I can legitimately say that because that was me 7 years ago [etc. about bad experiences]
You and some of your friends. Well, that does suck. Nobody should have to deal with that shit -- but you are not representative of everybody who takes drugs. Quite a few of my friends have done drugs for years, for entirely different reasons. They weren't fucked up when they started, and they're not fucked up now. As I said before, "your entire post is hopelessly disconnected from reality". Okay, "entire" was an overstatement. But you are using a small amount of anecdotal evidence to attack people who you've never met, and who do not have the same problems.
Your would have the same problems regardless of drug use. People whose childhoods got fucked up have problems. Your tendency to blame the victim is depressing, because it seems obvious to me that you are not responsible for what was done to you, but that's your own business. You are, of course, entirely responsible for your subsequent decision to take your anger out on others and continue the cycle. This, I suppose, is where it's convenient for you to blame yourself for what happend to you -- because then when you attack others, you'll at least be consistent when you blame them for what you do to them. Brilliant.
the violent mood swings, those are a lark . . . increasing withdrawal from society . . . increasingly low lows
I get all that crap without drugs.:) I'm neurotic and depressive. Only one of my friends who takes drugs experiences any depression at all, but it's funny how it works: He goes through periods of smoking pot for a month or so, and then quitting for a few months. It's like night and day. When he's smoking, he gets ten times as much done. I work with this guy, you know, and not only is he much more productive when he's smoking, but his code is better. When he's not smoking, he's gloomy and unmotivated. He doesn't smoke at work, by the way; just evenings and weekends, but it makes him happier, so he does his job better. Funny, that.
Go ahead and kill yourself. Darwin at work if you ask me.
You're the one who had the problems, baby, not me.
If you endanger MY life in the process, I will get a bit upset.
It's hard for me to imagine what worth your cramped, hostile little existence could possibly have for anyone, even yourself. Then again, we're all God's children and you've got as much right to live on this earth as I have.
If you knew he was stoned out of his gourd when he wrote it (because of the "pressure") would you excuse it? I wouldn't.
I wouldn't excuse somebody writing mission-critical code at 4 AM the night before it ships, either. You're insisting that anybody who takes any drugs at all must necessarily be "stoned out of his gourd" 24/7, but that's absurd. I drink a glass or two of wine with dinner most nights, and then I get up the next morning and drive, cold sober, to work. I work all day, cold sober, and drive home. I feed my cats, cold sober. When dinner comes around, I generally have a beer or a glass or two of wine with my dinner. In your mind, this probably means that I'm writing code "blind, stinking drunk" at work all day. Fine. Assume anything you like. What were you saying above, about "paranoia", "violent mood swings", "withdrawal from society" . . . ? Hmmm . . . You don't seem to need drugs for that.
I'd more than likely just laugh at you.
I wouldn't laugh at you. If you behaved as badly as you're behaving here, I might very well ignore you, but I wouldn't laugh. We're social animals. A culture is doomed if the people in it don't treat each other decently.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
I was abused in some way as a child and the drugs make the emptiness and emotional void I feel seem OK . ..
I hope you realize that you're talking to people who exist only in your own mind and in the media. Read some posts here. They're all saying they get high because it's fun. Deal with it. If the only way you can "refute" drug use is by flaming strawmen, then maybe your "refutation" is a crock, ever think of that?
some things you just have to learn the hard way.
So how do you know so much about drugs?
Then again, why do you give a rat's ass about how other people live their lives?
I'll be forced to be brutally honest
No, you'll feel compelled (for some sick reason) to vomit up an undigested mess of ignorant biases and uninformed superstition. You mention "brutal honesty", but your entire post is hopelessly disconnected from reality. It's sad.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Spending time in a state that is less than real makes little sense.
I assume you don't read, watch movies, watch TV, play video games . . . ?
Do problems go away . ..
You're assuming that everybody who uses drugs, does so to "escape problems". Why do you assume that? If that's an accurate description of recreational drug use, then it's an accurate description of all other forms of recreation as well.
. . . after a benge(sp)?
It's "binge". Who said anything about binges? You're taking extreme examples (probably from the media), and insisting without justification that they accurately reflect all cases. Not everybody who has a glass of wine with dinner (or on occasion two or three) is an alcoholic wife-beater.
Drugs use make people less respectable due to their evident lack of self respect.
It's "evident" to you, maybe, but not to anybody familiar with the phenomenon.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
I always liked the Barsoom ones better. Have you read that Philip Jose Farmer story where he tried to write a Tarzan story in the style of WSB? As I recall (it's been a while) he didn't quite nail WSB's style, but it was a hoot anyway.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Microsoft Exchange Server in particular we've found to be a very effective platform for email and collaboration
We haven't. We've found it to be annoyingly unstable and (so says the sysadmin) a bitch to configure. Then again, we're probably pushing it past its design limits; we've got only one server running Exchange for six entire people, one of whom is a bit overweight. Granted, most of us don't send a lot of mail, but still.
