On Jul 23, 8:39 pm, Lasse Reichstein Nielsen <l...@hotpop.com> wrote:
> Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> writes: > > On Jul 22, 11:26 am, Joe Attacki <jatta...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> On Jul 22, 6:43 am, Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:> Actually it's simply appropriate. Since you only ever post to this > >> > newsgroup to flame someone named Twisted and never to actually discuss > >> > Java programming or to do anything else for that matter
> >> [insult deleted]
> > Haven't you gotten the bloody hint yet? Shut the hell up!
> You make a point. He rebuts it. You call it an insult. Yes, I think > we have a hint now.
No, I make a point, he calls me names, I call it an insult.
And my point still stands. Have you not noticed that 99+% of his postings are off-topic attack posts?
On Jul 23, 7:55 pm, Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote:
> The most likely place to look for the problem is the server you are > using to monitor propagation, not the sending server.
Either way, the high selectivity remains, as does the fact that the perpetrator violated the CFAA in hacking a server (whichever server). Add to that a second violation of the CFAA if you're right, as they'd have had to hack or spy in some illicit manner to find out which server I use to check propagation! Under your theory, that server becomes another narrowly-targeted aspect of this so-called "glitch" that further reduce the odds of its being a random happenstance -- adding to the fact that two different versions of the same message with the same semantic content were affected but no other messages were affected by the so-called "glitch", the fact that the message in question was an important one and one that took a relatively large amount of effort to create, and that the message in question was a defense in a war situation, plus that none of these "glitches" occurred during peacetime or affected less-important messages, messages that didn't require much effort to compose, or messages unrelated to any ongoing controversies.
Why so selective? Your theory and the assumption that it's a random "glitch" predict a random percentage of messages would be affected. The odds that only two would be, AND they'd happen to be the only two attempts to post a particular response, AND the sole affected unit of semantic content would be a defense in response to a bogus post in a controversy rather than something unrelated to controversy, AND the post would be one involving significant effort to compose rather than little given the majority require little, AND the post would be mine and not someone else's, AND the affected server would be precisely the one that I use to check propagation, AND the post would be one I considered it important to see distributed as widely as possible, and at minimum everywhere the one it followed up to went, rather than one I was less concerned about ... are astronomically against that incredible chain of bizarre coincidences.
So much for "random glitch". It was censorship. The only thing to quibble over is which server was hacked, by whom, and how, and perhaps their exact motives -- Oliver wanting to force having the last word? Joe Attacki out of pure bloody-mindedness and hate? Someone else?
On Jul 23, 7:20 pm, Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > And... exactly what proof do you have of this? > The highly-selective message-blocking. The "coincidental" timing of > the first such incident... spam filters... odd timing.. I'd expect a human > attacker to go for the throat however.
I asked what proof you have.
Instead you just listed your own conjectures and the suspicious nature of such posts that were allegedly hacked. Not to mention, hacking Google Groups would be a daunting task. If you think the security of Google is that lax that your average Usenet poster could break it to selectively block posts, you are off your rocker.
> Are you trying to attack me or reassure yourself? Because you are > rapidly climbing up my suspect list, for the simple reason that you're > making an awful lot of effort to "prove" that it was "just a glitch" > and ridicule my suspicion that it was engineered intentionally. That > is something that the guilty party has a lot of reason to try to do,
I'm simply trying to point out the absurdity of your allegations.
On Jul 23, 7:24 pm, Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I refuse to sign up for a Web forum when there's a perfectly good > Usenet that had already existed for decades before the Web was a > twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee's eye. If people here want GG issues > discussed someplace else then someone with admin access can go create > a GG-issues Usenet newsgroup.
Let me seriously ask you a question. Assuming anybody in this group cared about your complaints about Google Groups, what would you expect anyone in this group to do about it? Posting your complaints about the admittedly crappy Google Groups interface in this group isn't just annoying to the others, it's a waste of your own time and energy, because your problems aren't going to be heard by the right people.
