Yeah, but if you're stupid enough, why let that stop you?

Post #29,736 by CRConrad 2/26/02 8:08:05 AM Reply	Yeah, but if you're stupid enough, why let that stop you? Skip averts his red eye from the Dragon: I guess that I just can't believe that anyone would shill here for very long (unless they are playing some sort of game) - let's face it, anyone trying convince this group that MS is justified in/by thier actions to date (against all reason and experience) has an uphill row to hoe... Hey, the Squid has only just started spraying his slimy ink here -- how long did Michel go on and on (and on and on and on...) before he gave it up and ignominously slunk away[]? And AFAICS, it was just as idiotic and hopeless then as now. I think $hills are just more persistent than you give them credit (if that's the right word?) for. Heck, maybe the pay is a lot better than we've been thinking... []: He may try to pass that off as an "act of principle" after having been temporarily banned, but I ain't buying that either. He jumped at the excuse to retreat without admitting defeat -- come to think of it, fuck knows if he didn't provoke it intentionally, for precisely that purpose. Christian R. Conrad Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #29,739 by Silverlock 2/26/02 8:48:05 AM Reply	I can't believe you didn't catch this Isn't it spelled "prima facie"? With this much manure around, there must be a pony somewhere.
Post #29,777 by CRConrad 2/26/02 12:02:40 PM Reply	Yeah, I know - but how the heck could I... ...have picked that nit, in a quote I was simultaneously asking to appropriate for my .sig??? Christian R. Conrad Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #29,783 by Andrew Grygus 2/26/02 12:32:16 PM Reply	I used my usual spell checker . . . . a Google search, and found plenty of evidence for facia, including the Cato institute and the government of Manitoba, so I went with it (though I did notice one document that used both spellings). [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #29,793 by Silverlock 2/26/02 12:46:46 PM Reply	Just tried your spell checker Prima facia. ~3,000 matches Prima facie. ~186,000 matches Plus, with Prima facia as the search term, I get the "Did you mean" reminder that usually indicates I mispelled it. Don Richards- Pedants R Us. With this much manure around, there must be a pony somewhere.
Post #29,803 by Andrew Grygus 2/26/02 1:18:31 PM Reply	Hmmm . . no such message from Google here . . . . which is a major reason why I didn't look any farther. I watch for that message. Are you using the same Google I am? [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #29,806 by Silverlock 2/26/02 1:26:07 PM Reply	Those damn bats. They're everywhere. I must have hallucinated the "did you mean" bit. Could've sworn I saw it the first time I did the search. Must not be doing enough drugs. With this much manure around, there must be a pony somewhere.
Post #29,836 by CRConrad 2/26/02 2:42:10 PM Reply	So much for those right-wing "think tank" innaleckchuls, eh?
Post #29,740 by admin 2/26/02 8:51:30 AM Reply	I always have to laugh... ... when I see people so seriously (and quickly) condemning anyone with a MS opinion as a shill. :-) Come on, people, not everything is a conspiracy. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #29,754 by ben_tilly 2/26/02 10:17:06 AM Reply	Well if Squidley is not... then I would expect to see a few posts occasionally in some other forum on some other topic. Cheers, Ben
Post #29,763 by Squidley 2/26/02 10:45:34 AM Reply	Re: Well if Squidley is not... then I would expect to see a few posts occasionally in some other forum on some other topic. Nah. Although I have some very strong opinions about politics, current events, the war on terrorism, etc., I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough in these areas to comment. I've thought about commenting anyway\ufffd- you know, a few psychotic rants here, a few accusations of paid participation there\ufffd- but decided that would make me look too much like an immature ignoramus :-)
Post #29,774 by CRConrad 2/26/02 11:57:16 AM Reply	And what makes you think you look any different here?
Post #29,810 by Squidley 2/26/02 1:38:10 PM Reply	Why, your presence, of course! When the nutcases send in their loudest and dumbest, you know they're in trouble :-)
Post #29,838 by jake123 2/26/02 2:43:39 PM Reply	I guess MSFT is expecting to lose, then...
Post #29,845 by Squidley 2/26/02 2:56:14 PM Reply	Sure! Just like they always do :-)
Post #29,862 by Ashton 2/26/02 3:45:46 PM Reply	It ain't over til Judge K-K sings. And I hope she's checking out the Thesaurus for some suitable legalese synonyms for.. slimy, unprincipled, sociopathic greed. And practicing her scales - especially that high C# which clashes with any melody (like the Other one). Meanwhile.. tell us again about the misunderstood, magnanimous just-plain-folks what gave you yer epaulets and sent you out on a suicide mission. Ashton just-plain-folk too. Need a couple bucks for rehab? A little sodium pentothal, perhaps?
