Subject: Re: [lojban] New to lojban, any suggestions?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 16:59:35 EDT

In a message dated 8/13/2001 3:18:10 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> > > And many of the programs I run on my linux box are physically impossible
> > > on a Win* box. The OS doesn't support the functionality.
> >
> > Your final claim is interesting. Since it is prima facie unlikely is 
> there
> > there real evidence (beyond "I don't know how to do it") for it.
> 
> Oh. Thats rich.
> 
> Using AOL (oh, and programming in, what, Fortran 40 years ago? I forget,
> and can't find, your exact claim), does not exactly equip you to be a
> competent judge of what features of Unix (an operating system you've never
> programmed anything on. If I'm wrong, please, correct me rudely.), can or
> cannot be made to exist on Windows (an operating system you've never
> programmed anything on. If I'm wrong, please, correct me rudely.).
> 
> I've seen references to the fact that you're an academic of some sort.
> Tell me, what happens to someone who starts publishing papers with wild
> claims outside their field of expertise?
> 
Note that I did not make a claim but asked a question, to which I got the 
answer "No one knows how to do this one thing" which did not answer the 
question asked.
It is that kind of sloppy claim (impossible because I don't know how to do it 
-- nor does anyone I know) that is the mark of a cultist and one of the 
reasons why I don't usually feel to bad about using the word (the other is 
the general attitude of superiority that goes with it along with the pride in 
arcana)

I never claimed to be a programmer more than knocking up a little untility to 
run some repetitive problem I was having, whether language data processing 40 
years ago in Fortran or indexing in Snobol (and half-a-dozen other langauges 
in between, but yes no UNIX and no Windows). On the other hand, I have taken 
and taught a fair number of computer theory courses over the years, so I have 
some sense of what an operating system ought to be cabpable of and of the 
basic likelihood that, within limits of memory and register size, what system 
can manage another can as well, perhaps in a totally different way (abaci 
don't work like Turing machines after all). Hence the question -- and the 
disappointment with the answer.

<You started this thread.

You started the name calling. (Which it seems, everyone else has had the
decency not to continue.)

You started with the irrationality.

How about you give it a rest, and then maybe you'd be a position to be
making polite requests, hm?>

Actually, I was responding to a put down of a perfectly serviceable program 
-- long the only one available to MS users, and still the best for some 
purposes, by someone else. I don't see any name calling here (look up the 
definition of "cult") nor have I used any intemperate language that I recall 
(I'm sure you will point it out to me) nor has anything I said been 
irrational -- just reporting and pointing to counterproductive behavior. I 
have already made the polite request -- and was told to Shut the fuck up. I 
think I'll pass on further ones.

<Does it drive you into such a rage to see people who use things besides
Windows that you start doing things against your better judgement?

You're stuck using a piece of software which, statistically, crashes once
a day. Likely while you're trying to do something useful with it.>

My luck with Windows has been rather better than that -- it only crashes with 
aol and then I never know whether it is the pot or the kettle that is black, 
since they are about on a par as far as I can tell. I didn't say that I 
*like* Windows, I just said that most people use it and that it deserves, 
therefore, consideration when we are making up programs or plans for Lojban. 
It does not deserve condemnation. Certainly not until there is a genuine 
alternative available to the average computer user with the same ease (comes 
in the box, runs from the first button push, service and help always 
available, comes with all the standard gizmos and can take on off-the-shelf 
further gizmos,....). 

Another mark of cultists: ascribing to others their own irrational behavior: 
rage,, name-calling, rude comments including profanity and the like. Also a 
total lack of a sense of humor, but that is a computerist problem, so not 
distinctive.