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Aw, thalo, poor baby. I hurt your feelings by disagreeing with you? Is that your problem, sweetheart? Is that why you wrote me such a long post, you dipshit. Why don't you fucking grow up and stop being such an asshole. Everything you said is crap just like it always is. Why is that? Why is it that nothing but crap ever comes from you? But, I don't care, baby. You're my bitch and you can write me all the long posts you want. I like printing them out and rubbing them on my balls.


Is that the sort of thing you are talking about, thalo?

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uh... well... YEAH! Woo Hooo!!! Oh my god, I lost bladder control over that one. Thank you. You've made my point. You combined childish discussion and adult conversation. You didn't FORBID one or the other. You used both. And to great effect. You spread the love, you were howlingly funny... and poignant too. It was a mix. Why we gotta be all one way? Why does it matter WHICH face we put on, when there are brilliant moments, compelling ideas EVEN IN THE CHILDISH STUFF?

I've always said, "outta the mouths of trolls." Who wants to participate in a forum where the discussion is like this? Me.

Some things are a waste of time... some things veer off topic. Sha. Ya think? Welcome to life. I'd rather they do that, than try and pound them into some artificial mannered BS properly labeled "adult" that then has to go get enforced. Like, oooh, you're not being adult. That's not what we're about here.

I'd argue that expecting people to behave any prescribed way, sucks the life out of any discourse. I've seen it happen time and again, we all have. Me, I can tolerate those silly moments. If somebody is goading 'fight fight fight' in the background, and I don't WANT to fight, I can tune it out.

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Having them break down while you keep your level demeanor gives you those "magic powers" over them that you talk about? What is it really? Do you miss Piggy?

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choke. sob. Yes I do miss Piggy. And yeah, that's one of the rhetorical crutches I frequently rely on. When they completely lose it, I think people start seeing discourse in different ways. Like that scene in Gandhi where the British soldiers savagely beat so many poor slobs in soda-jerk costumes with sticks, that they kinda wake up and go "am I this?" And they become less likely to lose it in the future. Or else they pick up their toys and leave.

Describing this group as a no-holds-barred wild-ass gang engaged in a melee is no more false than describing it as a girlie tea party. You can describe it as whatever you want, nobody is stopping you. I think what you are calling honesty is totally relative. Some of the rhetorical crap I pull to make my points is anything BUT honest. It's deliberately provokative. It's a scam. The only honest thing about it is that I eventually come clean and tell you what I'm doing.

I'm flattered that you think people hang on my every word, and believe everything I say... but I think you are living proof that when I start selling us as a battle royale, there are going to be those that laugh, those that roll their eyes, those that ignore, and those that don't buy it.

you were howlingly funny...

Jeez, I can't catch a break here. I wasn't trying to be funny. It was supposed to be insulting. Couldn't you at least pretend a bit? Do your old pal a favor. Sputter the phase. "why, I never.." a couple of times. That's not asking much, is it? I'm getting discouraged.

I'd argue that expecting people to behave any prescribed way, sucks the life out of any discourse.

Now here is a point of profound agreement between us. Certainly people should not be prescribed a certain mode of behavior and certainly not by an overbearing authority. Our front page does nearly exactly that. On it, the site owner and chief moderator describes a very specific mode of prescribed behavior. We all know the fighting attitude is not mandatory, but where does the page make make that abundantly clear? It is the site owner and chief moderator saying it is expected of members, and more than that, once inside the page promises a constantly ongoing melee. None of this is factual. Thalo.net is not a nest of unpleasant bickering and the fighting behavior is not mandatory. Keep in mind that folks come from other sites where if ownership prescribes certain behavior it is at the least a demand, and more often a rule, that this is the way you will behave while on that site. We are in agreement that prescribed behavior by the management sucks the life out of any discourse.

I agree with Brad. I like his minimalist concept for the front page and I like the example he presented. I know this is getting into an area of nearly pure subjectivity, but I find an elegance in understated functionality. Screaming headlines trying to convince me of some damn thing just doesn't do it for me especially when what I'm really looking for are the controls. How is the new front page coming along? Are you planning to implement it soon?


There are two other things that trouble me. The first is that this is thalo.net and the persona of thalo is a big asset to the site. The second is that you've put in a lot of work on our current front page. There is a ton of good stuff there. It is a waste of ingenious material to just dump it especially since this will always be a Mac site. I think it should be presented somewhere on the site. Anyone have any suggestions?

