Software Needs Philosophers

by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.

Software needs philosophers.

This thought has been nagging at me for a year now, and recently it's
been growing like a tumor. One that plenty of folks on the 'net would
love to see kill me.

People don't put much stock in philosophers these days. The popular
impression of philosophy is that it's just rhetoric, just frivolous
debating about stuff that can never properly be answered. =E2=80=9CSpare me
the philosophy; let's stick to the facts!=E2=80=9D

The funny thing is, it's philosophers who gave us the ability to think
rationally, to stick to the facts. If it weren't for the work of
countless philosophers, facts would still be getting people tortured
and killed for discovering and sharing them.

Does it ever strike you as just a teeny bit odd that after a brief
period where philosophy flourished, from maybe 400 B.C.E. to ~100 C.E.,
we went through a follow-on period of well over one thousand five
hundred years during which the Roman Catholic Church enslaved
everyone's minds and killed anyone who dared think differently?

What's weirder is that we tend to pretend it didn't really happen. We
like to just skip right over the dominance of religion over our minds
for a hundred generations, and think of religion today as a kindly old
grandpa who's just looking out for us kids. No harm, no foul. Let
bygones be bygones. Sure, there were massacres and crusades and
genocides and torture chambers with teeth grinding and eyes bleeding
and intestines torn out in the name of God. But we were all just kids
then, right? Nobody does that kind of thing today, at least not in
civilized countries.

We try not to think about the uncivilized ones.

It was philosophers that got us out of that Dark Ages mess, and no
small number of them lost their lives in doing so. And today, the
philosophy majors are the butts of the most jokes, because after the
philosophers succeeded in opening our minds, we forgot why we needed
them.

And if we stop to think about it at all, we think that it was other
people, people who are very unlike us, who committed those atrocities
in the name of Faith (regardless of whether it's faith in a god, or in
a political party, or any other form of mind control carried out by
force).

We like to think we live in an enlightened age, but we don't. Humans
haven't changed significantly in 10,000 years. We're still killing and
torturing each other. It's apparently incredibly easy to decide to kill
someone and then do it. Happens every day, all around the world.
Torture, too.

But those people are just people. If they had been born down the street
from you, they'd have gone to school with you, been friends with you,
learned to program with you, written blogs and comments, never tortured
or killed anyone in the name of an idea. They'd have been you. Which
means they are you; you just got lucky in where you were born.

One of the commenters on my last blog entry expressed the fervent wish
that I drop dead. To be sure, they qualified it with =E2=80=9Con the
internet=E2=80=9D. But if they really feel that way, especially about
something as hilariously and absurdly unimportant in the Grand Scheme
as whether the Lisp programming language has any acceptable
implementations, then what does it say about us?

Everyone who commented angrily on that blog entry was caught. I caught
you, anonymous or not, being a religious fanatic. The only
=E2=80=9Cnegative=E2=80=9D commenter who doesn't appear to be a religious z=
ombie
was Paul Costanza (ironic, since he claims to be the opinionated one),
who relegated his comments to pedantic technical corrections. They're
welcome, of course; I'm always looking to correct any technical
misconceptions I harbor. But they're moot, since even if I was wrong
about every single technical point I brought up in that entry, my
overall point =E2=80=94 Lisp is not an acceptable Lisp =E2=80=94 remains la=
rgely
uncontested by the commenters.

Some of them just don't get it, which is fine; no harm in that. If
you've been using Lisp for years and years, and you've written books
and articles and zillions of lines of Lisp code, then you're unlikely
to remember anything about what it's like coming to Lisp for the first
time. They're religious because they've forgotten what it's like to be
a skeptic.

But make no mistake; a substantial percentage of people who take a side
in any programming language discussion that devolves into a flamewar
know exactly what the other side means, and they want to invoke the
Ultimate Censorship: drop dead! Killing someone, after all, is one of
the best ways to silence them. You also have to burn all their
writings, which is getting harder these days; hence the increased
vehemence on the 'net.

Those of you who've followed what I've written over the past year or so
know where I'm going. I'm taking a stand, all right, and it's a very
definite one. I'm finding myself drawn inexorably towards a single
goal: stamping out technological religion, because I'm frigging tired
of not being able to stick to the facts.

FACT: Java has no first-class functions and no macros. This results in
warped code that hacks around the problem, and as the code base grows,
it takes on a definite, ugly shape, one that's utterly unique to Java.
Lisp people can see this clear as day. So can Python folks, so can Ruby
folks. Java people flip out, and say =E2=80=9Cmacros are too much power=E2=
=80=9D,
or =E2=80=9Cwhat do u mean i dont understand u=E2=80=9D or =E2=80=9Cfuck yo=
u, you jerk,
Lisp will NEVER win=E2=80=9D.

You think I don't hear ALL that, and much more, in the hate mail I get
every day?

I sure wouldn't want to be alone with a Java fanatic in a medieval
torture chamber, because God only knows what they're capable of.

Turn the mirror towards Python, and what happens? Funny, but the Java
folks will mail me saying: =E2=80=9Cyeah, I've always known I detested
Python, and you really nailed exactly why. Thanks!=E2=80=9D Meanwhile, Pyth=
on
folks are literally frothing at the mouth, looking for the =E2=80=9CKill Th=
at
Bastard=E2=80=9D key on their 101-key keyboards.

I turned the mirror towards Lisp yesterday. Had to go to the bathroom
like nobody's business, and my wife was expecting me home any minute,
so I rushed it out: just a few thoughts here and there. So the Gorgon
only caught the tiniest glimpse of itself, but hell evidently hath no
fury like that of a Lisper scorned, and all that.

It doesn't matter that I rushed it out. I'm glad I did; spending any
more time on it, trying to get it =E2=80=9Cright=E2=80=9D by looking up use=
less
factoids like how you can override length's non-polymorphicness with
some weird setting (when it plainly should just be the default), would
have had the exact same net effect: Lisp zealots would have found some
way to turn it into a flamewar. And I'd have been out 2 or 3 more
hours.

Let's call it a troll, then, because it was poorly researched; it was
just some months-old recollections of pain I'd gone through last year
trying to commit to Common Lisp, after another year of trying the same
with various flavors of Scheme and finding them all wanting. As far as
I'm concerned, Lisp is unacceptable today; it's my opinion and just
that, but I'll stick with it.

I still need Lisp; after you learn enough of it, it becomes part of
your soul. I get my fix hacking elisp, and I do a lot of it. The
commenters are quite right; I've never written anything substantial in
Common Lisp, because in each of my serious attempts, there was too much
friction. Risk/reward wasn't high enough, and believe me, I wanted it.

But after many attempts, I've given up on Common Lisp. They won't let
me use it where I work, and there are probably more Lispers per capita
where I work, including some famous ones, than at any other big company
in the world. If we can't use it where I work, then it's frigging
unacceptable; that's the shortest proof I can offer.

What I'm far more interested today is the situation that arises if you
consider my post a troll. I'm far more interested in the social
consequences of working in a world filled with religious fanatics of
different religious persuasions. Especially given that it's a world in
which =E2=80=9Cnatural religion=E2=80=9D has, by and large, been marginaliz=
ed
through the work of philosophers.
[ =E2=80=A2 Peter Siebel is the author of the book Practical Common Lisp,
2005. ( http://gigamonkeys.com/book/).]

Let's look at this world in a little more detail, starting with Peter
Siebel's comment, which I believe is the most interesting. Peter said:

    I was trying to figure out why on earth you spent so much time
writing about something that you apparently don't like. Then it hit me:
HCGS=E2=86=97. So thanks for your help.

His first sentence speaks volumes about the sociology. His viewpoint is
exactly what they teach us all as kids: If you don't have anything nice
to say, don't say anything at all. We like to think people have a right
to believe whatever they want, and that it's not nice to say mean
things about other people's beliefs, especially when their livelihoods
are at stake.

That's where philosophers come in, folks. They pick your beliefs apart
and show you in unforgettable ways the consequences of what you believe
in. I'm no philosopher; I know basically nothing about it, but I can
tell you I wish fervently that some great philosophers would come along
and effect change in our technical society.

Because if nothing else, I can see the consequences of the way we're
thinking about things. One of many such consequences is that languages
aren't getting any better, and the worst offenders are Lisp and Scheme,
which by rights should be racing along the innovation curve faster than
their supposedly less capable peers. But they've stagnated worse than
any other non-dead language I can think of.[1]

Programming languages are religions. For a long while now I've been
mildly uncomfortable calling it =E2=80=9Creligion=E2=80=9D, but I don't fee=
l bad
about it anymore. They're similar enough. At the top of the language
religion is the language itself; it serves as the deity and the object
of worship.

Like any other organized religion, there's always a Pope (or a
politburo chairman, in countries where the government has brutally set
itself up as what is for all intents the religion of choice): a
spiritual leader that gives the religion the human touch. This person
is almost always the language designer, of course. In Lisp's case it's
complicated, because McCarthy, Sussman and Steele aren't very active as
spiritual leaders for their languages anymore.

Every major organized religion is a heirarchical government, and
programming languages are no exception. You'll find equivalents of
cardinals, bishops, priests and laity in programming language camps:
the closer you are to the fire, to the spiritual center, the higher
your rank. It's a great way to quantify your perceived self-importance:
a high-score list, in effect. Great for the ego, but it makes you a
piss-poor debater, because you're so emotionally invested in your
status.

You'd think your rank would be accrued by virtue of your technical
and/or documentation contributions, but in practice it's usually more
of a function of how many converts you've gained, how many followers
you have, how much you've been spreading the Word.

[=E2=80=A2 Paul Graham is a lisp dignitary. He is well known for having sold
his ecommerce software written in lisp to Yahoo.com for $49.9 million,
among other things. See Paul Graham=E2=86=97 and http://www.paulgraham.com/=
 ]

That's why Paul Graham isn't the Pope of Lisp. He's eminently
qualified, but unfortunately he's a heretic. Notice that almost none of
the commenters on my last blog mentioned the PG argument I made. The
only one who did (as of this writing) tried to make it an argument for
Common Lisp. Let's face it: you can't give those heretics too much
press; people might start listening to them!

Peter, are you beginning to understand why I write so much about
something I apparently don't like? It's because I wanted to like it but
found it fatally flawed, technically and culturally. It's as if I were
a would-be convert to Roman Catholicism, but I can't bring myself to
commit because I've seen too much of their role in creating a history
that ironically we all wish we could rewrite.

I was born and raised a Roman Catholic, and I renounced it when I was
thirteen years old, after my Uncle Frank (a devout terrorist Catholic
if there ever was one) told me to stop reading the Bible, that it would
=E2=80=9Creally screw a person up=E2=80=9D to do that, that you needed some=
one to
interpret it for you. That wasn't the only reason I renounced it, but
it'll suffice for our purposes.

Technologically I was born and raised an assembly-language programmer;
at least that's what my first real job was, for 5 years after I got my
CS degree. Assembly is just flagellation, though, and damned
uncomfortable at that, so I joined the Church of Java for fully seven
years. And practically at the very moment I'd finally tired of chafing
at Java's limitations, Paul Graham came along and through his early
essays, showed me Lisp. What a great new religion!

Problem is, each time you switch religions, the next one has less
impact on you. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, they say. I don't
know what that means for me, since I was raised by the
assembly-language wolf, but it appears to mean that I'm never going to
be enthralled with another programming language. And now that I've
swallowed the red pill, what choice do I have? I need to try to show
people what's out there.

Interestingly, it was Peter Siebel's most excellent book, Practical
Common Lisp=E2=86=97, that played the role of Uncle Frank and killed my
desired to continue with Common Lisp. Peter was the first person to
show me beast's underbelly. Every other Lisp book had pretended it was
pure and beautiful and uncorrupted, because they left all the nastiness
out as =E2=80=9Cimplementation-defined=E2=80=9D. Once I saw what you really=
 need to
do in order to build something resembling a portable Lisp code base,
and then had a few runs at it myself, I threw in the towel.

I much prefer Lisp the idea to Lisp the implementation.[2]

[ =E2=80=A2 Fyodor_Dostoyevsky=E2=86=97, David_Hume=E2=86=97, Aristotle=E2=
=86=97,
Jean-Paul_Sartre=E2=86=97, Ben_Franklin=E2=86=97, Galileo_Galilei=E2=86=97,
Bertrand_Russell=E2=86=97, Albert_Einstein=E2=86=97 ]

I can tell you this: I've tried writing this essay for a year. I've
tried fully a dozen times. I've tackled it from a dozen angles. I've
wanted to say it =E2=80=94 software needs philosophers! =E2=80=94 so many t=
imes, in
so many ways. We need great thinkers =E2=80=94 the Fyodor Dostoyevskys and
David Humes and Aristotles and Jean-Paul Sartres and Ben Franklins and
Galileo Galileis and Bertrand Russells and Albert Einsteins to show us
the way through the Software Dark Ages we're in today: a time that will
doubtless be remembered as every bit as mired in darkness and ignorance
as the Dark Ages themselves.

But I've failed. This isn't the essay I wanted to write, because I'm
neither a great thinker nor a great writer. However, you might be: if
not now, then perhaps someday. So I think it's better to get the idea
out now than to hoard it in the hopes of someday writing a
world-changing essay.

For those of you who were surprised at the suddenness and vehemence of
the Lisp community's backlash to my little rant, I hope I've helped
shed a little light, helped you see its inevitability. Basically
they've had a lot of practice. Lisp is one of the oldest technology
religions, and they've both experienced and doled out their share of
religious persecution.

But that's not the lesson you should take away. The lesson is that they
are you. Whenever you hear someone ranting about something you take for
granted as wonderful and praiseworthy, and you're wondering why they
don't leave well enough alone so we can all get back to our incestuous
cheerleading, just remember: we went from the Dark Ages to our
reeeeasonably enlightened society today by questioning our most
cherished beliefs.

So keep questioning them.

[ =E2=80=A2 R6RS refers to the Scheme Lisp language's upcoming specificatio=
n=2E
See Scheme programming language=E2=86=97 ]

[1] Yes, I've read all of R6RS. It's a lukewarm compromise that punts
on most of the important issues. It's not going to make Scheme any more
successful than it is today, which to me feels practically criminal; it
was their one big chance to break out of the rut they're in. But it
doesn't matter. Let's pretend this footnote is just a troll. If your
hackles went up, then you're a techno-religious zombie, and I hope in
my lifetime to find you a cure. Try your best to think about that long
and hard before responding.

[ =E2=80=A2 SLIME is a emacs mode for lisp programing. See
http://common-lisp.net/project/slime/. ]

[2] For the record, the commenter I agree the most with is the one who
said the problem basically boils down to an IDE issue. SLIME doesn't
cut it, either, as beautiful as SLIME is. Can't use it on Windows to
save your life, for instance. But that's one of a thousand problems
with the Lisp IDE situation; it's pointless to try to discuss them all
in blogger. It's probably pointless to discuss them at all, because
it's just going to make me more miserable that no decent IDE exists for
Lisp, except for Emacs-as-Elisp-IDE. Which is why I get my Lisp fix by
hacking elisp these days.

----
This post is archived at:
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/software-needs-philosophers.html

and
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/_p/software_phil.html

This essay is reported with permission.

   Xah
   xah@xahlee.org
 =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/

Xah Lee wrote:
> Software needs philosophers.

No, software neds less idiots. So please take your medication and
change profession.

Xah Lee wrote:

> Programming languages are religions. For a long while now I've been
> mildly uncomfortable calling it “religion”, but I don't feel bad
> about it anymore. They're similar enough. At the top of the language
> religion is the language itself; it serves as the deity and the object
> of worship.


Programmers often display religious devotion to their chosen 
language(s).  But that's a reflection of the programmer, not of the 
language.

Programming languages are nothing more than instruments: a means for 
describing the process of computation.  Any given language has no 
meaning or significance above and beyond its use as an instrument for 
describing and performing computations.

What's the need for religion or mysticism, other than to impart false 
importance to problems that are already well-understood?  There's no 
measurable value or progress in such an endeavor.  Instrumentalism is a 
more constructive path.


> Problem is, each time you switch religions, the next one has less
> impact on you. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, they say. I don't
> know what that means for me, since I was raised by the
> assembly-language wolf, but it appears to mean that I'm never going to
> be enthralled with another programming language. And now that I've
> swallowed the red pill, what choice do I have? I need to try to show
> people what's out there.


Is there really something new out there?  I would argue that software 
needs innovation more than it needs philosophers.

Mark

In comp.lang.perl.misc Xah Lee <xah@xahlee.org> wrote:

: the way through the Software Dark Ages we're in today: a time that will

Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
 
: But I've failed. This isn't the essay I wanted to write, because I'm
: neither a great thinker nor a great writer.

Finally you got _something_ right.

Anyway, unless ($your_text=m/\b[Pp]erl\b/) {print "Completely OT."}

Sorry for feeding the unspeakable, Oliver.


-- 
Dr. Oliver Corff              e-mail:    corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Religious Fanaticism is a very strong in the Computer community.  But,
is it really a surprise that when a bunch of hairless apes created a
new mental world, they created it with a complicated Quilt of religions
and nationalities, and many became fanatical?

I am confidant the responces Xah will recieve will validate his
observation on religious fanaticism.  It is funny, Xah always questions
people's Sacred Cow's, I have often noted that the reponces often read
like the writings of religious fanatics.  As a Georgian (US), the
responces often remind me of the Dark Side (there is a Light) of the
Southern Baptist Church, translated into Computer Speak.

Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
Cattle.

---
Sam the Gardener      
http://SamFeltus.com
http://SonomaSunshine.com

Xah Lee wrote:
> Software Needs Philosophers
> 

Welcome to my junk filters !!!!

DG

SamFeltus wrote:
> Religious Fanaticism is a very strong in the Computer community.  But,
> is it really a surprise that when a bunch of hairless apes created a
> new mental world, they created it with a complicated Quilt of religions
> and nationalities, and many became fanatical?
> 
> I am confidant the responces Xah will recieve will validate his
> observation on religious fanaticism.  It is funny, Xah always questions
> people's Sacred Cow's, I have often noted that the reponces often read
> like the writings of religious fanatics.  As a Georgian (US), the
> responces often remind me of the Dark Side (there is a Light) of the
> Southern Baptist Church, translated into Computer Speak.
> 
> Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
> important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
> Cattle.

Finally, someone else who sees that Xah's posts consistently expose 
valid problems!  (Though his solutions are usually not well thought out.)

   -- MJF

"SamFeltus" <sam@nuevageorgia.com> writes:
> Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
> important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
> Cattle.

As I see it philosophers have a big problem: nobody need them, so
they're out of job.  That's why we see occasional articles "X needs
philosophers".  I just ask: where are the job offers?


-- 
__Pascal_Bourguignon__               _  Software patents are endangering
()  ASCII ribbon against html email (o_ the computer industry all around
/\  1962:DO20I=1.100                //\ the world http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/
    2001:my($f)=`fortune`;          V_/   http://petition.eurolinux.org/

Mark Shelor wrote:
> Xah Lee wrote:
> 
>> Programming languages are religions. For a long while now I've been
....

....
> Is there really something new out there?  I would argue that software 
> needs innovation more than it needs philosophers.

software needs innovation.

innovation needs philosophy.

philosophy needs openness.

-

For readers which like a more compact overview of LISP (and its 
surrounding community):

"Showcase for: how the "human factor" can negate, eliminate and even 
reverse the evolution of a Programming Language System."

http://lazaridis.com/core/eval/lisp.html

-

Note: the results of this reviews are currently moved into several 
projects:

http://lazaridis.com/pj

http://case.lazaridis.com/multi

..

-- 
http://lazaridis.com

Xah,

I agree with the thrust of your thread here, though I don't think it's
anything special: people invest their values in what they invest their
time in. To top it off, you're taking an anti-CL viewpoint in a group
predominantly focused around CL (despite being named for just lisp).
You're fighting against group polarization even as you fuel it.

Nevertheless, I agree with your point.

Unfortunately, I think you need to look closer into the philosophy of
your own writing. Rhetoric might not produce definitive answers, but it
has a purpose.

If you're looking for a place to openly criticize lisp, to search for
ways to improve it or to craft an alternative then, simply and without
malevolence, look somewhere else. That is the frustrated plea of those
who respond violently to your posts. C.l.l. isn't so versatile;
however, I'm sure the people here are if you approach the problem from
the right angle, with the right rhetoric.

Good luck.

Xah Lee wrote:

