From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Mon Oct 06 1997 - 17:03:39 MDT
Geoff Smith wrote:
>
> On Sun, 5 Oct 1997, Michael Lorrey wrote:
>
>
> BTW, I don't love or hate Bill Gates, I just seem to have frequent
> problems with his company's software.
I didn't think much about it till I got involved with this company that
is trapped in Corel Ventura. I've had more corrupted files, access
violations, lockups, you name it, in the past two months than in my
previous 7 years working with computers. Just today, I tried to use
Ventura's "publish to HTML" function. It froze up a half dozen times
while half way through the job of converting a software manual into a
website. I finally got a halfway decent output without crashing on the
seventh try. It took setting the virtual memory at a fixed 300 megs to
do it, and it still took an hour to process.
>
> > >
> > > > Absent actual physical coercion,
> > >
> > > Is a hypnotic or subliminal advertisement "physical coercion"?
> >
> > I personally think so, while others here do not. it could be said that
> > your volunteering to expose yourself to subliminal coercion by using
> > media sources that employ them is your own waiver of caveat emptor.
>
> Well I definitely do not agree with the "others." What if your property
> is surrounded by a bunch of hired hypnotists from Coke swinging
> pendulums and chanting "drink coke, drink coke" (OK, that's kind of silly)
> But still, if people own all the property around you, and you just happen
> to look out your window... I think you have been physically coerced. The
> only defense I can see for this in an anarcho-capitalistic society is for
> some consumer organization to monitor companies that practice coercion and
> organized massive buoycotts. Still, if Coke can hypnotize enough people,
> why would they care about a buoycott? Maybe the consumer organization
> should take more drastic action in this case...
>
> I see an anarcho-capitalist society as being a bit violent, but certainly
> more interesting.
Its all a matter of using your own means of self defense, or a hired
PPL, to enforce your own sense of personal space and personal property.
>
> > > What benefit are con artists to their victims?
> >
> > A victim of a con artist is merely a student getting an informal,
> > involuntary, education that they obviously need very badly.
>
> So are you saying that an "educated" consumer would never be scammed by a
> con artist?
Pretty much, but its all relative, really. I'm pretty good at seeing
through most scams that people try to pull on me, but its only since
I've been conned enough to the point where I make it a point to be on
the lookout, looking for the catch.
>
> > > True, but it was for compatibilities sake. Microsoft's domination seems
> > > to be an example of positive feedback: the more people have Microsoft
> > > software, the more other people want to buy it so they can have compatible
> > > software. Do you have any ideas on how this monopoly might be felled?
> > > (which to me seems inevitable, but I'm not sure how)
> >
> > I can. If a company, like Corel, would sell competetive software that
> > wasn't even more bug infested than Microsoft applications.
>
> Maybe Corel is using buggy Microsoft products to compile their code? ;)
>
I dunno, maybe since I'm on an American machine, it doesn't understand
line calls that end in "eh?"
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------ How many fnords did you see before breakfast today?
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