Someone tried to help you by pointing you to a Google Group, run by Google, where you could post your concerns, but instead you berated him and went on again about your strange phobia of web forums/ discussion groups of any kind.
> No, you're DEMANDING, which speaks volumes about YOUR maturity.
Sigh. I'm not demanding anything.
If you are seriously interested in discussing the problem, instead of insulting and selectively quoting people's messages, please answer my question. What do you expect anybody in this group to do to fix your problems that Google Groups is encountering?
And please answer another question. There seems to be a double standard here. In our last encounter several months ago, you constantly called me out for making completely offtopic posts. But now, here you are doing the same thing. The conversation was steered from an interesting software piracy/copyright/free software debate into a discussion about how you think someone is hacking Google Groups to silence you, which of course is not true.
Maybe you could try actually responding to my points this time, instead of substituting my text with "[insult deleted]" when no insult actually took place. Like earlier, I listed a counterpoint to the point you made that all I do is attack. I provided links to several discussion threads that prove your assertion false. Why did you construe that as "[insult deleted]" ??
> Please curl up and die now. It is obvious that you have nothing > constructive to contribute, nor indeed anything but personal attacks, > if no longer directed exclusively at me. :P
It's not a personal attack, it's my opinion of his extremist views on free software. You don't find it ironic that the GPL, which is intended for free software, freedom, etc., is actually the most restrictive of the mainstream open source licenses? It restricts in many ways what you can do with software derived from a GPLed work.
How can that be called a "free software" license?
Is that constructive enough for you, or will you still call it an insult because it conflicts with what you think?
Joe Attardi wrote: > On Jul 23, 7:20 pm, Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> And... exactly what proof do you have of this? >> The highly-selective message-blocking. The "coincidental" timing of >> the first such incident... spam filters... odd timing.. I'd expect a human >> attacker to go for the throat however. > I asked what proof you have.
> Instead you just listed your own conjectures and the suspicious nature > of such posts that were allegedly hacked. Not to mention, hacking > Google Groups would be a daunting task. If you think the security of > Google is that lax that your average Usenet poster could break it to > selectively block posts, you are off your rocker.
The problem cannot be at the Google groups end, because both the posts in question reached at least two servers outside Google's domain.
> No, I make a point, he calls me names, I call it an insult.
Whoa, wait, what!? My head asplode.
The post you marked as "insult deleted" contained simply some links to other discussions on Google Groups that invalidate your point, then simply said "Wrong again!"
On Jul 23, 10:37 pm, Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote:
> The problem cannot be at the Google groups end, because both the posts > in question reached at least two servers outside Google's domain.
I doubt that will convince him, either. He is convinced everyone is out to get him, and no matter what discussion someone might offer to the contrary, he must obviously be right!!!!!1111eleven
On Jul 23, 10:25 pm, Joe Attardi <jatta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 23, 7:20 pm, Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:> > And... exactly what proof do you have of this? > > The highly-selective message-blocking. The "coincidental" timing of > > the first such incident... spam filters... odd timing.. I'd expect a human > > attacker to go for the throat however.
On Jul 23, 10:32 pm, Joe Attardi <jatta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Someone tried to help you by pointing you to a Google Group, run by > Google, where you could post your concerns, but instead you berated > him and went on again about your strange phobia of web forums/ > discussion groups of any kind.
You missed the part where I mentioned that the "group" in question (which is not a bona fide newsgroup) was almost as completely ignored by Google employees as comp.lang.java.programmer. One would pop in from time to time and mention that they were aware of a problem, and that was it. No explanation; no time when they'd have fixed it; no useful information whatsoever. The volume of complaints already being posted there obviously didn't get the actual technicians off their cans, since they still waited four days before lifting a finger to do anything, as evidenced by the problem not only not getting even incrementally better during that time, but actually getting worse!
Now since you've obviously missed important stuff, and it's making you post silly responses, you must go back and reread the entire thread, one word at a time NO SKIMMING! that's cheating, before making any more usenet posts.
> Sigh. I'm not demanding anything.
You ordered me about like a drill sergeant, and you most certainly neglected to say "Please".
