ubuntu: destroy a huge binary file and make it non-readable.

[Paul Smith]

On Sun, 2014-01-26 at 16:50 -0500, Ping wrote:
> This is Sth I couldn't understand ... Is top post that sin? Ive been
> working in my career for many years and I never seen bottom post in
> the work..

Top-posting is fine, and often preferred, for individual email or email
that's sent to a specific list of people, particularly in a business
setting.  These messages are usually not archived anywhere, and if you
want to add new people to the list of recipients then it's handy if they
have the complete conversation available (although it's usually
inconvenient to read through it all, at least it's possible).

However, this method is really crappy for public mailing lists, where
there are a LOT more recipients and all the history is archived anyway.
Top-posting means that (a) it's hard to figure out what exactly you're
replying to, and (b) hundreds of copies of the SAME MESSAGE are archived
over and over, as everyone replies and each reply contains a complete
copy of all previous replies... and on and on.


When people say "don't top-post", they DON'T mean "do exactly the same
thing as top-post but just write at the bottom instead of the top".
That would be ridiculous: not only are you not improving anything (it's
still hard to figure out what you're replying to and you still archive
hundreds of copies of the same message), but in addition people have to
scroll all the way down to the end of the email to see your message
(which is, unfortunately, often something uninteresting like "I agree!")


When people say "don't top-post", they REALLY mean "please reply using a
trimmed, interleaved style".  That means that you should take the time
to (a) remove all parts of the email you're replying to that are not
needed to understand your reply, including quotes of previous emails if
they're not relevant, and (b) if there are multiple points you want to
respond to, add a break into the quoting of the original email directly
after each point, and put your response to that point there.

In other words, you should assume the readers have already read and
understood all the previous messages to the list, and make it easy for
them to read and understand your reply as well.

Why, you ask, should you go to this trouble?  Consider that (1) you're
asking for help and it's wise to be polite to and considerate of the
people who you would like to help you, and (2) compare the amount of
time it takes you to write a clear, readable email versus the cumulative
amount of time it will take the thousands of mailing lists subscribers
to read a messy, difficult, confusing email... and ask yourself if your
time is really so much more important than everyone else's time.  Then
go back and read point (1) again :-).

Cheers!