Jobst Brandt vs. Tire Glue

[Peter Cole]

G.T. wrote:
> Peter Cole wrote:
>>
>> What most of the unenlightened critics still fail to recognize was
>> that MS won by taking on the most difficult problem of all --
>> "virtualizing" a broad array of different hardware. This allowed
>> competitive markets to emerge in motherboards, graphics, storage and
>> peripherals. It was those markets that drove the revolution. Apple's
>> "1984" commercial was actually the height of irony.
>
> You mean they lied about other DOS products when Windows started getting
> popular. That's when they started taking over the market and it wasn't
> because of their "virtualizing".

Windows was about virtualizing. I guess you missed that.

>
>>
>> > and ballmer's less of a sociopath.
>>
>> Less than who? Gates? Yeah, right. The guys who's giving away both his
>> and Warren Buffet's fortunes to put a significant dent in suffering
>> around the world. Yup, what a sociopath. We should have a lot more
>> sociopaths like that.
>>
>
> Hahahahah, you're very naive. Have you actually bothered to look to see
> where those investments are going?

Spit out your conspiracy theories tinfoil hat-boy.

The only personal data point I have is a guy who works for Paul Farmer's
organization. He has nothing but (more than) good things to say about
Gates Foundation involvement.

What have you got?

 

[G.T.]

Peter Cole wrote:
> G.T. wrote:
>> Peter Cole wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Less than who? Gates? Yeah, right. The guys who's giving away both
>>> his and Warren Buffet's fortunes to put a significant dent in
>>> suffering around the world. Yup, what a sociopath. We should have a
>>> lot more sociopaths like that.
>>>

It's purely an ego trip of a tax shelter for the Gates. Do you think
the money they're giving is taking food away from the mouths of their
children? What else are they going to do with all that money?

Do you really think that it's some big effort on Gates' and Buffett's
parts to give money away that they would probably never end up touching
in the first place?

I have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more respect for
the farm worker tithing his minimum wage than I do for Gates or Buffett.

>>
>> Hahahahah, you're very naive. Have you actually bothered to look to
>> see where those investments are going?
>
> Spit out your conspiracy theories tinfoil hat-boy.
>
> The only personal data point I have is a guy who works for Paul Farmer's
> organization. He has nothing but (more than) good things to say about
> Gates Foundation involvement.
>
> What have you got?

"The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles
immunization and research worldwide, including in the ***** Delta. At
the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect
health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal
Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the
companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with
pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe."

There's plenty more in the article that that came from. Gimme a break,
if they were really interested in helping the world rather than making
headlines they'd just continue to give money out of their own pockets
until it was gone to the various charities. But, hey, that wouldn't
support their cronies who work at the foundation.

Greg
--
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[John Forrest Tomlinson]

On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 11:55:45 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
wrote:

>It's purely an ego trip of a tax shelter for the Gates. Do you think
>the money they're giving is taking food away from the mouths of their
>children? What else are they going to do with all that money?
>
>Do you really think that it's some big effort on Gates' and Buffett's
>parts to give money away that they would probably never end up touching
>in the first place?

If he has so much money, why does he need or care about a "tax
shelter"?

Ego may be a part of it, but I think it's also a desire to make a
better world. Buffet doesn't spend much time on philanthropy --
that's why he's giving so much money through the Gates Foundation
which is set up to give away money in ways that work well.

And in terms of effort, I think Gates spends five or ten percent of
his time working on his philanthropy. That's laudable.

