Linux-Advocacy Digest #620, Volume #28 Thu, 24 Aug 00 16:13:07 EDT
Contents:
Re: Why my company will NOT use Linux (Nathaniel Jay Lee)
Re: Is the GDI-in-kernel-mode thing really so bad?... (was Re: (Asher Langton)
Re: Anti-Linux/Pro-Microsoft Propaganda Campaign In Usenet (was: COMNA's favorite
conspiracy theorist rides again... (mark)
Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...) (david
raoul derbes)
Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...) (Joe
Ragosta)
Re: Anonymous Wintrolls and Authentic Linvocates - Re: R.E. Ballard says Linux
growth stagnating (mark)
Re: Anonymous Wintrolls and Authentic Linvocates - Re: R.E. Ballard says Linux
growth stagnating (mark)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Nathaniel Jay Lee)
Subject: Re: Why my company will NOT use Linux
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 19:25:26 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Matthias Warkus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> spoke thusly:
>It was the Thu, 24 Aug 2000 13:59:33 GMT...
>...and Nathaniel Jay Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Matthias Warkus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> spoke thusly:
>> >It was the Wed, 23 Aug 2000 18:57:34 GMT...
>> >...and Nathaniel Jay Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >> >I see. I would say, "sure, here you have linux, I will
>> >> >now go work on my nice 'geekos' here" :-)
>> >>
>> >> I don't know why but I 'heard' this in my head in Eric
>> >> Cartmen's voice:-).
>> >
>> >You don't happen to mean Eric "All By Myself" Carmen?
>> >
>>
>> Um, I don't think so.
>>
>> South Park's Eric Cartmen (or is it Cartman?).
>>
>> You know, "Screw you guys, I'm goin' home"
>
>Ah. Of course. The E was puzzling me. It's Cartman. The quote didn't
>tell me anything, over here South Park is dubbed in German.
Woah, that must be 'different'. I can't imagine seeing
South Park without seeing Eric say, "Screw you guys, I'm
goin' home." or maybe, "It's all a bunch of tree-huggin'
hippie crap!"
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Nathaniel Jay Lee
------------------------------
From: Asher Langton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is the GDI-in-kernel-mode thing really so bad?... (was Re:
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 12:47:30 -0700
"Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
<snip everything>
Being new to c.o.l.a., I ran a deja.com search on posts by this Kulkis
to see why he's such an irritating moron. And surprise, surprise, his
posts reveal that he's not only irritating, but also a completely Foul
Person, disliked widely across usenet.
In other words, *plonk*.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mark)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Anti-Linux/Pro-Microsoft Propaganda Campaign In Usenet (was: COMNA's
favorite conspiracy theorist rides again...
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 20:20:48 +0100
In article <8o3mdh$d4q$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Christopher Smith wrote:
>
>"mark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> In article <8nnuah$pse$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Christopher Smith wrote:
>> >
>> >> I was a DRDOS user and was told by my own IS department at the time
>that
>> >> I would 'have to' use MSDOS since DRDOS was not 'compatible with
>windows'.
>> >> I recall that the guy had a slightly smug smile at the time - he'd
>never
>> >> really approved of my DRDOS massively outperforming his MSDOS.
>> >
>> >Then blame your stupid IS department. I was a DRDOS user as well, and it
>> >worked fine given a couple of bugfixes.
>>
>> Why? For falling for Microsoft's own publicity?
>
>Which would have been "DRDOS is not supported", which it wasn't and had no
>obligation to be.
>
>> For falling for
>> the misleading message deliberately inserted by Microsoft into Windows
>> to state that DRDOS would not work with Windows?
>
>How was it misleading ?
>
>>
>> Can you tell me exactly what they did wrong? (other than believe
>> Microsoft).
>
>They did not test to find out whether or not their systems worked. All
>Microsoft would have said was "DRDOS is not supported".
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You mean you don't know?
--
Mark - remove any ham to reply.
"A compiler is a program that takes the pseudo-English gibberish produced
by a programmer and turns it into the sort of binary gibberish understood
by a computer." Linux for the uninitiated ... by Paul Heinlein
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (david raoul derbes)
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 19:47:55 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (david raoul derbes) writes:
>
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> Courageous <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >
>> >> A fair number of pretty wealthy Americans pay *no tax whatsoever* in this
>> >> country. There are all manner of tax shelters and dodges that wealthy
>> >> people can avail themselves of, ...
