Re: Seeking computer-programming job (Sunnyvale, CA)

[Seamus MacRae]

He is not. I am neither a troll nor insane.

trouble with that is it reinforces his idea than he
can get his own way by being badly behaved.

There are three problems with your insinuation above:

1. It is rude.
2. I have not been "badly behaved".
3. In this instance, "getting my way" means having my rights of privacy
and publicity respected, not to mention the charters of three
newsgroups.

Hopefully he gets some sort of check in the real world.

Is that a threat?

 

[Lars Enderin]

He is not. I am neither of the vile, vindictive, vicious vituperations
virulently proposed by Paul Donnelly.

You are, obviously, seriously disturbed. Anyone except you can see that.
Seek help.

 

[Seamus MacRae]

(e-mail address removed) said:

He is not. I am neither a troll nor insane.

I am not badly behaved, and in this case "getting my way" merely means
having my rights, and the charters of three newsgroups, respected by you
rabble.

His objective appears to be that of convincing people that he isn't
an idiot. I'm not convinced that his behaviour achieves this
objective.

That's because you're biased, already poisoned by the slanders of my
name. Proof positive that your, and others', behavior is the bad
behavior that is in need of opposition here.

A dole check, perhaps?

So, now one of you is threatening to blackball me in the industry? I
shall certainly be forwarding this message to my attorney. He will be
mighty interested in this, since it not only implies extortative threats
-- lie down and accept our abuse or lose your job -- but also some sort
of collusion in hiring practises. If more evidence of that turns up
during discovery, you and whoever you work for could find yourselves
staring down the barrel of a DOJ antitrust suit, and not just some
defamation, invasion of privacy, and extortion charges brought by an
ordinary individual.

 

[Seamus MacRae]

Seamus, we in the community have been subjugated to your eternal
crimes against humanity.

I have committed no crimes against humanity. So far as I am aware,
nobody posting here has.

Will you forgvie, and repent, and say that CL is a superior language?

I will not.

 

[Seamus MacRae]

What "good explanation"?

Sorry that I tried to explain how [insults deleted]

Insincere apologies will get you nowhere.

 

[Seamus MacRae]

Seamus MacRae said:

What "good explanation"?

[calls me a liar]

That's an insult, not a good explanation of anything.

His explanation doesn't take VLAs into account, but that's not a
huge deal since VLAs are a C99 feature, and the number of
conforming C99 installations (expressed as a percentage of the
total number of C installations) is vanishingly small etc etc

Excuses, excuses.

I don't see any basic error in his explanation

Well, one basic error was the very fact of his trying to "explain", in
public, why he thinks I'm an idiot.

Another was, of course, ignoring VLAs.

I don't think anyone is trying to prove you an idiot.

So you say, but your very own actions demonstrate otherwise.

It is entirely possible that people may be coming to that conclusion
anyway, however, but this is based on your own statements, not those
of others.

And there you go again. A rather verbose and indirect way of publicly
calling me an idiot. I suppose you think wording it in such a convoluted
manner is somehow "clever" and will make people more likely to believe
you than if you just said, directly, "Seamus MacRae is an idiot". Not
that it matters: it's just as big a lie however you word it. And it also
puts the lie to what you said just beforehand. You clearly are, as
demonstrated by your actions, trying (and failing) to prove me an idiot,
despite your assertions to the contrary.

And, of course, that is highly illegitimate behavior on your part. Shame
on you!

 

[Seamus MacRae]

Nonsense. What about a struct that contains a variable length array as a
field?

Seamus has been told the facts about this repeatedly

I have been told a mixture of facts, out-of-date claims, outright
errors, and outright intentional vicious lies, a lot of the latter by you.

He has serious problems with reality.

See? Here is another one.

 

[Willem]

Here are some excerpts that clearly indicate the nature of Seamus.
I've also included some parts he quoted, but changed by replacing
significant parts by comments in square brackets.

Seamus MacRae wrote:
) That is normal. It's a deterrent. You are not supposed to argue with me;
) consequently, I have made it such that doing so results in an unpleasant
) wading-through-tar sort of frustrating feeling in the arguer, to
) discourage them from continuing and from picking a second fight with me
) at any later date.