--
JT
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[Tim McNamara]

In article <[email protected]>,
Peter Cole <[email protected]> wrote:

> jim beam wrote:
> > Peter Cole wrote:
> >> jim beam wrote:
> >>
> >>> alpha rocked. novell netware was no p.o.s. either. wintel
> >>> sucked/s. wintel won the sales war, not by targeting geeks, where
> >>> wintel /knew/ they were hated and inferior and could never
> >>> prevail, but by targeting the boardroom/executive body. if you
> >>> were in the habit of reading the business/financial press at this
> >>> time, you'd have seen an avalanche of p.r. and advertising. and
> >>> as long as the suits were making the budgets and buying into the
> >>> "keep up with the jonses", the longhairs never stood a chance.
> >>> there are cultural oases of course, universities and mainframe
> >>> cultures, but for those guys, cultural inertia was their savior
> >>> and even then, it was touch-and-go for a while. not so now of
> >>> course. linux[!] and anti-trust keep things a little more
> >>> civilized.
> >>
> >>
> >> It's quite simple in retrospect. The winning combination was
> >> generic hardware and bundled software.
> >
> > open hardware was ibm's gift, not m$. but that won't stop the m$
> > propaganda machine propagating that story. just like the lies
> > about "win 95 doesn't run on top of dos." it did.
> >
> >
> >> Companies that tried to bundle hardware and software (DEC, Apple,
> >> Sun) were losers, as were companies that tried to sell
> >> non-integrated software (Novell, Borland, Ashton-Tate, Lotus).
> >> Oracle continues to do well, despite a narrow product offering,
> >> because it is so well integrated with other vendor's application
> >> software. Ultimately, I think they're as vulnerable as Novell.
> >>
> >> All high-tech trends quickly to commodity. The players who
> >> "commoditize" first win. In the desktop market the critical point
> >> was when Phoenix cloned the BIOS and IBM didn't sue, the rest was
> >> history.
> >
> > see above.
>
> You're just repeating what I said. As far as it being a "gift", that
> wasn't the kind of thing that IBM had much of a reputation for, then
> or now.

It was a gift in that IBM didn't sue to protect their "intellectual
property." If they had, the computer market would most likely be a
very, very different place.

> >> What most of the unenlightened critics still fail to recognize was
> >> that MS won by taking on the most difficult problem of all --
> >> "virtualizing" a broad array of different hardware. This allowed
> >> competitive markets to emerge in motherboards, graphics, storage
> >> and peripherals. It was those markets that drove the revolution.
> >> Apple's "1984" commercial was actually the height of irony.
> >>
> >> Linux was, and still is, a great choice for applications with
> >> narrow requirements for hardware and software. It solved the easy
> >> (kernel) problem well, but MS solved the hard one. Now that MS has
> >> largely caught up on kernel performance and reliability, it's a
> >> contender in even "narrow" systems.
> >
> > yeah. "narrow" systems like bind, apache, sendmail.
>
> They are narrow, in the sense that they are server apps that don't
> have to deal with a plethora of peripherals and are singular
> applications that don't have to integrate with a lot of others. How
> do you define narrow?

Apache? Are you sure about your description there?

<snip>

> >> > and ballmer's less of a sociopath.
> >>
> >> Less than who? Gates? Yeah, right. The guys who's giving away both
> >> his and Warren Buffet's fortunes to put a significant dent in
> >> suffering around the world. Yup, what a sociopath. We should have
> >> a lot more sociopaths like that.
> >
> > buddy of mine works with a gates project partner. long story
> > short, meeting, one presenter has a stutter. gates snaps: "who
> > sent you? you're wasting my time, get out of here." yup, we need
> > more people like that.
>
> Let's see -- wiping out serious diseases, ending a great deal of
> world misery -- using personal fortune vs (if the story is true)
> hurting somebody's feelings --- hmmmm, I guess you're right, he must
> be a sociopath.
>
> Who would put up somebody with a (bad, presumably) stutter as a
> presenter? Did the person really have a stutter or was just a bad
> presenter? How can you be a good presenter with a stutter?

Or, how can you be a good listener if you're an intolerant asshole?

> >> Oh yeah, another thing, despite being a "long hair" and member of
> >> a few "cultural oases", and a user of their products only where I
> >> had to, MS strategy was so obviously right to me that I made a
> >> large investment in them. Since I got in a little late, I only
> >> made 16x. Yeah, they really suck.
> >
> > ah, self interest! can't beat that!
>
> What's the problem with making money. I suppose all you "insiders"
> don't make money because it's beneath you?