Post #29,871 by Squidley 2/26/02 4:07:31 PM Reply	Re: It ain't over til Judge K-K sings. Meanwhile.. tell us again about the misunderstood, magnanimous just-plain-folks what gave you yer epaulets and sent you out on a suicide mission. Ah, it's not so bad. Wading through this cesspool is a dirty job, but it's hardly suicide :-)
Post #29,912 by Ashton 2/26/02 7:18:48 PM Reply	My what colorful intellekchul epithets you have Are these suggested by the Astroturf manual - or just as you remember them from grammar school? So it's cut & dried then.. all those e-mails, all those court proceedings - were no real reflection of the mindsets, the dialogue and actions of your Alma Pater. It's all been 10+ years of a horrible misunderstanding, a folie a milliones - all uniformly Wrong about the facts, the motives, the activities and - the consequences for any semblance of 'competition' in the industry. Let me guess: I'll bet you'll stake your reputation! upon this all having been a massive error, falsified testimony by envious competitors and the sour grapes badmouthing of legions of folks too stupid to recognize - the greatest software inna world - industriously crafted by a quite ethical corporation. Those threats to the OEMs, the preloading or ya get zippo, the DRDOS (settled with nondisclosure), Stacker, etc. - just Never Happened\ufffd Izzat it, close enough? How could we have been so blind? Ashton never mind.
Post #29,931 by Andrew Grygus 2/26/02 11:02:27 PM Reply	Yes, but over at Petrele's VarLinux forum . . . . we've got a real UberShill, [link\|http://www.varlinux.org/article.php?sid=755&mode=&order=0&thold=0\|Alex Tabarrok], who, through his The Independent Institute, has collected well over a quarter of a million $$ for his shilling - a shill so powerful he posts under his own name (and publishes "independently researched" books by members of Microsoft's defense team). [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #30,115 by Ashton 2/28/02 1:43:13 AM Reply	Re: Yes, but over at Petrele(y)'s VarLinux forum . . {sigh} Well, he can't be a First String Shill.. After dropping his boilerplate - he faded as the ripostes went for the jugular. The usual tactic is to insert a non-sequitur, like ..but what about dropping the 'tieing' issue? (Kinda like the famous guy who'd show up at Nixon rallies with his sign, What About the Hughes Loan? IIRC that was Dick Tuck.) Imagine what it would be like to be an intelligent (and throw in too, 'informed'?) person.. taking money to go around and try nothing less than fucking.. dissembling - overt lying via omission, obfuscation and patently false semantic tricks. How is it that Murican bizness seems to turn out such critters wholesale? daleross comes to mind, Mr. If it's legal it's ethical Hisself. Screw it. The execrable ones are the unimaginitive clones - saw how M$ did it and.. adapted. 'Whore' is an insult to honorable sex-workers who keep unstable assholes from running amok, hurting innocents - 'cause no one Would screw them (except for cash). That's not even dishonorable. Lying creeps are. Ashton
Post #29,874 by jake123 2/26/02 4:13:03 PM Reply	I think they're going to lose badly this time. It's pretty simple, really. They tried to tell the judge what she was and was not qualified to comment on. They tried the same stunt with the other guy too... which didn't work out too well for them. Simply put, you don't get what you want out of the justice system by trying to tell the judge they're not allowed to do something, esp. when it clearly is within her purview... Finally, you're forgetting that they've already lost... they're guilty. The only question is the punishment. Personally, I think that KK is going to rip Ashcroft's DoJ a new one for the anemic agreement they came up with. There's one other issue to consider as well... the marketplace. Between 09/11 and Enron, people are feeling a lot less tolerant of the kinds of shenanigans that MSFT (and many others) have been getting up to over the last fifteen years or so. I think you (and the marketing mavens at MSFT) are about to get very surprised by the paradigm shift that's occurring right now in the zeitgeist of the marketplace. While we're on the subject... you might to well to consider the damage that MSFT and its behaviour has done to US competitiveness in the global marketplace. A lot of countries are trying very hard to get away from MSFT, because they don't trust them and they don't trust their products. The free ride that MSFT seems to be getting from the regime (not the justice system, the regime) only emphasizes those trust issues in their minds... and extends those trust issues to the US as a whole. -- ---------------------------------------------------------- * Jack Troughton jake at jakesplace.dhs.org * * [link\|http://jakesplace.dhs.org\|[link\|http://jakesplace.dhs.org\|http://jakesplace.dhs.org]] [link\|ftp://jakesplace.dhs.org\|[link\|ftp://jakesplace.dhs.org\|ftp://jakesplace.dhs.org]] * * Montr\ufffdal PQ Canada [link\|news://jakesplace.dhs.org\|news://jakesplace.dhs.org] * ----------------------------------------------------------
Post #29,879 by wharris2 2/26/02 4:28:51 PM Reply	I think you're way optimistic While she may remand the remedies back to the Justice Department for reconsideration, I think they'll just roll over again. I don't think the nine dissenting states will be enough to tilt the balance. Where each demon is slain, more hate is raised, yet hate unchecked also multiplies. - L. E. Modesitt