. . . the advanced stuff (e.g. VBA) is in there as well.
The only time MS tests with other vendor's applications is when they want to find a way to break them.
I'm no fan of MS, but they do test other vendors' programs with Windows; that's how they know, for example, that 40% (or was it 60%?) of Windows programs don't work with the current beta of windows 2000. At this point, other vendors haven't yet been thinned out to the point where MS can afford to completely shit on customers who use their products.
I don't mean to suggest that MS doesn't suck or whatever, but testing like that is one thing that they actually do.
I'm sitting here in front of a large mess I created four months ago, which hasn't shipped yet . . . contemplating the argument with my boss when I tell him I have to euthanize the poor thing and start over . . . I don't think he's gonna go for that. Shit.
I worked hard to learn how to spell received correctly . . . and I'll be damned if I'll sit by and watch someone else get it wrong.
Be that as it may, I assume you are aware of the fact that spelling flames are generally perceived on the net as gratuitous personal insults? In all the excitement [sic:)] here I don't recall if you were one of the voices invoking netiquette to condemn Perens' posting of Raymond's threat . . . Ha, ha. One way or another, it was irrelevant and tacky by commonly accepted standards, especially in view of the fact that it may very well have been a typo, or a garden-variety mistake by somebody who does know better. I proofread posts carefully, and I generally revise them several times, but errors do slip through. I think that's why spelling flames are so annoying: The implied assertion is, "I'm perfect and you're an idiot." Fortunately, most spelling/grammar flamers lash out without proofreading, and leave careless mistakes in their own posts -- like your dangling preposition, for example, or your extra 't' in "commitment".:) They usually know better, but IMHO it's considerate of them to refute themselves so neatly. This is the only hard evidence I've yet seen that indicates the existence of a benevolent Deity. Now that I've criticized your spelling and grammar, I can pretty much guarantee that the Almighty will led my hand to type somehting stupid, just to keep me humble.
Of course, since spelling flames are generally held in low esteem, you did your own credibility more harm than you did his. So why am I complaining? Ummm . . . Good question.:)
We really don't know what ESR's threat was in response to, do we, because Bruce took it out of context.
If you read the text of Raymond's threat, he makes it very clear that it was in response to a "public insult", IIRC Peren's tactful and diplomatic disagreement with the APSL. The bottom line here is that Eric Raymond seems to perceive ('i' before 'e' except after 'c', right?:) polite disagreement as a personal insult. By normal standards in American society, that perception is a bit, well, odd. To be tactful.
I have little time for people that make personal mail public without asking if it is ok first
Neither have I, but Bruce didn't do that. The thing is, I also have no time for people who make public and personal threats in response to reasonable and polite disagreement.
the public fight is limiting the acceptace of open source, [but] it is of no consequence to Bruce.
If you go back and read Perens' posts on Slashdot about APSL etc., he's been covering for Raymond's misbehavior in a big way -- up until the threat, to which IMHO he overreacted. Still, we all deserve to know what kind of person claims to represent us. -j
I think he meant public advocates, not board members.
received is spelled received, not recieved.
And "spelling flame" is spelled "ad hominem". Then again, I'm beginning to get the impression that ad hominem attacks are SOP for OSI. After all, this whole mess began with Eric Raymond calling Bruce Perens an "asshole" because Perens had the temerity to disagree publically with Raymond. Apparently that's not allowed. The rest of Raymond's justification of his endorsement of the APSL was, in essence, "It's okay because we say it is and we're in charge here".
ESR really *was* there from the beginning. I know; I was there too.
The beginning of what? OSI? The FSF? Or was Raymond active in the 1970's or earlier? On this point, I'm really just curious. I had always thought that Raymond surfaced in the late 1980's. I don't think it has much relevance to the present issue one way or the other.
. . . merely letting people know that Bruce's behavior is typical of Bruce.
I assume you mean that Bruce is always admirably tactful and diplomatic in disagreements? That's not what most people seem to think. In fact, most of them think that in general, he's as bad as Raymond. Or are you trying to maintain the absurd fiction that Bruce's open letter WRT the APSL was somehow a personal attack on Raymond? Look, we've all read that letter, and we've all read Raymond's somewhat hostile and defensive response to it. If at the time Bruce's letter was perceived as the start of a fight, that was not because of what Perens had done, but because of what we all knew Raymond would do -- namely, take it personally and start a fight. Lo and behold. We were right.
"I did not use the phrase 'defamation of character,' nor any semantic equivalent thereof," he wrote. "[On the other hand], the intent of my threat certainly was that I would make Bruce look like a fool and an asshole."
Am I the only one laughing out loud about that little masterpiece of doublethink?
-- Yet another former admirer of Eric "I, thy Advocate, am a Jealous Advocate" Raymond.
