[EM] Final reply to MIke (don't miss it!)

[Russ Paielli]

Folks,

This is my final reply to Mike, then I will block his email address. I 
already blocked the one he was using to communicate with me privately, 
but I will now block the hotmail address he uses here on EM. I am done 
with having my inbox cluttered with his endless garbage.

MIKE OSSIPOFF nkklrp-at-hotmail.com |EMlist| wrote:

> 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, and then I discovered later that he had posted a message behind 
my back on EM in which he fabricated a story about why 
ElectionMethods.org was "canceled." Mike is a sneaky, dishonest guy. 
Apparently he thought I would never see his phoney message on EM, but he 
was wrong.

I must admit, folks, that I was lazy and foolish when I decided to 
partner with Mike on ElectionMethods.org. I should have at least spent 
some time on EM, and I should not have simply assumed that Mike was a 
normal, sane person. I am trying to do you folks a favor by informing 
you of Mike's bizarre ideas.

Let me share another little episode that sheds some light on Mike's 
towering intellect.

A couple of years ago, Mike expressed an interest in learning to do some 
programming, which he had never done. He asked me what language I 
recommend. I told him that I like Python, and it is considered a good 
pedagogical language. So he got a book on Python and did some reading. 
So far so good.

Then we decided to post some CSSD code on the site. He said he would 
send pseudocode, and I would implement it in Python. Mike had never 
actually obtained access to a Python interpreter, but I suggested that 
he could take a cut at a Python implementation and I would fix the 
syntax, debug it, and test it. In other words, the pseudocode would be 
written in Python.

Well, Mike sent me piece of junk that was chocked full of both syntax 
errors and logic errors. Rather than spend all kinds of time trying to 
make it work, I replied and suggested how he could fix some of the 
syntax errors at least. Then I tried to explain to him what everyone who 
has ever written one line of code knows: you can't get any nontrivial 
program working without trial and error. Any nontrivial programming 
requires *testing* -- often *lots* of testing.

But Mike was technically incapable of getting access to a Python 
interpreter (or any other language either, as far as I know), so he 
couldn't test anything. Fine. I figured naively that he is probably 
mathematically smart but just too old to be comfortable with computers.

Mike then explained that he couldn't handle the Python convention of 
using indentation, in lieu of "endif" and "endfor" delimiters, to define 
the logical structure. By this time I was starting to wonder about 
Mike's level of intelligence, but I figured it was probably just a 
matter of personal preference. I told him to go ahead in put in "endif" 
and "endfor", etc. if they made him comfortable, then I could just 
remove them.

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 could have easily added the "#" symbols, of course, but I 
figured he might as well do it himself.

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. This lengthy preamble was obviously not intended to be a 
comment to be included with the code, yet Mike had preceded every line 
of it with a "#" comment delimiter! I couldn't make up stuff like this 
if I tried, folks!

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, so I just gave him the benefit of the 
doubt.

Now I realize that, an addition to being a moral midget, Mike is also an 
intellectual midget. He fancies himself to be some sort of expert in 
voting algorithms, yet he is incapable of writing a basic computer 
program. He is a pedantic pretender. My embarrassingly dumb mistake was 
not to figure that out sooner.

In any case, I am now blocking his email to this forum, so he will have 
the last word. I guess he needs it, since this forum is his "career". 
Oh, he never did see fit to tell us his occupation and level of 
education, did he, even after he had the nerve to lecture me about 
getting an "elementary education" in election methods. Poor Mike.