> Software Needs Philosophers
> 
> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
> 
> Software needs philosophers.
> 
> This thought has been nagging at me for a year now, and recently it's
> been growing like a tumor. One that plenty of folks on the 'net would
> love to see kill me.
> 
> People don't put much stock in philosophers these days. The popular
> impression of philosophy is that it's just rhetoric, just frivolous
> debating about stuff that can never properly be answered. ?Spare me
> the philosophy; let's stick to the facts!?
> 
> The funny thing is, it's philosophers who gave us the ability to think
> rationally, to stick to the facts. If it weren't for the work of
> countless philosophers, facts would still be getting people tortured
> and killed for discovering and sharing them.
> 
> Does it ever strike you as just a teeny bit odd that after a brief
> period where philosophy flourished, from maybe 400 B.C.E. to ~100 C.E.,
> we went through a follow-on period of well over one thousand five
> hundred years during which the Roman Catholic Church enslaved
> everyone's minds and killed anyone who dared think differently?
> 
> What's weirder is that we tend to pretend it didn't really happen. We
> like to just skip right over the dominance of religion over our minds
> for a hundred generations, and think of religion today as a kindly old
> grandpa who's just looking out for us kids. No harm, no foul. Let
> bygones be bygones. Sure, there were massacres and crusades and
> genocides and torture chambers with teeth grinding and eyes bleeding
> and intestines torn out in the name of God. But we were all just kids
> then, right? Nobody does that kind of thing today, at least not in
> civilized countries.
> 
> We try not to think about the uncivilized ones.
> 
> It was philosophers that got us out of that Dark Ages mess, and no
> small number of them lost their lives in doing so. And today, the
> philosophy majors are the butts of the most jokes, because after the
> philosophers succeeded in opening our minds, we forgot why we needed
> them.
> 
> And if we stop to think about it at all, we think that it was other
> people, people who are very unlike us, who committed those atrocities
> in the name of Faith (regardless of whether it's faith in a god, or in
> a political party, or any other form of mind control carried out by
> force).
> 
> We like to think we live in an enlightened age, but we don't. Humans
> haven't changed significantly in 10,000 years. We're still killing and
> torturing each other. It's apparently incredibly easy to decide to kill
> someone and then do it. Happens every day, all around the world.
> Torture, too.
> 
> But those people are just people. If they had been born down the street
> from you, they'd have gone to school with you, been friends with you,
> learned to program with you, written blogs and comments, never tortured
> or killed anyone in the name of an idea. They'd have been you. Which
> means they are you; you just got lucky in where you were born.
> 
> One of the commenters on my last blog entry expressed the fervent wish
> that I drop dead. To be sure, they qualified it with ?on the
> internet?. But if they really feel that way, especially about
> something as hilariously and absurdly unimportant in the Grand Scheme
> as whether the Lisp programming language has any acceptable
> implementations, then what does it say about us?
> 
> Everyone who commented angrily on that blog entry was caught. I caught
> you, anonymous or not, being a religious fanatic. The only
> ?negative? commenter who doesn't appear to be a religious zombie
> was Paul Costanza (ironic, since he claims to be the opinionated one),
> who relegated his comments to pedantic technical corrections. They're
> welcome, of course; I'm always looking to correct any technical
> misconceptions I harbor. But they're moot, since even if I was wrong
> about every single technical point I brought up in that entry, my
> overall point ? Lisp is not an acceptable Lisp ? remains largely
> uncontested by the commenters.
> 
> Some of them just don't get it, which is fine; no harm in that. If
> you've been using Lisp for years and years, and you've written books
> and articles and zillions of lines of Lisp code, then you're unlikely
> to remember anything about what it's like coming to Lisp for the first
> time. They're religious because they've forgotten what it's like to be
> a skeptic.
> 
> But make no mistake; a substantial percentage of people who take a side
> in any programming language discussion that devolves into a flamewar
> know exactly what the other side means, and they want to invoke the
> Ultimate Censorship: drop dead! Killing someone, after all, is one of
> the best ways to silence them. You also have to burn all their
> writings, which is getting harder these days; hence the increased
> vehemence on the 'net.
> 
> Those of you who've followed what I've written over the past year or so
> know where I'm going. I'm taking a stand, all right, and it's a very
> definite one. I'm finding myself drawn inexorably towards a single
> goal: stamping out technological religion, because I'm frigging tired
> of not being able to stick to the facts.
> 
> FACT: Java has no first-class functions and no macros. This results in
> warped code that hacks around the problem, and as the code base grows,
> it takes on a definite, ugly shape, one that's utterly unique to Java.
> Lisp people can see this clear as day. So can Python folks, so can Ruby
> folks. Java people flip out, and say ?macros are too much power?,
> or ?what do u mean i dont understand u? or ?fuck you, you jerk,
> Lisp will NEVER win?.
> 
> You think I don't hear ALL that, and much more, in the hate mail I get
> every day?
> 
> I sure wouldn't want to be alone with a Java fanatic in a medieval
> torture chamber, because God only knows what they're capable of.
> 
> Turn the mirror towards Python, and what happens? Funny, but the Java
> folks will mail me saying: ?yeah, I've always known I detested
> Python, and you really nailed exactly why. Thanks!? Meanwhile, Python
> folks are literally frothing at the mouth, looking for the ?Kill That
> Bastard? key on their 101-key keyboards.
> 
> I turned the mirror towards Lisp yesterday. Had to go to the bathroom
> like nobody's business, and my wife was expecting me home any minute,
> so I rushed it out: just a few thoughts here and there. So the Gorgon
> only caught the tiniest glimpse of itself, but hell evidently hath no
> fury like that of a Lisper scorned, and all that.
> 
> It doesn't matter that I rushed it out. I'm glad I did; spending any
> more time on it, trying to get it ?right? by looking up useless
> factoids like how you can override length's non-polymorphicness with
> some weird setting (when it plainly should just be the default), would
> have had the exact same net effect: Lisp zealots would have found some
> way to turn it into a flamewar. And I'd have been out 2 or 3 more
> hours.
> 
> Let's call it a troll, then, because it was poorly researched; it was
> just some months-old recollections of pain I'd gone through last year
> trying to commit to Common Lisp, after another year of trying the same
> with various flavors of Scheme and finding them all wanting. As far as
> I'm concerned, Lisp is unacceptable today; it's my opinion and just
> that, but I'll stick with it.
> 
> I still need Lisp; after you learn enough of it, it becomes part of
> your soul. I get my fix hacking elisp, and I do a lot of it. The
> commenters are quite right; I've never written anything substantial in
> Common Lisp, because in each of my serious attempts, there was too much
> friction. Risk/reward wasn't high enough, and believe me, I wanted it.
> 
> But after many attempts, I've given up on Common Lisp. They won't let
> me use it where I work, and there are probably more Lispers per capita
> where I work, including some famous ones, than at any other big company
> in the world. If we can't use it where I work, then it's frigging
> unacceptable; that's the shortest proof I can offer.
> 
> What I'm far more interested today is the situation that arises if you
> consider my post a troll. I'm far more interested in the social
> consequences of working in a world filled with religious fanatics of
> different religious persuasions. Especially given that it's a world in
> which ?natural religion? has, by and large, been marginalized
> through the work of philosophers.
> [ ? Peter Siebel is the author of the book Practical Common Lisp,
> 2005. ( http://gigamonkeys.com/book/).]
> 
> Let's look at this world in a little more detail, starting with Peter
> Siebel's comment, which I believe is the most interesting. Peter said:
> 
>     I was trying to figure out why on earth you spent so much time
> writing about something that you apparently don't like. Then it hit me:
> HCGS?. So thanks for your help.
> 
> His first sentence speaks volumes about the sociology. His viewpoint is
> exactly what they teach us all as kids: If you don't have anything nice
> to say, don't say anything at all. We like to think people have a right
> to believe whatever they want, and that it's not nice to say mean
> things about other people's beliefs, especially when their livelihoods
> are at stake.
> 
> That's where philosophers come in, folks. They pick your beliefs apart
> and show you in unforgettable ways the consequences of what you believe
> in. I'm no philosopher; I know basically nothing about it, but I can
> tell you I wish fervently that some great philosophers would come along
> and effect change in our technical society.
> 
> Because if nothing else, I can see the consequences of the way we're
> thinking about things. One of many such consequences is that languages
> aren't getting any better, and the worst offenders are Lisp and Scheme,
> which by rights should be racing along the innovation curve faster than
> their supposedly less capable peers. But they've stagnated worse than
> any other non-dead language I can think of.[1]
> 
> Programming languages are religions. For a long while now I've been
> mildly uncomfortable calling it ?religion?, but I don't feel bad
> about it anymore. They're similar enough. At the top of the language
> religion is the language itself; it serves as the deity and the object
> of worship.
> 
> Like any other organized religion, there's always a Pope (or a
> politburo chairman, in countries where the government has brutally set
> itself up as what is for all intents the religion of choice): a
> spiritual leader that gives the religion the human touch. This person
> is almost always the language designer, of course. In Lisp's case it's
> complicated, because McCarthy, Sussman and Steele aren't very active as
> spiritual leaders for their languages anymore.
> 
> Every major organized religion is a heirarchical government, and
> programming languages are no exception. You'll find equivalents of
> cardinals, bishops, priests and laity in programming language camps:
> the closer you are to the fire, to the spiritual center, the higher
> your rank. It's a great way to quantify your perceived self-importance:
> a high-score list, in effect. Great for the ego, but it makes you a
> piss-poor debater, because you're so emotionally invested in your
> status.
> 
> You'd think your rank would be accrued by virtue of your technical
> and/or documentation contributions, but in practice it's usually more
> of a function of how many converts you've gained, how many followers
> you have, how much you've been spreading the Word.
> 
> [? Paul Graham is a lisp dignitary. He is well known for having sold
> his ecommerce software written in lisp to Yahoo.com for $49.9 million,
> among other things. See Paul Graham? and http://www.paulgraham.com/ ]
> 
> That's why Paul Graham isn't the Pope of Lisp. He's eminently
> qualified, but unfortunately he's a heretic. Notice that almost none of
> the commenters on my last blog mentioned the PG argument I made. The
> only one who did (as of this writing) tried to make it an argument for
> Common Lisp. Let's face it: you can't give those heretics too much
> press; people might start listening to them!
> 
> Peter, are you beginning to understand why I write so much about
> something I apparently don't like? It's because I wanted to like it but
> found it fatally flawed, technically and culturally. It's as if I were
> a would-be convert to Roman Catholicism, but I can't bring myself to
> commit because I've seen too much of their role in creating a history
> that ironically we all wish we could rewrite.
> 
> I was born and raised a Roman Catholic, and I renounced it when I was
> thirteen years old, after my Uncle Frank (a devout terrorist Catholic
> if there ever was one) told me to stop reading the Bible, that it would
> ?really screw a person up? to do that, that you needed someone to
> interpret it for you. That wasn't the only reason I renounced it, but
> it'll suffice for our purposes.
> 
> Technologically I was born and raised an assembly-language programmer;
> at least that's what my first real job was, for 5 years after I got my
> CS degree. Assembly is just flagellation, though, and damned
> uncomfortable at that, so I joined the Church of Java for fully seven
> years. And practically at the very moment I'd finally tired of chafing
> at Java's limitations, Paul Graham came along and through his early
> essays, showed me Lisp. What a great new religion!
> 
> Problem is, each time you switch religions, the next one has less
> impact on you. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, they say. I don't
> know what that means for me, since I was raised by the
> assembly-language wolf, but it appears to mean that I'm never going to
> be enthralled with another programming language. And now that I've
> swallowed the red pill, what choice do I have? I need to try to show
> people what's out there.
> 
> Interestingly, it was Peter Siebel's most excellent book, Practical
> Common Lisp?, that played the role of Uncle Frank and killed my
> desired to continue with Common Lisp. Peter was the first person to
> show me beast's underbelly. Every other Lisp book had pretended it was
> pure and beautiful and uncorrupted, because they left all the nastiness
> out as ?implementation-defined?. Once I saw what you really need to
> do in order to build something resembling a portable Lisp code base,
> and then had a few runs at it myself, I threw in the towel.
> 
> I much prefer Lisp the idea to Lisp the implementation.[2]
> 
> [ ? Fyodor_Dostoyevsky?, David_Hume?, Aristotle?,
> Jean-Paul_Sartre?, Ben_Franklin?, Galileo_Galilei?,
> Bertrand_Russell?, Albert_Einstein? ]
> 
> I can tell you this: I've tried writing this essay for a year. I've
> tried fully a dozen times. I've tackled it from a dozen angles. I've
> wanted to say it ? software needs philosophers! ? so many times, in
> so many ways. We need great thinkers ? the Fyodor Dostoyevskys and
> David Humes and Aristotles and Jean-Paul Sartres and Ben Franklins and
> Galileo Galileis and Bertrand Russells and Albert Einsteins to show us
> the way through the Software Dark Ages we're in today: a time that will
> doubtless be remembered as every bit as mired in darkness and ignorance
> as the Dark Ages themselves.
> 
> But I've failed. This isn't the essay I wanted to write, because I'm
> neither a great thinker nor a great writer. However, you might be: if
> not now, then perhaps someday. So I think it's better to get the idea
> out now than to hoard it in the hopes of someday writing a
> world-changing essay.
> 
> For those of you who were surprised at the suddenness and vehemence of
> the Lisp community's backlash to my little rant, I hope I've helped
> shed a little light, helped you see its inevitability. Basically
> they've had a lot of practice. Lisp is one of the oldest technology
> religions, and they've both experienced and doled out their share of
> religious persecution.
> 
> But that's not the lesson you should take away. The lesson is that they
> are you. Whenever you hear someone ranting about something you take for
> granted as wonderful and praiseworthy, and you're wondering why they
> don't leave well enough alone so we can all get back to our incestuous
> cheerleading, just remember: we went from the Dark Ages to our
> reeeeasonably enlightened society today by questioning our most
> cherished beliefs.
> 
> So keep questioning them.
> 
> [ ? R6RS refers to the Scheme Lisp language's upcoming specification.
> See Scheme programming language? ]
> 
> [1] Yes, I've read all of R6RS. It's a lukewarm compromise that punts
> on most of the important issues. It's not going to make Scheme any more
> successful than it is today, which to me feels practically criminal; it
> was their one big chance to break out of the rut they're in. But it
> doesn't matter. Let's pretend this footnote is just a troll. If your
> hackles went up, then you're a techno-religious zombie, and I hope in
> my lifetime to find you a cure. Try your best to think about that long
> and hard before responding.
> 
> [ ? SLIME is a emacs mode for lisp programing. See
> http://common-lisp.net/project/slime/. ]
> 
> [2] For the record, the commenter I agree the most with is the one who
> said the problem basically boils down to an IDE issue. SLIME doesn't
> cut it, either, as beautiful as SLIME is. Can't use it on Windows to
> save your life, for instance. But that's one of a thousand problems
> with the Lisp IDE situation; it's pointless to try to discuss them all
> in blogger. It's probably pointless to discuss them at all, because
> it's just going to make me more miserable that no decent IDE exists for
> Lisp, except for Emacs-as-Elisp-IDE. Which is why I get my Lisp fix by
> hacking elisp these days.
> 
> ----
> This post is archived at:
> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/software-needs-philosophers.html
> 
> and
> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/_p/software_phil.html
> 
> This essay is reported with permission.
> 
>    Xah
>    xah@xahlee.org
>  ? http://xahlee.org/


No Xah :-) many of us want you to stay healthy !

Philippe

Pascal Bourguignon <pjb@informatimago.com> writes:

> "SamFeltus" <sam@nuevageorgia.com> writes:
>> Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
>> important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
>> Cattle.
>
> As I see it philosophers have a big problem: nobody need them, so
> they're out of job.  That's why we see occasional articles "X needs
> philosophers".  I just ask: where are the job offers?

Some might think that Aristotle's categorization and type theories
might have created a few jobs in our current hobby/profession.  There
are many types of philosophy, but from what I've read, the most
interesting the the mental deconstructionism of reality on a
humanistic linguistic level, similar to mathematics without all the
abbreviations.

No, there aren't any jobs for philosophers, and their works are
generally very underappreciated during thier lives, but it's quite
difficult to say that it's useless, just often misunderstood by the
less forward thinking people of their time.

-- 
burton samograd					kruhft .at. gmail
kruhft.blogspot.com	www.myspace.com/kruhft	metashell.blogspot.com

Philippe Martin wrote:

> No Xah :-) many of us want you to stay healthy !
> 
> Philippe

Please don't quote 350 lines of garbage to post a one-line reply.  In fact,
please don't quote 350 lines of garbage at all.

-- 
Edward Elliott
UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall)
complangpython at eddeye dot net

PofN wrote:
> Xah Lee wrote:

> > Software needs philosophers.

> No, software neds less idiots. So please take your medication and
> change profession.

I'm afraid the idiot is you. You even misattributed the quote, since
that _entire_ posting was a quote of work by another author. We
can easily guess you never read past the first line before posting
your response.

Nice try at re-routing responses, too, you moronic scum.

Meanwhile, the article originally quoted is well worth the plowing
through and then indulging in a bit of introspection to realize that
yes,
being a True Believer in _anything_ is a disease needing curing by
something very like philosophers, even if that something is Java as a
programming language. Or, in the original posting, Common Lisp.

HTH

xanthian.

Xah Lee wrote:

> Software Needs Philosophers
>
> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
>
> Software needs philosophers.
>
> This thought has been nagging at me for a year now, and recently it's
> been growing like a tumor. One that plenty of folks on the 'net would
> love to see kill me.

No, we all wish you a long and quiet life! Although some of us are a
little annoyed that you keep cross-posting articles wildly to
completely unrelated newsgroups...

> People don't put much stock in philosophers these days. The popular
> impression of philosophy is that it's just rhetoric, just frivolous
> debating about stuff that can never properly be answered. "Spare me
> the philosophy; let's stick to the facts!"
>
> The funny thing is, it's philosophers who gave us the ability to think
> rationally, to stick to the facts. If it weren't for the work of
> countless philosophers, facts would still be getting people tortured
> and killed for discovering and sharing them.
>
> Does it ever strike you as just a teeny bit odd that after a brief
> period where philosophy flourished, from maybe 400 B.C.E. to ~100 C.E.,
> we went through a follow-on period of well over one thousand five
> hundred years during which the Roman Catholic Church enslaved
> everyone's minds and killed anyone who dared think differently?

I wonder where you get your historical "facts" form? (Monty Python
movies?) Let's just add a few fun facts: Yes, philosophy did flourish
in ancient greece, but liberty certainly didn't. Yes, Athens was (at
least most of the time) a democracy - which by the way, most
philosophers thought was a very bad thing. But still, about 90% of the
population of Athens were slaves at that time. Not just "mentally
enslaved", no, real, physical slaves.
Also, it was dangerous to have oppinions that authorities didn't like
(Socrates for example was sentenced to death because of impiety,
Anaxagoras and Aristoteles had to flee because of similar charges,
Hipposus, who _proved_ a flaw in Pythagoras' number theory was
drowned). And, sad to say, if philosophers would have been in charge,
things would probably have been even worse (Ever read Plato's "The
State"?)

Also, has the roman catholic church really "killed anyone who dared
think differently"? The Spanish Inquisition for example killed about
1000-2000 people in two centuries. That's bad enough, no question, but
"anyone who dared think differently"? Hardly.

> What's weirder is that we tend to pretend it didn't really happen. We
> like to just skip right over the dominance of religion over our minds
> for a hundred generations, and think of religion today as a kindly old
> grandpa who's just looking out for us kids. No harm, no foul. Let
> bygones be bygones. Sure, there were massacres and crusades and
> genocides and torture chambers with teeth grinding and eyes bleeding
> and intestines torn out in the name of God. But we were all just kids
> then, right? Nobody does that kind of thing today, at least not in
> civilized countries.

Hmmm. There were massacres in the name of liberty to, e.g. in the
French Revolution. Does that make liberty (and those who value it)
equally evil? (The same is of course true for money, love, or probably
anything else people like)

> We try not to think about the uncivilized ones.

We do! Let's think about some of them: The Khmers rouges come to my
mind, also China, and a few years back the Soviet Union. Notice
something? Right, no religion. In fact, they were more or less
following the works of the philosopher Karl Marx.

> It was philosophers that got us out of that Dark Ages mess, and no
> small number of them lost their lives in doing so.

In the "Dark Ages" pretty much the only chance to get a decent
education was to become a monk or at least be taught by monks. So, it
isn't surprising that almost all of the philosophers at the time (like
William of Occam or Roger Bacon) were monks. Therefore, philosophy was
never clearly separated from theology during that time.

The end of the middle ages is probably marked by the renaissance and
the reformation, the latter of course started by a priest.

What have we learned? Yes, Religion was an important power in the
development of europe over the last 3000 years (yes, I'm including the
Antiquity in this, it didn't just take a break to watch the philosophy
channel). So were money, and military power, technology, social
factors, and of course philosophy. Yes, it did have bad consequences,
and it did have good ones. The same is true for all the other powers as
well.

(BTW: Have you ever considered the possibility that philosophers might
not be interested in tab-versus-spaces-debates in the first place?
Maybe they have more interesting matters to discuss. Just like the rest
of us.)

M Jared Finder wrote:
> SamFeltus wrote:
>> [...]
>> Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
>> important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
>> Cattle.
> 
> Finally, someone else who sees that Xah's posts consistently expose 
> valid problems!  (Though his solutions are usually not well thought out.)
> 
>   -- MJF

I agree, Xah's articles make you think. Although in this case, it's a
blog article by Steve Yegge that Xah evidently got permission to post.

Software *does* need philosophers, but the more I think about the 
implications of that, the more I think it's scary.

"PofN" <7abc@sogetthis.com> writes:

> Xah Lee wrote:
> > Software needs philosophers.
> 
> No, software neds less idiots. So please take your medication and
> change profession.

Perhaps fewer would do.

-- 
http://www.david-steuber.com/
1998 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport
2006 Honda 599 Hornet (CB600F) x 2 Crash & Slider
The lithobraker.  Zero distance stops at any speed.

"nikie" <n.estner@gmx.de> wrote in message 
news:1148254714.668727.298420@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Xah Lee wrote:
>
>> Software Needs Philosophers
>>
>> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
>>
>> Software needs philosophers.
>>
>> This thought has been nagging at me for a year now, and recently it's
>> been growing like a tumor. One that plenty of folks on the 'net would
>> love to see kill me.
>
> No, we all wish you a long and quiet life! Although some of us are a
> little annoyed that you keep cross-posting articles wildly to
> completely unrelated newsgroups...

The above was written by Steve Yegge, not  Xah Lee, who just reposted 
Steve's blog entry.  To reply to Steve, go to his blog.

tjr

Pascal Bourguignon wrote:

> As I see it philosophers have a big problem: nobody need them, so
> they're out of job.  That's why we see occasional articles "X needs
> philosophers".  I just ask: where are the job offers?

And yet, what is the below, which you might recognize, but a stand
of a philosophical sort, striking a balance on the continuum between
the right to profit from personal accomplishment and innovation, and
the right to re-invent the apparently obvious without penalty?

:> Software patents are endangering the computer industry all around
:> the world.

Just because philosophy isn't currently paying the rent, doesn't make
it any less necessary for humanity to remain even vaguely human.

xanthian.

SamFeltus wrote:

> Religious Fanaticism is a very strong in the Computer community.  But,
> is it really a surprise that when a bunch of hairless apes created a
> new mental world, they created it with a complicated Quilt of religions
> and nationalities, and many became fanatical?
> 
> I am confidant the responces Xah will recieve will validate his
> observation on religious fanaticism.  It is funny, Xah always questions
> people's Sacred Cow's, I have often noted that the reponces often read
> like the writings of religious fanatics.  As a Georgian (US), the
> responces often remind me of the Dark Side (there is a Light) of the
> Southern Baptist Church, translated into Computer Speak.
> 
> Software needs philosophers is an interesting point, perhaps the most
> important function of Philosophers is exposing Sacred Cows as just
> Cattle.

Unless Xah Lee is Steve Yegge, Xah Lee did not write that essay.  Nor did he
claim to:

> Software Needs Philosophers

> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.

<....>

> This post is archived at:
> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/software-needs-philosophers.html

> and http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/_p/software_phil.html

> This essay is reported with permission.

As a professionally trained "philosopher" and "programmer", I'm
perfectly well aware that the onus is on _me_ to make others respect &
appreciate my skills and what they offer. Posting to usenet about how
others just don't "get it" is, in fact, not "getting it".

Even further, using "religion" as the antithesis to the glorious
philosophy which produces only truth makes this little more than the
standard net rant of "your way is different from mine and therefore
wrong". I can just as easily use "philosophy" to mean "the pointless
rantings of obsessed individuals"...

Seriously, this fails on every single level it aims at.

- alex23

David Steuber wrote:
> "PofN" <7abc@sogetthis.com> writes:
> 
>> Xah Lee wrote:
>>> Software needs philosophers.
>> No, software neds less idiots. So please take your medication and
>> change profession.
> 
> Perhaps fewer would do.

Thank you.  I didn't want to be "that guy."

after all, somebody dumped some
backup of his brain to use-net:

> Software Needs Philosophers
> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.

including lots of personal details.

So what I basically took from it
is written in this paragraph:

> I was born and raised a Roman Catholic, and I renounced it when I was
> thirteen years old, after my Uncle Frank (a devout terrorist Catholic
> if there ever was one) told me to stop reading the Bible, that it would
> “really screw a person up” to do that, that you needed someone to
> interpret it for you. That wasn't the only reason I renounced it, but
> it'll suffice for our purposes.

Under 'best effort interpretation', one could see
the whole thing in the light of the small thing:
he's rescuing 'us' by telling us:
- to think rational,
- to de-construct our beliefs and
- don't put that much personal sympathy into
  'subculture group pseudoreligion',
the latter is what he thinks 'computer language culture'
really is today.

I can't see what's wrong with these hypotheses
(besides he got some terms wrong); he describes
things we most probably are already aware of
(in our own context of notions) - but wouldn't
bother to fill the communication lines of the
world with it (wouldn't give a damn about ...)

(my €0.05)

Mirco

f'up ==> c.l.p.m

Xah Lee wrote:
> Software Needs Philosophers
> 
> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
> 
> Software needs philosophers.
> 
> [...]
> ----
> This post is archived at:
> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/software-needs-philosophers.html
> 
> and
> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/_p/software_phil.html
> 
> This essay is reported with permission.
> 
>    Xah
>    xah@xahlee.org
>  ? http://xahlee.org/
> 

Remember that this was a blog post from Steve Yegge that Xah
Lee got permission to repost.

It was a little long, and I got bored in the middle, but I
think I understand (a little) Steve's point. He thinks we need
software philosophers to break programmers' religious-like
devotion to their languages of choice. I don't agree with
this.

I'd say we need software philosophers to help us see where
software is taking us so that we can avoid bad spots if
necessary. After all, the computer might just be the cotton
gin of our time. We might be virtually enslaved by
our own information if we don't watch out.

Philosophers have the ability to think long, to think big,
and to think about the future, and to think about the
consequences of actions in a rational manner. They would be
able to warn us if we were about to do something stupid with
our society.

However, Steve Yegge's software philosophers only serve to
eliminate programmer's passions for their programming
languages. While removing irrational beliefs is a good
thing, I see Yegge's philosophers moving through the
software industry, destroying everyone's passions for
programming, and, as a result, the software industry is
destroyed.

It's scary the way I see it. On the other hand, I support
rational thinking, and part of supporting rational thinking
is (presumably) having the courage to support rational
thinking even when the results are not to your immediate
liking. IOW, I have to support something that scares the
bejeebers out of me.

Yet on the other, other hand, if people think rationally,
the quality of life can only improve. Boy, am I confused :)

Fortunately, people have their passions, for both
programming and life, and that's not going to change anytime
soon. If it does, it'll be a very gray world indeed.

Thanks again Xah for getting these brain cells working
again.

"Mumia W." <mumia.w.18.spam+fbi.gov@earthlink.net> wrote in message 
news:nfecg.192$Sf2.171@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> Xah Lee wrote:
>> Software Needs Philosophers
>>
>> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
>>
>> Software needs philosophers.
>>
>> [...]
>> ----
>> This post is archived at:
>> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/software-needs-philosophers.html
>>
>> and
>> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/_p/software_phil.html
>>
>> This essay is reported with permission.
>>
>>    Xah
>>    xah@xahlee.org
>>  ? http://xahlee.org/
>>
>
> Remember that this was a blog post from Steve Yegge that Xah
> Lee got permission to repost.
>
> It was a little long, and I got bored in the middle, but I
> think I understand (a little) Steve's point. He thinks we need
> software philosophers to break programmers' religious-like
> devotion to their languages of choice. I don't agree with
> this.
>
> I'd say we need software philosophers to help us see where
> software is taking us so that we can avoid bad spots if
> necessary. After all, the computer might just be the cotton
> gin of our time. We might be virtually enslaved by
> our own information if we don't watch out.
>
> Philosophers have the ability to think long, to think big,
> and to think about the future, and to think about the
> consequences of actions in a rational manner. They would be
> able to warn us if we were about to do something stupid with
> our society.
>

Thank you for that laugh. I think you're the first person I've read in this 
century who advocates Plato's silly notion of the philosopher kings. If you 
want to talk philosophy, please jump foward past the Enlightment.

Matt 

nikie wrote:
>
> (BTW: Have you ever considered the possibility that philosophers might
> not be interested in tab-versus-spaces-debates in the first place?
> Maybe they have more interesting matters to discuss. Just like the rest
> of us.)

Debate? There's no valid dabate. Tabs bad. Spaces good.

vjg wrote:
> nikie wrote:
>   
>> (BTW: Have you ever considered the possibility that philosophers might
>> not be interested in tab-versus-spaces-debates in the first place?
>> Maybe they have more interesting matters to discuss. Just like the rest
>> of us.)
>>     
>
> Debate? There's no valid dabate. Tabs bad. Spaces good.
>
>   
Hrmms, I think we should debate about the debate now, I mean we've 
already beaten the actual topic to DEATH.

..c



-- 

Carl J. Van Arsdall
cvanarsdall@mvista.com
Build and Release
MontaVista Software

Xah Lee wrote:
> Software Needs Philosophers
> 
> by Steve Yegge, 2006-04-15.
> 
> Software needs philosophers.
> 
> People don't put much stock in philosophers these days. The popular
> impression of philosophy is that it's just rhetoric, just frivolous
> debating about stuff that can never properly be answered. “Spare me
> the philosophy; let's stick to the facts!”
> 
> The funny thing is, it's philosophers who gave us the ability to think
> rationally, to stick to the facts. If it weren't for the work of
> countless philosophers, facts would still be getting people tortured
> and killed for discovering and sharing them.

Paging Dr Mertz... (http://www.gnosis.cx)

Tim C

Dra�en Gemi� schrieb:
> Xah Lee wrote:
>> Software Needs Philosophers
>>
> 
> Welcome to my junk filters !!!!


Thanks for informing each and every reader of the newsgroups 
comp.lang.perl.misc, comp.lang.python, comp.lang.java.programmer, 
comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.function about your junk filters.


Timo

Timo Stamm wrote:
> Dra=BEen Gemi=E6 schrieb:
>=20
>> Xah Lee wrote:
>>
>>> Software Needs Philosophers
>>>
>>
>> Welcome to my junk filters !!!!
>=20
>=20
>=20
> Thanks for informing each and every reader of the newsgroups=20
> comp.lang.perl.misc, comp.lang.python, comp.lang.java.programmer,=20
> comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.function about your junk filters.

Anytime......

DG

fupto: poster

Dra�en Gemi� <usenet@local.machine> wrote:

> Timo Stamm wrote:
>> Dra�en Gemi� schrieb:
>> 
>>> Xah Lee wrote:
>>>
>>>> Software Needs Philosophers
>>>>
>>>
>>> Welcome to my junk filters !!!!
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks for informing each and every reader of the newsgroups 
>> comp.lang.perl.misc, comp.lang.python, comp.lang.java.programmer, 
>> comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.function about your junk filters.
> 
> Anytime......

Instead of adding Xah to your junk filter, you might want to complain with 
his ISP: abuse at sbcglobal dot net

Hosting provider has already taken steps

Google Groups might not care, but its worth a try. The more people 
complain, the faster Xah has to hop ISPs and providers, and maybe one day 
he understand that shitting in your garden costs money.

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

"nikie" <n.estner@gmx.de> wrote in message news:1148254714.668727.298420@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
: Xah Lee wrote:
:
:
: I wonder where you get your historical "facts" form? (Monty Python
: movies?) Let's just add a few fun facts: Yes, philosophy did flourish
: in ancient greece, but liberty certainly didn't. Yes, Athens was (at
: least most of the time) a democracy - which by the way, most
: philosophers thought was a very bad thing. But still, about 90% of the
: population of Athens were slaves at that time. Not just "mentally
: enslaved", no, real, physical slaves.

Small quibble - while only 10% of the population were citizens,
by no means were the rest all slaves.  The other 90% were children,
women,  metoikoi (a commercial class of free men of foreign birth
who paid for the right to live in Athens) and house slaves.
Most Athenian slaves lived in the country.
: Also, it was dangerous to have oppinions that authorities didn't like
: (Socrates for example was sentenced to death because of impiety,
: Anaxagoras and Aristoteles had to flee because of similar charges,
: Hipposus, who _proved_ a flaw in Pythagoras' number theory was
: drowned).

Which should act as a warning to all who employ the Socratic Method.  Sadly,
it doesn't.