How do consumers identify the products they need when software is constantly evolving and there are no standard products that enable users to share compatible information?
When you really look at it carefully, the "constantly evolving" situation he's so afraid of is a competitive free market. He's claiming that choices are bad for consumers -- because if they have choices, then they will have to choose.
There's also a bizarre, unstated, and unquestioned assumption underlying much of the essay: That products from different different developers must necessarily be incompatible with each other. It's on that assumption that the above statement rests. He thinks -- or is at least being paid to claim -- that if there are multiple word processors available, then nobody will be able to share files.
Another level down, the underlying assumptions are underlain (?!:) by a more fundamental bad assumption: The assumption that you can talk about foo without understanding foo (e.g., you can fully understand the economics of competition among word processors without knowing or caring about file compatibility). "Hey, people sell the stuff, and we've got a dogma about how markets work -- so we already know everything we need to know about it". The business of "think"-tanks is ex-post-facto shoehorning of reality to make it appear to conform to a received belief system. Note that the essay is packed with bald assertions about what is happening, and what will happen -- but none of these assertions is supported by fact. Every single assertion is "proven" by recourse to "what we all know to be true" about markets.
the ruling techno-elite of the future, I mean the people who will head up IT departments and be making all of the real decisions,
Will they be making decisions about anything other than IT? If not, they're not "ruling" very much. Yes, all the corner-office spuds will have computers on their desks; and, yes, they will need IT to make those computers do anything useful. In that sense they'll be (are now, in fact) dependent on IT people -- just like they're dependent on farmers and HVAC repairmen, neither of whom constitude a "ruling techno-elite".
There is life outside the server room. Quite a lot of it, in fact. The world is run by suits. It's a galling and depressing fact, but I doubt that it will change any time soon. The problem is that the qualities necessary to gain, keep, and wield power are fundamentally suitish qualities. If they weren't suits, they wouldn't be in the corner office. They wouldn't know how to get there, and they wouldn't want to be there badly enough to go through the hassles anyway. Okay, Julius Caesar wasn't a suit -- but how long did he last? After the dust settled, Augustus was in charge, and he stayed in power for decades. Augustus, not by chance, was a suit.
they should realize that a market totally free of prices is not likely to produce quality merchandise and will quickly collapse.
Right-wing thinking at its finest: Vague, logically incoherent and factually unsupported generalizations, "proving" that consistently obvserved phenomena do not exist. What that statement really means is, "The people who fund us are making a lot of money by selling inferior products for high prices. Please keep buying those products. If you just keep paying more and more money, the Market Fairy will make the bugs go away. Thank you."
. . . the market's distinct advantages to meet consumer needs with . . . targeted marketing.
Just like the man said: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Lemme tellya, targeted marketing sure meets my needs!
Is anybody saying that Al Gore is against technology in general, as a matter of principle? Or is that just a strawman that you dreamed up?
Is anybody saying that Al Gore is into animal rights? No, of course not. You're arguing with a strawman again.
As for your rah-rah technology worship, it's crazy. My car is responsible for getting me to work in the morning, and home at night. This is good. So by your logic, my car can is always good, all of its effects are always good, and everything that is done with it is always good -- like, for example, if I happen to run somebody down while driving, would you call that a good thing? And if I said it was bad, you'd call me an "anti-automobile wacko" and throw a fit.
I would truly be interested to see anyone attempt to legitimize Algore's appalling remarks about population control.
Easy. When living organisms overbreed, they die off. We're living organisms. When we overbreed in a given area, we die off there. When we overbreed on a worldwide scale, we'll be in deep shit. We're getting there pretty fast. We can wait until billions of people are starving, or we can try to find a reasonable solution before then. Interestingly, a high standard of living correlates very highly with a low birth rate. There are a few exceptions here and there, but on the whole the correlation is remarkably consistent. So. One way to begin dealing with overpopulation might be to pay fair wages to factory workers in third-world nations.
"Quality of life" indeed!! As if he has a right to dictate it!
You're in hysterics again. Nobody ever said anything about Al Gore dictating anything. Al Gore expressed concern about it. His sincerity is debatable, but expressing concern has nothing to do with dictating anything. Okay?
As if he is in a position to declare whether we might have "extra" people!
He's talking about population in excess of what can be supported by the local economy. The "extra" ones are the ones that starve to death. You seem to be under the impression that they will enjoy starving to death. That is because you are insane.
the technology you condemn now is responsible for . . . the eradication of smallpox
The smallpox vaccine was developed by Edward Jenner in the 18th century. He used scrapings from cowpox sores (cowpox is a similar but much less dangerous disease). Unfortunately, he didn't invent a vaccine for idiocy while he was at it.
How do you wish to restrict what people with money buy?
Um, I dunno. Ask nicely, maybe.:) That's tangential to my point, anyway. Actually, my "point" on that one was just to be annoying. There is also the fact that a lot of libertarians that I've run into have a sort of mystical religious faith in "enlightened self-interest" and so forth. They associate all kinds of weird moral values with wealth.