> The conversation was steered > from an interesting software piracy/copyright/free software debate > into a discussion about how you think someone is hacking Google Groups > to silence you, which of course is not true.
You neglect to note that: a) The post that was attacked was in this thread! Of course my response to the attack is also in this thread. b) There is no "which of course is not true" to infer here. The evidence, circumstantial though it is, all lands firmly in favor of my hypothesis and against your arrogant assertion of what "of course is not true". Unless you have knowledge of evidence you're neglecting to share with the rest of us?
> instead of substituting my text with "[insult deleted]" when no insult > actually took place.
I only do that when there's something insulting in there and nothing worthwhile in the way of argumentation, usually just an attempt to demonstrate something else insulting that assumes as a false premise the first insult. :P
> Like earlier, I listed a counterpoint to the > point you made that all I do is attack.
With your every attack post you continue to prove my point. If you have ever posted anything remotely on-topic to this froup it's not been recently, and 99+% of what traffic I observe coming from you is in the form of invective, almost all of it attacking me, but with a smattering of random lashings-out at among other people the illustrious RMS of GNU/FSF fame(!), so at least I'm in distinguished company.
On Jul 23, 10:40 pm, Joe Attacki <jatta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 23, 9:04 pm, nebulou...@gmail.com wrote:> No, I make a point, he calls me names, I call it an insult.
> Whoa, wait, what!? My head asplode.
> The post you marked as "insult deleted" contained simply some links to > other discussions on Google Groups that invalidate your point, then > simply said "Wrong again!"
> Where in that post did I call you names?
The very fact that you even tried to "invalidate" me, and then proceeded to attack me by calling me "wrong". In fact you implied a second such, since you said "again", implying there was at least one additional occasion of incompetence on my part.
Publicly alleging incompetence on my part is unwelcome and will not be tolerated. Don't do it again.
Furthermore, a few token on-topic posts years ago followed by thousands of vicious attack posts since then in at least two major flame wars does not change your stats much. Instead of 100% attacki and off-topic you may be merely 99.9% attacki and off-topic, which is still way more than anyone else posting to this froup. You also lurked for a very long time, appeared to blast invective at various people (chiefly me), lurked for another very long time, and again decloaked with armed phasers and torpedoes. As far as I can tell you are an Orion pirate lurking alongside a heavily-trafficked space lane waiting for opportune moments to strike, rather than a constructive participant of this group. So please go away.
On Jul 23, 10:42 pm, Joe Attardi <jatta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 23, 10:37 pm, Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote:
> > The problem cannot be at the Google groups end, because both the posts > > in question reached at least two servers outside Google's domain.
> I doubt that will convince him, either. He is convinced everyone is > out to get him, and no matter what discussion someone might offer to > the contrary, he must obviously be right!!!!!1111eleven
No, I am convinced that YOU are out to get me, you and one or two others. With your every hostile and vicious post you provide further evidence that I'm not a paranoid delusional in having these convictions, but merely making the obvious conclusion from observation of your behavior. You are now also the one most vehemently opposed to the "it was intentional censorship" theory despite being able to muster zero evidence to support such an assertion. The guilty party might well wish to conceal their guilt by trying to convince everyone that the purported criminal act never took place. The only reason I am not 100% certain of your guilt is because the guilty party might, on the off chance that they actually have an IQ above the single digits, reason that if he "doth protest too much" he'll become a suspect and might therefore remain silent, as I notice two people have done since shortly after the attack -- Oliver Wrong, my initial suspect, and Lew, who also went hostile in this thread. So I'd say the odds are about even it's you or Wrong, with Lew a dark-horse candidate for the Censor of the Month Award, and the winner receiving an all-expenses-paid trip to scenic tropical Guantanamo Bay on trumped-up charges of cyber- terrorism. :P
nebulou...@gmail.com wrote: > On Jul 23, 7:55 pm, Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote: >> The most likely place to look for the problem is the server you are >> using to monitor propagation, not the sending server.
