[EM] I didn't choose to be the topic

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Yes, I know, this is off-topic. True, I'm not the proper topic of EM. But 
anyone who is the topic of as many long postings as I've been has the right 
to reply, not to communicate with the poster, but to correct things said 
about me. I didn't choose this topic, so let's not attribute half the blame 
to me.


There were a few things that I missed saying before:

I"d said:

>Of course, we'd all like to believe that anyone can be reached. I found 
>that to not be so, and so I blocked Russ's e-mail, and that led to his 
>raging and ranting on EM.

That is another lie, folks. What happened was that I blocked his email
address

I reply:

Oh, is that how it happened. When I received the e-mail from Russ that 
resulted in my decision to not let him send more, I blocked both of his 
e-mail addresses, at both of my e-mail addresses. Then, having done all 
that, I replied to that message. When I did so, my reply was delivered. It 
wasn't blocked. That was the last e-mail that I sent to Russ. So, it's as 
I'd been saying: It was I who blocked Russ's e-mail, not the other way 
around. And that explains his raving, frothing posts here.


Russ said:

Well, Mike sent me piece of junk that was chocked full of both syntax
errors and logic errors.

I reply:

My Python BeatpathWinner program, even in its 1st version, didn't have 
"logic errors". It had no errors that involved calling upon Python to do 
things other than the correct BeatpathWinner algorithm.

Russ continued:

A also explained to him, in passing, that he could put in comments by
simply preceeding them with a "#". I even showed him an example of how
to do it.

I reply:

Russ didn't teach me about Python's comment marker. That's a delusional 
false-memory that Russ has. To write the Python program, I'd read the Python 
book; I'd read about the comment marker. Every programming language has one, 
at least the high-level languages, and one soon finds out about it from a 
book on a programming language, not only because it's described, but also 
because it's used throughout the book.

Russ continues:

Well, on his next iteration, he did something that really amazed me. He
had corrected some of the syntax errors, and he sent me the code
embedded in an email message (rather than attaching it). No problem. I
can easily cut and paste a section of code. He has preceded the actual
code with a lengthy explanatory message to me that was perhaps a page or
two long.

I reply:

...or perhaps not. Russ's reliabililty record isn't good enough to convince 
anyone that the explanatory message was a page or two long.

Russ continues:


This lengthy preamble was obviously not intended to be a
comment to be included with the code

I reply:

So Russ says, but Russ tends to make a lot of assumptions, believing what he 
wants to about someone else's motivations. There's no reason to believe that 
it was obvious that the "preamble" was  not intended to be incuded with the 
code. Explanations are useful to people copying and using a computer 
listing, and it's convenient for it to be written as part of the program, as 
comments, so that one is copying and e-mailing one document instead of two.

Russ continues:

, yet Mike had preceded every line
of it with a "#" comment delimiter! I couldn't make up stuff like this
if I tried, folks!

I reply:

Well, with Russ one never knows how much is true and how much is merely what 
Russ wants to belielve, or wants to claim that he believes. That's what it's 
like when what Russ says has little or no relation to what he believes to be 
true.

Yesterday I'd offered the theory that I'd added the comment markers because 
Russ didn't want any non-program text with the program, and I'd insisted on 
including the explanatory text with it, and did so by using the comment 
markers, so that there'd be nothing in that e-mail that couldn't be 
considered program.

The other explanation, more likely, is that (as I said above), the 
explanatory text was intended not just for Russ, but for anyone who copies & 
uses the program. After all, Russ isn't the only person who could benefit 
from explanation or instruction. Instead of having program and explanation 
in 2 separate documents, both could thereby be in one document, with the 
explanation marked with comment markers as part of the program listing.

Russ doesn't say what, in his theory, what was my stupid reason for adding 
the comment markers. I've told you two good reasons. I don't remember the 
incident, so I can't tell you which of those was the reason. But those are 
the only two reasons that anyone has suggested, though Russ implies that 
there was a stupid reason for it, though he hasn't come up with one.

No, I don't think EM is interested in all these postings about me. I don't 
advocate them, but I do reserve the right to reply to them.

Russ continued:

Now I was really starting to wonder if this guy has much going on
upstairs. Nevertheless, I just figured that he is probably a very
intelligent guy who just gets confused easily or something. I have done
some dumb things in my time too

I reply:

...dumb things like including explanatory text with a computer program, 
marking the explanatory text with comment markers so that it can be part of 
the program listing, for one of the two reasons that I described above?

Russ continued:

Now I realize that, an addition to being a moral midget

I reply:

Wait, I must have missed the part where Russ told why I'm a moral midget. 
Maybe it's because I don't advocate the killling and maiming of 100,000 
civilians in Iraq, people who have never done anything to us. Is it that 
only a moral midget wouldn't want to hurt people who haven't done anything 
to us?

Russ continues:

..., Mike is also an
intellectual midget.

I reply:

I want to make it clear that I don't claim to be a genius just because Russ 
has at least twice referred to me as one, any more than I claim to be an 
expert on voting systems because Russ billed me as one at his website till I 
told him to delete my articles, or a "world-class expert" because Russ 
proclaimed that on a mailing list.

No, those statements of Russ's don't say anything about me. But, combined 
with Russ's new, angry statements, they do say something about Russ. You 
see, Russ was saying "genius" and "expert" long after those computer 
programs were sent, so they can't be what made Russ suddenly swithch from 
"expert and a genius",  "pathetic amateur and an intellectual midget". No, 
that demotion coincided with my withdrawal of permission to have my articles 
at Russ's website.

As I said, this shows that we're dealing with someone whose statements have 
no relation to what he believes is true. When someone habitually says what 
he doesn't believe, then we know that what he says doesn't mean anything, 
and therefore has no value. There are people like that, and Russ is one 
such.

Russ said:

He fancies himself to be some sort of expert in
voting algorithms

I reply:

But have I ever said that I'm some sort of expert on voting algorithms?

Russ continues:


, yet he is incapable of writing a basic computer
program.

I reply:

Actually I've written lots of computer programs, and it goes without saying 
that they ran correctly, sometimes after some debugging, but a few times as 
initially written.

Mike Ossipoff

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