Would you prefer that we not be allowed to buy tobacco?
Aarrgghh! Those anti-smoking maniacs piss me the hell off. It's as intellecutally groundless as the "war on drugs". Utter madness. Dammit! Ever flown from the U.S. to Germany without a cigarette? I mean, assuming you smoke. If you don't smoke it's probably not so bad.
Or fur coats?
I'm firmly in favor of snickering at people with fur coats, making fun of them, sneering at them, smirking, putting up posters saying they're losers, etc. I'm also firmly in favor of doing very bad things to people who kill members of endangered species. But if you make a coat out of minks (which are depressingly far from endangered) and some vulgar moron buys it and wears it, I'm okay with that on a moral basis. Aesthetically, I'm so far beyond appalled it ain't even funny. And I don't care how many p's there are in "appalled", either. The more the merrier!
I never mentioned democracy.:)
Heh. Neither did I.:) I'm glad to see somebody out there who knows what these words mean, though.
You have to bear in mind how tightly controlled the media are in this country. The real "wackos" (the ones who are ethical, knowledgeable, and realistic about the situation) make Gore look like Strom Thurmond -- but you don't hear much about them.
Were these "long term goals" stated in an actual document you found on the Michigan Militia web site, or did you just make it up off the top of your head? I've been following both parties for a few years now just about as closely as I can stand (admittedly, that's not very close:), and the Democrats don't seem to have any more in common with Marx than the Republicans have, especially these days.
Seriously. Read up on what happened. The government could be considered responsible because of their failure to regulate the securities industry, but not in any other sense. Yes, there were other factors that contributed to the Great Depression, like for example the whole dust bowl thing.
This revisionist history fad is getting dull. First, we had the Holocaust deniers, then they blame education for unemployment (HELLO?!?!), now the government is responsible for the market doing what markets DO when they're completely unregulated: Go belly up. Face it, economies are like ecologies: Sometimes they get out of whack, and there's a very painful readjustment. The difference is that (unlike the GOP) I and a lot of other people don't consider human beings to be disposable the way wild animals are. So there's a tendency to try to soften the blow. Since we've found things to do which really do help, why not keep it up?
Libertarians do not stand for government being used as the tool of the rich against the working class.
Of course they do. They stand for people with money buying what they damn well please with it.
Consider for instance the use of police and National Guard troops to attack striking workers,
I'm considering it, but I'm also considering their use of the Pinkertons and other private, "free-enterprise" thugs. If the government will do it for free, that's fine by industry; but don't think for a minute that industry won't dig into their own pockets to hire thugs when they have to. Bear also in mind that the government which sent those thugs was the closest thing to a libertarian government that this country has ever had (granted, they weren't that close, but they were a hell of a lot closer than, for example, Al Dumbass Gore).
The market competition which libertarianism supports permits cooperation within a competitive framework -- whereas the forced, pseudo-cooperative framework which socialism mandates does not permit competition.
Aren't you excluding some middles there? Not to mention comparing apples and oranges. Libertarian socialism has been suggested as well as tried (read up on the Spanish Civil War), and an awful lot of capitalistic governments in the last century or two have been horrifyingly repressive.
Don't get economic systems mixed up with political systems. That's something that really bugs me about the U.S.; people think "capitalism", "free market", "democracy", and "freedom" are all synonymns. They're not. They're not even all that compatible with each other.
Anyhow, Libertarianism is about fostering personal freedoms unless they can be demonstrated to harm others -- and in that there caveat lies a world of wiggle room.
Socialism would end oppression by placing all power in the hands of the government,
Close. Socialism, broadly defined, wants to put power in the hands of the workers. Most socialists are in favor of implementing that with a government-as-we-know-it, but by no means all. 100 years ago in the U.S., "anarchist" was confused with "socialist" in much the same way that "libertarian" is now confused with "capitalist". Both conflations are like saying that all tall people have brown hair. Hey, I'm tall, I have brown hair . . . same for my brother . . . two guys I know at work . . . Hey, whaddya know!:) Know what I mean?
If I post in favor of bombing federal buildings, will I get a four? How about if I post some "creation science" [sic, loud laughter] nonsense? Will that help?
It's a bit annoying to see an incoherent, ill-informed post get a high score, presumably on the basis of its political orientation. I mean, there's nothing else about it that's even vaguely interesting.
the status quo says that we must nominate the Vice-President no matter how ignorant he is.
Bag that. I may yet write in H. L. Mencken, but if I don't I'm gonna give Bill Bradley a shot. It's true that the conventional wisdom says Gore, but Gore is obviously hopeless and it's time to demand a serious candidate for a change. Clinton has done a lot better than I ever thought he would, but the truth of the matter is that he ran in 1992 because all of the serious Democrats thought it was impossible to run against Bush. Heh. So much for Bush. The Democrats have a real solid shot this time, assuming they can put up somebody who was never a regular character on Sesame Street.
