flatfish+++ wrote:
> On Sat, 07 Oct 2006 21:53:22 -0700, Rex Ballard wrote:
>
> Dam it's getting deep in here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> Get me a steam shovel!
>
> FWIW you write a 400 line article in which you extroll your many
> contributions to the world of computing and yet you can't prove a single
> statement?
This is an open BBS, anyone in the group is welcome to express an
opinion, or even experiences. There are certainly more than enough
WinTrolls to challenge content of any postings with content of their
own. My "Watchers" are DFS and Erik Funkenbusch. Sometimes they make
very legitimate observations. I'm usually posting as quickly as
possible, from memory, recalling events that happend 15-25 years ago,
with no notes, no on-line available references, and usually during a
lunch break, a late evening post before going to bed, or during "quiet
times" between meetings or waiting for downloads. Sometimes I'll write
a paragraph or two, and come back 2 hours later to write another 2-3
paragraphs in 5-10 minutes.
For me, posting is just a hobby. I spend a lot of time travelling on
the road, working at client sites, working at remote sites, even
working in other countries. Posting is a nice way to kill an hour or
two before going to bed, especially in countries were the only english
channels are the history channel and discovery channel and you've
already seen the programs on both channels at least 3 times.
> Gee I notice Roy Shysterwitch and the COLA gang have gone underground and
> don't seem to be asking you for some proof.
They agree with me. They may not accept everything I say as "gospel
truth", but it does make people think. It gives them some interesting,
sometimes merely entertaining, points of view. I wouldn't swear to any
of these postings under oath, and most of the information is just the
ramblings of a 50 year old geezer remembering the "good old days".
Those of us born in 1954-1956 lived in an extraordinary time. At 5, we
did "duck and cover" drills, because we knew the bombs were going to
come "any time now" (we didn't understand that if we saw a bright
flash, all the duck-and-cover would do is buy us about 6 weeks before
we died of radiation poisening).
We watched Kennedy annouce that we would put a man on the moon in less
than a decade, even as the "experts" told us that it was completely
impossible.
We watched day-by-day coverage of the war, first in black-and-white,
then in "living color", uncensored, with blood and gore everywhere,
then watched Warner Brothers cartoons which were even more violent than
the war coverage. Those cartoons, which were almost 15 minutes long,
now take less than 4 minutes to air, because they have been so
censored.
We watched Leave it to Beaver and wondered my Mrs Cleaver work a dress,
heels, and perls, while our moms wore bathrobs, slippers, and didn't
even change into grungy pants until about an hour before dad came home.
We went from going having the only television on the block to having
more than 1 television per member of the household.
We went from computers that were the size of entire office buildings to
computers the size of calculators.
We went from telephones that cost an hour's pay for a 3 minute call, to
1 minute's pay for 3 hours of talk time.
We went from racisim, segregation, and the Watts riots, to a Black
woman as Secretary of State.
We watched 1 president assasinated - and watched hundreds of minutes of
video tapes shown in the afternoon dissappear by the end of the day, to
give very different picture.
I was in the doctor's office when Lee Harvey Oslwald was shot on Live
TV.
I was in the hospital when Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy were
shot.
We protested a war in Vietnam, and eventually the USA "lost" the first
war, due to public opinion.
We watched the Watergate scandal unfold, and eventually discovered that
the President of the United States was a criminal, and ordered criminal
activities. Finally, we watched him resign, to protect the integrity
of the office. I was particularly touched by this one, since I also
admired his ability to end the Vietnam war, open diplomatic
relationships with China, and negotiate the SALT treaty. He was one of
the greatest presidents of all time, who let criminals take control of
his organization, then approved criminal activities to cover up those
activities.
We watched as another president, feared by many to be too senile and
too reactionary to be trusted with "The Button" used this fear to bring
the USSR begging for a Nuclear Arms Reduction treaty. Appearantly,
Reagan even had his own staff fooled.
We watched the former director of the CIA become vice president, then
president, and broker the nonviolent transition from Soviet
dictatorship to a more "flexible" government, substantially reducing
the risk of Nuclear war.
We watched a presidential candidate tell the country "Our sex lives
(Bill and Hillery's) is our business, if the public doesn't like that,
they should vote for someone else" when Jennifer flowers went public.
8 years later, he was being impeached because, after 12 hours of
interrogation, after being denied a lawyer (threatened), Monica
Lewinsky broke down and said "ok, the underwear slipped". Since
"sexual relationship" is legally defined as DIRECT physical contact
with primary genitalia, and Clinton had an underwear fetish, in his
testomony, and a deal brokered with the Paula Jones lawyers, he was
allowed to deny direct physical contact with Lewinski and let the Jury
assume from his desire not to answer the second question - that she had
direct contact with him.
The investigators knew that she had stalked Clinton, knew from the
interviews that he had said "no" several times, tried to put her off,
and that she had studed his little "kink" from the Jennifer Flowers
book. They knew that if Lewinski went public with her story, of she
testified in any open court, that it would have damaged Paula Jone's
case.
We watched another President ignore a warning about terrorists
hijacking airplanes for the purpose of crashing them into buildings,
then claim he never read them. To Condie's credit, she fell on the
hand grenade and said "I didn't press the issue enough". Then, we
watched the same president declare war on Iraq and invade the country -
based on known flawed intelligence.
**************
I pull out a few hundred interesting observations and a some really
determined WinTrolls find holes in 3-4 specific items, which they
challenge in a public forum. In those cases, I have even agreed with
them that I was wrong.
Then, these same WinTrolls try to use these carefully researched and
"discovered' misstatements - and use this as a basis for claiming that
"everything I've ever said is a lie".
I've actually been quite open to even the most personal criticism, and
have even provided accurate accounting for some of the most personal
aspects of my life. I've tried to answer my critics whenever I can,
even when my supporters have suggested that I am wasting my time.
> I wonder why that is?
Not all Penginistas are completely supportive. There are some who have
questioned statements I have made, and have challenged me to back-up or
correct my statements.
Once in a while, I even search COLA for my name, just to see if there
are issues to be cleaned up. When I see those issues, I take
appropriate corrective action.
I have been doing this for almost 15 years, in the Online-News mailing
lists from 1993 to 1997, and in COLA from 1997 to 2006.
I've been participating on usenet news discussion groups since 1983.
> They seem to question every anti Linux poster for sure.
That is their right. Furthermore, this is a wide-open forum in which
WinTrolls frequently make claims in favor of Microsoft, or against
Linux, based on information provided by Microsoft.
Often, they never even look beyond the first "headline" article
provided by Microsoft, even though the Microsoft references often quote
other articles which quote earlier studies which often site the
baseline research. It's fascinating how many times Microsoft will
publish a sensational headline feature in "Fast Facts" which can be
traced back to studies which draw the opposite conclusion when the
details are provided.
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