Dan Mercer

Dan Mercer wrote:

> "nikie" <n.estner@gmx.de> wrote:
> : Also, it was dangerous to have oppinions that authorities didn't like
> : (Socrates for example was sentenced to death because of impiety,
> : Anaxagoras and Aristoteles had to flee because of similar charges,
> : Hipposus, who _proved_ a flaw in Pythagoras' number theory was
> : drowned).
> 
> Which should act as a warning to all who employ the Socratic Method. 
> Sadly, it doesn't.

Tell that to law professors.  Socratic method is a way of life.

-- 
Edward Elliott
UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall)
complangpython at eddeye dot net

<corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in news:4dbartF19cb9rU1@uni-berlin.de:

[Snips]
> Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
> wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.

What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?

I'd like to believe that there are some, but I can't think of any at the 
moment.

All the best,

John.

John D Salt wrote:
> <corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in news:4dbartF19cb9rU1@uni-berlin.de:
> 
> [Snips]
> 
>>Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>>wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
> 
> 
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?
> 
> I'd like to believe that there are some, but I can't think of any at the 
> moment.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> John.
I correct: We live in a paradise where we finally have to processing 
power to realize all those ideas that were too inefficient 20 years ago.

-- 
The science of economics is the cleverest proof of free will yet 
constructed.

On Tue, 23 May 2006 15:58:12 +0200, John D Salt <jdsalt_AT_gotadsl.co.uk>  
wrote:

> <corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in news:4dbartF19cb9rU1@uni-berlin.de:
>
> [Snips]
>> Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>> wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
>
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?
>
> I'd like to believe that there are some, but I can't think of any at the
> moment.
>
> All the best,
>
> John.

Well most have to do with wireless nets and connectivity.
One is that all compoters will be connected to the net all of the time.
When you go out you will not bring a mobile phone you will bring a PDA  
(Personal data assistant).
You can call people, listent to music, wach videoes. You can connect to
the web cans at home and see that the children are ok or turn the oven on
while on the way back from work, etc.
As you move from sector to another the PDA aquites the closest transmitter
and hooks on to it. Most use wireless networks to
connect aplliances in their homes.
Instead of tv stations you order movies and TV series from online
servers. etc..

Also the AI part. AI will not consist of cumputers trying to pretend to
be people. The will take vocal commands. The will remember your  
preferences.
It will know when you are on vacation. Turn the alarm on, lower the house  
theperature
and turn on lights periodically to make it look inhabited.
It will know what movies and shows you like to watch and order them  
accordingly.
It will know who you know and order incoming messages accordingly by  
priority,
also block out those you do not what contact with.

There is now a clear idea of how windows systems should behave.
Windows interfaces have evolved accordingly. It is now far less
tedious to connect systems to the net or make a windows interface..

etc, etc..

-- 
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

John D Salt wrote:
> <corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in news:4dbartF19cb9rU1@uni-berlin.de:
> 
> [Snips]
> 
>>Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>>wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
> 
> 
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?

What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
cannot be traced back to Doug Engbart's 1968 presentation at Xerox Parc?

> 
> I'd like to believe that there are some, but I can't think of any at the 
> moment.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> John.

Good question on new ideas vs old ideas.  Seems to me the computer
industry needs some young brains, raised around the internet, to
generate some major new theoretical ideas for computers.  Seems to me
it must already be occuring below the radar.  When it happens, it
shouldn't be too hard to spot.  It will make cool new things possible,
and won't make sense to most people over 25.

John D Salt <jdsalt_AT_gotadsl.co.uk> writes:

> <corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in news:4dbartF19cb9rU1@uni-berlin.de:
>
> [Snips]
>> Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>> wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
>
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?

Well, I would have thought of Genetic Programming but it dates back at
least 1980:

    The first experiments with GP were reported by Stephen F. Smith
    (1980) and Nichael L. Cramer (1985), as described in the famous
    book Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means
    of Natural Selection by John Koza (1992).

> I'd like to believe that there are some, but I can't think of any at the 
> moment.

I think we're just in a Matrix loop...

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/

COMPONENT EQUIVALENCY NOTICE: The subatomic particles (electrons,
protons, etc.) comprising this product are exactly the same in every
measurable respect as those used in the products of other
manufacturers, and no claim to the contrary may legitimately be
expressed or implied.

John D Salt <jdsalt_AT_gotadsl.co.uk> writes:
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?

Automated spamming tools?  ;-)

Le Tue, 23 May 2006 08:58:12 -0500, John D Salt a �crit�:

> 
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?

Actually it looks like the latest breakthru was invention of LISP circa
1957. Well, Perhaps OO paradigm and Smalltalk, circa 1973, too.

-- 
Le commissaire : Comment vous appelez-vous?  
Garance : Moi je ne m'appelle jamais, je suis toujours l�. J'ai pas
besoin de m'appeler. Mais les autres m'appellent Garance, si �a peut
vous int�resser.
Pr�vert,"les enfants du Paradis".

"John A. Bailo" <jabailo@texeme.com> wrote in
news:WOadnW-sRKmdoe7Z4p2dnA@speakeasy.net: 

[Snips]
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to Doug Engbart's 1968 presentation at Xerox
> Parc? 

The only two I would think worth mentioning are Nygaard et al's ideas on 
patterns as embodied in Mjolner Beta, and Colmerauer's on logic programming 
as embodied in Prolog.  And maybe pi calculus, if only for sticking the 
formal foundation in where it was missing from under O-O.

But Prolog and pi calculus are regarded as marginal activities, and most 
software people have stil contrived never to have heard of Nygaard, despite 
his being the inventor (with Ole-Johan Dahl) of O-O in 1967.

All the best,

John.

Eli Gottlieb <eligottlieb@gmail.com> wrote in
news:bLEcg.6900$8G3.3785@twister.nyroc.rr.com: 

[Snips]
> I correct: We live in a paradise where we finally have to processing 
> power to realize all those ideas that were too inefficient 20 years
> ago. 

That sounds more reasonable.

In my more jaundiced moments, I think that progress in software will not 
resume until we stop the annual doubling of resources for bloatware to 
consume.

All the best,

John.

I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
Friday.

I'm not sure I will be able to keep using their service, but I do hope
so. I do not like to post off-topic messages, but this is newsgroup
incidence is getting out of hand, and I wish people to know about it.

I wrote some full detail here:
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/harassment.html

If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com

Your help is appreciated. Thank you.

   Xah
   xah@xahlee.org
 =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/

Xah Lee wrote:

> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday.

It's not simply harassment if your ISP considers it a TOS violation. 
You did something, it was reported to your ISP, your ISP considered it a 
violation of their TOS, were warned, failed to comply and continued 
doing it, and now are suffering the consequences.  Should this really be 
any surprise to you?

This has nothing to do with whether you feel that the complaint or the 
judgement against you was "right" -- this has happened before; this is 
familiar territory for you.  If you do something, your ISP tells you not 
to do it anymore, and then you continue doing it, why should you be 
surprised at the inevitable outcome?  (I'm impressed they're giving you 
a 30-day notice, quite frankly ... I'm sure you'll "take advantage" of it.)

> I'm not sure I will be able to keep using their service, but I do hope
> so. I do not like to post off-topic messages, but this is newsgroup
> incidence is getting out of hand, and I wish people to know about it.

Apart from the obvious fact of you being a general tool, why would you 
_want_ to consider continuing to use their service if you felt that they 
were cutting you off unfairly?

The alternative is that you're not surprised by this action and are 
simply trying to spin things in your favor.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
   The woman's movement is no longer a cause but a symptom.
   -- Joan Didion

"Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> skrev i melding 
news:1148459377.384317.100730@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday.

The solution to your problem is very simple:

Stop posting your "controversial writings and style" to public
newgroups, and keep them on your web-server where they belong.

<snipped />

-- 
Dag.

Xah Lee schreef:

> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday.
>
> I'm not sure I will be able to keep using their service, but I do hope
> so. I do not like to post off-topic messages, but this is newsgroup
> incidence is getting out of hand, and I wish people to know about it.
>
> I wrote some full detail here:
> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/harassment.html
>
> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
>
> Your help is appreciated. Thank you.
>
>    Xah
>    xah@xahlee.org
>  =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/

We seem to have strayed a long way from Voltaire's
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your
right to say it.",
but that was of course the age of enlightenment.
Immanuel

>From my point of view, this issue has two sides:

1) Xah is posting to the newgroups valid topics for discussion - if
some find these controversial, then all the better: it means that the
topic has provoked some thought. You only need to look at the quantity
of Xah's threads to see how popular they are (even if you filter out
the "you're in my kill file", or "plonk" style spam that some people
feel the need to post)

2) Xah cross posted the posts to several newsgroups he has an interest
in.

Now this second point should be the only factor for reporting him to
his ISP. Given that it has gone this far, wouldn't it be fair to give
the guy a break on the condition that if he wants to post to a variety
of newgroups, that he does it individually rather than as a cross post?

-- 
Ant...

ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> Xah Lee schreef:
>
>> <snip: plea for sympathy after being reported to ISP for persistent off-topic postings>

Which reminds me of
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#not_losing

> We seem to have strayed a long way from Voltaire's
> "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your
> right to say it.",

I don't think we have. Surely Voltaire didn't support speaking in 
inappropriate fora? He didn't support causing a public nuisance?

Would you lay down *your* life to defend Xah's "right" to wallpaper your 
street, your church, your school with printed essays about his personal 
obsessions?

In societies with a right to free speech, there are limits on where and 
how you may exercise that right. For example, you don't have a right to 
force any newspaper or TV station to publish your speech.

Xah's ISP can decide whether their terms of service provide Xah with a 
"right" to publish anything he wishes through their facilities 
regardless of established standards of appropriateness.

With apologies to Voltaire:
If Xah Lee did not exist, it would be necessary for John Bokma to
invent him.

Xah and Bokma are both idiots, they truly deserve each other.  The
sooner you killfile these two clowns, the happier you'll be.

I agree there are limits to you right to free speech, but I believe Xah
Lee is not crossing
any boundaries. If he starts taking over newspapers and TV stations be
sure to notify me,
I might revise my position. 
Immanuel

> Surely Voltaire didn't support speaking in inappropriate fora?

Who knows? But the fora Xah posts to are few (5 or so?) and
appropriate. "Software needs Philosophers" wasn't even his rant, but
was certainly appropriate to all groups he posted to.

If you don't like Xah's posts, then don't read them. Killfile him or
whatever. But they *are* generally on-topic, they are not frequent,
they are not spam and they do seem to be intended to provoke discussion
rather than being simply trolls.

I have no particular affinity for Xah's views, but what does get up my
nose is usenet Nazism.

Xah Lee wrote:
> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday.
> 
> I'm not sure I will be able to keep using their service, but I do hope
> so. 


> I do not like to post off-topic messages, 

You don't? Then who has been forcing you to post off-topic essays? A man 
with a gun?

> but this is newsgroup
> incidence is getting out of hand, and I wish people to know about it.

Nothing out of hand here. You are abusing usenet, and for once an ISP is 
doing something prompt about it. More power them.

In comp.lang.perl.misc Xah Lee <xah@xahlee.org> wrote

> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday.

Look at it that way: People gave you criticisms numerous times in
various ways and many newsgroups. You ignored it. You just thought you
were right. Maybe you should read some of your posts on criticisms
yourself?

Just start taking the consequences of your actions. 

As a side note, a big ++ to John and Dreamhost. I've sent a mail to DH
to thank them for taking these steps.


p

PS: This message just goes to cl.perl.misc.

-- 
Hear the chants of old powers, the weak fall on their swords.
Nature is above all morals, destiny a shameless whore.
                        -- Sol Invictus, Black Easter

ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> I agree there are limits to you right to free speech, but I believe Xah
> Lee is not crossing
> any boundaries. If he starts taking over newspapers and TV stations be
> sure to notify me,
> I might revise my position.
> Immanuel

Perhaps he's not crossing boundaries of free speech, but he's
repeatedly crossing boundaries on usenet nettiquette, even though
repeatedly he's being asked not to do so. (Extensive crossposting to
various usenetgroups / mailing lists, for instance).

If he would just post his stuff on a blog and find a why to get people
to visit hist blog, without crossposting to 10 usenest groups for each
post he makes to his blog, then nobody would mind him expressing his
opinions, and those interested could discuss them wildly on the blog.

But I've repeatedly seen people telling him not to crosspost his essays
to so many newsgroups, yet he continues doing it.
If that's enough to quit his subscription with his ISP I don't know,
but since I've stopped following threads originated by him I don't know
what other grounds there would be.

Cheers,

--Tim

Tim N. van der Leeuw schrieb:
> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
>> I agree there are limits to you right to free speech, but I believe Xah
>> Lee is not crossing
>> any boundaries. If he starts taking over newspapers and TV stations be
>> sure to notify me,
>> I might revise my position.
>> Immanuel
> 
> Perhaps he's not crossing boundaries of free speech, but he's
> repeatedly crossing boundaries on usenet nettiquette, even though
> repeatedly he's being asked not to do so.

And repeatedly, others have encouraged him because they appreciate his 
posts.


> but since I've stopped following threads originated by him

That's all you need to do if you are not interested in his posts.


Timo

"Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote in message 
news:1148459377.384317.100730@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com

Why don't you just change your provider? It would take less time than this. 

Tim N. van der Leeuw wrote:
> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> > I agree there are limits to you right to free speech, but I believe Xah
> > Lee is not crossing
> > any boundaries. If he starts taking over newspapers and TV stations be
> > sure to notify me,
> > I might revise my position.
> > Immanuel
>
> Perhaps he's not crossing boundaries of free speech, but he's
> repeatedly crossing boundaries on usenet nettiquette, even though
> repeatedly he's being asked not to do so. (Extensive crossposting to
> various usenetgroups / mailing lists, for instance).
>
> If he would just post his stuff on a blog and find a why to get people
> to visit hist blog, without crossposting to 10 usenest groups for each
> post he makes to his blog, then nobody would mind him expressing his
> opinions, and those interested could discuss them wildly on the blog.
>
> But I've repeatedly seen people telling him not to crosspost his essays
> to so many newsgroups, yet he continues doing it.
> If that's enough to quit his subscription with his ISP I don't know,
> but since I've stopped following threads originated by him I don't know
> what other grounds there would be.
>
> Cheers,
>
> --Tim

The trouble is there's no definitive definition of 'nettiquette' (and
no the RFC on nettiquette doesn't count).  Should people get kicked off
of thier ISP for top posting? What about not asking 'smart' questions
as defined by Eric Raymond?

In addition, the people telling him not to cross-post don't really have
any authority.  They're just random people on the internet.  For
example, you've cross posted to several groups.  I'm telling you to
stop.  Of course I'm doing the same thing and you can feel free to
ignore me.  I'm not the Supreme Master of comp.lang.python.

But I think you would agree that it would be harrassment if I went to
your ISP- nl.unisys.com - and said that you were abusing the internet
and 'spamming' the usenet, especially if you are a unisys employee (not
sure if they're a service provider over there, but I'm guessing not).
If I got a hold of the wrong person on the wrong day, you could lose
your job.

Xah is an crackpot, but he doesn't spam or mailbomb groups.  And
besides, what fun would the usenet be without crackpots?

I was considering opening an account with Dreamhost.  Can't say I agree
with all of Xah's writings, but they often raise important points.
Dreamhost is a company I will never spend money with.  Usenet is full
of narrow minded group thinking that needs to be questioned.

Alan wrote:

> With apologies to Voltaire:
> If Xah Lee did not exist, it would be necessary for John Bokma to
> invent him.
>
> Xah and Bokma are both idiots, they truly deserve each other.  The
> sooner you killfile these two clowns, the happier you'll be.

Well said, I couldn't put it better.

Tim N. van der Leeuw wrote:
> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>>I agree there are limits to you right to free speech, but I believe Xah
>>Lee is not crossing
>>any boundaries. If he starts taking over newspapers and TV stations be
>>sure to notify me,
>>I might revise my position.
>>Immanuel
> 
> 
> Perhaps he's not crossing boundaries of free speech, but he's
> repeatedly crossing boundaries on usenet nettiquette, even though
> repeatedly he's being asked not to do so. (Extensive crossposting to
> various usenetgroups / mailing lists, for instance).
> 
> If he would just post his stuff on a blog and find a why to get people
> to visit hist blog, without crossposting to 10 usenest groups for each
> post he makes to his blog, then nobody would mind him expressing his
> opinions, and those interested could discuss them wildly on the blog.
> 
> But I've repeatedly seen people telling him not to crosspost his essays
> to so many newsgroups, yet he continues doing it.
> If that's enough to quit his subscription with his ISP I don't know,
> but since I've stopped following threads originated by him I don't know
> what other grounds there would be.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> --Tim
> 
Who reads blogs?  They're well known for housing crackpots far worse 
than Xah, and I estimate he doesn't want to associate himself with that 
sort.

-- 
The science of economics is the cleverest proof of free will yet 
constructed.

Tim N. van der Leeuw wrote:
> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>>I agree there are limits to you right to free speech, but I believe Xah
>>Lee is not crossing
>>any boundaries. If he starts taking over newspapers and TV stations be
>>sure to notify me,
>>I might revise my position.
>>Immanuel
> 
> 
> Perhaps he's not crossing boundaries of free speech, but he's
> repeatedly crossing boundaries on usenet nettiquette, even though
> repeatedly he's being asked not to do so. 

This would be a more compelling argument if people on newsgroups 
everywhere did not regularly carry on the most inane threads, often 
off-topic to begin with, but mostly threads that stray from something 
relevant to the NG to <insert just about anything>, ending only when 
Hitler is reached.

And I am talking about NG regulars who really do usually talk about 
stuff specific to the NG. Those are the worst spammers of c.l.l, anyway.

Xah's stuff, as wild as it is, is at least technical, and it is only an 
article here and an article there.

John Bokma on the other hand.... well, I have to go write to the dorks 
at dreamhost now.

kenny

Ben Bullock wrote:
> "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote in message 
> news:1148459377.384317.100730@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> 
>> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
>> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
> 
> 
> Why don't you just change your provider? It would take less time than this.

Are you joking. "Just change your provider?" Do you have a little button 
on your computer that says "Change provider"? Cool! :)

C'mon, John Bokma (and everyone else dumb enough to crosspost their 
shushing to every group on the crosspost list -- why do they do that? So 
Xah will hear them six times? No, they want everyone to see how witty 
they are when they tell Xah off. Now /that/ is spam) is the problem.

kenny

-- 
Cells: http://common-lisp.net/project/cells/

"Have you ever been in a relationship?"
    Attorney for Mary Winkler, confessed killer of her
    minister husband, when asked if the couple had
    marital problems.

ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> Xah Lee schreef:
> 
[...]
>>
>> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
>> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
>>
>> Your help is appreciated. Thank you.
>>
>>    Xah
>>    xah@xahlee.org
>>  ∑ http://xahlee.org/
> 
> We seem to have strayed a long way from Voltaire's
> "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your
> right to say it.",
> but that was of course the age of enlightenment.
> Immanuel
> 

I would have to say +1 for Voltaire.  Xah has as much right to post to 
the newsgroups as I do to skip over them.  One of the reasons I enjoy 
lurking on newsgroups is the passion with which a lot of you speak; 
however, I do think there are a lot of short tempers flying around. 
Perhaps its because you've been putting up with this guy a lot longer 
than I have, but I can't imagine it takes that much effort to 
skip/block/kill file his posts.  It's his as much as anyone else's, and 
all the while this is an unmoderated medium he has the *right* to say as 
he pleases.


That said, if the ISP is kicking you off, it should be because you have 
broken a TOC.  IF you don't think that that is the case, then that is 
your beef with them.

Secondarily, all these essays end up on your site anyway, so why post 
the whole thing /again/ on the newsgroups when you could just link to 
the page, perhaps with a brief summary.  Will that not

A) still allow you to advertise the essays

B) Save resources rather than copying everything twice

and

C) Piss less people off?

I'm sure you aren't worried about pissing people off, but when it 
results in you getting kicked from your ISP, this just seems so much 
more sensible an answer.

My 2 cents.

P.S.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Summary) says:

<quote>
Article 19.

       Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this 
right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to 
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and 
regardless of frontiers.
</quote>
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

This debate boils down to whether or not he has broken the ISP's TOCs, 
nothing more.

Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> :> Software patents are endangering the computer industry all around
> :> the world.

On the contrary, they will make a break-through possible. S/w patents
are not different from any other patents, and intellectual property is
not different from any other property; they all are designed to allow
one group of people to appropriate value created by other group of
people, and that's how they are perfect incentive. Once before the
stone age men have lived in a society without property, and we know
what it was worth of.

It is my personal belief that intellectual property, or - if you prefer
- protected knowledge will soon grow faster then public knowledge,
BECAUSE corpos will realize (and many already do) its potential to
secure their business. Then, the long-awaited boost in AI research will
be finally possible, though not in "public domain" knowledge.

IMHO.

> C'mon, John Bokma (and everyone else dumb enough to crosspost their
> shushing to every group on the crosspost list -- why do they do that? So
> Xah will hear them six times? No, they want everyone to see how witty
> they are when they tell Xah off. Now /that/ is spam) is the problem.
>
> kenny

I agree.  It is not Xah who is the problem, but the 200 replies to him
telling him to go away.  Look at Xah's posting to replies ratio, it is
enormous - Xah is the ultimate troll and everything he posts turns into
huge threads.  At c.l.l at least his threads are almost certainly the
longest by far.
The answer is easy, don't respond to his posts.

Cheers
Brad

(sigh, now I am one of the crossposting Xah repliers)

Tim N. van der Leeuw wrote:
> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>>I agree there are limits to you right to free speech, but I believe Xah
>>Lee is not crossing
>>any boundaries. If he starts taking over newspapers and TV stations be
>>sure to notify me,
>>I might revise my position.
>>Immanuel
> 
> 
> Perhaps he's not crossing boundaries of free speech, but he's
> repeatedly crossing boundaries on usenet nettiquette, even though
> repeatedly he's being asked not to do so. (Extensive crossposting to
> various usenetgroups / mailing lists, for instance).
> 
> If he would just post his stuff on a blog and find a way to get people
> to visit his blog, without crossposting to 10 usenest groups for each
> post he makes to his blog, then nobody would mind him expressing his
> opinions, and those interested could discuss them wildly on the blog.
> 
> But I've repeatedly seen people telling him not to crosspost his essays
> to so many newsgroups, yet he continues doing it.
> If that's enough to quit his subscription with his ISP I don't know,
> but since I've stopped following threads originated by him I don't know
> what other grounds there would be.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> --Tim
> 
Well said, Tim.

Claudio

fup to poster

"Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote:

> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style,

You're mistaken. Not that I or many other people with some brains had 
expected anything else. The problem is that you crosspost to 5 groups (5, 
which I am sure is a limitation Google Groups set to you, and has nothing 
to do with you respecting Usenet a bit) for the sole purpose of 
spamvertizing your website.

> recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday.

Which shows that your actions are frowned upon by others, for good 
reasons. Of course you are going in cry baby mode now.

> I'm not sure I will be able to keep using their service, but I do hope
> so. I do not like to post off-topic messages,

Liar. 

> but this is newsgroup
> incidence is getting out of hand, and I wish people to know about it.
> 
> I wrote some full detail here:
> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/harassment.html

You mean your brain farted again some bullshit.

> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com

dreamhost has made a decission, a right one IMO. And now you ask people to 
harass them more?

You really are just a pathetic little shit now aren't you?

Not even the balls nor the guts to fix the issue that you are.

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

"Dag Sunde" <me@dagsunde.com> wrote:

> "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> skrev i melding 
> news:1148459377.384317.100730@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
>> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
>> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
>> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
>> Friday.
> 
> The solution to your problem is very simple:
> 
> Stop posting your "controversial writings and style" to public
> newgroups, and keep them on your web-server where they belong.

Or post them to one, and just one, relevant news group instead of 
spamvertizing your site with a hit & run post in 5 (which is a Google 
Groups limit, if it was 10, Xah would use 10)

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

makc.the.great@gmail.com wrote:
> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>> :> Software patents are endangering the computer industry all around
>> :> the world.
> 
> On the contrary, they will make a break-through possible. S/w patents
> are not different from any other patents, and intellectual property is
> not different from any other property; they all are designed to allow
> one group of people to appropriate value created by other group of
> people, and that's how they are perfect incentive. Once before the
> stone age men have lived in a society without property, and we know
> what it was worth of.
> 
> It is my personal belief that intellectual property, or - if you prefer
> - protected knowledge will soon grow faster then public knowledge,
> BECAUSE corpos will realize (and many already do) its potential to
> secure their business. Then, the long-awaited boost in AI research will
> be finally possible, though not in "public domain" knowledge.
> 
> IMHO.
> 

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ has some good (read short but clear) 
articles on why patents aren't necessarily a good idea.  The main one I 
find is that they aren't needed.  Everything you write is already 
copyright and this is plenty of protection, and more importantly /free/ 
protection.  Patents require resources that many don't have, and thus 
restricts the protection available to those with the money (read corps).

The argument isn't against protecting intellectual property, just the 
way in which it is implemented.

Mitch.



YMMV and usual disclaimers.

Ken Tilton <kentilton@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ben Bullock wrote:
>> "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote in message 
>> news:1148459377.384317.100730@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> 
>>> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
>>> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
>> 
>> 
>> Why don't you just change your provider? It would take less time than
>> this. 
> 
> Are you joking. "Just change your provider?" Do you have a little
> button on your computer that says "Change provider"? Cool! :)

No, it will cost Xah money. In the end he will be with a bullet proof 
hoster, like other kooks on Usenet, or get the message.

> C'mon, John Bokma (and everyone else dumb enough to crosspost their 
> shushing to every group on the crosspost list -- why do they do that?

So other people can read that reporting Xah *does* have an effect. A lot 
of people think that a kill file is the only solution.

> So Xah will hear them six times? No, they want everyone to see how
> witty they are when they tell Xah off.

So you haven't noticed that Xah does just hit & run posting? 

In short, you have no clue what this is about, or are one of the fans Xah 
seem to have?

Get a clue Kenny.

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

Timo Stamm <timo.stamm@arcor.de> wrote:

> Tim N. van der Leeuw schrieb:

>> Perhaps he's not crossing boundaries of free speech, but he's
>> repeatedly crossing boundaries on usenet nettiquette, even though
>> repeatedly he's being asked not to do so.
> 
> And repeatedly, others have encouraged him because they appreciate his 
> posts.

Of which I am sure a large part are just in for the troll fest that 
follows. Some probably have also bumped into the netiquette. And instead 
of using their brains, they can't handle the dent in their ego, and what 
is not with them, must be shit, so they love stuff like this.

Every Usenet kook has a group of pathetic followers and sock puppets.

>> but since I've stopped following threads originated by him
> 
> That's all you need to do if you are not interested in his posts.

You're mistaken. All you need to do is report it. After some time Xah will 
either walk in line with the rest of the world, or has found somewhere 
else to yell. As long as it's not my back garden and not around 4AM, I am 
ok with it.


-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

Ken Tilton <kentilton@gmail.com> writes:

> C'mon, John Bokma (and everyone else dumb enough to crosspost their
> shushing to every group on the crosspost list -- why do they do that?
> So Xah will hear them six times? No, they want everyone to see how
> witty they are when they tell Xah off. Now /that/ is spam) is the
> problem.