Money's a handy thing. The greed of Gates and his ilk surpasses any in
history, however. Excessive power and wealth concentrated in the hands
of a few is the most pernicious threat to democracy that can be found in
a capitalist society.

 

[G.T.]

"John Forrest Tomlinson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 11:55:45 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>It's purely an ego trip of a tax shelter for the Gates. Do you think
>>the money they're giving is taking food away from the mouths of their
>>children? What else are they going to do with all that money?
>>
>>Do you really think that it's some big effort on Gates' and Buffett's
>>parts to give money away that they would probably never end up touching
>>in the first place?
>
> If he has so much money, why does he need or care about a "tax
> shelter"?
>
> Ego may be a part of it, but I think it's also a desire to make a
> better world. Buffet doesn't spend much time on philanthropy --
> that's why he's giving so much money through the Gates Foundation
> which is set up to give away money in ways that work well.
>

You clearly didn't read the quote. They're generally making the world a
living hell by investing in the wrong companies to keep the Foundation
viable for the long-term. The world would be much better off if they
weren't running the Foundation like a business and they just donated their
cash to worthy causes or other foundations who don't rely on investments in
companies that are ruining this world.

Greg
--
Ticketmaster and Ticketweb suck, but everyone knows that:
http://ticketmastersucks.org

Dethink to survive - Mclusky

 

[John Forrest Tomlinson]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 14:24:00 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
wrote:

>You clearly didn't read the quote. They're generally making the world a
>living hell by investing in the wrong companies to keep the Foundation
>viable for the long-term. The world would be much better off if they
>weren't running the Foundation like a business and they just donated their
>cash to worthy causes or other foundations who don't rely on investments in
>companies that are ruining this world.

I'm not aware of what quote you're talking about but am aware of the
controversy about the way the Gates Foundation is investing it's
assets. For better or worse, the majority of other large foundations
have some investments in things that run counter to their social
goals. This is changing, slowly, but changing, and Gates may be
behind the best practice but is not atypical.

You're mistaken if you think it's being run like a business.
--
JT
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[G.T.]

"John Forrest Tomlinson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 14:24:00 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>You clearly didn't read the quote. They're generally making the world a
>>living hell by investing in the wrong companies to keep the Foundation
>>viable for the long-term. The world would be much better off if they
>>weren't running the Foundation like a business and they just donated their
>>cash to worthy causes or other foundations who don't rely on investments
>>in
>>companies that are ruining this world.
>
> I'm not aware of what quote you're talking about but am aware of the
> controversy about the way the Gates Foundation is investing it's
> assets.

It was in the post to which you responded:

"The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles
immunization and research worldwide, including in the ***** Delta. At
the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect
health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal
Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France - the
companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with
pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe."

218 steps forward, 423 steps backward.

> For better or worse, the majority of other large foundations
> have some investments in things that run counter to their social
> goals. This is changing, slowly, but changing, and Gates may be
> behind the best practice but is not atypical.
>
> You're mistaken if you think it's being run like a business.

It sure isn't being run with the benevolence fitting a philanthropic
foundation.

Greg
--
Ticketmaster and Ticketweb suck, but everyone knows that:
http://ticketmastersucks.org

Dethink to survive - Mclusky

 

[still me]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:43:07 -0500, Tim McNamara
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Is that possible? I detest driving, but then I live in an urban area
>with incredibly badly designed and badly maintained roads populated
>(probably like everywhere else) with far too many people whose driving
>skills barely extend beyond starting the car and putting in in "drive."
>I just try to choose cars that make driving less miserable- enjoying
>driving is too much to hope for.

Sure. Drive a small, nimble car, and enjoy dodging the idjits.

