Posted on 07/24/2010 5:49:03 PM PDT by dayglored
Jim Robinson has laid down the law with regard to tech thread flame wars.
I am motivated to make sure we tech-thread-heads are aware of this. This vanity is a heads-up with regard to Jim's comments last night, and I've added a few thoughts of my own as an observer.
Here's what Jim said:
To All: [That goes for everyone.] I don’t see any reason whatsoever to be having flamewars on FR over computer products. Those who have a problem with Apple should just not buy the product and that takes care of that. Don’t come to FR to flame those who like the product. That’s just dumb. Who cares what computer products people use.I think Jim's declaration of a cease-fire is clear as a bell -- the disruption, flame wars, abusive comments, etc. that have characterized many tech threads, especially Apple threads, are to stop.Everyone on these threads need to lighten up! On all sides!!
I'm sure we can all abide by this reminder of FR site policy, with no loss of meaningful content, and our enjoyment of the conversations in these threads will increase considerably. Arguments can be had civilly, and without rancor. We're adults, not 13-year-olds.
Personally, I think this applies by simple extension to the Windows threads, Linux threads, indeed any of the computer / high-tech threads. So I encourage ALL partisans, pro-Apple and anti-Apple, pro-Microsoft and anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux and anti-Linux, etc. to heed this reminder.
I am going to ping a handful of my FRiends of all tech persuasions, so that we can spread the word as widely as necessary, to ensure that nobody can claim they didn't know about it.
Here's to a saner, more enjoyable tech environment on FreeRepublic!
Thanks,
Dayglored
Thank-you!
Grin, you sound exactly like me. But I've only been playing with computers for 30 years. Right now my "active" machines on my home network include a couple of Linux machines (including a netbook), a couple of Mac books, an XP box, sometimes a Win 7 box, an xBox 360, PS/3, a couple of iPods on wi-fi, an iPhone on wi-fi, a print server, some network attached storage... I think there's a 386 in the basement that I could get to boot, mixed in with accumulated systems up through Pentiums...
“”AMIGA is still the king! Long live Earl Weaver Baseball!!!””
Naa, The 3 Stooges game was the bomb. Nyuk,nyuk,nyuk.
If only you and dead people can understand hex, how many people can understand hex?
It was my second computer lo these many years ago. I just picked up one at a garage sale. You can't play "Squish'em" on anything but a C64. And there is just something so satisfying about that game!
It was.... ahem.... [cough]... a "learning experience".
I must ask, what in heaven's name type of application requires 24,000 rungs???
There's nothing hard about understanding hex... it's just like decimal.
Assuming you have eight fingers on each hand... :)
You might be able to sell them at a profit. There's a bigger demand for right parens than left ones these days. :)
I used to work in the printing industry. We had one press that had four PLC's chained together, each one had about 16,000 rungs. Depending on the configuration of the press you would use blocks of rungs.
Every function that was automated needed blocks of ladder and functions put together to give the operator control and feedback.
That particular press had TI PLC's communicating with a Unix PC, a data bus and a hybrid computer all one press. It was nightmare especially in the printing environment.
I have been using PLC's for over 25 years. I started out with a 5TI and ended up when the place closed to starting using Step 5 from TI. We also had to know Allen Bradly, Omron, GE and several other brands just keep the machines running. Understanding the nomenclature for each brand was the difficult part.
That's pretty impressive.
> That particular press had TI PLC's communicating with a Unix PC, a data bus and a hybrid computer all one press. It was nightmare especially in the printing environment.
Yeah, I imagine so. A support tech's Full-Employment Act, too.
With respect, the ‘snarking’ is not all the same degree. What you may think is “bashing” is a heated exchange over a legitimate point, and perhaps you might not be able to tell what doctrinal points are more critical than others, given you said you aren’t religious/Christian at the moment. I know plenty of non-religious folks that believe doctrine is just like a ‘party platform’ that can bend and shape and is formed by majority vote and is more or less arbitrary, so to folks who aren’t religious and don’t get why the differences are important in certain things, I can see why you’d think that all of it is ‘snarking’.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a post here that has ever been as blunt as “You suck because you’re _____”. I have come across people just looking to argue for the sake of argument. They aren’t trying to convince anyone of anything, they just enjoy arguing.
Doctrinal beliefs are important because when they are incorrect, that means there’s a problem in that places’ teachings. That error is going to be passed on, and will affect teachings after it if they build other teachings off that error. If they keep preaching that error for years, and base additional teaching off that, when those that come and point out the error and get back on course point it out, they will be that much harder to see the error, human nature being what it is. Think how hard for example it is to get government to ever apologize for mistakes. Think how it is for evolutionists to admit mistakes and errors. Global warming scientist fraud, still haven’t admitted doing anything wrong, never just came out and said what we all know.
I guess I don’t think you’re in the best position, not being religious, to determine what is a “very minor doctrinal point” or if it’s a critical one. I don’t think you have much frame of reference not ‘being in the game’ so to speak.
Me personally, I left one denomination for another after studying the denominations for a couple years to determine which one appeared to teach and believe the Bible most closely.
Don’t be fooled by folks saying legitimate infighting about doctrine is always bad. Without the debate people don’t have to defend why they believe what they do. If you don’t know why and can’t explain it correctly youre faith isn’t really that strong or real.
Remember shortly before Jesus left us he said “I don’t come to bring peace, I come to divide. Brother against brother, son against father, daughter against mother-in-law.” Christ knew that belief in Him would cause people to separate from each other, it would divide families even. Yes Christ wants unity of believers, but all of them having the proper correct beliefs on core ideas gives real Christian unity, not a false unity where everyone’s just singing ‘kumbaya’ and it’s that fake love you see at any secular benefit concert where most of the money goes to electricity and the performers and whatever’s left goes to some token charity group.
Also it is critical you are aware that there is such a thing as biblically separating from those that will not correct their error. You try and work with them for a period, bringing more and more folks to them in order to discuss the problem, and if in the end they will not see the error and turn away from it, we need to separate from them in order for their error(s)to start impacting your own teaching. Our Founding Fathers used this biblical concept in our separation from england. They tried for over 20 years prior, in all manner of petition and pleas to King George to stop doing what he was doing, to restore proper justice to the colonies, to ask him to end forced slavery in the colonies (George said as long as the colonies were under british control, they all would have slaves), to no avail. The Declaration was their document saying they would separate from England, finally, as King George would not admit the errors and not turn away from his course of actions. We left peaceably, the British were the ones who would not let us leave peaceably. Therefore we had to fight back in order to leave them.
It was a riddle—the answer is 57006
Oh, d-uh (0xdead)!
Time to jump-start my brain, seems to have stalled. :)
I sensed the reason Jim Robinson has called for a truce is that, being this year is going to be a very major mid-term election year coming up and since this is one of the big conservative websites, if not the most well-known, maybe some liberals are going to come to look around to see if there is any in-fighting among conservatives, thus to trying to justify their divide and conquer efforts. Just a simple thought.
I think also, there are some strong supporters (read: donors) of FreeRepublic who happen to be Apple customers. The environment on the Apple tech threads had gotten so toxic, with the trolls and flamewars, it was at the point where a number people were ready to give up and leave. Jim (and we all) can't have that.
That’s the system in use at the laundry I worked at, for the folders, spreaders and stackers. We converted a bunch of proprietary (read XPnsive) controllers to Allen-Bradley central control.
Quite easy to follow, once you understand how it works. Installing the sensors was the longest part of the job, debugging was done in a couple of minutes per machine type once the full program was written.
Thanks dayglored for the topic, thanks Swordmaker for the ping, and most of all, thanks JimRob for that clear statement.
I used it for awhile. It seemed solid, and I liked REXX a lot more than that gawdaful VB, but there was never much 3rd party support for it.
Octal math is easier if you cut off your thumbs.
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