+12 !

-- 
You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most
famous is, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia", but only
slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against a Sicilian when
death is on the line"!

Eli Gottlieb <eligottlieb@gmail.com> wrote:

> Who reads blogs?  They're well known for housing crackpots far worse 
> than Xah, and I estimate he doesn't want to associate himself with that 
> sort.

Yup, he seems to be quite happy as a Usenet Kook

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

John Bokma wrote:
[...]
> You're mistaken. All you need to do is report it. After some time Xah will 
> either walk in line with the rest of the world, or has found somewhere 
> else to yell. As long as it's not my back garden and not around 4AM, I am 
> ok with it.
> 

Walk in line with the rest of the world?  Pah.

This is no-ones back garden.

John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> writes:

> Ken Tilton <kentilton@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Ben Bullock wrote:
>>> "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote in message 
>>> news:1148459377.384317.100730@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>> 
>>>> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
>>>> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Why don't you just change your provider? It would take less time than
>>> this. 
>> 
>> Are you joking. "Just change your provider?" Do you have a little
>> button on your computer that says "Change provider"? Cool! :)
>
> No, it will cost Xah money. In the end he will be with a bullet proof 
> hoster, like other kooks on Usenet, or get the message.
>
>> C'mon, John Bokma (and everyone else dumb enough to crosspost their 
>> shushing to every group on the crosspost list -- why do they do that?
>
> So other people can read that reporting Xah *does* have an effect. A lot 
> of people think that a kill file is the only solution.

You win my unofficial contest for "Usenet Tool of the Year."  It is
not difficult to skip to the next file or to add a sender to a
killfile.  It is certainly less of a hassle than all this complaining
you do.

Life is short, John Bokma.  There are more important things in the
world than tattling on Xah to his host.  Maybe you can start
experiencing them if you learn to make use of the 'next message' key.

>> So Xah will hear them six times? No, they want everyone to see how
>> witty they are when they tell Xah off.
>
> So you haven't noticed that Xah does just hit & run posting? 

I've noticed it - but have you?  

It would be only one post that could easily be ignored, if not for all
this rubbish that you and people like you feel the need to post (sure,
I realize I'm contributing to the problem).  Isn't "hit & run posting"
better than a thread full of nonsense?

-- 
You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most
famous is, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia", but only
slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against a Sicilian when
death is on the line"!

"Ant" <antroy@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have no particular affinity for Xah's views, but what does get up my
> nose is usenet Nazism.

That's because you're clueless.

-- 
John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

Mitch <spudtheimpaler@hotORgooMAIL.invalid> wrote:

> John Bokma wrote:
> [...]
>> You're mistaken. All you need to do is report it. After some time Xah
>> will either walk in line with the rest of the world, or has found
>> somewhere else to yell. As long as it's not my back garden and not
>> around 4AM, I am ok with it.
>> 
> 
> Walk in line with the rest of the world?  Pah.
> 
> This is no-ones back garden.

Funny how people who always think they can "change Usenet" have no clue 
about what Usenet is and how it works in the first place.

Usenet is just that, each server participating can be thought of as being 
the back yard of the news master.

If you have no clue about how Usenet works, first read up a bit. What a 
Usenet server is, a feed, and how Usenet is distributed.

And then come back if you finally have something to say that you can back 
up.

-- 
John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

Xah Lee wrote:
> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday.

>    xah@xahlee.org
>  =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/

I can just declare my support. Reading Mr. Bokmas comments below [*]
certainly makes my suport stronger.

*
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/tree/browse_frm/thread/28ed=
b6b248dbae85/b89d934d12adf3a9?rnum=3D61&utoken=3DrJk98zMAAAAqRjR_RIs2SQx_9H=
h6SccKbmCj1Nw6TBD3Zp3qTOpBLP1axhNO2WH2KLoXjtKtup7b9E_jTXH5EMe8d2Tvis0T&_don=
e=3D%2Fgroup%2Fcomp.lang.python%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fthread%2F28edb6b248dbae85%2F=
bbcab154ad579cd4%3Futoken%3DrJk98zMAAAAqRjR_RIs2SQx_9Hh6SccKbmCj1Nw6TBD3Zp3=
qTOpBLP1axhNO2WH2KLoXjtKtup7b9E_jTXH5EMe8d2Tvis0T%26#doc_837dc168e2a56fa2

John Bokma wrote:
> "Ant" <antroy@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have no particular affinity for Xah's views, but what does get up my
> > nose is usenet Nazism.
>
> That's because you're clueless.
>
> --
> John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
>                            personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
>         Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
>             Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

Time for a game!

Both johnbokma.com and castleamber.com are hosted by seagull.net.  Here
is a link to their TOS:

http://www.seagull.net/tos.html

Who can come up with the most violations that John is committing on
this thread? I count 4.

John Bokma schrieb:
> Timo Stamm <timo.stamm@arcor.de> wrote:
> 
>> Tim N. van der Leeuw schrieb:
> [...]
>>> but since I've stopped following threads originated by him
>> That's all you need to do if you are not interested in his posts.
> 
> You're mistaken. All you need to do is report it.

Why the hell should I do that? I find his postings interesting. Of 
course I am just a pathetic, egocentric sock puppet with a dent in my 
ego and not using my brains, according to your logic.

Thank you.


> After some time Xah will either walk in line with the rest of the world  > [...]

You sound like a villain from a James Bond movie.


Timo

T24gMjQgTWF5IDIwMDYgMDg6Mjk6NTcgLTA3MDAsIFJ1bmUgU3RyYW5kIDxydW5lLnN0cmFuZEBn
bWFpbC5jb20+IHdyb3RlOgo+Cgo+IEkgY2FuIGp1c3QgZGVjbGFyZSBteSBzdXBwb3J0LiBSZWFk
aW5nIE1yLiBCb2ttYXMgY29tbWVudHMgYmVsb3cgWypdCj4gY2VydGFpbmx5IG1ha2VzIG15IHN1
cG9ydCBzdHJvbmdlci4KPgoKSSBzZW50IGFuIGVtYWlsIGluIHN1cHBvcnQgb2YgWGFoLCB3aGlj
aCBJIHdvdWxkbid0IGhhdmUgYm90aGVyZWQgdG8KZG8gaGFkIEkgbm90IHJlYWQgdGhlIHJhcGlk
LWZpcmUgcG9zdHMgZnJvbSBCb2ttYSB3aGljaCB3ZXJlIGFidXNpdmUsCmluc3VsdGluZywgYW5k
IGFycm9nYW50LiBYYWgncyBwb3N0cyBvZnRlbiBtYWtlIG1lIHJvbGwgbXkgZXllcywgb3IgSQpz
a2lwIHRoZW0sIGJ1dCBzb21ldGltZXMgKGFuZCBtb3JlIHNvIGxhdGVseSkgdGhleSBoYXZlIGJl
ZW4KaW50cmlndWluZyBhbmQgZm9zdGVyIHRob3VnaHQtcHJvdm9raW5nIHJlcGxpZXMuIEknZCBw
cmVmZXIgZGViYXRlIGFuZApkaXNjdXNzaW9uIGJlIGZvc3RlcmVkLCByYXRoZXIgdGhhbiBzcXVl
bGNoZWQuIEJ1dCB3aGF0IGRvZXMgdGhpcwpjbHVlbGVzcyBzb2NrLXB1cHBldCBrbm93PyA7KQo=

Five is not excessive when they are on topic and they are on topic. If
you don't like his posts ignore them, killfile them, whatever. I took
the time to write his ISP a supporting email because it is important to
keep unpopular speech, even more than popular speech, free. Censoring
usenet serves no good purpose.

John Bokma wrote:
> That's because you're clueless.

Well argued. No really. Not quite sure what you base the allegations on
of course.

John, you're well out of order getting this guy into problems with his
ISP. Ken Tilton has it spot on - if everyone who wasn't interested in
what he had to say ignored it, then it would make it far easier for
those actually interested in the topic to reply, without a tirade of
off topic abuse to filter through.

I'm not a particular Xah fan, but I do find some of the threads
provoked by his posts interesting. What is more of a concern to me is
that he should have freedom to post on relevant newsgroups. Take a look
at his site. You'll find that he is actually interested in the 5 or so
newsgroups he cross-posts to, and his posts are general enough to apply
to each of them.

In short, get off of your soap box - if you don't like what the guy has
to say then *ignore it*.

FYI - I have written in support of Xah Lee to the ISP simply because I
don't see why your personal problem with the guy should cost him money.

Bill Atkins <NOatkinwSPAM@rpi.edu> wrote:

> Life is short, John Bokma.  There are more important things in the
> world than tattling on Xah to his host.  Maybe you can start
> experiencing them

Maybe check out my site first before you make another silly remark. 
Typically that (almost?) everybody defending Xah has so little clue.

> if you learn to make use of the 'next message' key.

Add up years of pressing that key, and add up the time it takes to send a 
few emails.

If I considered Usenet a waste of time, I would have given up on it years 
ago.

And finally, never thought about that it can be fun?

>> So you haven't noticed that Xah does just hit & run posting? 
> 
> I've noticed it - but have you?

Since I mentioned, what do you think? (now wait...)

> It would be only one post that could easily be ignored, if not for all
> this rubbish that you and people like you feel the need to post (sure,

Yup, which is not going to stop. Posting "Don't feed the trolls" messages 
don't help.

> I realize I'm contributing to the problem).  Isn't "hit & run posting"
> better than a thread full of nonsense?

And ain't it cool that reporting Xah's abuse might stop both?

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

olsongt@verizon.net wrote:
 
> Both johnbokma.com and castleamber.com are hosted by seagull.net.  Here
> is a link to their TOS:
> 
> http://www.seagull.net/tos.html
> 
> Who can come up with the most violations that John is committing on
> this thread? I count 4.

Be my guest: hostmaster at seagull dot net.

-- 
John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

Robert Boyd wrote:

> On 24 May 2006 08:29:57 -0700, Rune Strand <rune.strand@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
>
> > I can just declare my support. Reading Mr. Bokmas comments below [*]
> > certainly makes my suport stronger.
> >
>
> I sent an email in support of Xah, which I wouldn't have bothered to
> do had I not read the rapid-fire posts from Bokma which were abusive,
> insulting, and arrogant. Xah's posts often make me roll my eyes, or I
> skip them, but sometimes (and more so lately) they have been
> intriguing and foster thought-provoking replies. I'd prefer debate and
> discussion be fostered, rather than squelched. But what does this
> clueless sock-puppet know? ;)

It's funny how a single obnoxious self-righteous usenet-nazi can make a
slightly annoying loonie look good. I'm sure Bokma's ISP will get some
unfriendly emails about him soon, if this hasn't started happening
already.

olsongt@verizon.net wrote:
> John Bokma wrote:
> 
>>"Ant" <antroy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I have no particular affinity for Xah's views, but what does get up my
>>>nose is usenet Nazism.
>>
>>That's because you're clueless.
>>
>>--
>>John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
>>                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
>>        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
>>            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html
> 
> 
> Time for a game!
> 
> Both johnbokma.com and castleamber.com are hosted by seagull.net.  Here
> is a link to their TOS:
> 
> http://www.seagull.net/tos.html
> 
> Who can come up with the most violations that John is committing on
> this thread? I count 4.
> 
Let's not drop to his level.
-- 
The science of economics is the cleverest proof of free will yet 
constructed.

fup-to poster

"Ant" <antroy@gmail.com> wrote:

> John Bokma wrote:
>> That's because you're clueless.
> 
> Well argued. No really. Not quite sure what you base the allegations
> on of course.

Like I said, clueless.

> John, you're well out of order getting this guy into problems with his
> ISP.

Based on what "order"? The law of the Usenet Kook?

> Ken Tilton has it spot on - if everyone who wasn't interested in
> what he had to say ignored it, then it would make it far easier for
> those actually interested in the topic to reply, without a tirade of
> off topic abuse to filter through.

If Xah posts to just one group, on topic, the problem is gone. But Xah
is spamvertizing his website, and hence posts to 5 groups (since I guess
that's a limit GG sets, not Xah), so he doesn't care that a post on
whitespace in Python ends up in a group on Java or Perl. 

> I'm not a particular Xah fan, but I do find some of the threads
> provoked by his posts interesting. What is more of a concern to me is
> that he should have freedom to post on relevant newsgroups.

He has.

> Take a look
> at his site. You'll find that he is actually interested in the 5 or so
> newsgroups he cross-posts to, and his posts are general enough to
> apply to each of them.

In that very rare case he should pick a single group that matches his
diatribe the best. And in the very rare case that 3 groups are on topic,
he could set a follow up to. 

> In short, get off of your soap box - if you don't like what the guy
> has to say then *ignore it*.

No, that's the joke. I won't ignore it. And you're mistaken to think I
am the only one that has reported Xah. 

It's simple: Xah has to stick to the netiquette, or complaints will go
to his next hosting provider. In the end Xah either pays quite some
money for bullet proof hosting (since that is what a host that offers a
safe haven to spammers is called), or he goes yelling somewhere else. 

> FYI - I have written in support of Xah Lee to the ISP simply because I
> don't see why your personal problem with the guy should cost him
> money. 

So you waste money of an ISP... The decision has been made, a few days
ago even. 

-- 
John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

Getting eloquent isn't he? ;-)

John Bokma wrote:
> Mitch <spudtheimpaler@hotORgooMAIL.invalid> wrote:
> 
>> John Bokma wrote:
>> [...]
>>> You're mistaken. All you need to do is report it. After some time Xah
>>> will either walk in line with the rest of the world, or has found
>>> somewhere else to yell. As long as it's not my back garden and not
>>> around 4AM, I am ok with it.
>>>
>> Walk in line with the rest of the world?  Pah.
>>
>> This is no-ones back garden.
> 
> Funny how people who always think they can "change Usenet" have no clue 
> about what Usenet is and how it works in the first place.

Who said anything about changing it?  I like it just the way it is.

> 
> Usenet is just that, each server participating can be thought of as being 
> the back yard of the news master.

Sure, each server has terms and conditions that apply, doesn't mean you 
should be able to ban people from speaking just because you don't like 
what they say.  My point is that this isn't *your* back garden, it isn't 
*my* back garden.  It isn't something I own, and it *IS* something I can 
filter and/or ignore.  Someone shouting in your back garden is a whole 
different ball game where your desires prevail.  Not here.  You know 
what you are getting into when you sign in, and it is your 
responsibility to deal with those you don't agree with personally.

I understand you consider his writings spam, and so can see why you have 
reported him.  All I'm saying is that as long as the articles are 
remotely on topic, I believe he has a right to post his opinions here.

> If you have no clue about how Usenet works, first read up a bit. What a 
> Usenet server is, a feed, and how Usenet is distributed.
> 
> And then come back if you finally have something to say that you can back 
> up.
> 

Thankfully I'm aware enough of all the above that I don't feel the need.

As these are all opinions, I don't see any need to "back up" any of it.

John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> writes:

> If Xah posts to just one group, on topic, the problem is gone. But Xah
> is spamvertizing his website, and hence posts to 5 groups (since I guess
> that's a limit GG sets, not Xah), so he doesn't care that a post on
> whitespace in Python ends up in a group on Java or Perl. 

[snip]

> -- 
> John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
>                            personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
>         Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
>             Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

Interesting.  Doesn't your signature contain advertisements for your
website?  Aren't you posting to five different groups?

-- 
You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most
famous is, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia", but only
slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against a Sicilian when
death is on the line"!

fup to poster

Mitch <spudtheimpaler@hotORgooMAIL.invalid> wrote:

> John Bokma wrote:

[...]

>> Funny how people who always think they can "change Usenet" have no
>> clue about what Usenet is and how it works in the first place.
> 
> Who said anything about changing it?  I like it just the way it is.

You don't.

>> Usenet is just that, each server participating can be thought of as
>> being the back yard of the news master.

[ .. ]

> here.  You know what you are getting into when you sign in, and it is
> your responsibility to deal with those you don't agree with
> personally.

I did.

> I understand you consider his writings spam, and so can see why you
> have reported him.  All I'm saying is that as long as the articles are
> remotely on topic, I believe he has a right to post his opinions here.

Where is *here*? That's exactly my point. All his posts go to 5 groups, as 
the replies to his posts. I have no problem if he posts in one of those 
groups, or even three if he sets a follow-up to. But Xah just dumps his 
load in 5 groups, no matter if it's on topic in any of them.

And since they all promote his website, and Xah never joins the discussion 
(except to cry wolf when he has been "harassed", overlooking that he has 
been harassing Usenet for quite some time) I consider his posts spam. Yet 
I report it as excessive cross posting.

> As these are all opinions, I don't see any need to "back up" any of
> it. 

"My" opinion is shared by his hosting provider, and probably the next as 
well, unless Xah decides to pay a bit more.

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

bradb wrote:
> > C'mon, John Bokma (and everyone else dumb enough to crosspost their
> > shushing to every group on the crosspost list -- why do they do that? So
> > Xah will hear them six times? No, they want everyone to see how witty
> > they are when they tell Xah off. Now /that/ is spam) is the problem.
> >
> > kenny
>
> I agree.  It is not Xah who is the problem, but the 200 replies to him
> telling him to go away.

To make a witty comment: Xah starts flamewars and people really *do*
like to contribute although they find it awfull. Xah is the star, who
undresses his mind. But good and sensitive people don't like liking to
contribute in those nasty battles and believe their time is deserved to
something less wastefull. I mildly disagree with attitude and tend to
think that most serious work is a waste of time. Xah lets people really
do what they want: ranting about other programming languages, ranting
about programming language communities ( which are mostly boring and
awfull but that's kind of a familiy thing: my family is boring and
awfull too but when being attacked it's still my family ) and ranting
about trolls that let them do what they want. Everything in the name of
Xah the lord of misrule. If any language community was actually cool -
unfortunetaly there is none - they would invite Xah to write essays for
them. A kind of weekly "Xah commentary" on the state of the language (
and of course its documentation and other languages etc. ). Maybe it
would evolve quite fine if Xah could be pacified?

John Bokma wrote:
> fup to poster
> 
> Mitch <spudtheimpaler@hotORgooMAIL.invalid> wrote:
> 
>> John Bokma wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
>>> Funny how people who always think they can "change Usenet" have no
>>> clue about what Usenet is and how it works in the first place.

>> Who said anything about changing it?  I like it just the way it is.

> 
> You don't.
> 

All that I snipped is your opinion, which is yours to do with as you 
please.  "I like it just the way it is." is *MY* opinion, so please 
don't try to change it.  I think I know my opinion best.

And as for setting it to reply to only you, I changed that back.  I 
don't think you censoring (redirecting) other peoples replies/opinions 
serves the purpose of this thread well.

Kay Schluehr wrote:
> To make a witty comment: 
 > Xah is the star, who undresses his mind.

> But good and sensitive people don't like liking to
> contribute in those nasty battles and believe their time is deserved to
> something less wastefull. 

> I mildly disagree with attitude and tend to
> think that most serious work is a waste of time. 

> Everything in the name of Xah the lord of misrule. 


Dude, pony up for another english class, so you can keep on trolling as 
eloquently as Xah.

Xah Lee wrote:
> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday. [...]

I sent an e-mail to them to try to help you.

I hope you don't lose your account; I enjoy your postings.

SamFeltus wrote:
> I was considering opening an account with Dreamhost.  Can't say I agree
> with all of Xah's writings, but they often raise important points.
> Dreamhost is a company I will never spend money with.  Usenet is full
> of narrow minded group thinking that needs to be questioned.
> 

Write abuse@dreamhost and tell them why you're not going to patronize 
them. Explain to them that what they are doing to Xah you're not going 
to support.

Who knows? Maybe Dreamhost isn't all that bad. Perhaps the worst thing 
about Dreamhost is that John Bokma can harass Xah through them.

The idea that an ISP allows itself to be used like that is pretty bad, 
but Xah hasn't lost his account yet.

Write something to the abuse address at Dreamhost in support of Xah. 
It's not about whether Xah is correct on every issue; it's about 
peoples' freedom to communicate on the Internet.

Otherwise, you could say something controversial, and John Bokma writes 
your ISP/hosting service, and you get TOSSed.

Mitch wrote:
> John Bokma wrote:
> [...]
>> You're mistaken. All you need to do is report it. After some time Xah 
>> will either walk in line with the rest of the world, or has found 
>> somewhere else to yell. As long as it's not my back garden and not 
>> around 4AM, I am ok with it.
>>
> 
> Walk in line with the rest of the world?  Pah.
> 
> This is no-ones back garden.

But it is a place where John Bokma can engage in a little power play.

Notice how John Bokma pretends to own these newsgroups. In every 
analogy, Bokma uses "ownership" concepts to support his harassment of Xah.

John Bokma conceptualizes these newsgroups as something that he 
dominates. Without other people to recognize his power, it's empty, so 
he bashes and then trashes Xah, and in doing so, proves that he is 
dominant here.

Don't let it happen. Write the abuse address at Dreamhost, and try to 
help Xah out.

I am confidant the responces Xah will recieve will validate the
observations on religious fanaticism.

:)

> >
> >
> > Time for a game!
> >
> > Both johnbokma.com and castleamber.com are hosted by seagull.net.  Here
> > is a link to their TOS:
> >
> > http://www.seagull.net/tos.html
> >
> > Who can come up with the most violations that John is committing on
> > this thread? I count 4.
> >
> Let's not drop to his level.
> --


I agree.  I never actually said that anyone should report him. I simply
wanted to illustrate his hipocrisy.

[Although John insinuated I did say that, which I find defamitory, and
is clearly a violation of his TOS ;-) ]

"Bill Atkins" <NOatkinwSPAM@rpi.edu> wrote in message 
news:87y7wre6yr.fsf@rpi.edu...
> John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> writes:
>
> [snip]
>
>> -- 
>> John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
>>                            personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
>>         Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
>>             Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html
>
> Interesting.  Doesn't your signature contain advertisements for your
> website?  Aren't you posting to five different groups?

Shh! Pointing out ironic hypocrisy never works.

--
Geoff

P.S. You forgot that it's also off-topic for all groups.
P.P.S. Mea culpa

"Mitch" <spudtheimpaler@hotORgooMAIL.invalid> wrote:

> The argument isn't against protecting intellectual
> property, just the way in which it is implemented.

IMNSHO, software patents suffer most from being
intellectual property protection at the _wrong level
of granularity_. Patenting a single bit, as Dennis
Richie once did, is sheerest nonsense.

Today's software patent laws are much like allowing
copyright of three word phrases would be.

Copyrighting a whole work of software, on the other
hand, protects an _entire effort_ as the
accomplishment of the author, not the little, easily
re-invented portions that patents "protect", but
that impede free development of software by others.

What software engineers engender when innovating
isn't inventions, more insights.

xanthian.



-- 
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Xah Lee wrote:
> I'm sorry to trouble everyone.

Liar. You were never sorry when you troubled us with your posting
excrements in the past, you are not sorry now.

>  But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style,

Liar. You are a net abuser, a kook and a troll. It has nothing to do
with your writings and style. It has everything to do with your
vialoation of netiquette, with you x-posting of off-topic messages,
with your trolling and kookery.

> recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider.

Liear. John asked people do do their duty as net citizens and to report
a serial net abuser.

> After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday.

Shit. So they gave you 30 more days to abuse the net. Shit, shit, shit.
They should have pulled the plug immediately.

> I'm not sure I will be able to keep using their service, but I do hope
> so.

Lets hope not.

> I do not like to post off-topic messages,

Liar. Your whole usenet "career" is build around the posting of
off-topic messages.

> but this is newsgroup
> incidence is getting out of hand,

Liar. You were getting out of hand for some time now.

> and I wish people to know about it.

People know very well about you, Xah Lee, the serial newsgroup abuser,
troll, liar, and kook.

> I wrote some full detail here:
> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/harassment.html

More lies.

> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com

I believe it is justified, and I wrote dreamhost to thank them. You now
reap what you saw. You refused to play nice with us in the past, now
don't be surprised that people don't come to your aid.

> Your help is appreciated. Thank you.

I appreciate the courage of John and friends to stand up against
someone who is out of control. You are not even affraid off accusing
John of a crime (harrasment) and starting a smear campaing on your web
site. You have sunken so low that you are fast approaching the earth's
metal core.

*Thanks John for making usenet a better place!*

On 24 May 2006, kay.schluehr@gmx.net wrote:

> If any language community was actually cool - unfortunetaly there is
> none - they would invite Xah to write essays for them. A kind of
> weekly "Xah commentary" on the state of the language ( and of course
> its documentation and other languages etc. ). Maybe it would evolve
> quite fine if Xah could be pacified?

I would like to submit the Oompa-Loompas for consideration.  They have
their own language, are quite cool, and Xah would fit right in.

Oompa lompa trolls come and go
If you read them they annoy you

Ted

Geoffrey Summerhayes wrote:

> "Bill Atkins" <NOatkinwSPAM@rpi.edu> wrote in message
> news:87y7wre6yr.fsf@rpi.edu...
> > John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> writes:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >> --
> >> John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
> >>                            personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
> >>         Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
> >>             Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html
> >
> > Interesting.  Doesn't your signature contain advertisements for your
> > website?  Aren't you posting to five different groups?
>
> Shh! Pointing out ironic hypocrisy never works.

You can say that again: http://tinyurl.com/hvvqd 

George

At 2006-05-24T01:29:37-07:00, Xah Lee wrote:

> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com

I have done so, and hope that it helps.  I have found some of your
postings quite interesting.

Recently, I came across a reference to your "Visual Dictionary of
Famous Plane Curves" at http://xahlee.org/ in Ernst Kunz's text book
"Introduction to Plane Algebraic Curves" (Birkhauser, 2005).  I have
mentioned it to your Web hosting provider as an indication of the
usefulness of your Web site.

Raghavendra.

-- 
N. Raghavendra <raghu@mri.ernet.in> | See message headers for contact
Harish-Chandra Research Institute   | and OpenPGP details.

Bill Atkins wrote:
> John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>Ken Tilton <kentilton@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Ben Bullock wrote:
>>>
>>>>"Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote in message 
>>>>news:1148459377.384317.100730@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
>>>>>please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Why don't you just change your provider? It would take less time than
>>>>this. 
>>>
>>>Are you joking. "Just change your provider?" Do you have a little
>>>button on your computer that says "Change provider"? Cool! :)
>>
>>No, it will cost Xah money. In the end he will be with a bullet proof 
>>hoster, like other kooks on Usenet, or get the message.
>>
>>
>>>C'mon, John Bokma (and everyone else dumb enough to crosspost their 
>>>shushing to every group on the crosspost list -- why do they do that?
>>
>>So other people can read that reporting Xah *does* have an effect. A lot 
>>of people think that a kill file is the only solution.
> 
> 
> You win my unofficial contest for "Usenet Tool of the Year."  It is
> not difficult to skip to the next file or to add a sender to a
> killfile.  It is certainly less of a hassle than all this complaining
> you do.