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Originally posted by thalo:
...there are going to be those that laugh, those that roll their eyes, those that ignore, and those that don't buy it.

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I laugh, roll my eyes, ignore and don't buy it, in that order.

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The first is that this is thalo.net and the persona of thalo is a big asset to the site. The second is that you've put in a lot of work on our current front page. There is a ton of good stuff there.

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Yes, exactly. How did this evolve into the idea of totally revamping the front page? Just modify some of the fight-fight-fight Battle Royale stuff that puts people off and misrepresents the site, and there's not a thing wrong with the rest of it.

Markle

P.S. Is there some reason the site has become reeeeeeeeally slow in the last few days? I'm (temporarily) still on a dial-up, so maybe most of you don't notice it as much, but even so it was never this slow before for me.


P.P.S. Re-phrase for Brad's political cohorts: How was this Intelligently Designed into the idea of totally revamping the front page, since nothing can happen by chance in Go....uh, the Designer's world?

And another oddity....

For a long time, when I come here with cookies turned off the pages display normally. But when I come with cookies ON, or re-load a page after posting with cookies on, many pages display as a two-inch wide column on the left side of the screen. There's no preference that I can see that I might have accidentally set to such a weird configuration. I'm constantly having to turn cookies on and off (in Mac IE 5.1) and refresh pages in order to read them normally. Any ideas?


Markle

Markle

It is running slow on DSL also. Certain sites seem to be running slower in general over all the last few days. Must be the NSA testing some new equipment.

Hey I hope your trip is for pleasure.

Double H you definitely need to work on your personal insulting abilities. Like thalo you ignorant slut or Brad is a lesbian.

I'm having the same trouble as Markle. I haven't noticed any other site being slow, only thalo.net There's something wrong.

Hey, I'm a big boy and can take the ribbing.

But, you are not being ribbed. For the most part we are talking purely about ideas here. If Markle or myself find the idea of intelligent design or even of that of supreme beings meritless or even ridiculous, and say so, it is not a malicious personal poke in the ribs. I regret you see it that way.

Let's consider a less controversial set of opposing beliefs. Suppose you run across a fellow, a perfectly sane well-spoken fellow, who tells you that he doesn't believe in, say, the sun. He says it is an imaginary invention in the minds of those who do believe in it. He goes on to explain that believers are merely peddling a doctrine that opposes his own competing doctrine of nonexistence of the sun. Now, you do believe the sun exists. What is your reaction to the fellow? Do you become indignant and accuse him of ridiculing you? Or are you quietly amused and perhaps somewhat interested in the reasoning behind this fellow's claim? I believe your reaction would be the latter.

The reason for this is because your belief in the sun is not threatened by having people around who don't share that belief. The fellow's opposing non-belief has no affect on it. Religious beliefs are different. They sit in the air and are supported by having like-minded people believe them. Under these circumstances it is imperative to either convince non-believers or at least silence them. If everyone stopped believing the religion then it would disappear. Many have. There can be no religion without believers. The believers may or may not be perfectly aware of this fact, but I can assure you religious leaders are. They absolutely know there must be believers and that a preponderance of non-believers is a threat to their positions

Some of your reactions to religious discussions on this forum remind me very much, very very much, of the reactions of the X-men on MFI when you and I talked about OS X, although not as thoughtless as theirs. We would say something about the operating system and they would respond personally. They would get up on their high horses and claim we were ridiculing them, or hurling personal insults, or at the least, mercilessly ribbing them. While it seemed perfectly clear to them that we were 'attacking' them it was very much less clear to us. They would become indignant, or their feeling would be hurt, some genuinely hurt. This is because the beliefs they expounded about OS X, its blazing speed, those crisp fonts, that wonderfully user-friendly interface, were only supported by having like-minded people around them. They insisted that we first become believers and only then could we discuss the details of OS X properly. Otherwise we were 'trolls' only looking to say things that personally bothered them. We rightfully claimed that we were saying these things, not to personally upset them, (although if that was the result, too bad) but because we thought they were valid and had merit. This was rejected by them. After all, they could plainly see they were upset so that must be the only purpose behind our OS X comments. Plain as day! TROLL!