 

[Ben C]

On 2007-08-01, Peter Cole <[email protected]> wrote:
> jim beam wrote:
>> Peter Cole wrote:
[...]
>>> Linux was, and still is, a great choice for applications with narrow
>>> requirements for hardware and software. It solved the easy (kernel)
>>> problem well, but MS solved the hard one. Now that MS has largely
>>> caught up on kernel performance and reliability, it's a contender in
>>> even "narrow" systems.
>>
>> yeah. "narrow" systems like bind, apache, sendmail.
>
> They are narrow, in the sense that they are server apps that don't
> have to deal with a plethora of peripherals and are singular
> applications that don't have to integrate with a lot of others. How do
> you define narrow?

The "integration of applications" is certainly different if you compare
Unix and Windows, but it's a design decision. Unix programs are
generally small and do one thing each, and, although other mechanisms
exist, they usually talk to each other only through the very simple and
restrictive interfaces of stdin, stdout and argv. Windows on the other
hand goes in for remote procedure calls (RPC) and object-oriented
variants of RPC resulting in applications exposing highly complex and
specific interfaces to each other. It's not that they really _need_ to
be like that, they just are, it's a different way of doing things.

It's more about choosing a mindset than it is about practical
requirements. In most cases either will do the job.

 

[still me]

On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:50:43 -0500, Ben C <[email protected]> wrote:

>The "integration of applications" is certainly different if you compare
>Unix and Windows, but it's a design decision.

I think using the word "design" in reference to Windows architecture
is a stretch.

 

[John Forrest Tomlinson]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 14:44:24 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
wrote:

>It sure isn't being run with the benevolence fitting a philanthropic
>foundation.

How familiar are you with the operation of foundations? I am very
familiar.
--
JT
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[G.T.]

"John Forrest Tomlinson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 14:44:24 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>It sure isn't being run with the benevolence fitting a philanthropic
>>foundation.
>
> How familiar are you with the operation of foundations? I am very
> familiar.

Not very but why do I have to be familiar with the operation of foundations
to determine whether a foundation is doing more harm than good??? Many
other smaller foundations do just fine while not investing in companies that
are destroying countries in which they're not regulated. Seems to me to be
a no-brainer.

Greg
--
Ticketmaster and Ticketweb suck, but everyone knows that:
http://ticketmastersucks.org

Dethink to survive - Mclusky

 

[John Forrest Tomlinson]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 16:29:24 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Not very but why do I have to be familiar with the operation of foundations
>to determine whether a foundation is doing more harm than good???

You said they should just give the money to another charity or good
cause, like that's a simple thing to do. That shows a certain lack of
understanding the challenges of effective philanthropy.

> Many
>other smaller foundations do just fine while not investing in companies that
>are destroying countries in which they're not regulated.

What do you mean by "just fine"?

>Seems to me to be a no-brainer.

Seems to be.
--
JT
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[Clive George]

"Ben C" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> Unix programs are
> generally small and do one thing each, and, although other mechanisms
> exist, they usually talk to each other only through the very simple and
> restrictive interfaces of stdin, stdout and argv.

That's quite an amusingly dated view of the world of programming on unix
servers

cheers,
clive

 

[Tom \Johnny Sunset\ Sherman]

Tim McNamara wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> still me <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 08:58:24 -0400, RonSonic
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> I basically believe in driving them 'til they drop. I don't see
>>> spending money on mundane land transportation.
>> I drive them for a long time too - but I still choose something
>> that's more fun than "mundane land transportation". Might as well
>> enjoy those hours behind the wheel.
>
> Is that possible? I detest driving, but then I live in an urban area
> with incredibly badly designed and badly maintained roads populated
> (probably like everywhere else) with far too many people whose driving
> skills barely extend beyond starting the car and putting in in "drive."
> I just try to choose cars that make driving less miserable- enjoying
> driving is too much to hope for.

Hope Tim wasn't driving on the I-35 westbound bridge a few minutes ago:
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070802/ap_on_re_us/minnesota_bridge_collapse_13;_ylt=AmXHRxyn1.Zh.w7kOqJ.WU9saMYA>.

Yikes! At least there were no cyclists on the bridge.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

 

[Tom \Johnny Sunset\ Sherman]

Tim McNamara wrote:
> ...
> Money's a handy thing. The greed of Gates and his ilk surpasses any in
> history, however. Excessive power and wealth concentrated in the hands
> of a few is the most pernicious threat to democracy that can be found in
> a capitalist society.

