use Perl

• Don't link! (Score:2)

  by brian_d_foy (44)

  Well, to get the letter from Tim's lawyers, you'd have to excerpt from the essay and not just the copyright notice. You'd have to quote something like "The fact that it’s thousands of pages long really isn’t that much
  • Re: (Score:1)

    by Aristotle (5147)

    I think Tim Bray’s “I’ll pull out the lawyers” is lame.

    But at the same time, the spirit in which he meant the threat (“it’s abuse to cherry-pick this to serve your agenda if you prevent your readers from getting the fu
    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jdavidb (1361)

      I expect readers to have brains and go looking for context if it matters to them. If it doesn't, I'm not abusive if they are idiots.

      --
      J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Aristotle (5147)

        That’s the point: he wants readers to have the link, so he’s threatening writers/journalists who quote selectively without linking. His threat is toothless, of course, but I certainly understand what compelled him to include it, considering how
        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jdavidb (1361)

          What I said wasn't intended to sound mocking. I just don't think like he thinks at all. He and I see the burden of making people understand as falling in such completely different places that his request seems absolutely unreasonable and completely unwor

          --
          J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pudge (1)

          His threat is toothless, of course ... Pointing out that he's wrong merely makes you somewhat of a lawyeristic nitpicker

          Well, aside from the fact that you just called youself a lawyerlistic nitpicker (sounds like a demon from the Mountains of Ignorance, cf. The Phantom Tollbooth), I think there's nothing whatsoever wrong with pointing out the fact that he is wrong. Is not
          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Aristotle (5147)

            you just called youself a lawyerlistic nitpicker

            “Point out” in the sense of “call him out on it for the sake of doing so.”

            Is not truth of its own value?

            Straw man. I didn’t say it makes you wrong, I said it makes you s
            • Re: (Score:2)

              by pudge (1)

              Is not truth of its own value?

              Straw man. I didn’t say it makes you wrong

              I didn't say you did (that means YOU are the one with the straw man here, FWIW).

              I said it makes you someone who purposefully ignores the larger context and sticks to the literal reading

              But that's not true. Indeed, it doesn't stand up to simple logical scrutiny. Just because I pay attention to one thing doesn't mean I am ignoring something else.

              There is a word for such people

              Yes. "Peo
              • Re: (Score:1)

                by Aristotle (5147)

                Yes, there is nothing wrong with purposefully misquoting someone who is writing about highly politicised matter and therefore asking to be quoted only in a particular fashion… because the request was accompanied by a toothless “or else.”
                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by pudge (1)

                  Yes, there is nothing wrong with purposefully misquoting someone

                  See, again with the straw man. No one did that.

                  asking to be quoted only in a particular fashion

                  Nope. Let's be honest here, please. He was demanding that we give up our rights, under threat of legal action, not merely asking.

                  And the right approach to life that will ensure you life in freedom is to maximally spite everyone who makes an unreasonable request.

                  Nope. Not maximally, only enough to make the point, and only when rights
                  • Re: (Score:1)

                    by Aristotle (5147)

                    No one did that.

                    Two out of three blog posts is not my definition of “no one.”

                    “decorum”

                    You don’t know me at all, do you? (Not that I mind – quite contrarily.)

                    You and Tim Bray do not respect liberty much

                    Indee
                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by pudge (1)

                    Two out of three blog posts is not my definition of “no one.”

                    Nor mine.

                    You and Tim Bray do not respect liberty much

                    Indeed, in bizarro universe where he has sent a lawyer after someone and I commended him for doing so, no, neither of us does.

                    Bullshit. He is trying to prevent people from exercising their liberty through threat of force. You are saying that defying his bullying is "immature."
                    
                    He doesn't have to actually go through with his threat to disrespect liberty: simply making
                  • Re: (Score:1)

                    by Aristotle (5147)

                    If I had something to say about Tim Bray’s actual subject matter, I would have summarily quoted from his posting without feeling the need to either comply by his terms or to comment on my disregard thereof – but last I checked, none of those wh
                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by pudge (1)

                    I am asserting that it should be obvious that these commenters are therefore automatically outside of the group of people for whom Tim Bray would even consider making good on his threat.

                    That does not justify the threat, and is therefore irrelevant.

                    It follows that none of them have demonstrated anything interesting about the regard or alleged lack thereof for liberties that Mr. Bray may or may not have.

                    No, it does not so follow. The threat ITSELF is the problem, as I've already demonstrated. Whether he plans to "make good" on this threat is self-evidently completely beside the point.

                    All the short-breathed, red-faced posturing over liberties has done nothing more than make the commenters look ignorant of either the context, their own insignificance, or both.

                    Yawn.
                  • Re: (Score:1)

                    by Aristotle (5147)

                    Digging myself in deeper? I wish! That would muffle the droning diatribe.

                    I explicitly reject the notion that refusing to give in to a limitation someone posted on his blog about what you may or may not do with his words on yours, when their limitation wa
                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by pudge (1)

                    I explicitly reject the notion that refusing to give in to a limitation someone posted on his blog about what you may or may not do with his words on yours, when their limitation was obviously toothless to begin with and you have nothing else to do than yammer about the limitation itself, does damn-all for liberty.

                    You also implicitly reject the notion of basic logic, as you are clearly committing the begging-the-question fallacy.

                    Also, I explicitly hold that failing to recognise this and pretending that challenging response does any great things for liberty makes you look like a self-important fool.

                    More question-begging, and introducing a straw man. And you have no credibility with me -- and I imagine, anyone else -- on what people
  • Re: (Score:2)

    by jdavidb (1361)

    No, in addition to linking, you have to have the little obnoxious announcement about how you simply must go read his all-important essay. A link alone won't do it.

    --
    J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers