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Well . . . I submit; you are right. Just as it's
arbitrary most of the USA speaks English, and we drive
on the right, so too are such things as I brought up.
<g>
I would add, that my e-mail postings are seldom 100%
USDA prime serious and I consider the medium to be
tres informal. <lol>
But, here's the deal. At my place--of employment, not
mon chateaux--one gets challenged. A lot. The good
part is, it keeps you thinking and you dot your t's
and cross your eyes.
Think of it this way: you're the captain of a small
naval destroyer, in, say, the Falklands conflict.
Somebody on a French fighter jet just launched a
french anti-ship missile at your @butt, and this
happens often. If you have one plan of defense, one
"set of facts or third-party backup," as it were, then
you fire your anti-missile missile--Sea Wolf or
something. If that misses, well, hopefully the
lifeboats work.
Me? I like to have layers--like Shrek. Not cake.
Onion. So, if my Sea Wolf misses, then I'd like to
have a Royal out there in a helicopter as a decoy.
That fails? 20mm Swedish anti-aircraft guns of WWII
origin--radar operated. That fails? Maybe a lucky shot
with the main gun. That fails? Me, on the bridge, with
a 9mm and ammo to burn, baby . . .. You see my
approach. Layers.
Hence, I like to right write, but also have
third-party "reasons" as a multi-layered defense
against rework.
Cheers and, as always, grins,
Sean
P.S. I keep them crossed most of the time (fingers,
not I's), hence the typos.
--- Dick Margulis <margulis -at- fiam -dot- net> wrote:
> While I _do_ enjoy positing a logical-sounding,
> solid-seeming case for
> an arbitrary choice, if only for the fun of watching
> people try to
> follow my line of reasoning, I also know that when I
> do so I am engaging
> in a charade. An arbitrary choice (as the majority
> of these nitpicky
> decisions are) is just that--arbitrary. Any
> convention, axiom, or
> postulate is arbitrary. It is the unprovable atom to
> which we apply
> rules of inference to prove a theorem within a
> system of logic. Change
> the axioms, and Poof! the old theorems go away and
> new ones takes their
> place. So I hope that when you "demonstrate a solid
> case" you do so with
> your tongue firmly planted in your cheek and your
> fingers crossed behind
> your back.
>
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