouldn't send "those dicks" any traffic. And I agree that companies who do this sort of thing are indeed dicks. And I also agree that it would be most amusing to see an entire/. comment page referring to an unnamed corporation only as "those dicks" because we don't have a name or a domain.
But it would also get old quickly. So, Taco, what's the name of the organization whose link-to you removed? Not a domain or anything, just a noun that we can use instead of "those dicks."
What do you think aircraft do, exactly, to escape missiles tracking them with radar? When the seeker is programmed to chase highly reflective metallic surfaces like aircraft wings and bodies?
That's right! The aircraft dumps little pieces of shiny Mylar film all over the place as it flies! And yes, it really is called "chaff." I'm so glad it amuses you that they simulated a real-world situation by having the test body launch a piece of Mylar.
A hefty amount of warhead seeker reasearch goes into defeating and otherwise ignoring chaff, and discerning the actual target instead. Of course, we can't make fun of that.
(I wonder what you think if you knew how the aircraft evade/confuse the heat-seeking missiles. Yes, they really are called "flares," and yes, it looks very impressive at a nighttime air show, for example.)
The GCC development lists get this kind of thing a lot. Occasionally someone will suggest blocking emails originating from these kinds of auto-appended, shit-fer-brains mail servers. The idea seems to be gaining more and more support, especially considering that everything sent to the lists is archived forever.
The trick of course is to filter (and bounce with a helpful note) such messages/before/ distributing them.
Hmmmm... on a related note, many of the *-bug@gnu.org mailing lists have all kinds of crap stored in their archive, because RMS forbids the gnu.org admins to do any kind of spam filtering on the lists. (Go check out, say, the archives for gdb-bug.) The main lists at @gcc.gnu.org are filtered, but the ones at @gnu.org are not. If some proprietary information is sent to one of those @gnu.org lists, they could be in trouble.
You should insert linebreaks (with ) in your sig, to break it up the same way Theoden said it. Okay, that made no sense -- well, the same way Tolkien wrote it when he translated Theoden saying it.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
What are you smoking? HP's greatest strength is computer technology are those kickass calculators! The HP-48 is the sole reason I passed some of my physics courses! After those, then come the printers.
(Okay, okay, mostly kidding... I agree with you that HP makes better printers and plotters than anybody else out there. My friends and I were just talking the other day how there hasn't been a new calculator from HP lately.)
Why does every email client feel the need to re-invent the vacation(1) program? Holy fuck, people, it's 8 years old!
The problem with Outlost's Out-of-Office Autoreply is that as far as we can tell, it bypasses all the Rules settings. So even if you have the Rules set up to be a poor imitation of procmail (oh look, another reinvention of the wheel -- why can't Rules do what procmail has done for years?), and your mailing list traffic is redirected to various folders, too bad. The OoO Autoreply takes precedence, and sends replies to lists traffic. Really really annoying.
After about a week of messing with Rules, OoO, and general Outlook stupidity, we moved everything to a Unix box. Procmail is far smarter than anything that can possibly run on Outlook right now, and mutt as a mail client will do all the things you asked for in your post.
End of rant. :-)
You make it sound easy. Or even possible.
When was the last time the American people agreed on anything enough to change a facet of our national government? When was the last time we replaced Form X of government with Form Y, because Form X wasn't working? When was the last time the people actually had that much power to start with? 1776?
Come on, the old adage is true: if voting could change anything, they'd make it illegal.
The Silmarillion was collected together by one of his sons, based on notes and unpublished stories, and then published posthumously. A large part of the actual prose -- the part that reads like the 1980's VCR instructions -- was actually written by Christopher as glue text. Think of the contents of the Sil. as simply one snapshot from a massive CVS repository.
Tolkien's notes were extremely confused and contradictory at the time of his death. I am amazed (and thankful) that Christopher was able to make any sense out of them at all. Tolkien had actually started to make heavy rewrites (again!) in sections of the Middle-Earth mythology that we like to think of as set in stone; Christopher had to deliberately ignore the inconsistencies, and publish the intended changes in a later series of books.
Keep in mind also that the events of the Quenta Silmarillion and Akallabeth (probably misspelled that second one, it's the atlantis reference with one of the biggest "pun" setups in English literature) were Tolkien's real story; the one he spent his lifetime dreaming about. The Lord of the Rings was intended to just be a Hobbit sequel, but the Sil. was where his soul lived. It was bound to change a lot.
(One of my favorite aspects of the First and Second Ages is that nearly all the action took place west of the Blue Mountains. If you look at the maps in LOTR, you'll say, "Huh? The Blue Mountains stand on the west coastline! There's no land there!" To which the answer is, "There's no land there anymore...")
