Re: Offtopic, inappropriate jokes?

["SN_Diamond" <Norman.Diamond@example.com>]

Gavin Walker wrote:

> Norman,
> Listen to yourself!
> > co-conspirator

That is exactly true.  You really don't know some of the contracts that
Microsoft made with manufacturers?

Do you know that more than half of the computers sold in Japan now are
notebooks?  You know how many DOS/V notebooks  you can't buy unless you take
Windows ME with them?  There are precious few where we can get Windows 2000
instead.  You know how many of their manufacturers will refund what you paid
for Windows ME (or 2000) when you return the software product as documented?

> > maliciously damaging

Yes.  Windows 95 FDISK, when used as directed.  Less often, Windows 98 FDISK
when used as directed and Windows NT4's disk manager when used as directed.
According to Microsoft's knowledge base, Windows 2000's disk manager when
used as directed.  (I haven't seen a problem occur but Microsoft says that
it is better to use even Windows 95's FDISK than to suffer one stated effect
from unknown unstated problems of Windows 2000's disk manager.  Windows 95's
FDISK command creates overlapping partitions which act as a time bomb and
lose all your data maybe months later.)  Microsoft's web site documents
various other problems with Windows 95 FDISK and Windows 98 FDISK but
Microsoft says they refuse to let customers download fixes for those other
problems, except for one very early fix for one problem that was discovered
early.

> > evil empire
>
> Pointless inflamatory rhetoric.

Pointless inflammatory fact.  No better or worse than any other pointless
fact.

> You're a text book case of why Linux gets a
> reputation as a fringe movement instead of a serious OS. It's a shame.

Right.  Just like when Raygun called the former Soviet Union an evil empire,
the US got a reputation as a fringe movement instead of a serious country.
It is a shame.

Sorry to advise you that facts sometimes appear on this mailing list.  If
facts trouble you too much, you'll have to remove yourself from them.

> > If buyers got a choice (blah blah blah)
>
> We do have a choice.

Oh, you DID get a refund for Windows ME when you had to buy it with a
notebook PC?  Please tell us how.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants
to learn how to get it.

> So, although we chose our careers and actively made choices about
> our home machines and OSs, to you we're in someway perpetuating an evil.

Dunno.  Are you part of the reason why hardware manufacturers refuse to give
refunds for unwanted, returned copies of Windows ME that hardware buyers
didn't want tied to their machines?  If so then yes.  If not then I'm not
the one who called you evil, even if you do.

You really don't understand, do you?  I don't expect to waste any time
trying to explain it to you again after this.

Yours sincerely,
Norman Diamond