> Either way, the high selectivity remains, as does the fact that the > perpetrator violated the CFAA in hacking a server (whichever server). > Add to that a second violation of the CFAA if you're right, as they'd > have had to hack or spy in some illicit manner to find out which > server I use to check propagation! Under your theory, that server > becomes another narrowly-targeted aspect of this so-called "glitch" > that further reduce the odds of its being a random happenstance -- > adding to the fact that two different versions of the same message > with the same semantic content were affected but no other messages > were affected by the so-called "glitch", the fact that the message in > question was an important one and one that took a relatively large > amount of effort to create, and that the message in question was a > defense in a war situation, plus that none of these "glitches" > occurred during peacetime or affected less-important messages, > messages that didn't require much effort to compose, or messages > unrelated to any ongoing controversies.
> Why so selective? Your theory and the assumption that it's a random > "glitch" predict a random percentage of messages would be affected. > The odds that only two would be, AND they'd happen to be the only two > attempts to post a particular response, AND the sole affected unit of > semantic content would be a defense in response to a bogus post in a > controversy rather than something unrelated to controversy, AND the > post would be one involving significant effort to compose rather than > little given the majority require little, AND the post would be mine > and not someone else's, AND the affected server would be precisely the > one that I use to check propagation, AND the post would be one I > considered it important to see distributed as widely as possible, and > at minimum everywhere the one it followed up to went, rather than one > I was less concerned about ... are astronomically against that > incredible chain of bizarre coincidences.
> So much for "random glitch". It was censorship. The only thing to > quibble over is which server was hacked, by whom, and how, and perhaps > their exact motives -- Oliver wanting to force having the last word? > Joe Attacki out of pure bloody-mindedness and hate? Someone else?
> Cut out the middleman and they may make more even while the total book > sales revenue goes down -- the author gets some of what the publisher > got, and the public saves on spending the rest. The publisher, > obsolete, gets zilch.
Too bad there are no real world examples to back this up for you. When we see a J.K.Rowling who is giving away her books for free, making even a 10th of what she does, then, you might be on to something.
> This is what public policy should support. If publishers are obsolete > let them go out of business like buggy whip manufacturers did. If they > are not then ipso facto they'll still be able to do business and make > money.
OK, so, there is nothing I know of stopping people from using your business model. People can publish and beg for donations.
>> OK, you are either amazingly naive, or just one of those crazy people.
> That is insulting, rude, and uncalled-for. The business model
You are the one who started with the name calling. Even worse, you are making statements about my general beliefs that are false, and only meant to make you feel better about your position while adding nothing to it.
> described works for Red Hat, so your calling it "naive"[sic] is > refuted by evidence and simply braindead. And by the way, it's > "naïve".
But, you have to admit, I do pretty good for someone who doesn't use a spell checker (haven't bothered to hook it up to vi yet).
As for the funny "ï", I just use what is on the keyboard....
Explain to me how this business model works for Red Hat? Have you ever used their software? I just told you, they charge $300 per seat for a standard Workstation license! If you don't pay this, then you are *not* abiding by their business model!
> shouldn't have to be; the laws should be repealed unless someone can > justify keeping them. In fact it would be nice if laws were subject to > renewal requirements that depended on a vote of the legislature and > argumentation including submitted briefs by interested parties, and
Oh, I agree with this. Congress should have to spend half the year renewing old laws. Those that don't get renewed fall off the books after, say, a decade, because they are apparently not important.
> You also believe that nonviolent civil disobedience is wrong.
Hardly - although I am much more for the violent type.
Oh, wow, you consider making illegal copies of software and other media "civil disobedience"! Yea, civil disobedience that benefits your immediate desires. Wow! Now that is a new one.
> Tell me what I can and cannot do with my machinery and my stuff inside > the walls of my house, will you? Communist! *spits*
I agree with your position on machinery. You buy something, like a video game console, and the DMCA says you can not modify it to run, say, Linux. It is illegal to circumvent the manufacturer's measures that have been put in place to use the game console in a way other than how it was intended. That is absurd.