There's an article over on Yahoo! that gives a good summary of Linux and its position in the computer industry. Yes, it's written by Reuters for J. Random Consumer, but it's pretty accurate. It also talks about strengths and weaknesses, Linux-based companies going bust, and where Linux might find its niche.
Sure there's documentation, on Sun's doc site for one. That site is basically just a full install of the AnswerBook2 software that comes with Solaris, plus all the docs for all the products. (Usually you run your own AB2 server locally, and it only displays the doc collections for stuff you have installed.)
Anyhow, just look for "openboot" on the web.
Forth is small and efficient enough that the UltraSPARC PROMs contain a small interpreter. You can write Forth code and store it non-volatile RAM, to be executed at powerup.
Perhaps you missed, or chose to ignore, the fact that the links you posted to the CVSweb filter are calling files out of the Attic.
The Attic is for deleted files.
So, bitchslap and modslap aren't being used anymore. Yeah, the spirit of consorship probably lives on in other pieces of /. but you do your cause a disservice by pulling up deleted code and treating it like it's live.
It's my understanding that every citizen has the right to detain another until an officer of the peace arrives. Or, and this is more likely to vary by local (where local == non-federal) law, to transport the detainee to such an officer.
'Twould be a sucky state indeed which prohibited its residents from policing themselves. Although that does pretty much sum up California. :-)
Excellent. Maybe an actual unbiased decision can come out of this. If she were on record as always siding for the little guy, MS would use its money to get a different judge (possibly justifiably). If she were on record as always going with the corporate behemoths, we'd be screwed.
That the case is receiving some new blood and a fresh point of view is reassuring.
Geez, more right-wing, "We need good Christian Prayer in schools crap".
Ah, spoken like someone who can't see the irony in a good joke. You can clip the last line if you like, makes no difference to me, and the point will still be made.
Actually, lest I be accused of being a right-wing radical now that I've posted the joke, I'll also post the following snippet from a.h.b-o-u, which sums up my view of school prayer. (You should search Google/Deja for the full article and author; I've lost it.)
"Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning."
"Not only that, I'm to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, behaviorally modify disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and T-shirt messages."
"I am to fight the war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for guns and raise their self-esteem. I'm to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, and fair play, how and where to register to vote, how to balance checkbook and how to apply for a job."
"I am to check their heads occasionally for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of potential anti-social behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, encourage respect for the cultural diversity of others and, oh yeah, always make sure that I give the girls in my class 50 percent of my attention."
"I'm required by my contract to be working on my own time summer and evenings at my own expense toward advance certification and a master's degree; and after school, I am to attend committee and faculty meetings and participate in staff development training to maintain my employment status."
"I am to be a paragon of virtue larger than life, such that my very presence will awe my students into being obedient and respectful of authority. I am to pledge allegiance to supporting family values, a return to the basics, and to my current administration. I am to incorporate technology into the learning, and monitor all Web sites while providing a personal relationship with each student."
"I am to decide who might be potentially dangerous and/or liable to commit crimes in school or who is possibly being abused, and I can be sent to jail for not mentioning these suspicions."
"I am to make sure all students pass the state and federally mandated testing and all classes, whether or not they attend school on a regular basis or complete any of the work assigned. Plus, I am expected to make sure that all of the students with handicaps are guaranteed a free and equal education, regardless of their mental or physical handicap."
"I am to communicate frequently with each student's parent by letter, phone, newsletter and grade card. I'm to do all of this with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a 45 minute more-or-less plan time and a big smile, all on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps in many states."
"And you want me to do all of this and expect me not to pray?"
After getting to use a flat-panel LCD at work, I won't use anything else. I can actually look at the screen for more than an hour without my eyes getting tired. No glare. No funky reflections. I'd trade a 21" monitor for a 17" flat-panel in a heartbeat.
I'm spec'ing out a home computer. The 17" flat-panel is more than the rest of the machine put together...
It's all about combinations. The great thing about this system is that you can replace bits with other bits.
For example, if it's the GNU utilities plus the Linux kernel, it's GNU/Linux. Replace the Linux kernel with the HURD kernel[*], and it's GNU/HURD. Or replace the GNU bits with something else, and it's SomethingElse/Linux.
Analogies with otehr operating systems dont' really work, because they aren't as configurable. We have the Mr. Potato Head of computer systems. Don't like the ear? Don't like the brain? Replace them. And rename them, so people know what the fsck you're talking about.
Having said that, I don't much care for RMS' in-your-face stance and general arrogant attitude. But on this issue he does have a clue.
[*] Although heaven knows why you'd want to.
And it has nothing to do with politics. Mozilla won't stay up and running when a textbox is active (e.g., /.'s comment area), so I won't try and find a specific URL. Just search the gcc archives over the last two or three months for glibc. It's not a huge problem. Just quite techincal.