I say down with the status quo of both parties
Well, the Republican status quo looks to be on a short road to Hell these days (except Pat Robertson, who seems to have gained a grip (that, or else he knows for sure that Bush filsis a stealth candidate, and he's biding his time)) what with all their big names running off to join Operation Rescue and ban flag burning (That's not a joke! They're really harping on that one again!). The fundies got the taste of blood in their mouths in the '80's, and they just aren't gonna stop chewing. They really believe that they can turn the U.S. into a theocratic dictatorship. They're probably wrong, but ever since the Reagan regime they know with absolute certainty that they can do a really incredible amount of damage to this country. They're not going to be backing off any time soon. They're like a barbarian army: Once they start burning, looting, and raping, no power on earth can stop them until they run out of steam and fall asleep in the wreckage. Jesus, when I think about Pat Buchanan, I swear to god I know just how the French felt in 1940.
Slashdot Mirror
I can legitimately say that because that was me 7 years ago [etc. about bad experiences]
You and some of your friends. Well, that does suck. Nobody should have to deal with that shit -- but you are not representative of everybody who takes drugs. Quite a few of my friends have done drugs for years, for entirely different reasons. They weren't fucked up when they started, and they're not fucked up now. As I said before, "your entire post is hopelessly disconnected from reality". Okay, "entire" was an overstatement. But you are using a small amount of anecdotal evidence to attack people who you've never met, and who do not have the same problems.
Your would have the same problems regardless of drug use. People whose childhoods got fucked up have problems. Your tendency to blame the victim is depressing, because it seems obvious to me that you are not responsible for what was done to you, but that's your own business. You are, of course, entirely responsible for your subsequent decision to take your anger out on others and continue the cycle. This, I suppose, is where it's convenient for you to blame yourself for what happend to you -- because then when you attack others, you'll at least be consistent when you blame them for what you do to them. Brilliant.
the violent mood swings, those are a lark . . . increasing withdrawal from society . . . increasingly low lows
I get all that crap without drugs.
Go ahead and kill yourself. Darwin at work if you ask me.
You're the one who had the problems, baby, not me.
If you endanger MY life in the process, I will get a bit upset.
It's hard for me to imagine what worth your cramped, hostile little existence could possibly have for anyone, even yourself. Then again, we're all God's children and you've got as much right to live on this earth as I have.
If you knew he was stoned out of his gourd when he wrote it (because of the "pressure") would you excuse it? I wouldn't.
I wouldn't excuse somebody writing mission-critical code at 4 AM the night before it ships, either. You're insisting that anybody who takes any drugs at all must necessarily be "stoned out of his gourd" 24/7, but that's absurd. I drink a glass or two of wine with dinner most nights, and then I get up the next morning and drive, cold sober, to work. I work all day, cold sober, and drive home. I feed my cats, cold sober. When dinner comes around, I generally have a beer or a glass or two of wine with my dinner. In your mind, this probably means that I'm writing code "blind, stinking drunk" at work all day. Fine. Assume anything you like. What were you saying above, about "paranoia", "violent mood swings", "withdrawal from society" . . . ? Hmmm . . . You don't seem to need drugs for that.
I'd more than likely just laugh at you.
I wouldn't laugh at you. If you behaved as badly as you're behaving here, I might very well ignore you, but I wouldn't laugh. We're social animals. A culture is doomed if the people in it don't treat each other decently.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
I was abused in some way as a child and the drugs make the emptiness and emotional void I feel seem OK . .
I hope you realize that you're talking to people who exist only in your own mind and in the media. Read some posts here. They're all saying they get high because it's fun. Deal with it. If the only way you can "refute" drug use is by flaming strawmen, then maybe your "refutation" is a crock, ever think of that?
some things you just have to learn the hard way.
So how do you know so much about drugs?
Then again, why do you give a rat's ass about how other people live their lives?
I'll be forced to be brutally honest
No, you'll feel compelled (for some sick reason) to vomit up an undigested mess of ignorant biases and uninformed superstition. You mention "brutal honesty", but your entire post is hopelessly disconnected from reality. It's sad.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Spending time in a state that is less than real makes little sense.
I assume you don't read, watch movies, watch TV, play video games . . . ?
Do problems go away . .
You're assuming that everybody who uses drugs, does so to "escape problems". Why do you assume that? If that's an accurate description of recreational drug use, then it's an accurate description of all other forms of recreation as well.
. . . after a benge(sp)?
It's "binge". Who said anything about binges? You're taking extreme examples (probably from the media), and insisting without justification that they accurately reflect all cases. Not everybody who has a glass of wine with dinner (or on occasion two or three) is an alcoholic wife-beater.
Drugs use make people less respectable due to their evident lack of self respect.