At the same time, I think the manufacturers should be allowed to make their hardware as difficult to circumvent as they can (which they are already allowed to do). But yea, the user should be able to hack it as much as they want.
You should also be able to make as many back up copies of software and other media as you want, as long as you are the one in possesion of these copies, and don't distribute it.
The problem with your logic here is, you claim something you illegally copied is *yours* to copy. It is not, unless you paid for it. You have no right to it until you have paid for it.
> I prefer to give the USER a choice. Users outnumber creators. And it's
Users can choose to not use software with licenses they don't agree with. I've made this choice at home - I don't use MS windows - I've read their EULA.
> continued sufferance. But we, the people, have spoken. Loudly. 60 > million people is more than 1/10 the population, indeed closer to 1/5. > Your traction won't last long; your grip is already beginning to > slip...
Heh, you are obviously not running on all 8 cylinders.
>> I'm a big supporter of open source, but I recognize it is not a good >> way of making money.
> Red Hat's shareholders would disagree and I think they outnumber you.
Once again. look at the prices they charge per seat! I can not just buy a single CD, and install it on as many computers as I want, without breaking their license.
They have had higher highs, and higher lows, for the most part, since 2002.
> Funnily enough, there was a Finnish gent once who thought much the > same thing about a pet programming project he was doing in his garage. > He released the results under GPL. He's now a flaming millionaire. You > might have heard of this fella, name of Linus Torvalds...
Funny thing is, he isn't the zealot you are, and he isn't making his money off Linux. He makes his living off a real job. It wasn't all that long ago that he managed to save up enough to buy his first house. Linux made a name for him, and I'm sure has helped him make a good salary. I'm not even sure if he is a millionare yet - he was a hundred-thousand-air the last time I read, but that was at least 4 years ago.
Have you ever read what Linus has actually written regarding copyright? You might be a little surprised.
> And thus impoverishing the world, making it so much harder for them to > efficiently use and benefit from your software, even though that
But hopefully lining my pockets!
> additional use would not increase your costs one iota (save support, > but you could refuse that, or charge money for it to cover its costs > and turn a profit).
Support is *boring* - it is just as bad as O&M.
Turning a profit is good - making a killing, now that is the American Dream.
On Jul 24, 1:35 am, ~kurt <actinouran...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Yea, I'm just starting to see this - I'm a bit slow maybe. But, he > is falling right in with the many other unbalanced people I have seen > on some other forums over the years.
I know.. I do have a bad habit to keep taking his flame bait. But I keep seeing all this retardedness about "OMG HACKERZ!!!" and it's really irritating. I would killfile the simpleton troll, but unfortunately Google Groups does not have that ability yet. Maybe if I whine about it in here long enough, a Google engineer will hear my pleas and magically implement it for me.
On Jul 24, 1:12 am, Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote:
> There is nobody in this thread by that name, as far as I can tell.
It is you. You have been outed many moons ago in rec.games.roguelike.angband, when you had one of your hissy fits there and people could no longer stand you. We have read about your past. The own FAQ you had. The squirrel incident. Your University. The "conspiracy" at your University (did you know that K.M.M. is back in Ottawa from the US for some time now? Should we giver her a call?). Your interest in Fractals. We had to read it all.
We have enough of your hissy fits. We don't like your death threats. You are unconvincible. You insult us, you insult our intelligence. Particular your argumentation is laughable.
The simple thing is, we don't like you. Please go away.
Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote: > No, but I certainly have the right to request that they shut the hell > up if they have no alternative to offer.
You have every right to request whatever you like, be it free beer, diminishing of copyright laws, or even that the sky be checkerboard-colored.
Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote: > The highly-selective message-blocking.
Most of your postings I saw reposted were over 1000 lines long, so this *might* be the selecetion-criterion. It sounds quite plausible to me that some nntp-admin might reroute largish posts, since the probability of them being either text-encoded binary-posts or spam is quite high.
