[EM] Answering Markus once, to conclude the topic

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Markus said:

Dear Mike,
you wrote (25 Jan 2004):
>If you believe that I was unreasonable to lose patience with Markus's
>endless  repetitions of replies to things that I'd never said, and
>mis-statements of what I had said, that's your subjective judgement.

Well, you did mistakenly claim that you had implemented the Floyd algorithm.
I gave concrete quotations where you mistakenly claimed that you had
implemented the Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

It would seem that Markus believes that if there's one true thing that he 
has ever said, that means that he has never misquoted me. Actually I have 
never cited as a misquote Markus's quote of my saying that that code was the 
Floyd algorithm. When I spoke of Markus's misquotes, I carefully specified 
what they were, and they were not quotes of me saying that was the Floyd 
algorithm.

I actually made it very clear which statements I was designating as 
misquotes. For instance:

Markus claimed that I had said that I've  never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm, when the passage that he posted said only that (at a specified 
earlier time) I _had_ never heard of the Floyd algorithm.

When Markus said that I'd said that I'd never called Steve's algorithm the 
Floyd algorithm, when what I'd actually said, in the passage copied by 
Markus, was that I _don't_ call Steve's algotithm the Floyd algorithm (I'd 
said that in response to another false statement to the effect that I call 
Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm).

In replying, yet again,  to a nonexistent claim that Markus misquoted me 
when he said that I called Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm, Steve is 
demonstrating for us what I meant when referred to Markus's endless replies 
to statements which I'd never made.

Markus continued:

In your python code, you wrote:
>Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
>Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
>entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
>beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.
But the then used algorithm was clearly not the Floyd algorithm:

[...]

I reply:

Markus has here established, again (and again and again) that I have called 
our algorithm the Floyd algorilthm. I have never denied that. I have never 
said that Markus misquoted me when he said that I called that the Floyd 
algorithm. Again, Markus is repeating his reply to a statement never made.


In this python code, you also wrote:
>Mike Ossipoff provided the algorithm, and Russ Paielli programmed it.
In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you mistakenly called
your implementation "Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I
misquoted you?

I reply:

I have never said that you misquoted me when you said that I'd called our 
algorithm the Floyd algorithm. You misquoted me on other things. I cited 
them earlier in this letter.

But when you keep replying to a nonexistent claim that you misquoted me when 
you said that I called our algorithm the Floyd algorith, that's what is 
meant by replying to a statement that was never made. If you only did that 
once, it wouldn't be such a nuisance. It's the endless, endless repetition 
of it that becomes a nuisance.

One of the things that I said, in my letter that you're replying to, is that 
you endlessly repeat replies to things that I didn't say. You're now giving 
us an example of what I was referring to.

Now, the question is: Is Markus going to reply to this post by insisting 
again that he wasn't misquoting me when he quoted me saying that our 
algorithm was the Floyd algorithm, though I've never said that that was a 
misquote? Or defend his justification in saying that our algorithm wasn't 
the Floyd algorithm? (I've never said that initial statement wasn't 
justified, but Markus keeps defending it).

To Ernie and a few others:

I have to admit that I disagree with your implication that the stupidity of 
that discussion with Markus was 2-sided. Only one of us was posting 
misquotes and nonstop replies to statements never made.

If you look at my replies in that discussion, I was just trying to assure 
Markus that wasn't saying and hadn't said everything that he was replying 
to, and that I hadn't said certain things that he'd claimed that I'd said 
(but I never said I didn't call our algorithm the Floyd algorithm).

It wasn' t two-sided. It wasn't no-fault. It was one person behaving as an 
idiot, not two. And yet, because I eventually--not right away, but after 
many of Markus's repetitions--lost patience with Markus, got tired of 
correcting his errors only to have him repeat the same errors in his next 
post, and began accurately describing the personality defects that had to be 
the reason for Markus's sillly conduct--because of that, several people 
identified me as the cause of the disturbance, the badguy and the 
troublemaker.

And the rest who commented made it sound as if it were a two-sided folly. It 
wasn't.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Let the new MSN Premium Internet Software make the most of your high-speed 
experience. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/prem&ST=1