No shit.  Lately it seems that for every "spam" post of Xah's, there's
at three or more by John *to all the same newsgroups* bitching about
Xah's use of bandwidth.  Pot, meet kettle.  I'm killfiling Xah for being
a useless twit and killfiling John for being a prick about it.

--Larry

Xah Lee wrote:
> I do not like to post off-topic messages

Oh REALLY?  That's strange, because I don't recall ever seeing an
on-topic message (a Perl message in a Perl newsgroup) from Xah.  Every
one of the many Xah post I've ever seen (including the "Philosopher"
message that this thread morphed into) was off-topic for a Perl
programming newsgroup.

-- 
http://DavidFilmer.com

Mitch wrote:
[...]
> 
> http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ has some good (read short but clear) 
> articles on why patents aren't necessarily a good idea.  The main one I 
> find is that they aren't needed.  Everything you write is already 
> copyright and this is plenty of protection, and more importantly /free/ 
> protection.  Patents require resources that many don't have, and thus 
> restricts the protection available to those with the money (read corps).
> 
> The argument isn't against protecting intellectual property, just the 
> way in which it is implemented.
> 
> Mitch.
> 
> 
> 
> YMMV and usual disclaimers.

Agreed.

On 24 May 2006 15:26:12 GMT, John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
> "Ant" <antroy@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have no particular affinity for Xah's views, but what does get up my
> > nose is usenet Nazism.
>
> That's because you're clueless.

Sounds like your one of those Bush ass-lickers who think that being
different is a crime.

Intelligent people can handle weirdos. It's only uptight jerks who
want everyone to fall into line with state/corporate policy. Sunshine
is the best disinfectant.
--=20

# p.d.

On 24 May 2006 15:54:56 GMT, John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:

> And ain't it cool that reporting Xah's abuse might stop both?

C'mon - admit it! you hafta be a Republican with a hardon for Bush! <rof,lm=
ao!>

--=20

# p.d.

John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:

> "Ant" <antroy@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I have no particular affinity for Xah's views, but what does get up my
> > nose is usenet Nazism.
> 
> That's because you're clueless.

Count me among the clueless, then.  I just wrote to DreamHost and asked
that they reverse their decision to terminate his account.

Xah may be annoying; but he's harmless.  Certain self-elected net
nannies, however, are not.

wrf3@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:

> Count me among the clueless, then.  I just wrote to DreamHost and asked
> that they reverse their decision to terminate his account.

I am sure that DreamHost has quite a nice /dev/null for clueless idiots 
like you and your sock puppets :-D.

-- 
John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

"Ken Tilton" <kentilton@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:R_Zcg.248$LO3.40@fe11.lga...
>
>
> Ben Bullock wrote:
>> "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote in message 
>> news:1148459377.384317.100730@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
>>> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
>>
>>
>> Why don't you just change your provider? It would take less time than 
>> this.
>
> Are you joking. "Just change your provider?" Do you have a little button 
> on your computer that says "Change provider"? Cool! :)

No, but if you go any look at the website of Xah Lee, he seems to have spent 
enough time and energy complaining that it would be overwhelmingly greater 
than the time it would take him to apply for a new provider.

On 2006-05-24, N. Raghavendra <raghu@mri.ernet.in> wrote:
> At 2006-05-24T01:29:37-07:00, Xah Lee wrote:
>
>> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
>> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
>
> I have done so, and hope that it helps.  I have found some of your
> postings quite interesting.
>
> Recently, I came across a reference to your "Visual Dictionary of
> Famous Plane Curves" at http://xahlee.org/ in Ernst Kunz's text book
> "Introduction to Plane Algebraic Curves" (Birkhauser, 2005).  I have
> mentioned it to your Web hosting provider as an indication of the
> usefulness of your Web site.
>


Just sent a letter of support to your ISP, no nifty book quotes though.

and to all the people who complain about Xah please STFU, you bitching
and whinining about 1-3 posts per fucking *MONTH* is just not adult 
behavior.  Just do not comment.  If you simply must comment then please
send me mail to this address so you can have your say and feel better.
I will delete it with out opening it, in fact put [xah complain] in 
the subject and I will have procmail delete it for me.

marc
-- 
ms4720@sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org

On 2006-05-25, John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
> wrf3@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
>
>> Count me among the clueless, then.  I just wrote to DreamHost and asked
>> that they reverse their decision to terminate his account.
>
> I am sure that DreamHost has quite a nice /dev/null for clueless idiots 
> like you and your sock puppets :-D.
>

point of order, rudness is always off topic.  Since you want to have 
such high standards for others you might want to start applying them
to your self as well.

marc

-- 
ms4720@sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org

I'm loath to crosspost this but I don't know which (if any) news group
Xah actually reads.  I also don't want to make just a private response
to Xah's email to a public post.  Anyway, the TOS of dreamhost.com is
here:

  http://www.dreamhost.com/tos.html

Two important sections I'll quote:

<blockquote>

INTERNET ETIQUETTE

Electronic forums such as mail distribution lists and Usenet news
groups all have expectations regarding subject area and appropriate
etiquette for posting. Users of these forums should be considerate of
the expectations and sensitivities of others on the network when
posting material for electronic distribution. The network resources of
DreamHost Webhosting may not be used to impersonate another person or
misrepresent authorization to act on behalf of others or DreamHost
Webhosting. All messages transmitted via DreamHost Webhosting should
correctly identify the sender; users may not alter the attribution of
origin in electronic mail messages or posting.
Users must not attempt to undermine the security or integrity of
computing systems or networks and must not attempt to gain
unauthorized access. This includes (but is not limited to) such things
as port scanning of either DreamHost or external computers and Denial
Of Service attacks of any kind.

TERMINATION

This contract may be terminated by either party, without cause, by
giving the other party 30 days written notice. DreamHost Webhosting
will accept termination by electronic mail. Notwithstanding the above,
DreamHost Webhosting may terminate service under this contract at any
time, without penalty, if the Customer fails to comply with the terms
of this contract, including non-payment. DreamHost Webhosting reserves
the right to charge a reinstatement fee.

</blockquote>

IANAL, but it looks like you can have your account canceled, Xah.
Although to tell the truth, even though I find your crossposting
excessive and your rants uninteresting I don't think it is frequent
enough to bitch about.  I do hope that no refund policy doesn't apply
when they terminate your account.

You would probably stand a good chance of keeping your account if you
stop crossposting so much.  Dreamhosting has defined internet
etiquette for you.  Stick within those bounds and you can defend
yourself against people who complain.

Good luck

-- 
http://www.david-steuber.com/
1998 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport
2006 Honda 599 Hornet (CB600F) x 2 Crash & Slider
The lithobraker.  Zero distance stops at any speed.

> We seem to have strayed a long way from Voltaire's
> "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your
> right to say it."

Not at all. My problem with Xah Lee is that he is abusing the Usenet as
a personal BLOG. He has a web site to post these articles and he can
certainly put up a discussion board there if he wants a vigorous
discussion of his ideas. It's worse. He does not even respond to
questions directly posed to him in the thread of his "articles". Just
imagine if every blogger on the Internet started using Usenet instead
and cross-posting at that.

Wolf Kirchmeir wrote:
> Mitch wrote:
> [...]
> > http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ has some good (read short but clear)
> > articles on why patents aren't necessarily a good idea.  The main one I
> > find is that they aren't needed.
> > [...]
> > The argument isn't against protecting intellectual property, just the
> > way in which it is implemented.
> [...]
> Agreed.

This whole buzz around software patents is there because european
companies do not want to pay american companies.

Likewise, China is developing it's own DVD technology to avoid patent
payments.

It is not about implementation, it is about money.

I remember times when Sony was sued about recording devices, not it is
sued about DRM. It is only words they say, do not buy it.

"Dag Sunde" <me@dagsunde.com> writes:

> "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> skrev i melding 
> news:1148459377.384317.100730@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
>> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
>> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
>> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
>> Friday.
>
> The solution to your problem is very simple:
>
> Stop posting your "controversial writings and style" to public
> newgroups, and keep them on your web-server where they belong.
>

I'd even settle for him posting only to relevant groups and not
massively cross posting to what seems like any group he can think of!

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Mitch <spudtheimpaler@hotORgooMAIL.invalid> writes:

> John Bokma wrote:
>> Mitch <spudtheimpaler@hotORgooMAIL.invalid> wrote:
>> 
>>> John Bokma wrote:
>>> [...]
>>>> You're mistaken. All you need to do is report it. After some time Xah
>>>> will either walk in line with the rest of the world, or has found
>>>> somewhere else to yell. As long as it's not my back garden and not
>>>> around 4AM, I am ok with it.
>>>>
>>> Walk in line with the rest of the world?  Pah.
>>>
>>> This is no-ones back garden.
>> Funny how people who always think they can "change Usenet" have no
>> clue about what Usenet is and how it works in the first place.
>
> Who said anything about changing it?  I like it just the way it is.
>
>> Usenet is just that, each server participating can be thought of as
>> being the back yard of the news master.
>
> Sure, each server has terms and conditions that apply, doesn't mean
> you should be able to ban people from speaking just because you don't
> like what they say.  My point is that this isn't *your* back garden,
> it isn't *my* back garden.  It isn't something I own, and it *IS*
> something I can filter and/or ignore.  Someone shouting in your back
> garden is a whole different ball game where your desires prevail.  Not
> here.  You know what you are getting into when you sign in, and it is
> your responsibility to deal with those you don't agree with
> personally.
>
> I understand you consider his writings spam, and so can see why you
> have reported him.  All I'm saying is that as long as the articles are
> remotely on topic, I believe he has a right to post his opinions here.
>
>> If you have no clue about how Usenet works, first read up a bit.
>> What a Usenet server is, a feed, and how Usenet is distributed.
>> And then come back if you finally have something to say that you can
>> back up.
>> 
>
> Thankfully I'm aware enough of all the above that I don't feel the need.
>
> As these are all opinions, I don't see any need to "back up" any of it.

Personally, I think this is getting a bit out of hand. Originally,
John and others suggested reporting Xah to his ISP for spamming
multiple groups. There was never any suggestion I have seen (except
from Xah himself) that the objective was to gag his "contraversial"
thoughts/comments/ideas. I have no problem with him posting comments
which are relevant to the group he posts to. However, I do object to
anyone who has the arrogance to believe their opinions are so
important they should be posted to any remotely related group they can
think of. 

I don't agree with nearly 99% of what Xah says - he often raises a
well known issue (i've not seen anything original yet), outlines it
reasonably well, but then proposes solutions which strike me as being
very poorly considered or narrow of thought. He also tends to look at
something for a couple of days and then rubbish it with a tone of
authority and experience he obviously hasn't yet obtained. 

However, he has just as much right to do so as anyone else and
therefore, its not because of his content he should be reported - its
because of his irresponsability in how he distributes it.

I also seem to remember a page on his website from a couple of years
back in which he admits enjoying trolling and starting flame wars -
but I can't find it now, so maybe I'm mistaken. However, I suspect
this is the main motivation for his posts rather than a genuine desire
to solve problems he perceives. At any rate, its not
like he hasn't been told his constant behavior of mass cross posting
was considered bad form - he has been told many many times and just
ignores it. 

If someone wrote up there essays and got them printed on millions of
leaflets which they then dumped all over the place, would you be
outraged when they were fined for littering and claim their right to
free speech was being gagged? Of course not. This is the same. I think
most would have no problem with Xah posting if he did it in a
responsible manner. 

Note that normally I try to remove all the cross posted groups in
replies to Xah's thread, but this time, I'm leaving them as I feel the
nature of this thread warrants it. If you disagree, please don't
hesitate to report me to my ISP as I'm more than willing to defend my
decision. If I lose, there not an ISP I'd want to stay with anyway!

Tim
-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Mitch wrote:
> Sure, each server has terms and conditions that apply, doesn't mean you 
> should be able to ban people from speaking just because you don't like 
> what they say. 

You are a silly person.

    BugBear

In article <87verumr95.fsf@tiger.rapttech.com.au>,
 Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> wrote:

> I also seem to remember a page on his website from a couple of years
> back in which he admits enjoying trolling and starting flame wars -
> but I can't find it now, so maybe I'm mistaken. 

http://web.archive.org/web/20050204172641/www.xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/troll.html

big

-- 
"Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, 
all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, 
watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people 
you hate."  Mr Jalopy quoting Hooptyrides (on jalopyjunktown.com)

Larry Elmore wrote:
> No shit.  Lately it seems that for every "spam" post of Xah's, there's
> at three or more by John *to all the same newsgroups* bitching about
> Xah's use of bandwidth.  Pot, meet kettle.  I'm killfiling Xah for being
> a useless twit and killfiling John for being a prick about it.

There is a person on USENET, particularly in hr. hierarchy that
posts under three different accounts. Sometimes he argues with
himself, and sometimes event supports himself :-)

Maybe we have the similar case here.

DG

makc.the.great@gmail.com wrote:
> Wolf Kirchmeir wrote:
>> Mitch wrote:
>> [...]
>>> http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ has some good (read short but clear)
>>> articles on why patents aren't necessarily a good idea.  The main one I
>>> find is that they aren't needed.
>>> [...]
>>> The argument isn't against protecting intellectual property, just the
>>> way in which it is implemented.
>> [...]
>> Agreed.
> 
> This whole buzz around software patents is there because European
> companies do not want to pay American companies.

And the attitude that an algorithm is patentable is also about money. 
even if it's an algorithm that any first- or second- year student could 
devise as a solution to a set exercise. I mean, trying to patent one 
click as a method of payment on the 'net, as Amazon tried to do As soon 
as the problem is posed, the solution is plain, there's nothing 
innovative about it, hence it's not patentable. I mean, how else is one 
to do it? The click-to-send-some-information to a server already existed 
- to argue that it's patentable to extending the method to send payment 
data is nonsense.

In any case, many European companies (eg, SAP) want the legal right to 
patent software. If SAP were to succeed in patenting its data-base 
software, every ISV that wrote software with similar capabilities would 
have to pay them a royalty. That would stifle development of faster, 
more streamlined, leaner and meaner software. It would also make it 
difficult to implement standardised data formats and data-interchange 
protocols, which is urgently needed, since such formats and protocols 
might infringe on some patent.

> Likewise, China is developing it's own DVD technology to avoid patent
> payments.

I think they're doing so to control access. If they have a China-only 
DVD technology, and forbid acquisition of foreign technologies, they can 
control the content available to their citizens. From their POV, that is 
far more important than mere money. After all, money is just a a way of 
tracking the movement of wealth; it's merely an accounting tool.

[...]

Software is written in a carefully designed subset of ordinary language. 
So is a poem. So let's patent poems!

HTH

Dra=9Een Gemic wrote:
> Larry Elmore wrote:
> > No shit.  Lately it seems that for every "spam" post of Xah's, there's
> > at three or more by John *to all the same newsgroups* bitching about
> > Xah's use of bandwidth.  Pot, meet kettle.  I'm killfiling Xah for being
> > a useless twit and killfiling John for being a prick about it.
>
> There is a person on USENET, particularly in hr. hierarchy that
> posts under three different accounts. Sometimes he argues with
> himself, and sometimes event supports himself :-)

Sounds like me. In rare moments I believe that I'm not alone on usenet
but there are other people as well. I wanted to go to the doctor
because I believed I had a multiple personality but than I discovered
that the doctor was me too.

Kay

makc.the.great@gmail.com wrote:
> Wolf Kirchmeir wrote:
>> Mitch wrote:
>> [...]
>>> http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ has some good (read short but clear)
>>> articles on why patents aren't necessarily a good idea.  The main one I
>>> find is that they aren't needed.
>>> [...]
>>> The argument isn't against protecting intellectual property, just the
>>> way in which it is implemented.
>> [...]
>> Agreed.
> 
> This whole buzz around software patents is there because european
> companies do not want to pay american companies.
> 
> Likewise, China is developing it's own DVD technology to avoid patent
> payments.
> 
> It is not about implementation, it is about money.
> 
> I remember times when Sony was sued about recording devices, not it is
> sued about DRM. It is only words they say, do not buy it.
> 

First I would like to say I agree with everything Wolf says in the other
reply to this post.

And I agree it is about money.  And therefore also about implementation.
 Copyright doesn't cost money, Patents do.  There is nothing wrong with
the copyright system (I welcome any backlash on that statement), not
that the patent system will ultimately deal with at any rate.

Dra�en Gemi� <usenet@local.machine> wrote:

> There is a person on USENET, particularly in hr. hierarchy that
> posts under three different accounts. Sometimes he argues with
> himself, and sometimes event supports himself :-)
> 
> Maybe we have the similar case here.

Wouldn't amaze me if some of the buddies of Xah are actually Xah sitting 
in some Internet cafe, enjoying this troll fest, and already thinking up 
the next one.

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

"John Bokma" <john@castleamber.com> wrote in message 
news:Xns97CE807F1ADC6castleamber@130.133.1.4...
> Dra�en Gemi� <usenet@local.machine> wrote:
>
>> There is a person on USENET, particularly in hr. hierarchy that
>> posts under three different accounts. Sometimes he argues with
>> himself, and sometimes event supports himself :-)
>>
>> Maybe we have the similar case here.
>
> Wouldn't amaze me if some of the buddies of Xah are actually Xah sitting
> in some Internet cafe, enjoying this troll fest, and already thinking up
> the next one.

That's right, we're all Xah, you're the only other one here.

After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?

--
Geoff

"Geoffrey Summerhayes" <sRuEmMrOnVoEt@hotmail.com> wrote:

> After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
> with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?

Comparing Navarth with Xah is a huge insult to Jack Vance. You should be 
ashamed of yourself for even thinking about it, let alone write it down.

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

If you patent youre great software idea then its get made public. And
everyone ca play around with it. Thats a good thing.

But i think thats patents are mainly used to slow down the competition.
The competition now has to program around the patent and thiss slows
them down.

So if you have the recources, just patent everything you can and let
youre lawyers handle youre competition.

Xah Lee wrote:
> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday.

I'm probably stupid for contributing in this flame fest, but here goes.

The reason that I consider Xah a troll and net abuser has little to do 
with cross-posting (which is still bad) or the length of his messages 
(he really should post them on his website and provide a summary and a 
link).

My main problem is that he unloads his crap and then runs away. He 
doesn't participate in any discussion after that. This shows that he has 
no actual interest in discussion of the issues just in using Usenet as a 
form of publishing.

The mention of free speech was raised. But the fact is that Usenet is 
not free (as in beer). We all pay for it. Your ISP has to pay for a 
server, the space for the messages, the bandwidth to download the 
messages, and the bandwidth to send them to your news reader. In reality 
the cost is shared among all of us.

Therefore you do not have the "right" to do what you want with Usenet. 
You have a responsibility to use Usenet in a way that benefits the group 
as a whole (e.g. asking interesting questions that educate others).

-- 
  Dale King

Robert Boyd wrote:
> On 24 May 2006 08:29:57 -0700, Rune Strand <rune.strand@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>I can just declare my support. Reading Mr. Bokmas comments below [*]
>>certainly makes my suport stronger.
>>
> 
> 
> I sent an email in support of Xah, which I wouldn't have bothered to
> do had I not read the rapid-fire posts from Bokma which were abusive,
> insulting, and arrogant. Xah's posts often make me roll my eyes, or I
> skip them, but sometimes (and more so lately) they have been
> intriguing and foster thought-provoking replies. I'd prefer debate and
> discussion be fostered, rather than squelched. But what does this
> clueless sock-puppet know? ;)

I too wrote to XL's hosting company pointing out that while he might be 
an irritant he wasn't particularly abusive. Bokma, on the other hand, 
can be. I don't like either of them much, but at least Xah Lee insults 
everyone while Bokma appears to resort to ad hominem attacks frequently.
-- 
Steve Holden       +44 150 684 7255  +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC/Ltd          http://www.holdenweb.com
Love me, love my blog  http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
Recent Ramblings     http://del.icio.us/steve.holden

Dale King <"DaleWKing [at]gmail [dot] com"> writes:

> Therefore you do not have the "right" to do what you want with
> Usenet. You have a responsibility to use Usenet in a way that benefits
> the group as a whole (e.g. asking interesting questions that educate
> others).

....or at least, in a way that follows the TOS of your ISP.

The problem is that every time Xah posts, there are dozens and maybe
even hundreds of postings that get provoked.  One might say, "Don't
feed the troll," but it's clear that this spate of posting happens no
matter what anyone says.  It happens in every newsgroup I've ever
read.

It's recognized that trollish behaviour such as cross posting
irrelevant messages to many newsgroups causes this response.  So
instead of whacking dozens or hundreds of people with a clue stick,
which is probably the right thing to do but which is impossible, it's
better to thrash the one who has actually started it all by violating
USENET etiquette in the first place.

Xah's postings are occasionally (*very* occasionally) interesting in a
warped sort of way, but I would much rather see him post pointers to
his web site.  It would be even better if he actually figured out the
groups his messages were relevant to before posting them.

BTW, one time I tried a little social engineering to get rid of an
irrelevant cross-posted thread.  I replied to the messages in the
thread (an irrelevant political thread posted in rec.audio.tubes) with
(somewhat) inflammatory replies but deleted my newsgroup from the
follow-up line.  I kept doing this for a day or two to every message
that showed up in rec.audio.tubes.  The result was that the threads
actually died out pretty fast in that newsgroup.  Unfortunately (but
understandably) people in the other newsgroups got pretty mad and
complained to some authority figure somewhere.  The authority figure
had no authority over me but was nice about it, so I stopped.  I
decided my method was a bad idea.  Or rather, a good idea but
dangerous. :-)

-- 
Fred Gilham                                  gilham@csl.sri.com
``This is mere entertainment featuring fictional characters. No real
human relationships were shattered in the making of this TV series.''

"John Bokma" <john@castleamber.com> wrote in message news:Xns97CE8E1B64A6Bcastleamber@130.133.1.4...
> "Geoffrey Summerhayes" <sRuEmMrOnVoEt@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
>> with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?
>
> Comparing Navarth with Xah is a huge insult to Jack Vance. You should be
> ashamed of yourself for even thinking about it, let alone write it down.

Mr. Vance is too intelligent to be insulted by this.
OTOH, Mad Navarth is free to be as insulted as much
as his fictional soul will allow. :)

--
Geoff

Kay Schluehr wrote:
> Sounds like me. In rare moments I believe that I'm not alone on usenet
> but there are other people as well. I wanted to go to the doctor
> because I believed I had a multiple personality but than I discovered
> that the doctor was me too.

That's bad, because all of you must be in different shifts, so you never
meet each other in person.

DG

"Geoffrey Summerhayes" <sumrnot@NhOoStPmAaMil.com> wrote:

> 
> "John Bokma" <john@castleamber.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns97CE8E1B64A6Bcastleamber@130.133.1.4... 
>> "Geoffrey Summerhayes" <sRuEmMrOnVoEt@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
>>> with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?
>>
>> Comparing Navarth with Xah is a huge insult to Jack Vance. You should
>> be ashamed of yourself for even thinking about it, let alone write it
>> down. 
> 
> Mr. Vance is too intelligent to be insulted by this.

OTOH he changed Wankh to Wannek. [1]

> OTOH, Mad Navarth is free to be as insulted as much
> as his fictional soul will allow. :)

One can only wonder what he would say, but if it comes out in print, I 
will buy it and read it and probably enjoy it.


[1] http://starling.us/wankh_vs_wannek.html

-- 
John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

"Mumia W." <mumia.w.18.spam+fbi.gov@earthlink.net> writes:

> Mitch wrote:
>> John Bokma wrote:
>> [...]
>>> You're mistaken. All you need to do is report it. After some time
>>> Xah will either walk in line with the rest of the world, or has
>>> found somewhere else to yell. As long as it's not my back garden
>>> and not around 4AM, I am ok with it.
>>>
>> Walk in line with the rest of the world?  Pah.
>> This is no-ones back garden.
>
> But it is a place where John Bokma can engage in a little power play.
>
> Notice how John Bokma pretends to own these newsgroups. In every
> analogy, Bokma uses "ownership" concepts to support his harassment of
> Xah.
>
> John Bokma conceptualizes these newsgroups as something that he
> dominates. Without other people to recognize his power, it's empty, so
> he bashes and then trashes Xah, and in doing so, proves that he is
> dominant here.
>
> Don't let it happen. Write the abuse address at Dreamhost, and try to
> help Xah out.

I agree. I have already written to Dreamhost and I hope more people
will do so. I have found some of what has been posted here quite
astonishing and the actions of certain people to be reprehensible: by
far the most serious violation of netiquette I see here is this
thoroughly wrong-headed campaign to try to censor Xah by appealing to
his service provider. In my opinion it is that, not anything Xah has
done, which comes any where near deserving any sort of termination of
access to the Internet. Since Xah's website is hosted by Dreamhost,
the unwarranted censorship will be compounded by an act of gratuitous
vandalism, potentially depriving people of useful resources:

http://online.redwoods.cc.ca.us/instruct/darnold/CalcProj/Index.htm

Paul.

"Mumia W." <mumia.w.18.spam+fbi.gov@earthlink.net> writes:

> Mitch wrote:
>> John Bokma wrote:
>> [...]
>>> You're mistaken. All you need to do is report it. After some time
>>> Xah will either walk in line with the rest of the world, or has
>>> found somewhere else to yell. As long as it's not my back garden
>>> and not around 4AM, I am ok with it.
>>>
>> Walk in line with the rest of the world?  Pah.
>> This is no-ones back garden.
>
> But it is a place where John Bokma can engage in a little power play.
>
> Notice how John Bokma pretends to own these newsgroups. In every
> analogy, Bokma uses "ownership" concepts to support his harassment of
> Xah.
>
> John Bokma conceptualizes these newsgroups as something that he
> dominates. Without other people to recognize his power, it's empty, so
> he bashes and then trashes Xah, and in doing so, proves that he is
> dominant here.
>
> Don't let it happen. Write the abuse address at Dreamhost, and try to
> help Xah out.

I agree. I have already written to Dreamhost and I hope more people
will do so. I have found some of what has been posted here quite
astonishing and the actions of certain people to be reprehensible: by
far the most serious violation of netiquette I see here is this
thoroughly wrong-headed campaign to try to censor Xah by appealing to
his service provider. In my opinion it is that, not anything Xah has
done, which comes any where near deserving any sort of termination of
access to the Internet. Since Xah's website is hosted by Dreamhost,
the unwarranted censorship will be compounded by an act of gratuitous
vandalism, potentially depriving people of useful resources:

http://online.redwoods.cc.ca.us/instruct/darnold/CalcProj/Index.htm

Paul.

Steve Holden wrote:
.......
> I too wrote to XL's hosting company pointing out that while he might be 
> an irritant he wasn't particularly abusive. Bokma, on the other hand, 
> can be. I don't like either of them much, but at least Xah Lee insults 
> everyone while Bokma appears to resort to ad hominem attacks frequently.

It seems strange to me that XL gets such a bad rep. It takes at least two to 
make a flame war/troll work so why do others jump in with both feet. It's like 
many approaches to narcotics control ie try to stem the source, the proper 
approach is to halt the demand. Just stay silent.

