...i'd like to put in my two cents. the trouble with bob isn't that he's arrogant and self centered and unable to see anybody else's point of view. nor is it that he's rude, insensitive to the pain he causes others, and generally doesn't know how to act around people. bob is all of those things, as demonstrated here. but so am i, and so are 90% of the folks on the nanog mailing list. so i will not be seen here jumping on bob for being "normal" per the NANOG specifications. what's getting bob in trouble is that he has the attitude but the things he did to earn it aren't relevant to this audience. he can talk the talk but he hasn't walked the walk. if anybody on NANOG has ever listened to a thing i've said about anything, and has put forth the effort needed to overcome the natural aversion to my arrogant, self centered, rude, insensitive demeanor, it is because (and ONLY because) i carry a pager and have stayed up all night, many nights, working on broken routers, working on broken code for routers, and working to keep customers happy. bob's contribution to what we're doing here is larger than mine, and perhaps larger than almost anybody's. where would we be without Ethernet? however, that is not how to earn the right to walk around with a chip on your shoulder in the NANOG crowd. if you don't have tire tracks over 70% of your body and you've never worked 45 hours at a stretch renumbering an international class A net, nobody seems to care what you have to say. to attract that audience ANYWAY, you have to be a lot more polite than bob has been, or likely ever will be.