>> >
>> >You make it sound so easy.
>> >
>> >If you truly understand this to be true, you can describe,
>> >in simple English, the simple accounting to make this happen.
>>
>> I believe that a little research will reveal those lucky Americans who
>> have a net wealth of several tens of millions who paid no tax, none,
>> last year. How they did it I don't know; I am neither an accountant
>> nor an attorney. People who are in a position to know (Cokie Roberts
>> on ABC's "Sunday Morning" and Nina Totenberg on NPR) have said over
>> the years that there are such people (not a hell of a lot, under
>> a thousand), and I believe them.
>>
>> Try Nader's web site, or Google.
>
>Regardless, 5% of Americans paid 50% of the taxes last year and 60% of
>Americans paid 10% of the taxes.
Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the *income* did that same
5% of Americans earn when they paid 50% of the taxes? I don't have
an answer, but I'd sure be curious.
>The very rich who pay no taxes are a rarity (although they should be
>dealt with).
I did not claim there were lots of these people; I suspect it is under
five hundred individuals, and I'd bet the ranch it's under a thousand.
But I'd also bet it's a ton of money that isn't taxed.
Another poster (? Eric Bennett?) suggested a plausible scenario in which
a family might own a farm worth a million or two, and have a simply
disastrous year, in which the income was zero. That isn't so far fetched,
but as someone who actually owns half of a family farm, I can tell you
that even after three disastrously bad years, we are still paying
income tax. It's a rare year when your income is zero. It might be
not enough to cover a loan at the bank, but it ain't zero.
>
>How about an honest, progressive income tax and *nothing else* (no
>property tax, no sales tax, no highway tax, no "sin" tax, etc.); then
>the government would have to show how much we *really* pay in taxes
>and it would be a lot more fair for lower-income people (who pay the
>same sales tax as the ultra-rich).
If you're talking about getting rid of sales tax (and by the way, this
would be a very elegant way of dealing with the whole Internet tax
problem, of buying something in New York but from a store in Washington,
and so forth), that's a great idea. Better yet if we got rid of all,
and I do mean *all*, exemptions. I do not regret the many, many thousands
of dollars I pay the government every year. I am proud to live in this
country, and the government needs money for the roads, the military,
to support research, to deal with disasters, and to run the country.
But I deeply resent the conservatively twenty hours it takes my very
smart wife and me, with help from her father who used to work for H. & R.
Block, to work out our tax every March and April.
I recognize that many of the exemptions are designed as "social engineering",
for example, the government believes that citizens who own homes are
somehow more likely to contribute to society (or something), and so
it encourages, by means of the exemption for interest, people to
take out mortgages and buy houses. Similarly someone in the government
thinks that giving to charities is a public good, and so that too is
an exemption.
But people would buy houses and contribute to charities even without
these exemptions, and it hardly seems fair to, in effect, ask the
selfish to help pay for the gifts of the generous, or the poor,
who despite Joe R.'s arguments, cannot purchase a house, to subsidize
the exemptions of those who can.
I like Forbes' idea: exempt everyone from the first 25 or 30K. After that,
either a flat percentage (I think Forbes said 17% would do it; I don't
really know) or a *gently* increasing rate from 10 to say 25% (whatever
the economists think will do the job.)
We need a fair tax code. Reasonable people of good intent will disagree
about what this means, but here's mine: exempt the truly poor and the
young, don't overburden the rich, don't allow for clever lawyers to find
ways for the rich to avoid their responsibilities, and determine a fair share
to be paid by those of us in the middle. I don't pretend to know what
the right numbers are.
I think the real resentment with the taxes stems from two perceptions: a
widespread (and I think accurate) perception that the code isn't fair,
and a widespread (probably accurate) fear that much of the money is wasted.
David Derbes [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>--
>The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
>Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
From: Joe Ragosta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...)
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 20:02:41 GMT
In article <LZep5.291$v3.3837@uchinews>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(david raoul derbes) wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED] (david raoul derbes) writes:
> >
>
> >The very rich who pay no taxes are a rarity (although they should be
> >dealt with).