Trying to call XL a net abuser is just silly and wrong. Many people have ideas 
which others consider wrong, blasphemous, dangerous, stupid etc etc etc, but 
freedom of expression is important.
-- 
Robin Becker

In comp.lang.perl.misc Mitch <spudtheimpaler@hotorgoomail.invalid> wrote

> All that I snipped is your opinion, which is yours to do with as you 
> please.  "I like it just the way it is." is *MY* opinion, so please 
> don't try to change it.  I think I know my opinion best.

Wrong. You don't like it how it is. Because as it is now, if someone
acts irresponsible for his own actions, his ISP might get an abuse
message and might act on that. You want it to follow you own personal
moral standards that you feel are being hurt by the usenet as it is.

> And as for setting it to reply to only you, I changed that back.  I 
> don't think you censoring (redirecting) other peoples replies/opinions 
> serves the purpose of this thread well.

It's certanily not speaking for you that you compare that and abuse
messages to "censorship." It mostly seems like you try to make an
argument by acting emtionally.

Won't do.


p

-- 
The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.
                        -- Aleister Crowley

Fred Gilham wrote:

> BTW, one time I tried a little social engineering to get rid of an
> irrelevant cross-posted thread.  I replied to the messages in the
> thread (an irrelevant political thread posted in rec.audio.tubes) with
> (somewhat) inflammatory replies but deleted my newsgroup from the
> follow-up line.  I kept doing this for a day or two to every message
> that showed up in rec.audio.tubes.  The result was that the threads
> actually died out pretty fast in that newsgroup.

Clever idea.  Evil, but clever ;-)

    -- chris

[apologies to the whole flaming crowd for sending this to the whole flaming
crowd...]

Geoffrey Summerhayes wrote:

> After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
> with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?

Where does that come from ?  It sounds like a quote, and Navarth is a Jack
Vance name (and /what/ a character), but I don't remember the rest of it
occurring in Vance.

    -- chris

makc.the.great@gmail.com schrieb:
> Wolf Kirchmeir wrote:
>> Mitch wrote:
>> [...]
>>> http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ has some good (read short but clear)
>>> articles on why patents aren't necessarily a good idea.  The main one I
>>> find is that they aren't needed.
>>> [...]
>>> The argument isn't against protecting intellectual property, just the
>>> way in which it is implemented.
>> [...]
>> Agreed.
> 
> This whole buzz around software patents is there because european
> companies do not want to pay american companies.

I am sure there are a lot of small software companies in america as 
well. How should these companies be able to even check if they violate 
any software patent?

You would be unable to write a single line of code without consulting a 
lawyer. This is crazy.

Large companies will be able to protect themselves with a patent 
portfolio ("If you sue me, I sue you").



Timo

Robert Sedlacek wrote:
> In comp.lang.perl.misc Mitch <spudtheimpaler@hotorgoomail.invalid> wrote
> 
>> All that I snipped is your opinion, which is yours to do with as you 
>> please.  "I like it just the way it is." is *MY* opinion, so please 
>> don't try to change it.  I think I know my opinion best.
> 
> Wrong. You don't like it how it is. Because as it is now, if someone
> acts irresponsible for his own actions, his ISP might get an abuse
> message and might act on that. [...]

To suggest that Xah's *on-topic* posts to *five* newsgroups is 
irresponsible is ludicrous. In this newsgroup, there's a message 
crossposted to about a dozen newsgroups with a subject of "teen sister 
peeing outside." This message contains a trojan.

*That*'s an example of an irresponsible message. Xah's posts are not.

fup to poster.

> John Bokma conceptualizes these newsgroups as something that he 
> dominates. Without other people to recognize his power, it's empty, so
> he bashes and then trashes Xah, and in doing so, proves that he is 
> dominant here.

Question, since I am now the ultimate power here, are you going to be one 
of my bitches instead of Xah's?

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

"Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> wrote:

> [apologies to the whole flaming crowd for sending this to the whole
> flaming crowd...]
> 
> Geoffrey Summerhayes wrote:
> 
>> After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
>> with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?
> 
> Where does that come from ?  It sounds like a quote, and Navarth is a
> Jack Vance name (and /what/ a character), but I don't remember the
> rest of it occurring in Vance.

Navarth is very present in "the palace of dreams" (Demon princes series)

The gruff, deedle and wobbly is mentioned IIRC in Wyst (Alastor 1716), but 
not sure about it. IIRC it's all you need in the egalistic world of Wyst.


-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

On 21 May 2006 02:15:31 -0700, "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote,
quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>FACT: Java has no first-class functions and no macros. This results in
>warped code that hacks around the problem, and as the code base grows,
>it takes on a definite, ugly shape, one that's utterly unique to Java.

You need to back up a sweeping statement like that with an least an
example code showing how it could much better be handled with macros.

Java has lots of macro languages, including C++'s preprocessor. What
it does not have is a sanctioned one.  It has instead on-the-fly code
generation. See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/onthefly.html


-- 
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> writes:

> wrf3@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
>
>> Count me among the clueless, then.  I just wrote to DreamHost and asked
>> that they reverse their decision to terminate his account.
>
> I am sure that DreamHost has quite a nice /dev/null for clueless idiots 
> like you and your sock puppets :-D.
>
> -- 
> John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
>                            personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
>         Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
>             Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

John Bokma not following netiquette. Killfiled. If I can find out how
to report this to the relevant ISP I will do so.

Frank

"John Bokma" <john@castleamber.com> wrote in message 
news:Xns97CF757E136D6castleamber@130.133.1.4...
> "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> wrote:
>
>> [apologies to the whole flaming crowd for sending this to the whole
>> flaming crowd...]
>>
>> Geoffrey Summerhayes wrote:
>>
>>> After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
>>> with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?
>>
>> Where does that come from ?  It sounds like a quote, and Navarth is a
>> Jack Vance name (and /what/ a character), but I don't remember the
>> rest of it occurring in Vance.
>
> Navarth is very present in "the palace of dreams" (Demon princes series)

Nitpick: _The Palace of Love_

P.L.Hayes <paul@wolfbone.ath.cx> wrote:
> "Mumia W." <mumia.w.18.spam+fbi.gov@earthlink.net> writes:
 
>> Don't let it happen. Write the abuse address at Dreamhost, and try to
>> help Xah out.
 
> I agree. I have already written to Dreamhost and I hope more people
> will do so. I have found some of what has been posted here quite
> astonishing and the actions of certain people to be reprehensible: by
> far the most serious violation of netiquette I see here is this
> thoroughly wrong-headed campaign to try to censor Xah by appealing to
> his service provider. In my opinion it is that, not anything Xah has
> done, which comes any where near deserving any sort of termination of
> access to the Internet. Since Xah's website is hosted by Dreamhost,
> the unwarranted censorship will be compounded by an act of gratuitous
> vandalism, potentially depriving people of useful resources:

What bothers me is that Xah is not actually actually posting using the
news server at Dreamhost but using Google. The proper place, it seems to
me, would be to direct complaints to Google, not Xah's means of access
to the Internet as a whole, since it is Google which accepts the postings.
 
Axel

"Mike Schilling" <mscottschilling@hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> "John Bokma" <john@castleamber.com> wrote in message 
> news:Xns97CF757E136D6castleamber@130.133.1.4...
>> "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> wrote:
>>
>>> [apologies to the whole flaming crowd for sending this to the whole
>>> flaming crowd...]
>>>
>>> Geoffrey Summerhayes wrote:
>>>
>>>> After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
>>>> with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?
>>>
>>> Where does that come from ?  It sounds like a quote, and Navarth is
>>> a Jack Vance name (and /what/ a character), but I don't remember the
>>> rest of it occurring in Vance.
>>
>> Navarth is very present in "the palace of dreams" (Demon princes
>> series) 
> 
> Nitpick: _The Palace of Love_

Aargh! The only excuse I can give for that huge mistake is that I am
currently reading "In the net of dreams" :-( 

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:

> What bothers me is that Xah is not actually actually posting using the
> news server at Dreamhost but using Google. The proper place, it seems
> to me, would be to direct complaints to Google,

Google ignores complaints regarding crossposting AFAIK. Don't you think 
they haven't received plenty of complaints by now? (not limited to me).

Also, Xah has found an ISP (he probably has had quite a some by now) who 
doesn't care much. Maybe that will change when more people complain.

> not Xah's means of
> access to the Internet as a whole, since it is Google which accepts
> the postings. 

Dreamhosts hosts (what's in a name) Xah's site, and terminates the account 
because Xah is just posting a copy of a page on his website followed by a 
link every time.

Next, I am amazed that you reply to someone who is so confused as Hayes. 
Xah is not censored. Xah has been asked many times quite nicely in the 
past, even by Dreamhost, to take the netiquette a bit more serious, and a 
rant directed on, for example, Python should pop up in a python group. Not 
4 other groups that Xah thinks are fun. 

Also his hit & run behaviour should have opened the eyes of many, but 
alas. It really makes one wonder who those people are who are defending 
Xah's behavior, and trying to make it sound like Xah has been just shot 
dead.

Again: Xah has been asked to post on topic, and in the group that matches 
what he posts. And if he cross posts, to properly set a follow up to. 

Dreamhost decided to cut him off, (but gave him 30 days to find another 
hoster) because Xah is not interested in *using* Usenet like most people. 
He is interested in the flame fest that he makes happen each and every 
time while promoting his website.

"I as a troll is rather recent, beginning and getting
 worse about in 1998. I have been using online discussion
 medium since 1990. Perhaps one day i'll write �how i
 became a troll�. It is bound to be a
 tragedy. �Xah Lee, 2002."

Or maybe better:

"When a person's sanity is at balance,
 when human passion is raging,
 no etiquette must get in the way. 
     �Xah Lee, 2001."

http://www.xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/troll.html


-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

"John Bokma" <john@castleamber.com> wrote in message 
news:Xns97CFA2545F010castleamber@130.133.1.4...
> "Mike Schilling" <mscottschilling@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> "John Bokma" <john@castleamber.com> wrote in message
>> news:Xns97CF757E136D6castleamber@130.133.1.4...
>>> "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> [apologies to the whole flaming crowd for sending this to the whole
>>>> flaming crowd...]
>>>>
>>>> Geoffrey Summerhayes wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
>>>>> with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?
>>>>
>>>> Where does that come from ?  It sounds like a quote, and Navarth is
>>>> a Jack Vance name (and /what/ a character), but I don't remember the
>>>> rest of it occurring in Vance.
>>>
>>> Navarth is very present in "the palace of dreams" (Demon princes
>>> series)
>>
>> Nitpick: _The Palace of Love_
>
> Aargh! The only excuse I can give for that huge mistake is that I am
> currently reading "In the net of dreams" :-(

You have another excuse in the last Demon Princes title: _The Book of 
Dreams_. 

"P.L.Hayes" <paul@wolfbone.ath.cx> wrote in message 
news:87slmwbhx5.fsf@wolfbone.ath.cx...
>
> I agree. I have already written to Dreamhost and I hope more people
> will do so. I have found some of what has been posted here quite
> astonishing and the actions of certain people to be reprehensible: by
> far the most serious violation of netiquette I see here is this
> thoroughly wrong-headed campaign to try to censor Xah by appealing to
> his service provider.

No one that I know of is trying to censor Xah.  It's the form his postings 
take that cause problems, not the content.

> In my opinion it is that, not anything Xah has
> done, which comes any where near deserving any sort of termination of
> access to the Internet.

Bringing facts to their attention?  If Dreamhost has given him notice of 
termination, it's for violating their policies, not because people have told 
them "I don't like him".

> Since Xah's website is hosted by Dreamhost,
> the unwarranted censorship will be compounded by an act of gratuitous
> vandalism, potentially depriving people of useful resources:

He's free to find another ISP and *not* violate their rules. 

John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
> axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:
 
>> What bothers me is that Xah is not actually actually posting using the
>> news server at Dreamhost but using Google. The proper place, it seems
>> to me, would be to direct complaints to Google,
 
> Google ignores complaints regarding crossposting AFAIK. Don't you think 
> they haven't received plenty of complaints by now? (not limited to me).

I was not aware of that.
 
> Dreamhosts hosts (what's in a name) Xah's site, and terminates the account 
> because Xah is just posting a copy of a page on his website followed by a 
> link every time.

> Next, I am amazed that you reply to someone who is so confused as Hayes. 
> Xah is not censored. Xah has been asked many times quite nicely in the 
> past, even by Dreamhost, to take the netiquette a bit more serious, and a 
> rant directed on, for example, Python should pop up in a python group. Not 
> 4 other groups that Xah thinks are fun. 

I wasn't particularly replying... just wondering why Dreamhost rather
than Google, but it is now explained.

I know that Xah is a damned nuisance.

Axel
 

John Bokma wrote:
> Eli Gottlieb <eligottlieb@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Who reads blogs?  They're well known for housing crackpots far worse 
>>than Xah, and I estimate he doesn't want to associate himself with that 
>>sort.
> 
> 
> Yup, he seems to be quite happy as a Usenet Kook
> 
An area in which you appear to be pretty expert.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden       +44 150 684 7255  +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC/Ltd          http://www.holdenweb.com
Love me, love my blog  http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
Recent Ramblings     http://del.icio.us/steve.holden

axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:

> John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
>> axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk wrote:
>  
>>> What bothers me is that Xah is not actually actually posting using
>>> the news server at Dreamhost but using Google. The proper place, it
>>> seems to me, would be to direct complaints to Google,
>  
>> Google ignores complaints regarding crossposting AFAIK. Don't you
>> think they haven't received plenty of complaints by now? (not limited
>> to me). 
> 
> I was not aware of that.

There is a reason why Xah has settled with Google Groups :-(

>> Dreamhosts hosts (what's in a name) Xah's site, and terminates the
>> account because Xah is just posting a copy of a page on his website
>> followed by a link every time.
> 
>> Next, I am amazed that you reply to someone who is so confused as
>> Hayes. Xah is not censored. Xah has been asked many times quite
>> nicely in the past, even by Dreamhost, to take the netiquette a bit
>> more serious, and a rant directed on, for example, Python should pop
>> up in a python group. Not 4 other groups that Xah thinks are fun. 
> 
> I wasn't particularly replying... just wondering why Dreamhost rather
> than Google, but it is now explained.

Apologies, I am a bit trigger happy thanks to some replies here.

> I know that Xah is a damned nuisance.

I think everybody knows that. Sadly a lot of people love it, especially if 
they can ride the waves :-(

-- 
John Bokma          Freelance software developer
                                &
                    Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

"Mike Schilling" <mscottschilling@hotmail.com> writes:

> "P.L.Hayes" <paul@wolfbone.ath.cx> wrote in message 
> news:87slmwbhx5.fsf@wolfbone.ath.cx...
>>
>> I agree. I have already written to Dreamhost and I hope more people
>> will do so. I have found some of what has been posted here quite
>> astonishing and the actions of certain people to be reprehensible: by
>> far the most serious violation of netiquette I see here is this
>> thoroughly wrong-headed campaign to try to censor Xah by appealing to
>> his service provider.
>
> No one that I know of is trying to censor Xah.  It's the form his postings 
> take that cause problems, not the content.
>

Having read through the threads in question, I cannot agree on either
point. If form alone had been the problem, Xah's sporadic
cross-posting to a handful of related newsgroups would presumably be
the sole cause for complaint and yet that hardly seems to me to
justify complaining to his ISP or to Google, let alone to his
_web_hosting company. But that is not what has happened anyway:
complainers have referred to Xah's posts as being off-topic - in some
cases, "drivel" and "rants" - an opinion not shared by many more
than half those who have posted to the threads. Fair enough - one is
entitled to one's opinion - but it would be a mischaracterisation of
what the complainers have actually written in their posts and have
claimed to have written in their complaints to Dreamhost to say that
form alone has been the issue.

If you believe that what Xah has done was such a serious breach of
netiquette and caused such serious problems that the appropriate
course of action was to demand that his ISP and even his website host
deny him access to the Internet, then having done so would not,
strictly speaking, have been an attempt to censor Xah. But to maintain
such a premise is, as others have opined, rather eccentric and
overblown and if those who have written complaints about Xah to his
ISP or to his website host have not deliberately meant to censor him,
that is beside the point and no good reason to support their actions.
I find it rather difficult anyway to believe that there is no
deliberate attempt at censorship in the light of threads such as this
one:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.lang.perl.misc/browse_frm/thread/8fec378b74263f25/29458dc7da626a27?lnk=st&q=Bokma+Xah+Lee&rnum=3#29458dc7da626a27

"I rather account kill by ISP :-D." 

>> In my opinion it is that, not anything Xah has
>> done, which comes any where near deserving any sort of termination of
>> access to the Internet.
>
> Bringing facts to their attention?  If Dreamhost has given him notice of 
> termination, it's for violating their policies, not because people have told 
> them "I don't like him".

Exactly. Such underhand and manipulative behaviour is what makes this
whole business so distasteful and why I find the actions of those who
have tried to remedy perceived 'problems' in this way quite despicable.

>> Since Xah's website is hosted by Dreamhost,
>> the unwarranted censorship will be compounded by an act of gratuitous
>> vandalism, potentially depriving people of useful resources:
>
> He's free to find another ISP and *not* violate their rules. 

Oh! Well that's okay then.

Paul.

"P.L.Hayes" <paul@wolfbone.ath.cx> wrote in message 
news:87irnsavhw.fsf@wolfbone.ath.cx...

>> Bringing facts to their attention?  If Dreamhost has given him notice of
>> termination, it's for violating their policies, not because people have 
>> told
>> them "I don't like him".
>
> Exactly. Such underhand and manipulative behaviour is what makes this
> whole business so distasteful and why I find the actions of those who
> have tried to remedy perceived 'problems' in this way quite despicable.

Such underhanded and manipulative behavior as reporting facts?  You've lost 
me.

>
>>> Since Xah's website is hosted by Dreamhost,
>>> the unwarranted censorship will be compounded by an act of gratuitous
>>> vandalism, potentially depriving people of useful resources:
>>
>> He's free to find another ISP and *not* violate their rules.
>
> Oh! Well that's okay then.

It is if Xah can learn to be a good citizen.  If not, he has no one to blame 
but himself. 

"Mike Schilling" <mscottschilling@hotmail.com> writes:

> "P.L.Hayes" <paul@wolfbone.ath.cx> wrote in message 
> news:87irnsavhw.fsf@wolfbone.ath.cx...
>
>>> Bringing facts to their attention?  If Dreamhost has given him notice of
>>> termination, it's for violating their policies, not because people have 
>>> told
>>> them "I don't like him".
>>
>> Exactly. Such underhand and manipulative behaviour is what makes this
>> whole business so distasteful and why I find the actions of those who
>> have tried to remedy perceived 'problems' in this way quite despicable.
>
> Such underhanded and manipulative behavior as reporting facts?  You've lost 
> me.

Such underhanded and manipulative behaviour as taking one's grievance,
a subset of the "facts" and one's own interpretation of them to a
third party not directly involved in a dispute, whose rules and
policies may not be properly applicable to the matter at hand, whose
procedures may not include an appropriately thorough investigation and
consideration of the facts and opinions supportive of both sides of
the argument and whose consequent sanction may well be inappropriate,
excessive and represent a decision made for the sake of expediency,
rather than justice.

Such underhanded and manipulative behaviour as appealing to a third
party whose position of power over one's opponent can be exploited in
order to save oneself the trouble of having to win the argument fairly
by building a consensus among those who are directly involved in the
dispute and among whom one knows that there are many who take the view
that one's grievance is groundless.

>>
>>>> Since Xah's website is hosted by Dreamhost,
>>>> the unwarranted censorship will be compounded by an act of gratuitous
>>>> vandalism, potentially depriving people of useful resources:
>>>
>>> He's free to find another ISP and *not* violate their rules.
>>
>> Oh! Well that's okay then.
>
> It is if Xah can learn to be a good citizen.  If not, he has no one to blame 
> but himself. 

A good citizen according to whose laws? King Bokma's? Well in that
case I suppose I will have to accept that having grievously offended
the King and his Court, Xah must indeed be banished and his estate
dismantled and thrown into the sea behind him. The King's decrees must
of course be obeyed and Divine Right makes him incapable of injustice
anyway. I see my error now. ;-)

Paul.

I can't see the way how Xah Lee could be on topic in 
comp.lang.java.programmer. He is not a programmer,
and does not write about neither programming nor
Java.

He should stick to philosophy and advocacy groups.

DG

John D Salt a �crit :
> <corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in news:4dbartF19cb9rU1@uni-berlin.de:
> 
> [Snips]
> 
>>Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>>wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
> 
> 
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?
>
Make it 1958 FWIW. Yes, the year Lisp was born...

John A. Bailo a �crit :
> John D Salt wrote:
> 
>> <corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in news:4dbartF19cb9rU1@uni-berlin.de:
>>
>> [Snips]
>>
>>> Wrong. We live in a paradise of ideas and possibilities well beyond the
>>> wildest dreams of only 20 years ago.
>>
>>
>>
>> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
>> cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?
> 
> 
> What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
> cannot be traced back to Doug Engbart's 1968 presentation at Xerox Parc?
> 
Those that can be traced back to 1958 when someone invented Lisp ?-)

Paul Rubin a �crit :
> John D Salt <jdsalt_AT_gotadsl.co.uk> writes:
> 
>>What exciting new ideas exist in software that are both important and 
>>cannot be traced back to 1986 or earlier?
> 
> 
> Automated spamming tools?  ;-)
keyboard !

ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> We seem to have strayed a long way from Voltaire's
> "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your
> right to say it.",
> but that was of course the age of enlightenment.

Obviously this wisdom is getting stale and should be updated to something
like "There is so much noise we can't hear each other, but I will defend
to the death a chance to get heard for whatever you might have to say that's
intelligent (while not necessarily from your own mouth)".

Besides, it is not clear that Voltaire really said that.

Cheers, BB
--
python >>> filter(lambda W : W not in 'ILLITERATE','BULLSHIT')

>"There is so much noise we can't hear each other, but I will defend
>to the death a chance to get heard for whatever you might have to say that's
>intelligent (while not necessarily from your own mouth)".

You write a much cooler quote!

>Besides, it is not clear that Voltaire really said that.

No? well I guess it's alright to harrass Xah then.
Immanuel Litzroth

Boris Borcic wrote:
> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> > We seem to have strayed a long way from Voltaire's
> > "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your
> > right to say it.",
> > but that was of course the age of enlightenment.
>
> Obviously this wisdom is getting stale and should be updated to something
> like "There is so much noise we can't hear each other, but I will defend
> to the death a chance to get heard for whatever you might have to say that's
> intelligent (while not necessarily from your own mouth)".
>

But we might not have enough intelligence to decide what is intelligent
and what is not. :-)

> Besides, it is not clear that Voltaire really said that.
>
> Cheers, BB
> --
> python >>> filter(lambda W : W not in 'ILLITERATE','BULLSHIT')

ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:

>>"There is so much noise we can't hear each other, but I will defend
>>to the death a chance to get heard for whatever you might have to say
>>that's intelligent (while not necessarily from your own mouth)".
> 
> You write a much cooler quote!
> 
>>Besides, it is not clear that Voltaire really said that.
> 
> No? well I guess it's alright to harrass Xah then.

Your first question should be: Is it alright that Xah harasses 5 
newsgroups? Or maybe work on your spelling, harass is with one r, but 
maybe you didn't read the subject, which wouldn't amaze me, since you 
sound like you should be spending time on MySpace OMG!.

-- 
John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

John Bokma wrote:
> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:

> Your first question should be: Is it alright that Xah harasses 5 
> newsgroups? Or maybe work on your spelling, harass is with one r, but 
> maybe you didn't read the subject, which wouldn't amaze me, since you 
> sound like you should be spending time on MySpace OMG!.


I assume that the single l in alright is the courteous misspelling that 
should allways be in a posting, when correcting other peoples speling?


-- 

hilsen/regards Max M, Denmark

http://www.mxm.dk/
IT's Mad Science

Phone:  +45 66 11 84 94
Mobile: +45 29 93 42 96

Max M wrote:
> John Bokma wrote:
>> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>> Your first question should be: Is it alright that Xah harasses 5 
>> newsgroups? Or maybe work on your spelling, harass is with one r, but 
>> maybe you didn't read the subject, which wouldn't amaze me, since you 
>> sound like you should be spending time on MySpace OMG!.
> 
> 
> I assume that the single l in alright is the courteous misspelling that 
> should allways be in a posting, when correcting other peoples speling?

Nope. Oxford English Dictionary has:

	alright

	a frequent spelling of all right.

And Merriam-Webster has:

alright
Pronunciation: (")ol-'rIt, 'ol-"
Function: adverb or adjective
: ALL RIGHT
usage The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all 
right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. Since the 
early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it 
has its defenders and its users. It is less frequent than all right but 
remains in common use especially in journalistic and business 
publications. It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used 
occasionally in other writing <the first two years of medical school 
were alright -- Gertrude Stein>. 	

DS

>Your first question should be: Is it alright that Xah harasses 5
>newsgroups? Or maybe work on your spelling, harass is with one r, but
>maybe you didn't read the subject, which wouldn't amaze me, since you
>sound like you should be spending time on MySpace OMG!.

Dear John,
Should I ask myself the question about Xah first, or work on my
spelling?
I knew har*ass it had 1 or more r's in it but I couldn't figure out the
exact number.
That makes me suspect my spelling is good enough and I should dive
right into the
Xah issue. What do you think John?
I don't get the MySpace OMG reference, but rest assured John, you are
still my favorite
newsnet nazi. I know you have been feeling pretty insecure about this
Xah fellow, but
you know that is just silly, don't you?
Yours truly
Immanuel

P.S Do not hesitate to comment on form, spelling or style of this
message. I am always
eager to learn.

Max M wrote:
> John Bokma wrote:
>> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>> Your first question should be: Is it alright that Xah harasses 5 
>> newsgroups? Or maybe work on your spelling, harass is with one r, but 
>> maybe you didn't read the subject, which wouldn't amaze me, since you 
>> sound like you should be spending time on MySpace OMG!.
> 
> 
> I assume that the single l in alright is the courteous misspelling that 
> should allways be in a posting, when correcting other peoples speling?
> 
> 

I'm glad you caught the usage error and another fine example of Bokma
hypocrisy.

People need to point it out because Bokma's hypocrisy is invisible to 
him. :)

Xah's posting on-topic messages to 5 newsgroups about two times per week 
isn't harassment, but Bokma's attempts to cut off Xah *are*.

David Squire wrote:
> Max M wrote:
>> John Bokma wrote:
>>> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> Your first question should be: Is it alright that Xah harasses 5 
>>> newsgroups? Or maybe work on your spelling, harass is with one r, but 
>>> maybe you didn't read the subject, which wouldn't amaze me, since you 
>>> sound like you should be spending time on MySpace OMG!.
>>
>>
>> I assume that the single l in alright is the courteous misspelling 
>> that should allways be in a posting, when correcting other peoples 
>> speling?
> 
> Nope. Oxford English Dictionary has:
> 
>     alright
> 
>     a frequent spelling of all right.
> 
> And Merriam-Webster has:
> 
> alright
> Pronunciation: (")ol-'rIt, 'ol-"
> Function: adverb or adjective
> : ALL RIGHT
> usage The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all 
> right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. Since the 
> early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it 
> has its defenders and its users. It is less frequent than all right but 
> remains in common use especially in journalistic and business 
> publications. It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used 
> occasionally in other writing <the first two years of medical school 
> were alright -- Gertrude Stein>.    
> 
> DS

American Heritage Dictionary:
Usage Note: [...] one who uses alright, especially in formal writing, 
runs the risk that readers may view it as an error or as the willing 
breaking of convention.