It's "evident" to you, maybe, but not to anybody familiar with the phenomenon.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
I always liked the Barsoom ones better. Have you read that Philip Jose Farmer story where he tried to write a Tarzan story in the style of WSB? As I recall (it's been a while) he didn't quite nail WSB's style, but it was a hoot anyway.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Microsoft Exchange Server in particular we've found to be a very effective platform for email and collaboration
We haven't. We've found it to be annoyingly unstable and (so says the sysadmin) a bitch to configure. Then again, we're probably pushing it past its design limits; we've got only one server running Exchange for six entire people, one of whom is a bit overweight. Granted, most of us don't send a lot of mail, but still.
. . . the advanced stuff (e.g. VBA) is in there as well.
Uhhh, you forgot the smiley.
-j
The only time MS tests with other vendor's applications is when they want to find a way to break them.
I'm no fan of MS, but they do test other vendors' programs with Windows; that's how they know, for example, that 40% (or was it 60%?) of Windows programs don't work with the current beta of windows 2000. At this point, other vendors haven't yet been thinned out to the point where MS can afford to completely shit on customers who use their products.
I don't mean to suggest that MS doesn't suck or whatever, but testing like that is one thing that they actually do.
-j
I'm sitting here in front of a large mess I created four months ago, which hasn't shipped yet . . . contemplating the argument with my boss when I tell him I have to euthanize the poor thing and start over . . . I don't think he's gonna go for that. Shit.
-j
That's really all there is to it, IMHO.
-j
I worked hard to learn how to spell received correctly . . . and I'll be damned if I'll sit by and watch someone else get it wrong.
Be that as it may, I assume you are aware of the fact that spelling flames are generally perceived on the net as gratuitous personal insults? In all the excitement [sic
Of course, since spelling flames are generally held in low esteem, you did your own credibility more harm than you did his. So why am I complaining? Ummm . . . Good question.
We really don't know what ESR's threat was in response to, do we, because Bruce took it out of context.
If you read the text of Raymond's threat, he makes it very clear that it was in response to a "public insult", IIRC Peren's tactful and diplomatic disagreement with the APSL. The bottom line here is that Eric Raymond seems to perceive ('i' before 'e' except after 'c', right?
-j
I have little time for people that make personal mail public without asking if it is ok first
Neither have I, but Bruce didn't do that. The thing is, I also have no time for people who make public and personal threats in response to reasonable and polite disagreement.
the public fight is limiting the acceptace of open source, [but] it is of no consequence to Bruce.
If you go back and read Perens' posts on Slashdot about APSL etc., he's been covering for Raymond's misbehavior in a big way -- up until the threat, to which IMHO he overreacted. Still, we all deserve to know what kind of person claims to represent us.
-j
ESR is one of six, soon to be seven.
I think he meant public advocates, not board members.
received is spelled received, not recieved.
And "spelling flame" is spelled "ad hominem". Then again, I'm beginning to get the impression that ad hominem attacks are SOP for OSI. After all, this whole mess began with Eric Raymond calling Bruce Perens an "asshole" because Perens had the temerity to disagree publically with Raymond. Apparently that's not allowed. The rest of Raymond's justification of his endorsement of the APSL was, in essence, "It's okay because we say it is and we're in charge here".
ESR really *was* there from the beginning. I know; I was there too.
The beginning of what? OSI? The FSF? Or was Raymond active in the 1970's or earlier? On this point, I'm really just curious. I had always thought that Raymond surfaced in the late 1980's. I don't think it has much relevance to the present issue one way or the other.
. . . merely letting people know that Bruce's behavior is typical of Bruce.
I assume you mean that Bruce is always admirably tactful and diplomatic in disagreements? That's not what most people seem to think. In fact, most of them think that in general, he's as bad as Raymond. Or are you trying to maintain the absurd fiction that Bruce's open letter WRT the APSL was somehow a personal attack on Raymond? Look, we've all read that letter, and we've all read Raymond's somewhat hostile and defensive response to it. If at the time Bruce's letter was perceived as the start of a fight, that was not because of what Perens had done, but because of what we all knew Raymond would do -- namely, take it personally and start a fight. Lo and behold. We were right.
-j
"I did not use the phrase 'defamation of character,' nor any semantic equivalent thereof," he wrote. "[On the other hand], the intent of my threat certainly was that I would make Bruce look like a fool and an asshole."
Am I the only one laughing out loud about that little masterpiece of doublethink?
-- Yet another former admirer of Eric "I, thy Advocate, am a Jealous Advocate" Raymond.
-j
How do consumers identify the products they need when software is constantly evolving and there are no standard products that enable users to share compatible information?
When you really look at it carefully, the "constantly evolving" situation he's so afraid of is a competitive free market. He's claiming that choices are bad for consumers -- because if they have choices, then they will have to choose.