>
> I did not claim there were lots of these people; I suspect it is under
> five hundred individuals, and I'd bet the ranch it's under a thousand.
> But I'd also bet it's a ton of money that isn't taxed.
But the number is insignificant, so your complaint is meaningless.
>
> Another poster (? Eric Bennett?) suggested a plausible scenario in which
> a family might own a farm worth a million or two, and have a simply
> disastrous year, in which the income was zero. That isn't so far fetched,
> but as someone who actually owns half of a family farm, I can tell you
> that even after three disastrously bad years, we are still paying
> income tax. It's a rare year when your income is zero. It might be
> not enough to cover a loan at the bank, but it ain't zero.
ROTFLMAO.
You need to learn the difference between "revenue" and "profit". If you
don't bring in enough money to cover your bank loans, you didn't make
any profit, so there's no income tax due.
>
> I think the real resentment with the taxes stems from two perceptions: a
> widespread (and I think accurate) perception that the code isn't fair,
> and a widespread (probably accurate) fear that much of the money is
> wasted.
Which is sufficient reason to not want the government to take any more
of my money than necessary.
There's a third reason, as well (partly a combination of the first two).
Every time I sit down to do my taxes, it pisses me off that even with a
PhD, it takes hours of sweating and numerous phone calls (followed by a
final check with an accountant) to try to get things right. There's
absolutely no reason for that level of complexity.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mark)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Anonymous Wintrolls and Authentic Linvocates - Re: R.E. Ballard says
Linux growth stagnating
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 20:49:22 +0100
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, T. Max Devlin wrote:
>Said <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
> [...]
>>Don't dismiss the possibility of being paid to be a winvocate or a wintroll.
>
>You guys have it all wrong, and put far too much credence in the
>potential fiscal benefits of Usenet posting, which are generally nill
>but for a few particular exceptions (one of which is, factually,
>astroturfing for Microsoft). I think what drives the WinTroll is the
>same thing that drives any troll; they feel they have a right to
>question what is going on around them, just as anybody rational on
>Usenet does. The difference is, I'm afraid, they can't quite seem to
>grasp abstractions well enough, for whatever reason, that they can
>legitimately exercise their right to their opinion, and get defense and
>entrenched when it is pointed out that their current grasp of the issues
>is incorrect.
I generally take the initial assumption that everyone else is able to
see further than the ends of their wallet/paycheck or whatever. My
unstated reasoning line has gone (at least summarised, anyway):
1. Society is an uneasy balance of governance, companies and citizens
(or in my case, subjects!)
2. Governments want to have total power; companies want to have
market dominance (monopolies); citizens vote for governments (at
least where they can) and work for companies.
3. Ideas belong to the people who have them, apart from when they're
employed by an employer to have them, in which case they belong to
the employer. Where that is the government, then the government
owns them (at least on work time, anyway).
Microsoft has a monopoly, and as with all monopolies, wishes to keep
it. The 'DRDOS' thread elsewhere is also really about this. Any
action that microsoft takes is with the intention of maintaining or
even expanding its monopoly (nothing unusual in this - all companies
do the same thing).
It's not in any consumer's interest that this monopoly is maintained,
so, anyone arguing in favour of Microsoft, if they can understand the
long-term implications of the above, _must_ be being paid.
The thing I didn't consider is that they may, quite genuinely, not
understand the risks to society of Microsoft's monopoly.
Now there's a thing.
>
>I honestly think it is a question of the threshold of intelligence
>necessary to understand the value and purpose of free inquiry is not
>quite as high as the threshold needed to intelligently perform free
>inquiry. I'm sure that might sound elitist, but I didn't invent the
>idea that intelligence can be quantified.
HJ Eysenk made a fortune out of telling people how to, tho.a
As I said above, I'd simply not considered this.
>
> [...]
>>I would not be too supprised of that possibility since Microsoft has already
>>done worse than that and through use of thier resources, they have been able
>>to avoid paying the price for their actions.