That's sounds kinda like what Xah does, and that's why I flag it as 
hypocrisy.

Mumia W. wrote:
> Xah's posting on-topic messages to 5 newsgroups about two times per week 
> isn't harassment, but Bokma's attempts to cut off Xah *are*.
> 

I am gratefull to John for efforts to get rid of Xah Lee.

DG

Max M <maxm@mxm.dk> wrote:

> John Bokma wrote:
>> ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>> Your first question should be: Is it alright that Xah harasses 5 
>> newsgroups? Or maybe work on your spelling, harass is with one r, but 
>> maybe you didn't read the subject, which wouldn't amaze me, since you 
>> sound like you should be spending time on MySpace OMG!.
> 
> I assume that the single l in alright is the courteous misspelling that 
> should allways be in a posting, when correcting other peoples speling?

http://www.answers.com/alright
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?tname=all-right

:-D

-- 
John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

"Mumia W." <mumia.w.18.spam+nospam.usenet@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Xah's posting on-topic messages to 5 newsgroups about two times per week 
> isn't harassment, but Bokma's attempts to cut off Xah *are*.

Again (what else is new) you're mistaken. Since you clearly are not 
interested in what actually is going on, I leave you in your made up 
world.

-- 
John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:

> I don't get the MySpace OMG reference, but rest assured John, you are
> still my favorite
> newsnet nazi. I know you have been feeling pretty insecure about this
> Xah fellow, but

Funny that someone diagnosing insecurity needs to refer to Nazi's in an 
attempt to promote a feeling.

-- 
John                               MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
                           personal page:       http://johnbokma.com/
        Experienced programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
            Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

Ant wrote:
>>From my point of view, this issue has two sides:
> 
> 1) Xah is posting to the newgroups valid topics for discussion

He posted the following to comp.lang.perl.misc (a small sample of recent 
stuff)

   Python has a new logo!
   A Lambda Logo Tour
   Pythot doc problem: lambda keyword...
   A critic of Guido's blog on Python's lambda
   Generating Thumbnail Images of a Photo Gallery (a Python script)


> 2) Xah cross posted the posts to several newsgroups he has an interest
> in.
> 
> Now this second point should be the only factor for reporting him to
> his ISP. Given that it has gone this far, wouldn't it be fair to give
> the guy a break on the condition that if he wants to post to a variety
> of newgroups, that he does it individually rather than as a cross post?
> 

Xah has been posting off-topic for many years. I doubt he'll change now 
just because someone asks him politely. I've no doubt that has been 
tried many times before without result.

Mumia W. wrote:
> Xah's posting on-topic messages 

Personally I don't see how the following are on-topic in comp.lang.perl.misc

   Python has a new logo!
   A Lambda Logo Tour
   Pythot doc problem: lambda keyword...
   A critic of Guido's blog on Python's lambda
   Generating Thumbnail Images of a Photo Gallery (a Python script)
   Xah's Edu Corner: accountability & lying thru the teeth


> to 5 newsgroups about two times per week isn't harassment

It seems to me that it is his persistent and deliberate posting of 
*off-topic* subjects that many find objectionable.

On Tuesday 30 May 2006 10:36, ilitzroth@gmail.com wrote:
> >Your first question should be: Is it alright that Xah harasses 5
> >newsgroups? Or maybe work on your spelling, harass is with one r, but
> >maybe you didn't read the subject, which wouldn't amaze me, since you
> >sound like you should be spending time on MySpace OMG!.
>
> Dear John,
> Should I ask myself the question about Xah first, or work on my
> spelling?
> I knew har*ass it had 1 or more r's in it but I couldn't figure out the
> exact number.
> That makes me suspect my spelling is good enough and I should dive
> right into the
> Xah issue. What do you think John?
> I don't get the MySpace OMG reference, but rest assured John, you are
> still my favorite
> newsnet nazi. I know you have been feeling pretty insecure about this
> Xah fellow, but
> you know that is just silly, don't you?
> Yours truly
> Immanuel
>
> P.S Do not hesitate to comment on form, spelling or style of this
> message. I am always
> eager to learn.

Immanuel,

The guy cross-posts wildly off-topic posts as a flimsy pretext on which to
plaster advertisements for his website. That's even if you don't consider
the posts themselves drivel. He starts flame wars, or just maildrops and
doesn't respond.

He does so despite the way he does it being impolite, probably in violation
of every TOS he crosses, and inconsiderate to those of us who just want to
use the newsgroup.

If you want to waste your time on mounting a tenacious defence of that, good
luck to you, but consider the possibility that you may be wrong.

Of course we can ignore the guy - I'm sure many do without giving it further thought,
but being able to ignore a transgression or discourtesy doesn't magically mean the
person isn't doing it does it?

As for all this specious nonsense about freedom of speech - every organised forum
for discussion has some level of regulation, varying from taking turns speaking, to
staying a certain distance from the opposition, to wearing the appropriate hat, to
not physically hitting your colleagues.

To confuse that simple and civilised thing with some desire to *stifle* opinion
or basic freedoms would be a little childish, wouldn't it?

Isn't it just people wanting to use this resource as a place to discuss the
topics at hand, without loads and loads of noise and cynical advertising at our expense?

Cheers,

Ten

PS: Nice to see Godwin's ticking over nicely these days. :)

-- 
There are 10 types of people in this world,
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

The Condition of Industrial Programers

Xah Lee, 2006-05

Before i stepped into the computing industry, my first industrial
programing experience is at Wolfram Research Inc as a intern in 1995.
(Wolfram Research is famously known for their highly successful
flagship product Mathematica) I thought, that the programers at Wolfram
are the world's top mathematicians, gathered together to research and
decide and write a extremely advanced technology. But i realized it is
not so. Not at all. In fact, we might say it's just a bunch of Ph Ds
(or equivalent experience). Each person there are not unlike average
white-collar Joes. Each working individually. And, fights and bouts of
arguments between co-workers are not uncommon. Sometimes downright
ugly. Almost nothing is as i naively imagined, as if some world's top
mathematicians are gathered together there, daily to confer and solve
the world's top problems as in some top secret government agency
depicted in movies.

Well, that was my introduction to the industry. The bulk of my surprise
is due to my naiveness and inexperience of the industry, of any
industry, as i was just a intern and this is my first experience seeing
how the real world works.

After Wolfram, after a couple of years i went into the web programing
industry in 1998, using unix, Perl, Apache, Java, database
technologies, in the center of world's technology the Silicon Valley.
My evaluation of industrial programers and how software are written is
a precipitous fall from my observations at Wolfram. In the so-called
Info Tech industry, the vast majority of programers are poorly
qualified. I learned this from my colleagues, and in dealing with
programers from other companies, service providers, data centers, sys
admins, API gateways, and duties of field tutoring. I didn't think i
had very qualified expertise in what i do, but the reality i realized
is that most are far lesser than me, and that is the common situation.
That they have no understanding of basic mathematics such as
trigonometry or calculus. Most have no interest in math whatsoever, and
would be hard pressed for them to explain what is a =E2=80=9Calgorithm=E2=
=80=9D.

I have always thought, that programing X software of field Y usually
means that the programers are thoroughly fluent in languages,
protocols, tools of X, and also being a top expert in field of Y. But
to my great surprise, the fact is that that is almost never the case.
In fact, most of the time the programers simply just had to learn a
language, protocol, software tool, right at the moment as he is trying
to implement a software for a field he never had experience in. I
myself had to do jobs half of the time i've never done before.
Constantly I'm learning new languages, protocols, systems, tools, APIs,
other rising practices and technologies, reading semi-written or delve
into non-existent docs. It is the norm in the IT industry, that most
products are really produces of learning experiences. Extremely hurried
grasping of new technologies in competition with deadlines. There is in
fact little actual learning going on, as there are immense pressure to
simply =E2=80=9Cget it to (demonstrably) work=E2=80=9D and ship it.

Thinking back, in fact the Wolfram people are the most knowledgeable
and inquisitive people i've met as colleagues, by far.

What prompted me to write this essay is after reading the essay Teach
Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig, 2001, at
http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html (local copy). In which, the Lisp
dignitary Peter Norvig derides the widely popular computing books in
the name of Teaching Yourself X In (Fast) Days. Although i agree with
his general sentiment that a language or technology takes time to
master and use well, that these books is a damaging fad and subtly
generate ignorance, but he fails to address the main point, that is:
the cause of the popularity of such books, and how to remedy the
situation.

These books are the bedrock of the industry. It is not because people
are impatient, or that they wish to hurry, but rather, it is the
condition of the IT industry, in the same way modern society drives
people to live certain live styles. No amount of patience or
proselytization can right this, except that we change the industry's
practice of quickly churning out bug-ridden software products to beat
competitors. Companies do that due to market forces, and the market
forces is a result of how people and organizations actually choose to
purchase software. In my opinion, a solution to this is by installing
the concept of responsible licenses, as i've detailed in the essay
Responsible Software Licensing, at
 http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/responsible_license.html .
----
This post is archived at:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/it_programers.html

   Xah
   xah@xahlee.org
 =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/

Thanks to the great many people who has written to my ISP in support of
me. I'm sorry to say, it looks like they will be killing my account
anyhow. I have exchanged a couple letters with the guy at my web host
and he is not changing the decision.

Of this thread, i think 2/3 or 3/4 supported my view that this
constitutes a harassment and the canceling of my account is not right,
even if some disliked my writings. However, there are a few who has
made accusations because of my alleged =E2=80=9Cspam=E2=80=9D or =E2=80=9Ca=
buse=E2=80=9D of
newsgroups.

I've been considering of writing a single essay to reply or explain
these wrongful accusations. Or, perhaps these people prefer me to write
short replies at quantity as they do, so that i'm =E2=80=9Cin the
community=E2=80=9D or =E2=80=9Cnot using newsgroups as a blog=E2=80=9D. In =
my opinion,
making multiple short, fast replies is one problem that plagues and
perpetuates the newsgroups nature of drivels and brainlessness. Most
people who have problem with me simply because i sound cocky and do not
bow to them.

Another point i'd like to make, is about cross-posting. Tech geekers,
due to their pissing male nature, often turns a cross-posted messages
to a flamewar if the message contained any slight possibility of being
perceived as sensitive. (students in fact constitute a significant
portion, if not majority, of the newsgroup demograph) The problem isn't
cross-posting itself, but the tech geekers themselves. As Steve Yegge
has pointed out in his essay =E2=80=9CSoftware Needs Philosophers=E2=80=9D,=
 that
languages and its people are full of religious hot-air. And, computing
languages and its people, are forever ignorant and blindly fanatical of
their own and attack outsiders. When i learned Python in 2005, i
thought it is a great language that remedies the problems created by
the Perl cult. But as i realized, the Python people are as militant,
poor in knowledge, and in fact ignorant of computer languages and
constantly propagandize their own and attack others. The point i want
to make here, is that the taboo of cross-posting is in fact a
contributor to this problem. Most languages stay blindly in their own
community, oblivious to the nature or facts of computing languages
outside of their world. If there are more relevant cross-posting, then
this problem can be lessened.

I have in fact already composed 7 replies to some the accusers of my
alleged abuse of newsgroups. If people like me to post them as a remedy
of me =E2=80=9Cusing newsgroups like a personal blog=E2=80=9D, i'd be happy=
 to.

As to dreamhost my webhosting company canceling my account, i will try
to reason with them, and see what is the final outcome. They have the
legal right to kick me because in the contract that allowed them to do
so with 30 days advanced noticed and without cause. However, it is my
interest and my right, if they actually do kick me in the end, i'll try
to contact Electronic Frontier Foundation and Better Business bureau
for whatever advice or action i can solicit. Meanwhile, if you do know
a web hosting company that can take some 80 G of bandwidth/month for
less than $25 a month, please let me know! (i do hope if someone here
runs a hosting business and can host my site. I will certainly return
the favor.)

Thanks.

   Xah
   xah@xahlee.org
 =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/


Xah Lee wrote:
> I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
> controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
> complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
> web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
> Friday.
>
> I'm not sure I will be able to keep using their service, but I do hope
> so. I do not like to post off-topic messages, but this is newsgroup
> incidence is getting out of hand, and I wish people to know about it.
>
> I wrote some full detail here:
> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/harassment.html
>
> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
>=20
> Your help is appreciated. Thank you.

Xah Lee wrote:
> Thanks to the great many people who has written to my ISP in support of
> me. I'm sorry to say, it looks like they will be killing my account
> anyhow. [...]

I'm sorry to see you go for now Xah, but I'll be doubly happy to see
your return :)

Dreamhost isn't the only hosting company. There are smarter hosting
companies that are able to see harassment for what it is.

>>
>> I wrote some full detail here:
>> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/harassment.html
>>
>> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
>> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
>>
>> Your help is appreciated. Thank you.
> 

Thank you and bye for a couple of weeks :)

On 31 May 2006, xah@xahlee.org wrote:

> Most languages stay blindly in their own community, oblivious to the
> nature or facts of computing languages outside of their world. If
> there are more relevant cross-posting, then this problem can be
> lessened.

(cross-posted to c.l.perl.misc and c.l.python only because they are
named in Xah Lee's discourse)

That's interesting.  So to "correct" the attitude of several
communities *you* believe are insular and opinionated (most people
would disagree with you, but that's besides the point) you took it
upon yourself to cross-post your thoughts to all those communities.
Do you really believe this is ethically correct?  (I'm sure you
believe it's morally correct, but that's also besides the point.  I
hope you at least understand the difference between morals and ethics,
and which of the two apply when you deal with a community.)

You mention philosophers, cooperation, and open-mindedness.  You also
use loaded terms like "hot air," "brainlessness," call Python people
"militant" and "poor in knowledge," and name a "Perl cult."  I hope
you see how this is at best inconsistent (I would call it
hypocritical), and makes you and your postings unwelcome with the
communities you've peppered with your opinions.

Ted

Mumia W. wrote:
> Xah Lee wrote:
>> Thanks to the great many people who has written to my ISP in support
>> of me. I'm sorry to say, it looks like they will be killing my
>> account anyhow. [...]

Finally some good news!

jue 

Xah Lee wrote:
> Thanks to the great many people who has written to my ISP in support of
[...]

> As to dreamhost my webhosting company canceling my account, i will try
> to reason with them, and see what is the final outcome. They have the
> legal right to kick me because in the contract that allowed them to do
> so with 30 days advanced noticed and without cause. However, it is my
> interest and my right, if they actually do kick me in the end, i'll try
> to contact Electronic Frontier Foundation and Better Business bureau
> for whatever advice or action i can solicit. Meanwhile, if you do know
> a web hosting company that can take some 80 G of bandwidth/month for
> less than $25 a month, please let me know! (i do hope if someone here
> runs a hosting business and can host my site. I will certainly return
> the favor.)
[...]

> Xah Lee wrote:
[...]

>> I wrote some full detail here:
>> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/harassment.html
>>
>> If you believe this lobbying to my webhosting provider is unjust,
>> please write to my web hosting provider abuse@dreamhost.com
>>
>> Your help is appreciated. Thank you.

HOST - dreamhost.com / Liberality (Hosting, Basic Requirement)
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/25618913752c457a

..

-- 
http://lazaridis.com

Ilias Lazaridis wrote:
> Xah Lee wrote:
>> for whatever advice or action i can solicit. Meanwhile, if you do know
>> a web hosting company that can take some 80 G of bandwidth/month for
>> less than $25 a month, please let me know! (i do hope if someone here
>> runs a hosting business and can host my site. I will certainly return
>> the favor.)

80 Gb/month ? He intends to write a lot of spam.....

DG

He means Lisp macros. Lisp macros are nothing like the crippled C++
macros that people tend to think of.

Roedy Green wrote:
> On 21 May 2006 02:15:31 -0700, "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote,
> quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>
> Java has lots of macro languages, including C++'s preprocessor. What
> it does not have is a sanctioned one.  It has instead on-the-fly code
> generation. See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/onthefly.html
>
>
> --
> Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
> http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
> > As I see it philosophers have a big problem: nobody need them, so
> > they're out of job.  That's why we see occasional articles "X needs
> > philosophers".  I just ask: where are the job offers?

  Well, Software is the only industry that exists in a vaccum,
  so it not only doesn't need philosophers, all it needs
  is George Bush and tards Inc.



>
> And yet, what is the below, which you might recognize, but a stand
> of a philosophical sort, striking a balance on the continuum between
> the right to profit from personal accomplishment and innovation, and
> the right to re-invent the apparently obvious without penalty?
>
> :> Software patents are endangering the computer industry all around
> :> the world.
>
> Just because philosophy isn't currently paying the rent, doesn't make
> it any less necessary for humanity to remain even vaguely human.
> 
> xanthian.

makc.the.great@gmail.com wrote:
> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> > :> Software patents are endangering the computer industry all around
> > :> the world.
>
> On the contrary, they will make a break-through possible. S/w patents
> are not different from any other patents, and intellectual property is
> not different from any other property; they all are designed to allow
> one group of people to appropriate value created by other group of
> people, and that's how they are perfect incentive. Once before the
> stone age men have lived in a society without property, and we know
> what it was worth of.
>
> It is my personal belief that intellectual property, or - if you prefer
> - protected knowledge will soon grow faster then public knowledge,
> BECAUSE corpos will realize (and many already do) its potential to
> secure their business. Then, the long-awaited boost in AI research will
> be finally possible, though not in "public domain" knowledge.

  It is obviously wiill, since it did that 2000 years ago, with
  primeval  mathema-retards like Euclid.




> 
> IMHO.

The Nature of the =E2=80=9CUnix Philosophy=E2=80=9D

Xah Lee, 2006-05

In the computing industry, especially among unix community, we often
hear that there's a =E2=80=9CUnix Philosophy=E2=80=9D. In this essay, i dis=
sect the
nature and characterization of such =E2=80=9Cunix philosophy=E2=80=9D, as h=
ave been
described by Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson,
and Richard P Gabriel et al, and in recent years by Eric Raymond.

There is no one definite set of priciples that is the so-called =E2=80=9Cun=
ix
philosophy=E2=80=9D, but rather, it consistest of various slogans developed
over the decades by unix programers that purport to describe the way
unix is supposed to have been designed. The characteristics include:
=E2=80=9Ckeep it simple=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9Cmake it fast=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9C=
keep it small=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9Cmake
it work on 99% of cases, but generality and correctness are less
important=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9Cdiversity rules=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9CUser interf=
ace is not
important, raw power is good=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9Ceverything should be a file=
=E2=80=9D,
=E2=80=9Carchitecture is less important than immediate workability=E2=80=9D=
.. Often,
these are expressed by chantible slogans that exhibits juvenile humor,
such as =E2=80=9Csmall is beautiful=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9CKISS (Keep It Simple=
, Stupid)=E2=80=9D.

Suppose, we take a team of student programers to produce a large
software system. When the software is done, give it to software critics
to analyze and come up with some principles that characterize its
design decisions, without disclosing the nature of the programers. The
characterization of such software, will more or less fit the
descriptions of the =E2=80=9CUnix Philosophy=E2=80=9D as described in diffe=
rent
ways by various unix celebrities.

For example, it would focus on implementation simplicity as opposed to
interface simplicity. It will not be consistent in user interface, but
exhibits rawness. It would be correct only for most cases, as opposed
to mathematically correct or generic. It would employee simplistic data
structures and formats such as text-files, as opposed to a structured
system or binary format that requires a spec. It would be speedy, but
less on scalability. It would consists of many small programs, as
opposed to one large system with inter-dependent components. It would
be easy to patch and port, but difficult to upgrade its structure or
adapt entirely new assumptions.

The essence of this theory is that when a software is produced for real
world use, it is necessary that it works in some acceptable way,
otherwise the software will be continuously debugged and refined. A
software system written by a bunch of student or otherwise
under-educated programers, but refined long enough for acceptably
practical, real world use, will necessarily develop characteristics
that is known as the Unix Philosophy.
----
This article is archived at:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/unix_phil.html

   Xah
   xah@xahlee.org
 =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/

Xah Lee wrote:
> The Nature of the “Unix Philosophy”
> 
> Xah Lee, 2006-05
> 
> In the computing industry, especially among unix community, we often
> hear that there's a “Unix Philosophy”. In this essay, i dissect the
> nature and characterization of such “unix philosophy”, as have been
> described by Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson,
> and Richard P Gabriel et al, and in recent years by Eric Raymond.
> Unix Philosophy.
> ----
> This article is archived at:
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/unix_phil.html
> 
>    Xah
>    xah@xahlee.org
>  ∑ http://xahlee.org/
> 
Sigma may impress some, but it does not impress me until you realize 
that philosophers can't count.  That you have lower-case for the first 
person nominative pronoun is one thing, but that you have a difference 
in subject versus predicate is certainly something that Confucious 
criticizes.  frank
------------------
tja

"Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> writes:
> The Nature of the “Unix Philosophy”
>
> Xah Lee, 2006-05

                                  ___________________
                          /|  /|  |                  |
                          ||__||  |      Please do   |
                         /   O O\__         NOT      |
                        /          \     feed the    |
                       /      \     \     trolls     |
                      /   _    \     \ ______________|
                     /    |\____\     \     ||
                    /     | | | |\____/     ||
                   /       \|_|_|/   \    __||
                  /  /  \            |____| ||
                 /   |   | /|        |      --|
                 |   |   |//         |____  --|
          * _    |  |_|_|_|          |     \-/
       *-- _--\ _ \     //           |
         /  _     \\ _ //   |        /
       *  /   \_ /- | -     |       |
         *      ___ c_c_c_C/ \C_c_c_c____________

(If you *must* post followups, please drop comp.lang.c from the
Newsgroups: header -- which doesn't imply that this is topical in any
of the other newsgroups to which it's posted.)

Xah: please consider creating your own newsgroup under alt.*.  You can
post your long essays there and (if you absolutely insist on doing so)
post pointers to them elsewhere.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center             <*>  <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this.

Xah Lee wrote:
> The Nature of the “Unix Philosophy”
> 
> Xah Lee, 2006-05
> 
> In the computing industry, especially among unix community, we often
> hear that there's a “Unix Philosophy”. In this essay, i dissect the
> nature and characterization of such “unix philosophy”, as have been
> described by Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson,
> and Richard P Gabriel et al, and in recent years by Eric Raymond.
> 
> There is no one definite set of priciples that is the so-called “unix
> philosophy”, but rather, it consistest of various slogans developed
> over the decades by unix programers that purport to describe the way
> unix is supposed to have been designed. The characteristics include:
> “keep it simple”, “make it fast”, “keep it small”, “make
> it work on 99% of cases, but generality and correctness are less
> important”, “diversity rules”, “User interface is not
> important, raw power is good”, “everything should be a file”,
> “architecture is less important than immediate workability”. Often,
> these are expressed by chantible slogans that exhibits juvenile humor,
> such as “small is beautiful”, “KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)”.

Perhaps you should take a peek at the ideas in Plan 9 from Bell Labs,
which is  a continuation of this philosophy, unlike the "modern" unix
clones.

Nils O. Selåsdal wrote:
> Xah Lee wrote:
>> The Nature of the “Unix Philosophy”
[snip]

> Perhaps you should take a peek at the ideas in Plan 9 from Bell Labs,
> which is  a continuation of this philosophy, unlike the "modern" unix
> clones.
Is there an actual Plan 9?  I'm only aware of the one from Outer Space. 
  frank

Frank Silvermann <invalid@invalid.net> wrote:

> Nils O. Selåsdal wrote:
> > Xah Lee wrote:
> >> The Nature of the “Unix Philosophy”
> 
> > Perhaps you should take a peek at the ideas in Plan 9 from Bell Labs,
> > which is  a continuation of this philosophy, unlike the "modern" unix
> > clones.
> Is there an actual Plan 9?  I'm only aware of the one from Outer Space. 

<http://cm.bell-labs.com/plan9/>.

But directing the OP there would be futile, as is discussing such
off-topic matter on comp.lang.c.

Richard

Frank Silvermann <invalid@invalid.net> writes:

> Nils O. Selåsdal wrote:
>> Xah Lee wrote:
>>> The Nature of the “Unix Philosophy”
> [snip]
>
>> Perhaps you should take a peek at the ideas in Plan 9 from Bell Labs,
>> which is  a continuation of this philosophy, unlike the "modern" unix
>> clones.
> Is there an actual Plan 9?  I'm only aware of the one from Outer
> Space. frank

No, there is no _actual_ Plan 9.  The OS named "Plan 9" is named after
the Outer Space one.

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/

ATTENTION: Despite any other listing of product contents found
herein, the consumer is advised that, in actuality, this product
consists of 99.9999999999% empty space.

Xah Lee wrote:
> The Nature of the “Unix Philosophy”
> 
> Xah Lee, 2006-05
> 
> In the computing industry, especially among unix community, we often
> hear that there's a “Unix Philosophy”. In this essay, i dissect the
> nature and characterization of such “unix philosophy”, as have been
> described by Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson,
> and Richard P Gabriel et al, and in recent years by Eric Raymond.
> 
> There is no one definite set of priciples that is the so-called “unix
> philosophy”, but rather, it consistest of various slogans developed
> over the decades by unix programers that purport to describe the way
> unix is supposed to have been designed. The characteristics include:
> “keep it simple”, “make it fast”, “keep it small”, “make
> it work on 99% of cases, but generality and correctness are less
> important”, “diversity rules”, “User interface is not
> important, raw power is good”, “everything should be a file”,
> “architecture is less important than immediate workability”. Often,
> these are expressed by chantible slogans that exhibits juvenile humor,
> such as “small is beautiful”, “KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)”.
> 
> Suppose, we take a team of student programers to produce a large
> software system. When the software is done, give it to software critics
> to analyze and come up with some principles that characterize its
> design decisions, without disclosing the nature of the programers. The
> characterization of such software, will more or less fit the
> descriptions of the “Unix Philosophy” as described in different
> ways by various unix celebrities.
> 
> For example, it would focus on implementation simplicity as opposed to
> interface simplicity. It will not be consistent in user interface, but
> exhibits rawness. It would be correct only for most cases, as opposed
> to mathematically correct or generic. It would employee simplistic data
> structures and formats such as text-files, as opposed to a structured
> system or binary format that requires a spec. It would be speedy, but
> less on scalability. It would consists of many small programs, as
> opposed to one large system with inter-dependent components. It would
> be easy to patch and port, but difficult to upgrade its structure or
> adapt entirely new assumptions.
> 
> The essence of this theory is that when a software is produced for real
> world use, it is necessary that it works in some acceptable way,
> otherwise the software will be continuously debugged and refined. A
> software system written by a bunch of student or otherwise
> under-educated programers, but refined long enough for acceptably
> practical, real world use, will necessarily develop characteristics
> that is known as the Unix Philosophy.
> ----
> This article is archived at:
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/unix_phil.html
> 
>    Xah
>    xah@xahlee.org
>  ∑ http://xahlee.org/
> 
I'm only responding to this in comp.lang.c/perl.misc and 
comp.unix.programmer, since those are the only groups who really need to 
read this darned essay in the first place.  Anyone who wants to respond 
to *me*, email.  I don't subscribe to those newsgroups.