There's also a bizarre, unstated, and unquestioned assumption underlying much of the essay: That products from different different developers must necessarily be incompatible with each other. It's on that assumption that the above statement rests. He thinks -- or is at least being paid to claim -- that if there are multiple word processors available, then nobody will be able to share files.
Another level down, the underlying assumptions are underlain (?!
-j
the ruling techno-elite of the future, I mean the people who will head up IT departments and be making all of the real decisions,
Will they be making decisions about anything other than IT? If not, they're not "ruling" very much. Yes, all the corner-office spuds will have computers on their desks; and, yes, they will need IT to make those computers do anything useful. In that sense they'll be (are now, in fact) dependent on IT people -- just like they're dependent on farmers and HVAC repairmen, neither of whom constitude a "ruling techno-elite".
There is life outside the server room. Quite a lot of it, in fact. The world is run by suits. It's a galling and depressing fact, but I doubt that it will change any time soon. The problem is that the qualities necessary to gain, keep, and wield power are fundamentally suitish qualities. If they weren't suits, they wouldn't be in the corner office. They wouldn't know how to get there, and they wouldn't want to be there badly enough to go through the hassles anyway. Okay, Julius Caesar wasn't a suit -- but how long did he last? After the dust settled, Augustus was in charge, and he stayed in power for decades. Augustus, not by chance, was a suit.
-j
they should realize that a market totally free of prices is not likely to produce quality merchandise and will quickly collapse.
Right-wing thinking at its finest: Vague, logically incoherent and factually unsupported generalizations, "proving" that consistently obvserved phenomena do not exist. What that statement really means is, "The people who fund us are making a lot of money by selling inferior products for high prices. Please keep buying those products. If you just keep paying more and more money, the Market Fairy will make the bugs go away. Thank you."
. . . the market's distinct advantages to meet consumer needs with . . . targeted marketing.
Just like the man said: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Lemme tellya, targeted marketing sure meets my needs!
-j
Is anybody saying that Al Gore is against technology in general, as a matter of principle? Or is that just a strawman that you dreamed up?
Is anybody saying that Al Gore is into animal rights? No, of course not. You're arguing with a strawman again.
As for your rah-rah technology worship, it's crazy. My car is responsible for getting me to work in the morning, and home at night. This is good. So by your logic, my car can is always good, all of its effects are always good, and everything that is done with it is always good -- like, for example, if I happen to run somebody down while driving, would you call that a good thing? And if I said it was bad, you'd call me an "anti-automobile wacko" and throw a fit.
I would truly be interested to see anyone attempt to legitimize Algore's appalling remarks about population control.
Easy. When living organisms overbreed, they die off. We're living organisms. When we overbreed in a given area, we die off there. When we overbreed on a worldwide scale, we'll be in deep shit. We're getting there pretty fast. We can wait until billions of people are starving, or we can try to find a reasonable solution before then. Interestingly, a high standard of living correlates very highly with a low birth rate. There are a few exceptions here and there, but on the whole the correlation is remarkably consistent. So. One way to begin dealing with overpopulation might be to pay fair wages to factory workers in third-world nations.
"Quality of life" indeed!! As if he has a right to dictate it!
You're in hysterics again. Nobody ever said anything about Al Gore dictating anything. Al Gore expressed concern about it. His sincerity is debatable, but expressing concern has nothing to do with dictating anything. Okay?
As if he is in a position to declare whether we might have "extra" people!
He's talking about population in excess of what can be supported by the local economy. The "extra" ones are the ones that starve to death. You seem to be under the impression that they will enjoy starving to death. That is because you are insane.
the technology you condemn now is responsible for . . . the eradication of smallpox
The smallpox vaccine was developed by Edward Jenner in the 18th century. He used scrapings from cowpox sores (cowpox is a similar but much less dangerous disease). Unfortunately, he didn't invent a vaccine for idiocy while he was at it.
-j
Um, I guess nobody ever told you about photosynthesis and all that.
-j
How do you wish to restrict what people with money buy?
Um, I dunno. Ask nicely, maybe.
Would you prefer that we not be allowed to buy tobacco?
Aarrgghh! Those anti-smoking maniacs piss me the hell off. It's as intellecutally groundless as the "war on drugs". Utter madness. Dammit! Ever flown from the U.S. to Germany without a cigarette? I mean, assuming you smoke. If you don't smoke it's probably not so bad.
Or fur coats?
I'm firmly in favor of snickering at people with fur coats, making fun of them, sneering at them, smirking, putting up posters saying they're losers, etc. I'm also firmly in favor of doing very bad things to people who kill members of endangered species. But if you make a coat out of minks (which are depressingly far from endangered) and some vulgar moron buys it and wears it, I'm okay with that on a moral basis. Aesthetically, I'm so far beyond appalled it ain't even funny. And I don't care how many p's there are in "appalled", either. The more the merrier!
I never mentioned democracy.
Heh. Neither did I.
-j
Who the hell ever heard of Bill Clinton before 1992? Bush had been in the public eye for 12 years.
