Re: Programming project required

From: Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Tue Jan 23 2001 - 17:09:22 MST


Terry Donaghe wrote:

> $1,000,000 over 12 months to provide capital grants and operating funds to
> King County nonprofit health and human service agencies.

Don't know details, but sounds superficially ok. Any conditions linked to this?
 
> $10,000,000 over 5 years to create small high schools and redesign existing
> large high schools with special focus on the lowest performing high schools
> in New York City.

Very ok. Would like to see the details, though. Any conditions?
 
> $2,000,000 over 12 months to support the "Moving Women and Families Forward"
> Campaign.

Huh? Doesn't think it means what is says. (And it doesn't say anything).
 
> $10,000 over 12 months to support the Odessa Brown Children's Clinic serving
> children and adolescents in Central and Southeast Seattle.

No background whatsoever. 10 k$ in health care means nothing, whether
yearly or monthly.
 
> $5,100,000 over 2 years to provide superintendents and principals from
> public and private schools access to quality leadership development focused
> on whole systems change.

GAAAH. "quality leadership development focused on whole systems change".
It can't mean anything good, obviously.
 
> Oh no!!! It's EVIL!!!! Evil I tell you!!!!

The amounts you've cited are negigable. The labels alone doesn't tell much.
Where's the beef? Where do the biggies go?
 
> I'm sorry, but after seeing and hearing the alternatives such as Scott
> McNealy and Larry Ellison, I'm not sure the world would be any better if

What you're not getting, is that the state of the world you're seeing is
nothing what it would have been in absence of the Wintel (+IBM) phenomenon.
It is really not that hard to get, so give it another try. Go to the lib,
read stuff from ~1980 and a few good reviews, extrapolate. It's not hard.

> they were top dogs. This nonsense about "damage ... inflicted upon the
> world" just doesn't make any sense at all. When I hear things like this, I
> feel like you guys live in a totally different world than I do. The

Indeedy.

> statement about "not seeing the alternative branches which would now exist
> if not for a number of specific decisions, which can be traced back to the
> year 1978" implies some sort of evil conspiracy. That doesn't make any

Hint: IBM PC project was begun 1978.

> sense. I posit that had a number of the chief competitors of your evil
> monsters (IBM/Intel/Microsoft) not reacted so slowly/poorly to the PC
> phenomenon of the late 70's, early 80's then the world WOULD be much
> different now. They had their chance and lost. Microsoft/Intel/IBM was NOT
> a sure thing back then.

Of course the market is to blame. CP/M was balkanized in regards to disk
formats, but that was it's only fault. The rest was just marketing & lemmings.
Blame both.
 
> Most of the programmer types that I know who hate Microsoft generally do it
> cause it's the "cool thing to do." Yes, MS has done some despicable things

I don't know, I just use things which suck less. They *still* suck, though.

> in the past and are probably still doing some, but that doesn't make the
> company evil, and certainly doesn't prove some sort of evil conspiracy
> theories. Hatred for Microsoft seems to be some sort of religious
> phenomenon in which logic and fact have no place. *shrug*

I can't do your research for you. In fact I usually don't do the advocacy
song & dance but in most blatant cases (consider yourself a such). Hence
the jingle is more than a bit rusty. There ought to be an anti-Microsoft FAQ.
Don't feel like researching and writing one.



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