Now, I think Apple suing Microsoft over the GUI was petty and pointless, but it's not hypocritical. Apple did the right thing and paid Xerox. Microsoft literally did just steal the idea.

John T


A quick point about this notion that Apple ripped off Xerox. Apple actually made a deal with Xerox to be shown their system, and gave them a significant chunk of Apple shares to be given two demonstrations of the Xerox Alto, one to Jobs alone, and one to a larger tech team. Xerox didn't have any intention of commercially releasing the Parc system themselves (bizarrely, in retrospect), and only wanted to pursue the Xerox Star, which used some of the same ideas and techniques for a system focussed solely on document creation. There's no rip-off; Apple paid for the right to do it.

I'm in no position to verify the veracity of that, and I'd agree the choice of 'rip-off' as an adjective is debatable - but it is in fact an establishment of prior art. The only way out of hypocrisy for Apple in the case of the Windows lawsuit is if PARC actually sold or gave away patents to Apple; even then Apple still cannot claim innovation.

It's a weird story, all told. Xerox never patented any of that stuff, for a load of complicated reasons. They did, interestingly enough, try to sue Apple *after* Apple sued Microsoft, but the case was thrown out.

The Alto was really, really astonishing, and very far ahead of its time. The research division thought it was the future, but apparently Xerox management never understood it and thought it was a waste of time, hence happy to show Apple whatever. The engineer who was asked to demonstrate the system to jobs nearly quit over it, as she could see what was obviously going to happen, ie: Apple would have the huge success with computers that Xerox shouldhave had. Jobs concurred with this himself. Can't remember the exact quote, but basically something like "Xerox would have owned the entire computer business permanently".

John T


The Alto was really, really astonishing, and very far ahead of its time. The research division thought it was the future, but apparently Xerox management never understood it and thought it was a waste of time, hence happy to show Apple whatever. The engineer who was asked to demonstrate the system to jobs nearly quit over it, as she could see what was obviously going to happen, ie: Apple would have the huge success with computers that Xerox shouldhave had. Jobs concurred with this himself. Can't remember the exact quote, but basically something like "Xerox would have owned the entire computer business permanently".

Heh, I was reading a post just yesterday on The Register where they had Bob Metcalfe bloviating about the good old days - brought a nostalgic tear to my eyes. Then I went over to PARC's website to take a gander at their timeline history. Absolutely amazing the number of inventions that popped out of there.

And to take a swipe at Microsoft - guess where they got the technology for Word? That's right, I'll give y'all three guesses and the first two won't even count! 

Yeah, I think PARC for a while was one of the most remarkable brains trusts in human history. Xerox really didn't know what they had there.

SuperG

rational objection to Obama as a person, his past, his ideological history, his policies etc

sharke

Totally agree. They only way someone could play the 'card' in the face of apparently rational, reasonable objections if is those objections were either:


a:  not true, or innaccurate, miscaracterized (i.e. ideological history - no claiming truth just because some
   partisan hack on fox news said it...)
b:  consistently held  (no flip-flopping)

The problem for conservatives is that Obama, policy-wise, is simply that he [Obama] has been more conservative in many if not more practices than past popular conservative politico's. That puts the onus on conservatives to be very precise and very clear about those objections - and it's a tough one that quite a few will never pass. The race card remains a valid conjecture and until either rational objection are presented (keeping in mind the context points above), or other non-rational objections are presented. Tough choices, eh?


(funny, a lot of right-wing politicos that could pass those tests were voted out of office, imho....)

One could simply say he'd never vote for a Democrat. That would reduce the argument to the reasonableness of that, at least until supporting arguments were made, and then the cycle of rationality begins again, ad infinitum.

The trouble is, Obama's opponents have been very clear and precise about what it is they object to policy wise. And they still get called racists. 

sharke

SuperG

rational objection to Obama as a person, his past, his ideological history, his policies etc

sharke

Totally agree. They only way someone could play the 'card' in the face of apparently rational, reasonable objections if is those objections were either:


a:  not true, or innaccurate, miscaracterized (i.e. ideological history - no claiming truth just because some
 partisan hack on fox news said it...)
b:  consistently held  (no flip-flopping)

The problem for conservatives is that Obama, policy-wise, is simply that he [Obama] has been more conservative in many if not more practices than past popular conservative politico's. That puts the onus on conservatives to be very precise and very clear about those objections - and it's a tough one that quite a few will never pass. The race card remains a valid conjecture and until either rational objection are presented (keeping in mind the context points above), or other non-rational objections are presented. Tough choices, eh?