-j
blame his wacko environmental ideas
You have to bear in mind how tightly controlled the media are in this country. The real "wackos" (the ones who are ethical, knowledgeable, and realistic about the situation) make Gore look like Strom Thurmond -- but you don't hear much about them.
-j
look at long term goals of the Democratic Party.
Were these "long term goals" stated in an actual document you found on the Michigan Militia web site, or did you just make it up off the top of your head? I've been following both parties for a few years now just about as closely as I can stand (admittedly, that's not very close
-j
Seriously. Read up on what happened. The government could be considered responsible because of their failure to regulate the securities industry, but not in any other sense. Yes, there were other factors that contributed to the Great Depression, like for example the whole dust bowl thing.
This revisionist history fad is getting dull. First, we had the Holocaust deniers, then they blame education for unemployment (HELLO?!?!), now the government is responsible for the market doing what markets DO when they're completely unregulated: Go belly up. Face it, economies are like ecologies: Sometimes they get out of whack, and there's a very painful readjustment. The difference is that (unlike the GOP) I and a lot of other people don't consider human beings to be disposable the way wild animals are. So there's a tendency to try to soften the blow. Since we've found things to do which really do help, why not keep it up?
-j
Libertarians do not stand for government being used as the tool of the rich against the working class.
Of course they do. They stand for people with money buying what they damn well please with it.
Consider for instance the use of police and National Guard troops to attack striking workers,
I'm considering it, but I'm also considering their use of the Pinkertons and other private, "free-enterprise" thugs. If the government will do it for free, that's fine by industry; but don't think for a minute that industry won't dig into their own pockets to hire thugs when they have to. Bear also in mind that the government which sent those thugs was the closest thing to a libertarian government that this country has ever had (granted, they weren't that close, but they were a hell of a lot closer than, for example, Al Dumbass Gore).
The market competition which libertarianism supports permits cooperation within a competitive framework -- whereas the forced, pseudo-cooperative framework which socialism mandates does not permit competition.
Aren't you excluding some middles there? Not to mention comparing apples and oranges. Libertarian socialism has been suggested as well as tried (read up on the Spanish Civil War), and an awful lot of capitalistic governments in the last century or two have been horrifyingly repressive.
Don't get economic systems mixed up with political systems. That's something that really bugs me about the U.S.; people think "capitalism", "free market", "democracy", and "freedom" are all synonymns. They're not. They're not even all that compatible with each other.
Anyhow, Libertarianism is about fostering personal freedoms unless they can be demonstrated to harm others -- and in that there caveat lies a world of wiggle room.
Socialism would end oppression by placing all power in the hands of the government,
Close. Socialism, broadly defined, wants to put power in the hands of the workers. Most socialists are in favor of implementing that with a government-as-we-know-it, but by no means all. 100 years ago in the U.S., "anarchist" was confused with "socialist" in much the same way that "libertarian" is now confused with "capitalist". Both conflations are like saying that all tall people have brown hair. Hey, I'm tall, I have brown hair . . . same for my brother . . . two guys I know at work . . . Hey, whaddya know!
-j
If I post in favor of bombing federal buildings, will I get a four? How about if I post some "creation science" [sic, loud laughter] nonsense? Will that help?
It's a bit annoying to see an incoherent, ill-informed post get a high score, presumably on the basis of its political orientation. I mean, there's nothing else about it that's even vaguely interesting.
-j
the status quo says that we must nominate the Vice-President no matter how ignorant he is.
Bag that. I may yet write in H. L. Mencken, but if I don't I'm gonna give Bill Bradley a shot. It's true that the conventional wisdom says Gore, but Gore is obviously hopeless and it's time to demand a serious candidate for a change. Clinton has done a lot better than I ever thought he would, but the truth of the matter is that he ran in 1992 because all of the serious Democrats thought it was impossible to run against Bush. Heh. So much for Bush. The Democrats have a real solid shot this time, assuming they can put up somebody who was never a regular character on Sesame Street.
I say down with the status quo of both parties
Well, the Republican status quo looks to be on a short road to Hell these days (except Pat Robertson, who seems to have gained a grip (that, or else he knows for sure that Bush fils is a stealth candidate, and he's biding his time)) what with all their big names running off to join Operation Rescue and ban flag burning (That's not a joke! They're really harping on that one again!). The fundies got the taste of blood in their mouths in the '80's, and they just aren't gonna stop chewing. They really believe that they can turn the U.S. into a theocratic dictatorship. They're probably wrong, but ever since the Reagan regime they know with absolute certainty that they can do a really incredible amount of damage to this country. They're not going to be backing off any time soon. They're like a barbarian army: Once they start burning, looting, and raping, no power on earth can stop them until they run out of steam and fall asleep in the wreckage. Jesus, when I think about Pat Buchanan, I swear to god I know just how the French felt in 1940.
-j