Re: Offshore Outsourcing

From: Randy Howard (randyhoward_at_FOOverizonBAR.net)
Date: 05/23/04 

Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 05:21:27 GMT

In article <f5dda427.0405222026.1e8ba6c6@posting.google.com>, spinoza1111
@yahoo.com says...
> Randy Howard <randyhoward@FOOverizonBAR.net> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b197dc418b0964e9897e5@news.verizon.net>...
> > In article <f5dda427.0405220311.3b411ac7@posting.google.com>, spinoza1111
> > @yahoo.com says...
> > > Randy Howard <randyhoward@FOOverizonBAR.net> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b177f06812761689897d9@news.verizon.net>...
> > > > Yes, I agree. After hearing some fairly eloquent people make some
> > > > strong points about the detrimental effects of plonking, such as
> > > > allowing trolls to influence young, and/or lesser-experienced
> > > > people negatively with bad information, outright lies, etc., I have
> > > > stopped doing it at all. I do get tired of it from time to time,
> > > > and get busy and go through periods where I won't even read a newsgroup
> > > > for days or weeks at a time, but when I have the interest, I try to
> > > > find the time.
> > >
> > > The problem is you claim to plonk but continually return to stalk and
> > > harass the disfavored individual.
> >
> > I do not "claim to plonk". I can't remember the last time I did. You
> > really should learn how to read attributions in posts if you intend to
> > respond to them.
>
> That's a lie, and don't waste my time and this newsgroup's time by
> posting out of context and altered text to defend your lie.

The text above is not altered. What part of "I have stopped doing it
at all" do you not understand?

> People have asked you to plonk because your posts are harassing, stalking,
> repetitious, and content-free.

The above sentence does not make any sense at all. Asking someone to plonk
means you think they should ignore someone ELSE. Perhaps this is news to
you.

> > ??? Where does this come from? I made a post saying that I did not
> > agree with the process of plonking people. You don't actually read,
> > you just make stuff up and turn on the persiflage faucet.
> >
> You have "made" a lot of posts claiming many things. The fact remains
> that people have implored you to cease and desist.

Pot, kettle, black?!?!?!?!?!? Give me a break.

> > Who, precisely, claims to share a common world view with you? I must
> > have missed the clamoring horde of your fans somehow.
> >
> Perhaps because as a person in technology I need to use this group for
> the purpose for which it was designed, whereas most other people who
> share my world-view haven't entered a field known to be populated in
> part by dweebs, and people like yourself with significant problems in
> anger management.

In other words, nobody. Thanks for admitting it.

> > > Of course, I could "plonk" myself.
> >
> > Hmmm. That sounds like a good idea. See if you can set your newsreader
> > up to filter your posts going *out* instead of *in*.
> >
> This is an example of how you deliberately and in violation of the
> rules quote out of context to distort meaning, for in the paragraph I
> meant that I could plonk and ignore you.

A) What "rules"?
B) With the google archives, there is no need to quote every word of
   your thousand line manifestos. You have been asked to learn how
   to snip, hundreds of times, yet you seem to be trying to win some
   usenet activity contest which rewards he with the most words posted
   per annum.
C) I really thought you were just being silly. It happens so often, it
   seems difficult to take you seriously 100% of the time.
D) Please do plonk and ignore me. I believe this request has been made
   of you by quite a few people. You have promised to do so before, in
   fact you have promised to leave this group before, but then recanted.

> > What is your reading comprehension problem? I have told you, repeatedly,
> > that I am not angry. I am LAUGHING AT YOU. I am not angry, you are
> > a trifle, an amusement, a court jester if you will.
> >
> Sure, you have a problem copping to negative emotions. The result is
> that your bile is all over this newsgroup.

The official EGN Word-of-the-week is "bile". Pass it on.