It has yet to be proven that democracy and capitalism can co-exist.
Capitalism has just been the latest tool for the class that can only
find true gratification in the domination of others.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

 

[Tom \Johnny Sunset\ Sherman]

G.T. aka Greg Thomas who? wrote:
> Peter Cole wrote:
>>
>> What most of the unenlightened critics still fail to recognize was
>> that MS won by taking on the most difficult problem of all --
>> "virtualizing" a broad array of different hardware. This allowed
>> competitive markets to emerge in motherboards, graphics, storage and
>> peripherals. It was those markets that drove the revolution. Apple's
>> "1984" commercial was actually the height of irony.
>
> You mean they lied about other DOS products when Windows started getting
> popular. That's when they started taking over the market and it wasn't
> because of their "virtualizing".
>
>>
>> > and ballmer's less of a sociopath.
>>
>> Less than who? Gates? Yeah, right. The guys who's giving away both his
>> and Warren Buffet's fortunes to put a significant dent in suffering
>> around the world. Yup, what a sociopath. We should have a lot more
>> sociopaths like that.
>>
>
> Hahahahah, you're very naive. Have you actually bothered to look to see
> where those investments are going?

Doesn't everyone know that foundations are a way rich families can
control wealth while not having to pay taxes on it? The only downside is
that it takes some doing to extract the wealth after that point without
running afoul of the government.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

 

[Tom \Johnny Sunset\ Sherman]

G.T. aka Greg Thomas who? wrote:
> ...
> I have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more respect for
> the farm worker tithing his minimum wage than I do for Gates or Buffett....

How about the Mexican farm workers in the U.S. that make a real wage of
less than $3/hour, yet still manage to send a couple of hundred dollars
a month home to their families?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

 

[Tom \Johnny Sunset\ Sherman]

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
> On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 11:55:45 -0700, "G.T." <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> It's purely an ego trip of a tax shelter for the Gates. Do you think
>> the money they're giving is taking food away from the mouths of their
>> children? What else are they going to do with all that money?
>>
>> Do you really think that it's some big effort on Gates' and Buffett's
>> parts to give money away that they would probably never end up touching
>> in the first place?
>
> If he has so much money, why does he need or care about a "tax
> shelter"?...

The rich HATE being told what to do with their money - it is all above
privilege.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

 

[Ozark Bicycle]

On Aug 1, 8:15 pm, "Tom \"Johnny Sunset\" Sherman"
<[email protected]> wrote:
> G.T. aka Greg Thomas who? wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Peter Cole wrote:
>
> >> What most of the unenlightened critics still fail to recognize was
> >> that MS won by taking on the most difficult problem of all --
> >> "virtualizing" a broad array of different hardware. This allowed
> >> competitive markets to emerge in motherboards, graphics, storage and
> >> peripherals. It was those markets that drove the revolution. Apple's
> >> "1984" commercial was actually the height of irony.
>
> > You mean they lied about other DOS products when Windows started getting
> > popular. That's when they started taking over the market and it wasn't
> > because of their "virtualizing".
>
> >> > and ballmer's less of a sociopath.
>
> >> Less than who? Gates? Yeah, right. The guys who's giving away both his
> >> and Warren Buffet's fortunes to put a significant dent in suffering
> >> around the world. Yup, what a sociopath. We should have a lot more
> >> sociopaths like that.
>
> > Hahahahah, you're very naive. Have you actually bothered to look to see
> > where those investments are going?
>
> Doesn't everyone know that foundations are a way rich families can
> control wealth while not having to pay taxes on it?

Rockefeller proved that to be true.

>The only downside is
> that it takes some doing to extract the wealth after that point without
> running afoul of the government.

Just buy a senator and a congressman or three. Add some
lobbyists.....problem solved!
>
> --
> Tom Sherman who cares? - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
> The weather is here, wish you were beautiful
>