....

) I have stopped. This is not a discussion; it is a public rebuttal of
) public statements that you made. Its audience is not you; its audience
) is everyone else, the people that you might otherwise successfully
) mislead about me.

....

) The evidence is in the self-evident fact of my intelligence. You may
) have noticed my erudition and correct spelling and grammar, which
) already puts me in the top percentile of usenet users as near as I can
) tell. I have also used forms of logic and demonstrated knowledge that
) would not generally be available to the man you wish to publicly portray
) me as, but which clearly ARE available to the man I actually am.

....

) Okay.
)
)> [calls me a liar]
)
) Failed. You just insinuated something about me.

....

)> No, I've done only two *important* things, and one of those was to
)> [insult me]. The other was to [insult me].
)
) But insulting me is NOT important.

....

)> It's sizeof, remember?
)
) I'm talking about your obsession with publicly "correcting" me, publicly
) calling me names, and more generally trying to publicly humiliate me for
) the heinous crime of failing to agree with all of your opinions.

....

) That's because you're wacko, so everything you read seems to you to mean
) the opposite of what it actually means.

....


SaSW, Willem
--
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any of the statements
made in the above text. For all I know I might be
drugged or something..
No I'm not paranoid. You all think I'm paranoid, don't you !
#EOT

 

[Seamus MacRae]

I do not. Lars is lying.

There is copious evidence that Shameful Macro /knows/ that he is wrong.

This is another lie. My name is Seamus MacRae and I am not wrong.

Yes, he is desperately trying to uphold a self-image of competence

This implication that I am incompetent is yet another lie.

But that self-image is fragile, because it is the result of an imperfect
self-deception.

This implication that I am insane is yet another lie.

He knows that he looks like an idiot

This implication that I am an idiot is yet another lie.

Stop lying about me, and stop trying to suppress the truth by trying to
misdirect replies away from two of the groups you're spreading lies in.

Not only does he believe that he is infallibly

Strawman. I never made any such claims.

[more childish namecalling]

That is not a rational argument in favor of any point being contended here.

In-freaking-sane. And stupid. What a combo.

Neither is that. The ad hominem form of argument is a logical fallacy.
It will convince no-one.

 

[Seamus MacRae]

struct tm

Irrelevant, and it might contain a variable-length array as a field
regardless.

 

[Seamus MacRae]

Seamus MacRae wrote:
) <snip>
) I. Do. Not. Make. Mistakes.
) <snip>

[calls me a liar AND an idiot in one sentence]

I am neither.

 

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Seamus MacRae:

He is not. I am neither a troll nor insane.

The evidence (misquoting, ignoring facts, using inflaming phrases,
reinterpreting everything and anything as personal, etc.) indicates that you're
trolling. It's amazing that Richard didn't notice even before your statement
about sizeof. I guess he did notice shortly afterwards and is just having a bit
of fun. Anyway it's a pleasure to read his articles. Not to forget, Lisp sucks.


Cheers & hth.,

- Alf

 

[Seamus MacRae]

Seamus, because of your nazi-like threats bordering on crimes against
humanity your ISP has decided that you're very close to being banned.

This is a pack of lies.
1. My ISP has received no complaints about me to date.
2. I am not making "Nazi-like threats". I am quite properly warning my
attacker that his behavior oversteps the bounds set by the law, for
which there are consequences.
3. I have done nothing remotely warranting a comparison to Nazis or
allusions to "crimes against humanity".

Now because of your mental disease

I have no mental disease.

Also, according to Godwin's Law, your side just lost the argument due to
your post.

So I guess that concludes this flamewar.

Seamus 1, comp.lang.lisp flamers 0.

Rematch in one year?

 

[Willem]

Seamus MacRae wrote:
) Willem wrote:
)> Seamus MacRae wrote:
)> ) <snip>
)> ) I. Do. Not. Make. Mistakes.
)> ) <snip>
)>
)> You claimed that sizeof always evaluates its operand,
)> but sizeof only evaluates its operand when it's a VLA.
)
) I am neither.