Look at you now. You refer to a quote of mine that describes the dinnerware orbiting the sun and you add a post under it saying you are a big boy and can take the ribbing. Read that quote again. Does it in any way mention you? Any way at all? But, really and truly, you know it was personally aimed at you somehow? It was not. It is aimed at an idea. That whole post is an illustration of the inappropriateness of insisting that others prove a negative. If a person makes a claim he can't demand others must be able to prove it wrong otherwise his claim is valid. It doesn't work that way. It is his task to prove that his claim has merit.

I was not aware of any ribbing when I wrote the illustration and I don't see any. If there is unintended ribbing, which frankly is not there, it is ribbing an idea, and a rather abstract one at that. The post is about an idea. It is not about you. I don't even know if you hold the opposing idea. I would guess you don't. I write the things I do because it is how I think and that is not going to change. Keep in mind that whether we are staunchly agreeing with each other or heatedly disagreeing (we've done both) I am not doing either from a sense of benevolence or malice. I am certainly not a troll intent on getting your goat. I am who I've been through hundreds of our exchanges. I am, and I remain both during our agreement and disagreement, your forum pal, HighHopes.

What a relief! I glad the forum speed is back to normal.

Thalo, did you do anything or was it your IP? Something else?

Hi brothers,

Listen, every now and then we get these denial of service attacks that really slow down the site. I was on the road, and tried to post from my hotel room, and couldn't even post in this thread.

There are a few brothers out there who are threatened by us, lol... c'est la vie. There was some hate mail a while back that threatened something like this. I have no way of knowing if it's the same guy or what. I think it's my fault... somebody I pulled in during the last "member drive" when I was posting on Apple Delusions.

I think it's a squelching strategy. Happens when things get a little lively here. Power through it. The way I see it, if we're worth attacking, we're doing something right

Seems like a lot of trouble for nothing. If the person doesn't like what's being written on thalo.net he can come to the forum and write whatever he wants. Wrong things being written? Fine, no problem. Come and write the right ones. Must be a crazy person.

How sad can people be. Don't they know there is only love to be found here at thalo.net.

thalo I don't know how these things operate completely but who is responsible for filtering out such attacks?

Brother Rico,
That would be our host provider, i.e. infopop. There's not much I can do but try to work with them. I'm pretty sure it's just a basic "smurf" attack, because that's a program that is readily available to Mac digikid hacker wannabees. What makes the attack effective, is that they attack the broadcast IP with a spoofed address like mine or one of the mods, so if they filter it out, they filter ME out and deny me service, while slowing the site down enough to deny the brothership easy use of thalo.net.

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Come and write the right ones. Must be a crazy person.

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Brother HH, remember that I tend not to bring out the best in people. Most of us, by virtue of being here, are seen as total heretics and Benedict Mac Arnolds in the neo Mac community. There are some real hurt feelings out there to this day.

Brother HH, remember that I tend not to bring out the best in people.

Oh yeah? Don't think you can hog all the credit for yourself. Maybe it's me that's being squelched. Why, I'm just as unlikable as you -- maybe more so!

LOL, I guess you're right, my brother! But I did say most of us here are seen as heretics, and that includes you. Brother Max, too, has his share of groupies and stalkers. We're public enema #1.

Whoever did the attack really did a number on infopop. They had to reboot servers because of all these stalled processes.

It would be a shame to get shut down that way, instead of in a fair fight.

:lol:

http://www.unixsucks.com/idiots.aspx

http://www.unixsucks.com/bitching.aspx

http://www.unixsucks.com/unixsucks.aspx

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It would be a shame to get shut down that way, instead of in a fair fight.

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Underhanded sneaks aren't interested in a fair fight.

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Originally posted by the mighty johnq:
:lol:

http://www.unixsucks.com/idiots.aspx
http://www.unixsucks.com/bitching.aspx
http://www.unixsucks.com/unixsucks.aspx

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Anybody who says that Windows/IIS can't stand up to *nix/Apache is insane. Speaking as an IIS/ASP/.NET deveoper I will atest to the fact that IIS can be stable if properly adminned (much like any piece of software).

If you want some real funny (albeit a bit dated) anti-nix stuff try reading a bit of the Unix Haters Handbook. It is available for free in PDF format and I've mirrored it on my site. It pretty much deals with *nix desktops back in the mid 90s and all of the insanity involved in working in such an environment. It really makes you realize just how far ahead of *nix MacOS and Windows really were in the mid 90's.

http://www.jaylittle.com/jaylittle/downloads/ugh.pdf