...this was just touched on yesterday in a slashdot post... anyhow.
Ulrich is only one of the maintainers of glibc; there are many others. All of them (including Ulrich) are very very skilled programmers, and all of them (including Ulrich) are basically decent people.
I've worked with Ulrich a very little bit before, for the GNU C++ library. Personally, I found him to be a bit abrupt and condescending, but there's no question that he knew what he was talking about.
I am a little surprised that he would post his rant as part of the glibc release notes, rather than as a separate message. That does seem rather unprofessional.
Enh... none of us are perfect. I too have ranted in public inappropriately, and I didn't contribute a kernel or system library to make up for it. :-) Those members of the OSS community who perform great service are entitled to some leeway.
Grief, that's serious FUD you're spouting there.... but anyhow. After Dr. Stroustrup's interview here, there were lots of comments here on
Look on archives for comp.std.c++ on the 5th of June. Google allows you to search on message-id, but stupidly has no way to display the message-id of an article once you find it (making the searching capability almost useless).
Your post here seems to continue in the exact same vein.
...that when this marketing-ploy-disguised-as-a-movie is revealed to suck, it will forever be remembered as Episode II: Send In The Clones??
Yeah, like everybody's favorite compiler... It stalled for a year or so due to political arguments, hence the EGCS fork. After the FSF formally handed control of GCC to EGCS, the team got the 2.95 series out the door... but it still took forever to get 3.0 released. Afterwards, everybody sat down and said, "Okay, now that that's done, what could be improved?" and the result is the new development plan. The 3.0.1 code should be freezing in another ten days or so.
I suspect that this is just part of the growth of projects. A massive growth spurt (fast development) followed by a slowing and ossifying, followed by a clean-out-the-crap cycle which leads to a growth spurt...
You realize that can mean anything you want it to mean, right? It's way too vague of a term.
Great. I'm very glad to see that KDE is making headway. (Now if they'd just fix the minor security hole in their screensavers...) I'll be upgrading my Linux desktop for 2.2 pretty soon.
I just wish installing KDE on Solaris was as simple. Non-Linux situations just don't receive as much attention as they need to if KDE is really going to live up to its cross-platform promise. I've converted some of my Solaris users to KDE on the strength of the 1.1.2 release alone; if I can give them 2.2 on the SPARCs as soon as it appears on the x86s, I'll have won them over, I think. :-)
(They really like browsing the contents of a tar file in Konqueror. But they still laugh when the "system information" screen complains that it can't find the IRQs in use, or the game controllers, or any of the other all-the-world's-a-PC things. Enh, it's a start...)
"Don't touch a hot stove, dear."
"But Mommy, what does a hot stove look like?"
"I can't tell you that, dear. You might touch one."
Granted, I agree that we shouldn't send "those dicks" any traffic. And I agree that companies who do this sort of thing are indeed dicks. And I also agree that it would be most amusing to see an entire
But it would also get old quickly. So, Taco, what's the name of the organization whose link-to you removed? Not a domain or anything, just a noun that we can use instead of "those dicks."
What do you think aircraft do, exactly, to escape missiles tracking them with radar? When the seeker is programmed to chase highly reflective metallic surfaces like aircraft wings and bodies?
That's right! The aircraft dumps little pieces of shiny Mylar film all over the place as it flies! And yes, it really is called "chaff." I'm so glad it amuses you that they simulated a real-world situation by having the test body launch a piece of Mylar.
A hefty amount of warhead seeker reasearch goes into defeating and otherwise ignoring chaff, and discerning the actual target instead. Of course, we can't make fun of that.
(I wonder what you think if you knew how the aircraft evade/confuse the heat-seeking missiles. Yes, they really are called "flares," and yes, it looks very impressive at a nighttime air show, for example.)
The GCC development lists get this kind of thing a lot. Occasionally someone will suggest blocking emails originating from these kinds of auto-appended, shit-fer-brains mail servers. The idea seems to be gaining more and more support, especially considering that everything sent to the lists is archived forever.
The trick of course is to filter (and bounce with a helpful note) such messages /before/ distributing them.
Hmmmm... on a related note, many of the *-bug@gnu.org mailing lists have all kinds of crap stored in their archive, because RMS forbids the gnu.org admins to do any kind of spam filtering on the lists. (Go check out, say, the archives for gdb-bug.) The main lists at @gcc.gnu.org are filtered, but the ones at @gnu.org are not. If some proprietary information is sent to one of those @gnu.org lists, they could be in trouble.
You should insert linebreaks (with :-)
) in your sig, to break it up the same way Theoden said it. Okay, that made no sense -- well, the same way Tolkien wrote it when he translated Theoden saying it.