(funny, a lot of right-wing politicos that could pass those tests were voted out of office, imho....)

One could simply say he'd never vote for a Democrat. That would reduce the argument to the reasonableness of that, at least until supporting arguments were made, and then the cycle of rationality begins again, ad infinitum.

The trouble is, Obama's opponents have been very clear and precise about what it is they object to policy wise. And they still get called racists. 

That's an assertion that just won't stand - the preciseness of those arguments, along with those very qualifiers I pointed out, is extremely debatable.

Remember when the right was complaining about TARP limiting executive pay be reasoning that it's not the government's business to interfere in private business affairs? These would be the same kind of wingers that would recommend urine testing for unemployment recipients. Their plausable argument in the first case in negated by their contention in the latter. Their is, of course, somewhere a unifying argument for both these cases, but it may be something they are unwilling to admit. So it is possible that they may get tarred with incorrect conjecture, but then again, the fact that they are unwilling to expose their true line of reasoning is likely due to it's reprehensibility, could be seen as them as deserving the discomfiture. 

And in the end - it turns out Obama never enforced it - giving creedence to the argument that he is less liberal than some would believe.

As I said, there is no way one can make your argument stand unless it is qualified, and I'm not sure this is the place to go into that level of detail/debate. I don't mind a little politics now and then, but for here, topics like this ought to be merely glanced upon, and even then, *flat* assertions ought not be made without some easily understood qualification. 

i.e. 'Mitt Romney is an elitist' would be normally be a flat assertion, however, since nearly everyone has heard of his '47 percenter' tape (which backs the claim), this the statement isn't flat nor unqualified.

SuperG

sharke

SuperG

rational objection to Obama as a person, his past, his ideological history, his policies etc

sharke

Totally agree. They only way someone could play the 'card' in the face of apparently rational, reasonable objections if is those objections were either:


a:  not true, or innaccurate, miscaracterized (i.e. ideological history - no claiming truth just because some
partisan hack on fox news said it...)
b:  consistently held  (no flip-flopping)

The problem for conservatives is that Obama, policy-wise, is simply that he [Obama] has been more conservative in many if not more practices than past popular conservative politico's. That puts the onus on conservatives to be very precise and very clear about those objections - and it's a tough one that quite a few will never pass. The race card remains a valid conjecture and until either rational objection are presented (keeping in mind the context points above), or other non-rational objections are presented. Tough choices, eh?


(funny, a lot of right-wing politicos that could pass those tests were voted out of office, imho....)

One could simply say he'd never vote for a Democrat. That would reduce the argument to the reasonableness of that, at least until supporting arguments were made, and then the cycle of rationality begins again, ad infinitum.

The trouble is, Obama's opponents have been very clear and precise about what it is they object to policy wise. And they still get called racists. 

That's an assertion that just won't stand - the preciseness of those arguments, along with those very qualifiers I pointed out, is extremely debatable.

Remember when the right was complaining about TARP limiting executive pay be reasoning that it's not the government's business to interfere in private business affairs? These would be the same kind of wingers that would recommend urine testing for unemployment recipients. Their plausable argument in the first case in negated by their contention in the latter. Their is, of course, somewhere a unifying argument for both these cases, but it may be something they are unwilling to admit. So it is possible that they may get tarred with incorrect conjecture, but then again, the fact that they are unwilling to expose their true line of reasoning is likely due to it's reprehensibility, could be seen as them as deserving the discomfiture. 

And in the end - it turns out Obama never enforced it - giving creedence to the argument that he is less liberal than some would believe.

As I said, there is no way one can make your argument stand unless it is qualified, and I'm not sure this is the place to go into that level of detail/debate. I don't mind a little politics now and then, but for here, topics like this ought to be merely glanced upon, and even then, *flat* assertions ought not be made without some easily understood qualification. 

i.e. 'Mitt Romney is an elitist' would be normally be a flat assertion, however, since nearly everyone has heard of his '47 percenter' tape (which backs the claim), this the statement isn't flat nor unqualified.

But all you're doing is pointing out that people's objections to politicians who they oppose are usually debatable in one form or another. Again, it doesn't mean that those people are racist or otherwise bigoted. The political blogosphere must post a hundred thousand articles a day which attempt to refute or debate some political argument they've heard the day before. Ascribing people's political motives to some kind of inherent racism/sexism/whatever is usually speculation at best, and serves no purpose but to sabotage the debate. The person doing the accusing knows fine well that if they play the racism/sexism/whatever card, the whole debate must be put on hold until the racism/sexism/whatever issue has been thoroughly explored. 

sharke

SuperG

sharke

SuperG

rational objection to Obama as a person, his past, his ideological history, his policies etc

sharke

Totally agree. They only way someone could play the 'card' in the face of apparently rational, reasonable objections if is those objections were either:


a:  not true, or innaccurate, miscaracterized (i.e. ideological history - no claiming truth just because some
partisan hack on fox news said it...)
b:  consistently held  (no flip-flopping)

The problem for conservatives is that Obama, policy-wise, is simply that he [Obama] has been more conservative in many if not more practices than past popular conservative politico's. That puts the onus on conservatives to be very precise and very clear about those objections - and it's a tough one that quite a few will never pass. The race card remains a valid conjecture and until either rational objection are presented (keeping in mind the context points above), or other non-rational objections are presented. Tough choices, eh?


(funny, a lot of right-wing politicos that could pass those tests were voted out of office, imho....)

One could simply say he'd never vote for a Democrat. That would reduce the argument to the reasonableness of that, at least until supporting arguments were made, and then the cycle of rationality begins again, ad infinitum.

The trouble is, Obama's opponents have been very clear and precise about what it is they object to policy wise. And they still get called racists. 

That's an assertion that just won't stand - the preciseness of those arguments, along with those very qualifiers I pointed out, is extremely debatable.

Remember when the right was complaining about TARP limiting executive pay be reasoning that it's not the government's business to interfere in private business affairs? These would be the same kind of wingers that would recommend urine testing for unemployment recipients. Their plausable argument in the first case in negated by their contention in the latter. Their is, of course, somewhere a unifying argument for both these cases, but it may be something they are unwilling to admit. So it is possible that they may get tarred with incorrect conjecture, but then again, the fact that they are unwilling to expose their true line of reasoning is likely due to it's reprehensibility, could be seen as them as deserving the discomfiture. 

And in the end - it turns out Obama never enforced it - giving creedence to the argument that he is less liberal than some would believe.

As I said, there is no way one can make your argument stand unless it is qualified, and I'm not sure this is the place to go into that level of detail/debate. I don't mind a little politics now and then, but for here, topics like this ought to be merely glanced upon, and even then, *flat* assertions ought not be made without some easily understood qualification. 

i.e. 'Mitt Romney is an elitist' would be normally be a flat assertion, however, since nearly everyone has heard of his '47 percenter' tape (which backs the claim), this the statement isn't flat nor unqualified.

But all you're doing is pointing out that people's objections to politicians who they oppose are usually debatable in one form or another. Again, it doesn't mean that those people are racist or otherwise bigoted. The political blogosphere must post a hundred thousand articles a day which attempt to refute or debate some political argument they've heard the day before. Ascribing people's political motives to some kind of inherent racism/sexism/whatever is usually speculation at best, and serves no purpose but to sabotage the debate. The person doing the accusing knows fine well that if they play the racism/sexism/whatever card, the whole debate must be put on hold until the racism/sexism/whatever issue has been thoroughly explored. 

Exactly!!  It's all speculative unless there are truisms to back it. An accusation of racism is just as speculative as an accusation of, say, Marxism. Unexplored accusations can frequently be used to tar, misinform, disrupt a conversation. The trick is not to engage in the same practices one decries, which is why everyone laughs at Fox News when they get upbraided by the truth, because they deliberately engage in speculation.

On the other hand, judging by, say political statements made by political candidates in their own words, we could say that conservative politicians are way more likely to be sexist/racist than liberal moderate ones. It'd be impossible to refute that without the candidate refuting him/herself - a mea culpa is required.

Now whether those translate to the folks that vote for those candidates would be debatable only in the general sense, not to anyone individual.


House, Glass, Stones, et al.