http://pub5.ezboard.com/fyourdontimebomb2000.showMessage?topicID=261.topic

-- Charles Underwood Farley (chuck@u.farley), March 05, 2000

Answers

Oh, my. They went and closed the thread after losing the argument.

Feel free to continue here, until it gets killed too:

http://pub5.ezboard.com/fyourdontimebomb2000.showMe ssage?topicID=323.topic

-- Charles Underwood Farley (chuck@u.farley), March 05, 2000.

That WAS illuminating. Russ "The Administrator" abruptly closed the thread because his faulty logic was being shown to the light. The arrogant irrationalism of Yourdon and Co. is truly chilling.

-- The Chaplain (clean@handkerchief.com), March 05, 2000.

One more thread:

http://pub5.ezboard.com/fyourdontimebomb2000.showMe ssage?topicID=325.topic

-- Charles Underwood Farley (chuck@u.farley), March 05, 2000.

Charles, you made a good arguement IMO, but on the otherhand I believe you're missing the point. Pardon my bluntness, but you're exibiting a common anti-social faux-pas of beating a dead horse.

TB2k on Ezboard is censored, private and for people of at least one common streak; they're happy with the moderation. You can't change that. That much should be clear to you. Keep complaining and you'll keep being censored and/or banned. That one rule has already been clearly established by Ed.

Over there you said "if I invite you over for coffee, and when you show up, I have you arrested for trespassing, will you be satisfied if my reply consists of telling you that it's my house and I'll do whatever I damned well please?"

Your metaphore does not fit this case. Ed invited everyone with a common interest, that of discussing Y2K and its aftermath. As a host of his "house", he has the right to decide who is welcomed back in "for coffee" after he's had the chance to get to know you after a few meetings. If I invited you in my house as a new neighbor for a get-to-know-each-other chat over coffee, and then you walked in with muddy shoes, proceeded to critisize my decor, and complained about my house rules, I'd not invite you over again. That is what Ed and the moderators are doing, in a nut shell.

I don't like it myself, because it's really a "private club", but on the other hand I can still discuss freely with these people on other forums such as here or via email if I so choose. I respect Ed's wishes.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 05, 2000.

They posted rules. They said that people are welcome to participate so long as they adhere to the rules.

They then silenced people who OBEYED the rules.

When asked why, the response was to accuse the questioners of being troublemakers -- and, to refuse to answer WHY.

-- Charles Underwood Farley (chuck@u.farley), March 05, 2000.

Chuck,

Water rises to it's own level (or sinks, in the case of TBII) and you're gonna be banned from there, sure as shootin'. YOU know what's going on over there, and so do most of us. Some of us have known for months or years. (I've known for four months what was going on at TB.)

Please don't let them upset you anymore. They're not worth it. (Take it from somebody who's been there. I used to get so angry my blood pressure went up.) There's nothing you can do about it, so try to let it go.

: O )



-- laura (Ladylogic46@aol.com), March 05, 2000.

If they ban me, it will only serve as an indictment of their own hypocrisy.

-- Charles Underwood Farley (chuck@u.farley), March 05, 2000.

(I hit Submit too soon...)

...because I have NOT broken any of their rules.

The rules say "Obscene, pornographic, racist, and other highly offensive messages will be deleted," and unless they define "disagree" as "highly offensive" -- to the point that it's on par with racisim, pornography, or obscenity, they have no REASON to ban me.

So if they DO ban me, the act itself will serve as solid proof that to disagree with TPTB is viewed as obscene and higly offensive. And that fact will stand against their petty rule for all of its days.

-- Charles Underwood Farley (chuck@u.farley), March 05, 2000.

Charles:

I think Chris' point is one level more abstract than you give her credit for. The key "rule" there is that Yourdon gets to decide what the real rules are. He can publish nominal rules, and ignore them. He can behave capriciously, arbitrarily, and inconsistently if he wishes. He has the power to be corrupt should he decide to be, and it ought to be clear to you that the board was moved to augment the corruption that was the primary cause of the prior board becoming unmangeable.

The real accountability is twofold -- (1) The character and integrity of Yourdon's whims and prejudices are put on public display; and (2) The substance and quality of the discussion permitted are clearly shaped by the exercise (or not) of that same integrity.

One must presume that he knows what he's doing and achieving the goals he's set out for himself, for all he keeps them hidden from those without the eyes to see.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 05, 2000.

I realize that.

I'm only pointing out that Caesar is above the law, and that those who claim that he's provided rules of conduct that MEAN anything are fools.

-- Charles Underwood Farley (chuck@u.farley), March 05, 2000.

I think you got it. Now be good and either assimilate, or shut up ;-)

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 05, 2000.

Chris:

I didn't know you were a BORG. LOL. Can I be '7 of 9'?

Charles:

Conform. Resistance is futile. If you do NOT conform, you will be assimilated. '7 of 9'

OR You can simply move on with your life and post HERE.

-- Anitaq (notgiving@anymore.com), March 05, 2000.

The Borg are SO primitive. Why would anyone with access to nanobot technology put all those stupid freak show parts on?

Simply replace every cell (as they die naturally) with a nanobot that can mimic the functions of that cell. In a human, that will take about 7 years.

Then reconfigure as needed for the task at hand. Telescopic vision, microscopic vision, ultimate sense of smell by creating new smell receptors and remote chemical analysis by examining the exact data of which receptors are activated by what, reconfiguration of lung tissue to handle poisonous atmospheres - - - the list just goes on endlessly.

As I said, the Borg are primitive.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), March 05, 2000.

Paul, you said,

"The Borg are SO primitive. Why would anyone with access to nanobot technology put all those stupid freak show parts on?"

That was truly LOL, and quite true. OTOH since transporters can "store" patterns of people, why not just keep copies of young, healthy Borg cells, and replace them in as needed?

Staying on topic,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), March 06, 2000.

Hi Paul, nice to see you're still around.

Regards

Richard

-- Sir Richard (Richard.Dale@unum.co.uk), March 06, 2000.

I'll take the stupid eye-brow thingee if I can also have the abdomen that is not just FLAT, but bordering on CONCAVE.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 06, 2000.

Actually, Anita, I prefer women to have a bit more meat on their bones than the model look. However, muscle is nice, too.

The reason for swapping cells for nanobots is simply the superior versatility of nanobots. A nanobot the size of a cell would be a very large machine, relatively speaking, and could perform many enhanced functions the normal cell cannot. Among other things, it might be possible to store a number of duplicates of the brain memory and engrams (the total brain state, IOW) in a number of places around the body. Cutting off the head would no longer be fatal. In fact, one could reproduce by fission, simply by having a store of the proper (blank, unprogrammed) nanobots nearby to take up the jobs 'remembered' by the bots in the amputated part.

Immortal? NO. Drop into a blast furnace or nuclear explosion and that would be the end of you. But very tough and long lived, yes.

And you could look like anything or anyone you wanted to.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo. com), March 06, 2000.

Paul,

I'm dying to know...

Who would you choose to look like, and what do you look like now?

(You brought it up, after all.)

-- (just@curious .usa), March 06, 2000.

Paul Davis thinks like an engineer, not like a marketing/image person. Paul, the goal is to make the aliens look kind of undesirably weird and therefore identifiable, without requiring expensive special effects that reduce profits and prolong shooting times. AND, of course, not too undesirable to disguise a nice figure. The Borg succeed in every department except good functional design, but hey, the show is social commentary, not engineering.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 06, 2000.

True, but everybody knows the Cube spins/Rubiks on peanut oil.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), March 06, 2000.

Paul,

I don't study this stuff for a living, but I thought the purpose of the borg was sort of to make a "master race" sort of collective. If the nanobots are that good, why waste all the energy moving frankenstein around when a whole civilization could "live" in that one Borg? Their ships wouldn't need to be gigantic, etc.

Also, to assimilate people, why bother with the attack fleet? just introduce your nanobots DNA/RNA in a viral vector and be done with it.

Finally, I didn't think the Borg were supposed to have individual consciousness, so why have them all look different? Surely there's an "ideal" functional shape for each task, why not just have the nanobots clone these out instead?

Obviously I'm expecting you to give me the TRUE answer,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), March 06, 2000.