>
>There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Microsoft pays many people
>to astroturf. I think most of them are part of the W3C department,
>though. These amateur Wintrolls might still be indirectly supported
>(quite indirectly supported; as you mentioned, MS has been caught out
>before on this* and I'm sure they'd be careful to have more than
>plausible deniability at this point) but it seems more likely they're
>just garden-variety trolls. Like somebody (C. Browne?) said, you should
>see alt.archeaology
I still think it quite likely that there's a relationship, but quite
probably via at least one 3rd party organisation. Crass stupidy can't
possibly account for everything written in this group, can it? :)
>
>
>>Sometimes one of the best ways to avoid being implicated in an action is by
>>making it appear that it would be against your best interest to take the
>>action. I am not saying it is the case, but that it could be the case that
>>Microsoft is paying the some of the winvocates/wintrolls to post, and the
>>over-the-top styles on purpose to deflect suspicion away from Microsoft's
>>complicity.
>>
>>
>
There're some excellent books written on the secret agencies activities
during the 2nd world war, in particular something called the -double-cross
system and how effective it was. Worth a read; it talks about the point
above.
--
Mark - remove any ham to reply.
"A compiler is a program that takes the pseudo-English gibberish produced
by a programmer and turns it into the sort of binary gibberish understood
by a computer." Linux for the uninitiated ... by Paul Heinlein
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mark)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Anonymous Wintrolls and Authentic Linvocates - Re: R.E. Ballard says
Linux growth stagnating
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 21:01:42 +0100
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, fred wrote:
>On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 20:57:59 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>(Christopher Browne) wrote:
>
>>It is not obvious where the burden of proof resides in this.
>
>Oh, I think it's pretty obvious.
>
>>Certainly none of the "WinTrolls" have been documenting proof that
>>they are _not_ on the "Microsoft payroll," but it is as fair for them
>>to demand that _you_ demonstrate proof of your claims as it is for you
>>to demand proof of theirs.
>
>Ahh, here is the marvelousity of every conspiracy theory. The fact
>that no documentation exists supporting the theory implicitly proves
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
err, I'm assuming you mean that it hasn't been revealed?
>that the theory is in fact correct!
Interesting this - the idea that abstract or semi-abstract discussion
cannot take place without the house-brick of fact tied to the bell-
end of the penis of IQ.
I find the idea a little flawed.
Then attempting to draw a conclusion from the lack of brick attached
to the penis is amazing.
Where did the bit about 'implicit proof' actually come from?
>
>>I would think it entirely _possible_ that some of them own a bunch of
>>MSFT stock that they may have bought on their own. For someone that is
>>ticked off about MSFT stock price declines, and looking for a scapegoat,
>>Linux looks pretty good as a "would-be punching bag."
>
>So Authentic Linux Advocates who own RedHat and VA Linux stock are ok?
>
>Hmm, considering those stocks have lost something like 80% of their
>value over the past year, maybe that explains why they are so pissed
>off.
This appears to be a self-generated point?
>
>>I would think it quite unlikely that any of the visible names represent
>>people formally (or informally) on the Microsoft payroll as "Internet
>>AntiLinux Evangelists." They're generally not "professional" enough;
>>to the contrary, some, if associated with Microsoft, would outright make
>>Microsoft look bad.
No, they'll appear somewhere, but nothing traceable to the unknowledgeable.
>
>Of course the unprofessional Authentic Linvocates don't hurt Linux,
>because well I guess nobody is paying them?
>
>This is one of the more bizarre conspiracy theories I have yet to see.
>
>You realize that it makes you look like a baffoon to even suggest it?
I didn't see anyone suggesting a conspiracy. I did see the suggestion
that Microsoft is paying people to post pro-microsoft and anti-linux
(and anti-sun, anti-mac etc.) propaganda (or spin in modern parlance).
I'd understood that a conspiracy would need more than one person acting
in concert and against the interests of some other (usually governing)
party. That doesn't seem to fit with Microsoft paying people to surf.
The language (vocab) feels a bit wrong.
Is this an attempt to undermine the idea by refering to it as a
conspiracy?
I still haven't seen anything which suggests it anything other than a
totally accurate analysis of the current reality. The closest was
Max's suggestion that some posters may simply not be able to understand
the implications of the current OS battles going on.
--
Mark - remove any ham to reply.
"A compiler is a program that takes the pseudo-English gibberish produced
by a programmer and turns it into the sort of binary gibberish understood
by a computer." Linux for the uninitiated ... by Paul Heinlein
------------------------------
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