Am I being blocked from posting on this list?

[Robert J. Hansen]

> As the Great One, Doug Barton stated (paraphrasing), this topic is  
> totally off-topic for this list, and I have violated the owners'  
> wishes by posting on it, and, of course I should have known this,  
> and not even tried to post on this topic on this list.

There have been several posts on this list saying, "you know, you will  
probably get better discussion and better answers on an OpenSSL  
mailing list."  I understand you believe the Heartbleed bug needs more  
visibility.  I respectfully suggest that pretty much everyone on this  
list knows about Heartbleed, and talking about it here will not  
increase the visibility of this issue one bit.


> It is not just this list.  That message has not shown up on other  
> lists I have posted it to.

I mean this with sincerity, caution, and respect.

Go watch the cherry blossoms.

In the current climate it's easy to think there's shadowy, nefarious  
things going on in the darkness.  There's terrorism all over the  
Middle East, there's a 777 that's gone completely missing in the South  
Pacific, civilians getting nerve-gassed in Syria, Russians in the  
Crimea and possibly agitating Eastern Ukraine, the Snowden  
revelations, the Manning revelations, the controversy over domestic  
and international surveillance, will the Iranians get the bomb, is  
Pakistan an ally or an enemy, the Baltic States worried about an  
invasion from the east, North Korean missile and nuclear tests... the  
list goes on and on and on.

It's easy to think that life has turned into a remake of _Three Days  
of the Condor_.  It is.  I've been there and I've had those thoughts.

But it's not about you, man.  Any more than it's about me.  And your  
messages are not getting censored because they reference the  
Heartbleed bug.

If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, then you're in the middle of  
spring.  Around here in northern Virginia it's absolutely beautiful.   
The cherry blossoms have come to Washington.  Life is beautiful.  Go  
out and enjoy it for a while, and enjoy the fact that as bad as the  
international news is nowadays ... it's not about you.

And that's good advice for the rest of us, too.  If you ever get  
overwhelmed by all the bad news, go watch the cherry blossoms for a  
while.

It's cheaper than therapy, and in my personal experience it's far more  
effective.  :)