Huh ? That doesn't make sense. What does 'I am neither'
have to do with my statement about your claim ?

By the way, the statement 'I do not make mistakes' is delusional
and megalomanic. If you really believe that you should get
professional help. If not, you've just proven yourself a liar.


SaSW, Willem
--
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any of the statements
made in the above text. For all I know I might be
drugged or something..
No I'm not paranoid. You all think I'm paranoid, don't you !
#EOT

 

[Ben Pfaff]

Nonsense. What about a struct that contains a variable-length array as
a field?

A struct cannot contain a variable-length array.

 

[Ben Pfaff]

Irrelevant, and it might contain a variable-length array as a field
regardless.

A struct cannot contain a variable-length array.

 

[Seamus MacRae]

I am beginning to think that Seamus MacRae is trolling.

I am not.

You, on the other hand, have posted a ridiculously long attack post
after promising to stop doing that. You are a liar and a hypocrite.

In fact, I hope he is, because if
he's serious I am rather worried about him.

An implied insult of my mental health. Well, we're off to a great start,
aren't we? Looks like he does indeed intend to "prove" his points by
that age-old method, argumentum ad hominem.

You forgot

I forget nothing, liar.

I don't think so

Yet you are.

Next time, do not "debunk" unsolicited.
If you don't wish for mistakes in your articles to be
corrected, you have two choices - (a) don't make mistakes, or
(b) don't post them.
I go for option (a), always.
[calls me a liar]

You are in error about me.

You are in error

I am not.

Assertion is not argument.

That applies equally to you. Your bald assertions that I'm stupid,
mentally ill, or what-have-you are equally unconvincing, either about
the thing asserted or about whatever the original bone of contention was.

Can you *demonstrate* that I'm in error about you?

I do *that* every time I make another erudite, fairly polite, reasoned
response to your latest outpouring of fuming vitriol. An idiot obviously
could not accomplish such a feat; the erudition would surely be lacking,
and the reason. Nor could a nutcase; the retention of calm, polite
level-headedness would not be possible in that case.

That seems to be apparent only to you.

If you're saying you hope nobody else has seen through you to your real
motives, well, I'm sorry to say people tend to be smarter than you give
them credit for.

Can you demonstrate this?

Argumentum ad hominem is never a logically-valid form of argument.

Why?

Because your attack posts are off-topic here.

I'm not actually *interested* in whether you're an idiot.

So you keep saying, unconvincingly.

And your occasional asides about C are irrelevant
to two of them.

That is actually quite true.

What do /you/ mean by the metaphor "move on"? Do you mean
"quietly forget that Seamus MacRae [insults deleted]"

I mean stop posting about Seamus MacRae. Period. Do not mention me
again, in public, indirectly or directly, ever again.

[threat deleted]

I don't respond well to threats, as you are so fond of saying.

As we have already seen, just because you say something, that
doesn't necessarily make it true.

Wrong again. I am not a liar, nor am I an idiot, nor am I "confused".

To say "I think you're confusing X with Y" is perfectly legitimate

No, it is not, and repeatedly asserting otherwise does NOT constitute a
logical argument in favor of your position that you should be permitted
to publicly insult anyone you please.

[...elided...] I'm interested in sizeof.

I'm not.

Then why express an opinion on it?

I did not. I stated certain facts about myself, such as that I am not an
idiot, that you keep attacking.

Mu.

Nonsensical response.

Do I need to get a lawyer involved in this?

A good lawyer would advise you not to be so daft [rest of insult
and threat deleted]

I am not an idiot. Furthermore, I do not respond well to threats.

Ah, an attempt at a technical argument. Well, pretend I'm blind, and
explain why your theory overrides ISO/IEC 9899's position on the
matter, which is that an argument occurs only in a function call or
a function-like macro invocation.

You're attempting to reject a technical comment with semantic
word-games. Making some sort of fine distinction among "argument",
"operand", &c. is pointless hair-splitting and is not valid argumentation.

But I haven't attempted to prove you an idiot.

Sure you have. You haven't *succeeded* mind you, and you never will, but
that isn't stopping you from trying.

What I have attempted (successfully) to prove is that [Seamus MacRae
is an idiot]

Attempted, yes, successfully no.

but here it is anyway. It proves you [insults deleted]

**** you, liar.

Temper temper.

You try being even half as patient as I have been when every time you
check newsgroups there is ANOTHER 3000-line-long paean to what an idiot
you supposedly are, cross-posted irrelevantly to three public newsgroups
and in need of an equally-public, detailed rebuttal!

Fine

Then you're giving up now? Hooray!

No

Oh, yes, you are.

It seems to me (and this is just my impression - I don't claim it as
an objective fact) that you aren't interested in anything that
might conceivably expose you to new information and new
perspectives and new way of thinking about things.

Just your impression, and a wrong one, too. What I am not interested in
is anything that might conceivably trick a public audience into
believing something negative about me, which might in turn have negative
consequences for me if those people then treat me differently, and
worse, because of that.

Well, by that I mean I'd rather not see any such thing posted.
Obviously, once it is posted, I'm interested in it in the way one is
interested in any potential threat to one's well-being.

Not true.

No, you're the wrong one. No negative statement about me can ever be
correct.

No, it isn't.

Yes, it is. It is a mock-respectful way of calling someone an idiot, in
point of fact.

With your record of expletives and histrionics

My record is irrelevant; we are discussing YOUR rudeness right now. My
not quite having saint-like patience for your constant, ludicrously-long
public berations is hardly a flaw, let alone license for you to be as
boorish as you have been, or a valid excuse to let you dodge an
accusation of rudeness slung your way.

That's just bizarre. I cannot imagine any able programmer holding
such an attitude to explanations.

Explanations in general, no. But the "explanations" from you are quite
another story.

It is one thing to explain to someone something new about programming
that they previously did not know. It is quite another to "explain" to
them something they already do know, only in a mutated form and implying
in the process that they are stupid or incompetent in some way. Talking
down to them like a teacher to a poorly-performing student and all that
is just icing on the rudeness cake.

I'm still treating you like an intelligent man
Ordinarily, one does not treat intelligent men as shoddily as
you've treated me.
[calls me an idiot]

Poor editing.

No. You are the one doing things poorly here, not I. One problem is that
you keep trying to criticize me. If you were criticizing a target that
was actually deserving of criticism, that would be one thing, but
misdirecting it instead at me is definitely poor behavior.

No, I am not. You, however, are a liar.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

Another lie, and calling me a liar to boot.

You don't seem to know
Wrong!

You have been questioning my intelligence, in public, practically
from day one.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

I posted a harmless little aside and then you, who
had never even met me before and had no prior involvement in this
thread, jumped in and called me an idiot.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

Something is obviously the matter with you, but I'm damned if I
know what, exactly, it is.

[calls me an incompetent idiot]
Wrong!

You've attacked me, viciously and without provocation.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

I. Do. Not. Make. Mistakes.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

I have every right to defend myself when publicly slandered,

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

and you have no right to threaten me for doing so. Do I make
myself clear?

[calls me a liar twice]

No, you're the liar, remember?

That can proceed by one of two ways: I convince you to shut up, or
I force you to shut up. Apparently I can't convince you to shut
up. So I guess I'm going to have to have a little chit-chat with
the abuse department at your ISP.

[insult deleted]
Wrong!

What about? Well, there seem to be quite a lot of off-topic posts
in several comp.* newsgroups lately, and Richard Heathfield seems
to be the author of dozens of them ...

I am also the author of many thousands of highly topical articles.

For which I have only your word.

How do your percentages look?

So I'm a recent user, who lurked until a few months ago. Is that some
sort of a crime? The fact is, I have posted on topic except for direct
rebuttals when publicly badmouthed.

A bright, honest lawyer will advise you not to be so daft.

Namecalling again. That appears to be your answer to everything. How
disappointing.

I've hardly mentioned your name.

Explicitly? No. But you keep implying nasty things about me, when you're
not saying them outright.