> > Name 3 that contained no Miller-esque references to philosophers,
> > corporate evil, or social oppression, but which were in fact, solely
> > focused upon programming and related TECHNICAL issues.
> >
> TECHNICAL issues, jerk face, belong for the most part in more focused
> groups for the very good reason that a TECHNICAL issue, jerk face, is
> contextualized such that the reader of the post has to know a
> subspecialty to gain value for the post.

Does this mean you are incapable of outlining 3 on-topic technical posts
out of the "Vast archive" of your useful postings? Why does this not
surprise me?

> However, jerk face, they nearly all share the experience of designing
> algorithms and crossing the boundary between the "idea" and code, and
> most often in an employment context.

Most often in an employment context? Really? How so? I recall a few
questions from students wanting to know about careers in programming,
but very little else employment specific, apart from Chris' recent
announcement that he had changed jobs.

> Therefore general philosophy is or should be able to speak to their
> situation because as long as technical-philosophical issues are
> unpacked and explained (an activity which itself unfortunately is
> occasion for charges of verbosity from people who combine anger issues
> with impatience with language per se).

Does the "G" in your name stand for "garrulous", or "grandiloquent", or
perhaps even simply "gabby"? Verbosity is not a charge in your case,
it is a diagnosis.

> OK, then, jerk face. Where is the pathos? Why are you sad? I am
> laughing my fucking ass off.

Despite your bouts with turret's syndrome, the only thing that makes me
sad is the image of you selling books to poor, unsuspecting noobies
when you should be wearing a straight-jacket.

> The issue is not my social life. It is your trolling, stalking and out
> of control behavior.

I'm not the one cursing with no apparent self-control.

> > Then for a person that issues with isolation, why on earth do you not
> > find a more wholesome, caring REAL place to spend your time? This
> > can't be healthy for someone in so obvious a need for help.
> >
> The problematic, jerk face, is that you regard an environment which
> you and your ilk have made an electronic Abu Ghraib as by nature such
> a venue, which enables you to use it as a psychological safety valve,
> so that you may then imagine that you project a "wholesome, caring"
> image in the rest of your affairs.

I care not what you infer about my imaginings. I can only assume that
your repeated references to Abu Ghraib is that you feel you have been
pants'd repeatedly of late. In this, I actually agree with you.

> Why? Unless you are following Sun Tzu's maxim, "keep your friends
> close: keep your enemies closer", I can't imagine why you waste your
> time

Your BS should not go unchallenged. It's as simple as that. It's
my civic duty if nobody else steps up, so that others that are less
aware of your BS are not misled.

> because your stalking has been and shall be met with replies,
> and these make you look bad to people of taste and discrimination.

I'll take my chances.

> > And we are quite interested in those which have to do directly with
> > programming here, for which you have demonstrated remarkably little
> > acumen despite your claims of a large span of years spent pursuing
> > enlightenment in the field.
> >
> You keeping stating this out of context and with nothing to back you
> up.

A simple google search for your posts here which contained "code" should
be sufficient evidence for anyone qualified to make such a determination.

> Furthermore, programming is a collective and group effort.

Rarely in the real world. Your own inability to accept criticism of your
code in this newsgroup puts lie to your claim above as well. Even when
faced with dozens of dissenting opinions, you will stick to what you
*KNOW* is untenable position, solely so that you can gain more attention,
no matter how negative. *THAT* is the primary reason why you have met
with such opposition. If you had the balls to ever admit a mistake,
people would not have ever had a problem with your posts about programming,
and you wouldn't have needed to branch out into gibberish to deter them
from the actual problem, your crappy "code".

> The complexity scale of its production long overcame your mental model
> of "skill".

:-) This is like Michael Schumacher being told he can't drive by the
little old lady from Pasadena.

> In May of 2002, however, I contributed two example solutions in C
> which were used simply as an occasion by Richard Heathfield and Chris
> Sonnack to reinforce through a confused critique their shaky sense of
> dominance of this ng.

Actually, what happened was they pointed out several faults in your
"solutions", which you were unable to admit, and in fact argued to
even you got tired of it, despite almost unanimous agreement to the
contrary by all those that participated.