Post #29,919 by jake123 2/26/02 8:55:13 PM Reply	I don't. Personally, I think she's going to slap them silly. The judiciary is one of the three branches, and has a responsibility to reign in the other two when they don't do their job properly. I think that this is one of those times... and, if I read the signs aright, I think that the judiciary is beginning to think that this is one of those times. The RIAA just got slapped, Enron is there as an object example of what will be coming much more often if the slapping doesn't start (let's face it, while their and their accountant's actions are hardly ethical, moral, nor even necessarily legal, they're depressingly common), and the rot appears to be spreading pretty quickly... while we haven't heard a lot about it, there are some other big bankruptcies going on right now, all with the whiff of crooked accounting attached to them. Here's another factor to consider: K-K ordered them to turn their source over, and there hasn't been a peep from anyone on the subject, least of all MSFT. This would seem to imply that they just handed it over. A lot of the posturing seems to be gone from them. If they've succeeded in convincing her that they're conmen and scam artists (and I can think of a few stunts they've pulled over the last few months that would tend to that interpretation of their characters), she has the power to crush them... esp. if she believes that the DoJ isn't going to do it... and considering some of the tales about the settlement (back room negotiation between the one political guy on the team and MSFT, other DoJ lawyers excluded, and sudden capitulation) she may be coming around to believing just that. You gotta read between the lines with judges, esp. careful ones... and K-K comes across as a careful one. However, if you read judge speak, she's already slapped them around severely a few times... I bet their lawyers are beginning to feel a little bruised, and that some of the top executives are beginning to feel a little scared. Their only problem is... they can't afford to show that fear, which is leading them into further problems. I mean, how do you think K-K is going to take the news that MSFT is using the settlement as a way of pushing their way into their customer's IP? Do you think that she's going to believe that they've figured out that they need to behave like a good monopoly now? -- ---------------------------------------------------------- * Jack Troughton jake at jakesplace.dhs.org * * [link\|http://jakesplace.dhs.org\|[link\|http://jakesplace.dhs.org\|http://jakesplace.dhs.org]] [link\|ftp://jakesplace.dhs.org\|[link\|ftp://jakesplace.dhs.org\|ftp://jakesplace.dhs.org]] * * Montr\ufffdal PQ Canada [link\|news://jakesplace.dhs.org\|news://jakesplace.dhs.org] * ----------------------------------------------------------
Post #29,939 by wharris2 2/27/02 3:44:39 AM Reply	Gates, Ballmer scared? By their actions, you shall know them. They aren't scared at all, they're still going full-tilt. Even using the terms of the proposed settlement to put the squeeze on OEM's (what a surprise). Not the actions of a company in fear of anything. Where each demon is slain, more hate is raised, yet hate unchecked also multiplies. - L. E. Modesitt
Post #29,960 by jake123 2/27/02 10:40:12 AM Reply	Yeah... you're right. Those two are too dumb to be scared. In all seriousness... I think that those actions are going to turn out to be the last gasps of a dying yet still powerful entity. Have you heard about the new lawsuit? I read that they're being sued by a large group of their customer base... HP, Compaq, et. al. The only big player not in on it is Dell (gee, I wonder why). Sony is coming after them too... I suspect that MSFT may find that Sony is something beyond their bullying power... Sony has other resources; they're not a one-trick pony with a sole supplier problem like the big US OEMs. Nope... the vultures are circling, because they are all intelligent enough to see the signs. They're just waiting for K-K to deliver the coup-de-grace before moving in to tear at the carcass... -- ---------------------------------------------------------- * Jack Troughton jake at jakesplace.dhs.org * * [link\|http://jakesplace.dhs.org\|[link\|http://jakesplace.dhs.org\|http://jakesplace.dhs.org]] [link\|ftp://jakesplace.dhs.org\|[link\|ftp://jakesplace.dhs.org\|ftp://jakesplace.dhs.org]] * * Montr\ufffdal PQ Canada [link\|news://jakesplace.dhs.org\|news://jakesplace.dhs.org] * ----------------------------------------------------------
Post #29,741 by imric 2/26/02 8:59:13 AM 2/26/02 9:01:32 AM Reply	Hey! Everyone know that you don't look dragons in the eye (though maybe it's 'cause that means you would be close enough to the beast to make a tempting snack)! Hmmm. Is shilling for dollar$ that common, then? Or are we 'targeted' as a training ground, perhaps? I hope not. grin Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win. Edited by imric Feb. 26, 2002, 09:01:32 AM EST Expand All History
Post #29,745 by Silverlock 2/26/02 9:17:34 AM Reply	Snort "training ground" just gave me a mental picture of a chorus line of shills singing "If I can make it there I can make it anywhere". With this much manure around, there must be a pony somewhere.