Xah, normally you make some kind of point.  This time, you haven't.  We 
all know Unix is a crock of an operating system designed more for ease 
of implementation than correct use!  However, it's been debugged and 
patched so well by now that it beats the alternatives.

Still, with permission I'd like to forward your essay (or have you post 
it) on alt.os.development.  If anyone needs to see that Unix is not the 
Way, the Truth and the Life, it's the operating system hobbyists who 
consistently try to dump it on top of their pet microkernels.

-- 
The science of economics is the cleverest proof of free will yet 
constructed.

On 7 Jun 2006 18:35:52 -0700, "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote:

>The Nature of the �Unix Philosophy�

Good grief. Him again.

-- 
Al Balmer
Sun City, AZ

Al Balmer <albalmer@att.net> wrote:
"Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote:

>>The Nature of the �Unix Philosophy�
>
>Good grief. Him again.

Yeap. It's Saint Troll the Flagellant day ...

Roberto Waltman wrote:
> Al Balmer <albalmer@att.net> wrote:
> "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>>>The Nature of the �Unix Philosophy�
>>
>>Good grief. Him again.
> 
> 
> Yeap. It's Saint Troll the Flagellant day ...

Bullshit is his middle name ...

;-]

HTH,
AvK

On Thu, 08 Jun 2006 13:41:13 +0000, Richard Bos wrote:

> Frank Silvermann <invalid@invalid.net> wrote:
> 
>> Nils O. Selåsdal wrote:
>> > Xah Lee wrote:
>> >> The Nature of the “Unix Philosophy”
>> 
>> > Perhaps you should take a peek at the ideas in Plan 9 from Bell Labs,
>> > which is  a continuation of this philosophy, unlike the "modern" unix
>> > clones.
>> Is there an actual Plan 9?  I'm only aware of the one from Outer Space.
> 
> <http://cm.bell-labs.com/plan9/>.
> 
> But directing the OP there would be futile, as is discussing such
> off-topic matter on comp.lang.c.
> 
> Richard

Not totally off-topic. The Plan 9 "C" compiler supports some noteworthy
additions and changes to the language. Certainly, in contrast, elucidative
of standard C. Plus, you gotta love anonymous structures and unions ;)
GCC supports them, and so does TinyCC I think.

PofN wrote:
>
> Liar. You were never sorry when you troubled us with your posting
> excrements in the past, you are not sorry now.
>
> Liar. You are a net abuser, a kook and a troll. It has nothing to do
> with your writings and style. It has everything to do with your
> vialoation of netiquette, with you x-posting of off-topic messages,
> with your trolling and kookery.
>
> Liear. John asked people do do their duty as net citizens and to report
> a serial net abuser.
>
> Liar. Your whole usenet "career" is build around the posting of
> off-topic messages.
>
> Liar. You were getting out of hand for some time now.
>
> People know very well about you, Xah Lee, the serial newsgroup abuser,
> troll, liar, and kook.
>
> More lies.
>
> I appreciate the courage of John and friends to stand up against
> someone who is out of control. You are not even affraid off accusing
> John of a crime (harrasment) and starting a smear campaing on your web
> site. You have sunken so low that you are fast approaching the earth's
> metal core.

I know I'm coming late to the barbeque.  In passing, I ask: do you have
an objective, impartial perspective on the subject of committing
crimes?  Because libel is a crime.  It all depends on whether what you
state about Xah is provably true or not.  I haven't followed his posts,
but when I hear someone chanting "abuser, troll, liar, kook!" I really
wonder about the accuser.  Anyways, I suppose it's all "sport" until
one of you gets the lawyers involved.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every

Mallor wrote:

> I know I'm coming late to the barbeque.  In passing, I ask: do you have
> an objective, impartial perspective on the subject of committing
> crimes?  Because libel is a crime.

No, it is a tort.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
   Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.
   -- H.L. Mencken

On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Erik Max Francis wrote:

> Mallor wrote:
> 
> > I know I'm coming late to the barbeque.  In passing, I ask: do you have
> > an objective, impartial perspective on the subject of committing
> > crimes?  Because libel is a crime.
> 
> No, it is a tort.
> 

Rather a lot depends on which legal system you're in, for a start. 
Including the standards of proof and who the onus is on.

-- 
flippa@flippac.org

Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire. Most 
of the time you just get burnt worse though.

Philippa Cowderoy wrote:

> Rather a lot depends on which legal system you're in, for a start. 
> Including the standards of proof and who the onus is on.

Oh, no doubt.  But I don't think there's any modern legal system in 
which it's a crime, rather than a tort.  Is there?

Anyway, it's certainly a tort in all relevant jurisdictions here.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
   Covenants without the sword are but words.
   -- Camden

On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Erik Max Francis wrote:

> Philippa Cowderoy wrote:
> 
> > Rather a lot depends on which legal system you're in, for a start. Including
> > the standards of proof and who the onus is on.
> 
> Oh, no doubt.  But I don't think there's any modern legal system in which it's
> a crime, rather than a tort.  Is there?
> 

I'm not aware of a current legal system where it's the case, but I don't 
know the details of many of them.

-- 
flippa@flippac.org

A problem that's all in your head is still a problem.
Brain damage is but one form of mind damage.

"Mallor" <SeaFuncSpam@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1149998343.493200.144990@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> I know I'm coming late to the barbeque.  In passing, I ask: do you have
> an objective, impartial perspective on the subject of committing
> crimes?  Because libel is a crime.  It all depends on whether what you
> state about Xah is provably true or not.

I'm not aware of any definition of libel that includes "making statements 
that are not provably true". 

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Mike Schilling wrote:

> I'm not aware of any definition of libel that includes "making statements 
> that are not provably true". 
> 

I believe UK law uses one that's close to it. 

-- 
flippa@flippac.org

Society does not owe people jobs. 
Society owes it to itself to find people jobs.

Mallor wrote:
> I know I'm coming late to the barbeque.

That's why you are missing the history

> In passing, I ask: do you
> have an objective, impartial perspective on the subject of committing
> crimes?  Because libel is a crime.  It all depends on whether what you
> state about Xah is provably true or not.  I haven't followed his
> posts,

Had you done so, then you wouldn't ask this question.

jue 

"Philippa Cowderoy" <flippa@flippac.org> wrote in message 
news:Pine.WNT.4.61.0606110548540.1652@SLINKY...
> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Mike Schilling wrote:
>
>> I'm not aware of any definition of libel that includes "making statements
>> that are not provably true".
>>
>
> I believe UK law uses one that's close to it.

If I were to write, say, that Tony Blair's tax policy will lead to higher 
deficits, I could be convicted of libel?  Even if that's true, it's not a 
priori provable. 

Mike Schilling wrote:

> If I were to write, say, that Tony Blair's tax policy will lead to higher 
> deficits, I could be convicted of libel?  Even if that's true, it's not a 
> priori provable. 

I think what he was getting at is that, unlike many jurisdictions, 
writing something factually true is _not_ in and of itself a defense 
against a libel suit in the UK.

As for the reverse side of the issue, in jurisdictions where it _is_ a 
defense, if one were to accuse him of being a pedophile but couldn't 
prove it, that would certainly be an actionable offense.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
   Twenty-four hours a day, three-hundred sixty-five days a year as
   Secretary of Defense, I lived the Cold War. -- Robert S. McNamara

Philippa Cowderoy wrote:
> I'm not aware of a current legal system where it's the case, but I don't 
> know the details of many of them.

Many states have criminal as well as civil libel. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slander_and_libel

On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Erik Max Francis wrote:

> Mike Schilling wrote:
> 
> > If I were to write, say, that Tony Blair's tax policy will lead to higher
> > deficits, I could be convicted of libel?  Even if that's true, it's not a
> > priori provable. 
> 
> I think what he was getting at is that, unlike many jurisdictions, writing
> something factually true is _not_ in and of itself a defense against a libel
> suit in the UK.
> 

It is. However, the onus is on the defendant to show that it's true, 
rather than on the claimant to show that it's false. I assume the "he" 
refers to Brandon?

-- 
flippa@flippac.org

A problem that's all in your head is still a problem.
Brain damage is but one form of mind damage.

EJP wrote:

> Many states have criminal as well as civil libel. 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slander_and_libel

The idea of using Wikipedia to back up a legal point is rather amusing 
.... but still, none of the relevant parties involved live in countries 
which have any form of criminal libel.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
   To perceive is to suffer.
   -- Aristotle

Philippa Cowderoy wrote:

> It is. However, the onus is on the defendant to show that it's true, 
> rather than on the claimant to show that it's false.

That also depends on the jurisdiction.

> I assume the "he" 
> refers to Brandon?

No, I was referring to the person who he was replying to, i.e., you.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
   Twenty-four hours a day, three-hundred sixty-five days a year as
   Secretary of Defense, I lived the Cold War. -- Robert S. McNamara

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Erik Max Francis wrote:

> Philippa Cowderoy wrote:
> 
> > It is. However, the onus is on the defendant to show that it's true, rather
> > than on the claimant to show that it's false.
> 
> That also depends on the jurisdiction.
> 

Hrmm, does that one differ in Scotland?

> > I assume the "he" refers to Brandon?
> 
> No, I was referring to the person who he was replying to, i.e., you.
> 

Wrong pronoun, then.

-- 
flippa@flippac.org

Society does not owe people jobs. 
Society owes it to itself to find people jobs.

Philippa Cowderoy wrote:

> Hrmm, does that one differ in Scotland?

I don't believe so.

> Wrong pronoun, then.

Well, your comment was challenged, and I offered a reasonable 
interpretation of what you might have meant (which indicated a more 
general point in any case, namely that libel law is not quite as simple 
as the original poster was making it out to be).  If you don't wish to 
defend your position, that's fine, but pointing fingers is kind of weird 
at this stage.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
   To perceive is to suffer.
   -- Aristotle

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Erik Max Francis wrote:

> Philippa Cowderoy wrote:
> 
> > Hrmm, does that one differ in Scotland?
> 
> I don't believe so.
> 

My statement was intended in the context of UK law - I have to admit to 
not knowing too much about what's different north of the border beyond the 
infamous verdict though.

> > Wrong pronoun, then.
> 
> Well, your comment was challenged, and I offered a reasonable interpretation
> of what you might have meant (which indicated a more general point in any
> case, namely that libel law is not quite as simple as the original poster was
> making it out to be).  If you don't wish to defend your position, that's fine,
> but pointing fingers is kind of weird at this stage.
> 

I'd still appreciate being referred to as "she" rather than "he" though.

-- 
flippa@flippac.org

'In Ankh-Morpork even the shit have a street to itself...
 Truly this is a land of opportunity.' - Detritus, Men at Arms

Philippa Cowderoy wrote:

> I'd still appreciate being referred to as "she" rather than "he" though.

Oops, my bad.  Never occurred to me after all these years, which is kind 
of embarrassing, actually :-).

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
   Isn't jumping of a bridge / Free fallin'
   -- Sandra St. Victor

Erik Max Francis wrote:
> EJP wrote:
> 
>> Many states have criminal as well as civil libel. 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slander_and_libel
> 
> The idea of using Wikipedia to back up a legal point is rather amusing 
> ... but still, none of the relevant parties involved live in countries 
> which have any form of criminal libel.

OK, OK, just proffered as information, not a conclusive proof. It's the 
*courts* that back up legal points of course, not anything said or found 
here.

"Erik Max Francis" <max@alcyone.com> wrote in message 
news:qKmdnUvjhOZZKRbZnZ2dnUVZ_r-dnZ2d@speakeasy.net...
> Mike Schilling wrote:
>
>> If I were to write, say, that Tony Blair's tax policy will lead to higher 
>> deficits, I could be convicted of libel?  Even if that's true, it's not a 
>> priori provable.
>
> I think what he was getting at is that, unlike many jurisdictions, writing 
> something factually true is _not_ in and of itself a defense against a 
> libel suit in the UK.
>
> As for the reverse side of the issue, in jurisdictions where it _is_ a 
> defense, if one were to accuse him of being a pedophile but couldn't prove 
> it, that would certainly be an actionable offense.

In the U.S, for instance, you wouldn't have to prove it.  It would be 
sufficent to demonstrate that there's enough evidence supporting it that you 
weren't reckless in writing it. 

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 06:05:22 GMT, "Mike Schilling"
<mscottschilling@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>"Philippa Cowderoy" <flippa@flippac.org> wrote in message 
>news:Pine.WNT.4.61.0606110548540.1652@SLINKY...
>> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Mike Schilling wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not aware of any definition of libel that includes "making statements
>>> that are not provably true".
>>
>> I believe UK law uses one that's close to it.
>
>If I were to write, say, that Tony Blair's tax policy will lead to higher 
>deficits, I could be convicted of libel?  Even if that's true, it's not a 
>priori provable. 

DISCLAIMER - I AM NOT A LAWYER

In the US, the defense against a libel claim is to prove the statement
or accusation is true.

In the US, libel involves damage to someone's reputation by means of
deliberately false statements or accusations.  Expert opinion is
explicitly protected from libel claims unless it malicious.
Non-expert opinion is generally judged on the intent of the author.
Unprovable supposition is generally held to be non-libelous, however
unprovable accusation is not allowed.

Moreover, in the US, political figures are explicitly denied some (but
not all) libel protections because it is expected that their actions
will cause some measure of public dissent.

I don't know UK defamation law but I suspect it is quite similar to US
law.  In your polite example, your opinion of Tony Blair's policy
would be unprovable supposition at the time of the writing (as would
Blair's own) and would therefore not be libelous.  However, if your
opinion took an accusatory tone saying, for example, that he was
increasing the public deficit to line his pockets, then you had better
be right.

George
--
for email reply remove "/" from address

Erik Max Francis wrote:
> Mallor wrote:
>
> > I know I'm coming late to the barbeque.  In passing, I ask: do you have
> > an objective, impartial perspective on the subject of committing
> > crimes?  Because libel is a crime.
>
> No, it is a tort.
> 
Can I have whipped cream and strawberries on that tort?

:Robert

Its not Xah Lee, who abuses the system. 

But people like "Erik Max Francis" and "Philippa Cowderoy" who carry on
nonsense discussions across mailing lists.

-- 
Surendra Singhi
http://ssinghi.kreeti.com

,----
| WHY SHOULD WE SAVE TIGER?  	
| Ans: Saving the tiger means saving mankind..	
| 
| Help http://pudang.tripod.com/
| or https://secure.worldwildlife.org/forms/tiger_appeal_1.cfm
`----

Xah Lee wrote:
> The Nature of the "Unix Philosophy"
>
> Xah Lee, 2006-05
>
> In the computing industry, especially among unix community, we often
> hear that there's a "Unix Philosophy". In this essay, i dissect the
> nature and characterization of such "unix philosophy", as have been
> described by Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson,
> and Richard P Gabriel et al, and in recent years by Eric Raymond.
>
> There is no one definite set of priciples that is the so-called "unix
> philosophy", but rather, it consistest of various slogans developed
> over the decades by unix programers that purport to describe the way
> unix is supposed to have been designed. The characteristics include:
> "keep it simple", "make it fast", "keep it small", "make
> it work on 99% of cases, but generality and correctness are less
> important", "diversity rules", "User interface is not
> important, raw power is good", "everything should be a file",
> "architecture is less important than immediate workability". Often,
> these are expressed by chantible slogans that exhibits juvenile humor,
> such as "small is beautiful", "KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)".
>
> Suppose, we take a team of student programers

Can all "student programmers" be lumped into one homogeneous category?
With one particular level of skill and talent, applicable to your
example?  What would that skill level be, roughly speaking?

> to produce a large software system.

....such as an OS? (just longing for specifics here) What is "large"?
(longing for more exact quantifiers)

> When the software is done, give it to software critics

But it's never really "done", is it?  A part of the unix philosophy (or
unix practice, at least) is an ongoing perfecting/enhancing process
that involves a whole community of developers and users, isn't it?  Or
do you mean "when the project reaches its [alpha/beta/rc1/etc.] stage"?
(again, wanting specifics - these development markers exist and are
well entrenched in the unix world -- why not use them here?)

> to analyze and come up with some principles that characterize its
> design decisions, without disclosing the nature of the programers. The
> characterization of such software, will more or less fit the
> descriptions of the "Unix Philosophy" as described in different
> ways by various unix celebrities.

Just to be sure, are you referring to the names you listed at the
beginning of your article? ("Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike, Dennis Ritchie,
....") If so, I'd make a more explicit tie,  by means of such word as
"such as those mentioned above". If not, listing a couple of celebrity
names here would help the reader connect more dots.

> For example, it would focus on implementation simplicity as opposed to
> interface simplicity. It will not be consistent in user interface,

inconsistent across versions (over time), or inconsistent from platform
to platform (OS to OS), or, say, among various linux distributions?  Or
among window managers and various API's?

and I don't understand what "implementation simplicity" is exactly.
(I'm not trying to be subversive here; just trying to understand.)

> but
> exhibits rawness. It would be correct only for most cases,

how is software "correct"?  Do you mean "the software would work"?
(without errors, as expected)

what is a "case"?  Do you mean, it would work under most *conditions*,
in most *environments*?  I don't understand

 as opposed
> to mathematically correct or generic. It would employee simplistic data
> structures and formats such as text-files, as opposed to a structured
> system or binary format that requires a spec. It would be speedy, but

a text data structure can require a spec.

And are you talking about quick-and-dirty, slapped-together, makeshift,
 short-term-fix tasks?  If yes, why not say that!

> less on scalability. It would consists of many small programs, as
> opposed to one large system with inter-dependent components.

How would such software rate on the "modular is good" scale?

"many small programs" seems to suggest modularity. If so, what makes
this "student software" undesirable, in spite of its (perhaps pseudo-)
modularity?

> It would
> be easy to patch and port, but difficult to upgrade its structure or
> adapt entirely new assumptions.

why?

> The essence of this theory is that when a software is produced for real
> world use,

By "real world", do you, by chance, mean the commercial/business world?
(Since it is /that/ world that seems to operate more on rigid deadlines
and bottom-line $$ constraints)

> it is necessary that it works in some acceptable way,

"some acceptable way"?  Please quantify/define "acceptability" here
(the "some" doesn't help with the quantifying either)

> otherwise the software will be continuously debugged and refined. A
> software system written by a bunch of student or otherwise
> under-educated programers, but refined long enough for acceptably

another dangerously undefined term -- "under-educated". Some of your
readers may perceive this to be a reference to "accreditation"
(diplomas), which -- i believe most would agree -- would make your
assertion a gross error.

I personally know a highschool dropout programmer who, although
self-taught, exerts such diligence, thoroughness and ingenuity in his
work, that his products are state-of-the-art, to the extent that huge,
global, tycoon software corporations, fearing the undisputed
superiority of his product to theirs, have EXTENSIVELY attempted to buy
him out (with carrots, threats and all other means possible). Yes, a
guy with barely any official accreditation, whom an indiscriminant,
carelessly generalizing observer might pidgeon-hole into the
"under-educated" category.

> practical, real world use, will necessarily develop characteristics
> that is known as the Unix Philosophy.

Overall, when I read the article i wish for more specifics and for more
exact and understandable quantities, particularly when the very measure
of a quantity is used to make some argument (the chosen words create
only a *semblance* of measurement, and, in the end, leave the reader
with only a vague idea about the quantities entailed)

As is the point of your article to bemoan the shortcomings of student
programmers? This group is at first presented as an example, but then
seems to become the focus.

If so, should we not give any consideration to the stringency
*inherent* in student life, resulting from things like: shortage of
time (to do things methodically, with long-term planning), a variety of
insecurities, high competition pressure, lack of real-world practice?

andrew

"Andrew" <hawk007@flight.us> wrote in message 
news:1150216766.239909.127740@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
> Xah Lee wrote:
>> less on scalability. It would consists of many small programs, as
>> opposed to one large system with inter-dependent components.
>
> How would such software rate on the "modular is good" scale?
>
> "many small programs" seems to suggest modularity. If so, what makes
> this "student software" undesirable, in spite of its (perhaps pseudo-)
> modularity?

I agree with all your other comments, but I'd like to add a bit here...

OSS (and the base Unix OS) tends towards lots of little tools that the user 
can combine to solve any problem, provided he can figure out how to use each 
of them individually (or even which tools to use).

Commercial software tends towards one huge tool that can be used to 
accomplish pre-planned tasks with virtually no training, but which is 
difficult to use for (if not completely incapable of) solving new tasks.

Of course, there's plenty of exceptions, but those are definite trends.

S

-- 
Stephen Sprunk        "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
CCIE #3723           people.  Smart people surround themselves with
K5SSS         smart people who disagree with them."  --Aaron Sorkin 


-- 
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Stephen Sprunk wrote:
> "Andrew" <hawk007@flight.us> wrote in message 
> news:1150216766.239909.127740@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
>> Xah Lee wrote:
>>> less on scalability. It would consists of many small programs, as
>>> opposed to one large system with inter-dependent components.
>>
>> How would such software rate on the "modular is good" scale?
>>
>> "many small programs" seems to suggest modularity. If so, what makes
>> this "student software" undesirable, in spite of its (perhaps pseudo-)
>> modularity?
> 
> I agree with all your other comments, but I'd like to add a bit here...
> 
> OSS (and the base Unix OS) tends towards lots of little tools that the 
> user can combine to solve any problem, provided he can figure out how to 
> use each of them individually (or even which tools to use).
> 
> Commercial software tends towards one huge tool that can be used to 
> accomplish pre-planned tasks with virtually no training, but which is 
> difficult to use for (if not completely incapable of) solving new tasks.
> 
> Of course, there's plenty of exceptions, but those are definite trends.
I agree with your assessment and have linux on my mind today as I 
endeavor to create a linux partition.  If I have a criticism of the 
linux, it's the something_for_nothing philosophy, an attitude, which I 
believe only redistributes costs.  I paid $25 for a disk that I believe 
will provide me with a c99 compiler.  I'm all about open source, but I 
claim that, e.g. Cbfalconer gets a better world when you get his 
ggets().  It is not the people who give that bother me, though.  That 
something 'should' be free is philosophically incomprehensible.  frank

Frank Silvermann <invalid@invalid.net> writes:
> I agree with your assessment and have linux on my mind today as I
> endeavor to create a linux partition.  If I have a criticism of the
> linux, it's the something_for_nothing philosophy, an attitude, which I
> believe only redistributes costs.  I paid $25 for a disk that I
> believe will provide me with a c99 compiler.  I'm all about open
> source, but I claim that, e.g. Cbfalconer gets a better world when you
> get his ggets().  It is not the people who give that bother me,
> though.  That something 'should' be free is philosophically
> incomprehensible.  frank

You didn't terraform this planet did you?  Would you God to present
you the invoice for the air, the heath, the gravity?

That's something shouldn't be free, this is philosophically incomprehensible!
The more so when this something is Speach.


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/

NOTE: The most fundamental particles in this product are held
together by a "gluing" force about which little is currently known
and whose adhesive power can therefore not be permanently
guaranteed.

Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Frank Silvermann <invalid@invalid.net> writes:
>> I agree with your assessment and have linux on my mind today as I
>> endeavor to create a linux partition.  If I have a criticism of the
>> linux, it's the something_for_nothing philosophy, an attitude, which I
>> believe only redistributes costs.  I paid $25 for a disk that I
>> believe will provide me with a c99 compiler.  I'm all about open
>> source, but I claim that, e.g. Cbfalconer gets a better world when you
>> get his ggets().  It is not the people who give that bother me,
>> though.  That something 'should' be free is philosophically
>> incomprehensible.  frank
> 
> You didn't terraform this planet did you?  Would you God to present
> you the invoice for the air, the heath, the gravity?
> 
> That's something shouldn't be free, this is philosophically incomprehensible!
> The more so when this something is Speach.
> 
> 
Speach lacks moral agency.  frank

Andrew wrote:
> Xah Lee wrote:
>> The Nature of the "Unix Philosophy"


Oh, PLEASE, not another one


         +-------------------+             .:\:\:/:/:.
         |   PLEASE DO NOT   |            :.:\:\:/:/:.:
         |  FEED THE TROLLS  |           :=.' -   - '.=:
         |                   |           '=(\ 9   9 /)='
         |   Thank you,      |              (  (_)  )
         |       Management  |              /`-vvv-'\
         +-------------------+             /         \
                 |  |        @@@          / /|,,,,,|\ \
                 |  |        @@@         /_//  /^\  \\_\
   @x@@x@        |  |         |/         WW(  (   )  )WW
   \||||/        |  |        \|           __\,,\ /,,/__
    \||/         |  |         |      jgs (______Y______)
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
==============================================================

jue 

John Bokma: What the fuck is this?

Not that I support Xah, but obviously you are the main dick in this
thread.

24-May  . [  48: John Bokma          ]>   Re: John Bokma harassment
24-May  . <  23: John Bokma          >    `->
24-May  . <  39: John Bokma          >    `->
23-May  . <  35: John Bokma          >    `->   Re: Software Needs
Philosophers
24-May  . <  40: John Bokma          >    `->   Re: John Bokma
harassment
29-May  . <  22: John Bokma          >    `->
24-May  . <  12: John Bokma          >    `->
30-May  . <  15: John Bokma          >    `->
30-May  . <  23: John Bokma          >    `->
25-May  . <  13: John Bokma          >    `->
24-May  . <  65: John Bokma          >    `->
24-May  . <  17: John Bokma          >    `->
25-May  . <  16: John Bokma          >    `->
30-May  . <  14: John Bokma          >    `->
24-May  . <  12: John Bokma          >    `->
24-May  . <  32: John Bokma          >    `->
25-May  . <  12: John Bokma          >    `->
24-May  . <  31: John Bokma          >    `->
26-May  . <  24: John Bokma          >    `->   Re: OT: Quote ?
26-May  . <  32: John Bokma          >    `->   OT: Navarth
26-May  . <  14: John Bokma          >    `->   Re: John Bokma
harassment
24-May  . <  50: John Bokma          >    `->
26-May  . <  31: John Bokma          >    `->   Re: OT: Quote ?
26-May  . <  59: John Bokma          >    `->   Re: John Bokma
harassment
27-May  . <  41: John Bokma          >    `->

On 14 Jun 2006 06:44:47 -0700, luz_a_gue@latinmail.com wrote:

>John Bokma: What the fuck is this?
>
>Not that I support Xah, but obviously you are the main dick in this
>thread.

Both John Bokma and dicks are off-topic in comp.lang.c.

Please take your spat elsewhere.

-- 
Al Balmer
Sun City, AZ