On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 10:08:29 -0000, Twisted <twisted...@gmail.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>And in practise, how often does that actually happen? Here's a hint: >in all the years I've been using WinXP I've not had an MS update break >any third-party software seriously
I have Vista. help in most programs stopped working. Topstyle stopped entirely. TweakDun stopped working The low level access to CMOS, the floppy and the hard disk in turned off to DOS emulation. 4NT blacks the screen if I make an error. -- Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products The Java Glossary http://mindprod.com
Joe Attardi <jatta...@gmail.com> writes: > You don't find it ironic that the GPL, which is intended for free > software, freedom, etc., is actually the most restrictive of the > mainstream open source licenses? It restricts in many ways what you > can do with software derived from a GPLed work.
> How can that be called a "free software" license?
Easy when the people writing the license also defines what "free software" is.
It's software that, among other things, cannot ever be used "non-freely". That is a significant restriction, and hence it gives one of the the most restrictive licenses. And perhaps one of the simpler ones too: No matter how you use the GPL'ed software, you release your own software under the same license, you are safe.
As with any software, you can choose to use it or not depending on whether you like the requirements attached to the license.
On Jul 24, 7:26 am, Lasse Reichstein Nielsen <l...@hotpop.com> wrote:
> It's software that, among other things, cannot ever be used > "non-freely". That is a significant restriction, and hence it gives > one of the the most restrictive licenses.
So how can that be construed as free? Freedom means freedom from restrictions. It contradicts itself.
Not that you really need any more people disagreeing with you, but I've got some things I'd like to point out. Let me preface it by saying that this is my opinion, I am not telling you that you are wrong, and I do not intend to insult you. I am merely voicing my own opinion in the hopes that you might consider another perspective.
You've talked a lot here and elsewhere about how and why software should be free. That because software is infinitely reproduce-able it should be available to all who want it, etc, etc. In an ideal world, where cost and debt and compensation weren't issues, where everyone had what they needed and all work/innovation was purely for fun, your ideology would work. In fact, I support it thoroughly. Help us figure out how to solve problems of hunger, dependency, greed, and corruption in order to eliminate a need for trade/barter/business and then the "free software for everybody no matter what!" mentality will be something I support 100%.
But not only is it impractical in the current business environment, think about this:
What does "freedom" mean to you? Freedom to have whatever you want no matter what it may cost the people who made it? Freedom to do whatever you want with things even if their creators ask nicely that you not do those things? Hm...that sounds sticky to me.
I think earlier you made an analogy about potatoes, right? How it's not wrong to replant the eyes of a potato you buy, even though that means you'll never have to go back to the farmer who sold you the potato? You're right in that analogy, but think about this: what if that farmer only sells potatoes to people who sign a contract agreeing not to replant? He's willing to take that risk because maybe his potatoes are just that ridiculously delicious that he trusts he'll still sell them, and a no-replanting contract will help him assure that he'll stay in business.
Sure, potato contracts are pretty strange (and even the phrase "potato contract" is amusing. Go ahead, say it out loud a few times), but the same thing applies to software licenses and all kinds of other contracts. People have the right, the permission, the FREEDOM, to ask their customers to adhere to a number of regulation or restrictions in order to use a product. Sure, companies abuse this right by imposing restrictions that are unnatural, counterproductive, or downright corrupt. But they have that right, and consumers have a choice between adhering to the restrictions or not signing the contract.
That's the thing about freedom. If you value your freedom, the best way you can demonstrate it is by respecting the freedoms of others.
It is one thing to disagree with the established popular ways of doing things. I happen to agree with you in that you say there are a lot of things wrong with the way things are done in modern business. However, you seem to be insisting that your perspective is a) the only right one, b) infallible, and c) mandatory. I suspect that even if more people agreed with your perspective, your attitude would still turn people off. Civil discourse is more helpful and enjoyable when people present their thoughts and ideas as opinions, not as hard-and-fast insistences. (I intend this paragraph as constructive criticism.)
I suspect people wouldn't call you a troll so much if you presented your ideas more agreeably.
-Andrew
In my life, the most valuable learning experiences have come shortly after I find myself saying "I was wrong."