> This is probably because in an era of downsizing and offshoring, this
> ng has become dominated by people who regard it primarily as a safety
> valve for their unacceptable feelings of being threatened.

The above sentence is probably the rantings of a dysfunctional geriatric
who can't find his colostomy bag.

Both of the above two paragraphs are equally likely to based in fact.

> > If you talk about programming, yes. If you rant about crop circles,
> > alien abduction, philosophical reasons for the alienation of serfs in
> > the dark ages, or any of your pet diatribes, you do not.
>
> This is another example of how you lie.
>
> I haven't talked about crop circles, alien abduction, or philosophical
> reasons for the alienation of serfs in the dark ages.

Probably true. You have talked about so many wildly different, off-topic
things, that I don't even bother to read them all. None of your off-topic
diatribes are any more appropriate to comp.programming than the obviously
satirical samples above.

> Instead, in December 2000, I posted an Amazon review of Steve
> McConnell's book After the Gold Rush, which is about PROGRAMMING
> certification.

How many times will you post a sentence which is for all practical purposes
identical to the one above? It can't be for my benefit, for I know you've
written it at least 2 dozens times in article replies or email to me. Perhaps
it is the only "achievement" you can recall. It is another example of a thread
where the majority disagreed with you. 20 years from now, people will still
be reading McConnell's work, and nobody will reading your's, so I don't think
it really matters much either way. In any case, be content that I have read
it enough, and you can shorten your stock response by one paragraph without
fear of it being forgotten.

> In May of 2002, I was working full time on a book I have now published through
> Apress, Build Your Own .Net Language and Compiler.

Here is another repeated statement, but this one is at least useful, because it
is to be taken as a warning.

> I discovered in the writing of the software for the book the power of
> the OO paradigm. This was because the first version of the Quick Basic
> compiler, which I wrote in two weeks, was non-OO and I realized that I
> would not be able to properly modularize and structure the explanation
> of the code based on a non-OO product.

Then you have a dearth of skills in proper procedural programming, because
people have been developing highly modular and maintainable code without
OO for many years.

> for a future expansion of the compiler to calculation with
> underdetermined values I introduced the Unknown data type.

*gasp* Now that is a useful concept. How does a programmer deal with
data of this type? (At last a pearl of of programming content is emitted)

> Bemused thereby by the power of the OO paradigm in contrast to C I
> contributed code in May 2002 intended to show the contrast. However,
> because of the misuse of this ng by a small working set of trolls,
> this posting was used simply as an occasion to "prove" my
> "incompetence", independent of whatever positions I have held or
> whatever my actual track record might be, and relying on the fact that
> any attempt to defend this record would appear in context as whining.

Hmm, I recall the thread, but I wasn't particularly active in that one,
because several others that had obviously spent much more time programming
in that cesspool of languages known as VB did in fact rip your code to
shreds. The fact that you didn't like it isn't surprising, I don't suppose
anyone would appreciate such a thing. But, you did post it to a public
forum. *shrug*
 
> In other words, collegiality of any sort was suspended by goons and
> thugs, some of whom may have been appointed to make sure that the
> level here is less collegial than K-12.

Is this a reference to the British secret plot to humiliate you, or
something else?

> But desiring to make lemonade out of this lemon I reflected that the
> social and philosophical context of the profession might have some
> bearing on the situation and that it would be an adult gesture to
> respond by expanding the context, in a responsible fashion, and to
> show how cultural factors were the issue, such that the half educated,
> especially the technical half educated, use memes (such as a naive
> Platonism) which narrow their creativity because their message is
> almost always in favor of the Ideal, and not "labor".

So, the group brought your persiflage on themselves by not being
willing to concede that demonstrably broken code was actually not
so flawed? How convenient a construction. 

-- 
Randy Howard    (2reply remove FOOBAR)
"The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its
continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the
computer hardware industry..."   - Henry Petroski