Post #29,776 by CRConrad 2/26/02 12:00:17 PM Reply	"Training ground"? Dunno... Let's hope it's more like... ...Final proving ground. Should we feel somehow perversely honoured if we are, in effect, their graduation exam? :-) Christian R. Conrad Of course, who am I to point fingers? I'm in the "Information Technology" business, prima facia evidence that there's bats in the bell tower. -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=27764\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #29,891 by bepatient 2/26/02 5:03:56 PM Reply	I noticed (possibly coincidence...possibly not) ...that on a couple of occasions back at IW we hammered through some aspects of the case...after which it would appear in DOJ documents related to the case worded damn near exactly the same as this group had left it. So I would lean with CRC on the final proving ground more than the training ground. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #29,913 by Ashton 2/26/02 7:27:10 PM Reply	Really.. Sure wish you'd copied and matched up a few of those. I mean.. if the DOJ needed IWE to fill in its blanks (no disrespect to the talent here) - that is Scary! Would that also imply that.. there aren't very many other places on the web ~ cogitating, mulling and eviscerating in similar fashion? Maybe InfoWorld was taken a Lot more seriously than it ever deserved (not unthinkable, that) but THIS seriously ?? Shocking thought. Got data? Ashton
Post #29,929 by bepatient 2/26/02 10:33:38 PM Reply	Karsten gave me the archives... maybe I can find something I don't think I was the only one to notice either. Not that I think they needed IWE to do the job...but if you recall we did alot of fine tuning of analogies...and a fair amount of technical shredding of the MS defense documents. As I said...could have very well been coincidence. And at the time..there really wasn't anyplace on the web like IWE for well reasoned technical discussions. At least not that I'd found. There were some pretty heavy hitters signed in over at IWE. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #30,116 by Ashton 2/28/02 1:59:42 AM Reply	True - the roster was larger (and heavier?) Sad part - that those IWE archives are inaccessible.. there were some textbook grade explanations of lots of things - worth preserving. They've been through at least 3 Rent-a-Site morphs since then. I thought that Ben and others downloaded a bunch; some CDs were made. Missed opportunity #103 [??] Dear DOJ, Here are some distilled exchanges re Topics 12, 15, 54A ...n involving persons with the listed credentials. These appear to relate to your present concerns - as to the technical effects of various actions by the MS Corp. Refs. included for the entire threads, of which these are excerpts. Well.. something like that. Ashton
Post #30,128 by imric 2/28/02 6:01:37 AM Reply	If you are nice I'm sure Bepatient would email you the archives.. grin -or- Beep, maybe you could put them on the web? Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #30,143 by bepatient 2/28/02 10:43:19 AM 2/28/02 10:48:33 AM Reply	Would have to be ftp... ...the files are actually rather large in the state I have them. The gzipped archive is 200mb or thereabouts, IIRC...maybe a little smaller. As for posting them to the web...I think we discussed that and decided that we would need everyone to agree to repost...including the IW management...and decided that would be a mondo pain in the ass. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient] Edited by bepatient Feb. 28, 2002, 10:48:33 AM EST Expand All History
Post #30,253 by kmself 2/28/02 8:00:59 PM Reply	Legal My sense is that the only source likely to cause trouble would be IWE, and that there's a combination of implied license by individual contributors and relatively low legal risk, to repost comments by others. This is one of the reasons I did a "posts by author" correspondence. This could be used to weed out the IWE-authored posts. Essentially, column text, posts by the various columnists, and the forum editor's comments. All else should be largely in the clear. IANAL, TINLA, YADA. `-- Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com] [link\|http://kmself.ix.netcom.com/\|[link\|http://kmself.ix.netcom.com/\|http://kmself.ix.netcom.com/]] What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?`
Post #30,312 by bepatient 3/1/02 10:27:25 AM Reply	Thats essentially my thinking. But I too am not a lawyer. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]

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