You have too, liar.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

A ridiculous claim, when your very first post in response to any
post of mine was a slap right across the face.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

You do know that Google Groups archives your posts, right, and that
it's easy for anyone to verify that your first post was a slap?

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

Google does, indeed, archive posts. Shocker, innit?

In your opinion, perhaps.

In actual fact. I've had my IQ measured. I will state for the record
that it was not less than 100. Furthermore, my every post is evidence
that I possess the vocabulary and education of a non-idiot.

The subject is your opinions of me.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

Perhaps you should.
Nah.


Look up "imply".

More condescension and rudeness. You made statements with the property
that anyone taking them at face value would infer that I was stupid. In
particular, you have repeatedly criticized me. That is incorrect behavior.

I have posted

You have posted a large number of off-topic posts to at least three
newsgroups.

You must not send, with the intention of causing annoyance,
inconvenience or needless anxiety a message that you know to be
false, or to cause such a message to be sent

[Bright-line violation here.]

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

Several posts ago I made it quite apparent to you that your posting
these very long and insulting posts of yours causes me annoyance and
inconvenience at the very least.

You have since continued to make more such posts. Those posts were made
with the full knowledge of these effects, so even if you claim the
earlier ones were not intended to cause those effects, the later ones
certainly were.

As for the messages being false, as I noted above, I had my IQ measured
and I've demonstrated vocabulary and education beyond what is attainable
by idiots, and therefore your repeated insinuations about my intellect
have been soundly disproven.

or to persistently make use of our service for that purpose.

[And here.]

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar.

I'd call your obsessive replying to all of my posts, and to many other
posts by the likes of Kaz and Thomas, with more reams and reams of
insults, "persistent", and I bet your ISP's abuse department would, too.

You must not infringe the rights of others, including the right of
privacy and copyright (an example would be sharing without
permission of the copyright owner protected material such as a
music or video file).

[Arguably, posting about me publicly after repeated requests to
stop violates my right of privacy.]

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

I have, indeed, requested repeatedly that you not discuss me in public
(explicitly or by insinuation) any more, and yet you keep doing so.

If anything comes of it, I shall lodge a complaint with BT. If that
is not resolved satisfactorily, I will change my ISP, and take such
other steps as I feel are appropriate.

That last part reads as a threat to me.

Yet you did not.

[calls me an idiot]
Wrong!

Pointing out that you are [insult deleted]

I am not.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

Sure it is. It implies that one or the other must be the case.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

I'm not deciding what you implied. I'm just making an observation
about what you implied.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

I have done nothing of the sort,

[insult deleted]
Wrong!

and the mere insinuation otherwise is a lie.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

In fact, I have strenuously *denied* being stupid.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

What the hell is the MATTER with you?
Nothing, really. What is the matter with you
Nothing. And that is final.
Except that [insult deleted]

[calls me an idiot]
Wrong!

No.

If that means you agree, [that I'm an idiot]

I do not.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

Is that a threat?

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

You made several nasty errors:
2. Then when I responded to smooth things over,
I don't recall your trying to smooth things over.
Yes. In <[email protected]> you nitpicked
me,
[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar.

This is unbelievable.

Yes it is. You are very, very repetitive. Are you sure you're not a bot?

[calls me a liar repeatedly]

No, you're the liar, remember?

apparently unaware that the correct response to my post was to
either leave it alone or agree.
[calls me a liar]

[calls me an idiot]
Wrong!

No, you're the liar.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

I DID NOT.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember? And you're the screwup, too.

Obviously you can decide for yourself whether you consider it a
serious attack.

Well, there you go, then.

[calls me a liar]

Says the liar.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

[The next statement refers to
<[email protected]> which [calls me
an idiot]]

And therefore was wrong.

But

But nothing. It implied vicious lies about me.

Oh? Then what, in your *opinion*, WOULD be the right strategy?

[implied insults deleted]

My mental health is fine, thanks.

Please try again. And this time, don't snip the all-important
postcondition. You should know better than to ignore key parts of a
requirements document!

Here it is again:

Please do at least try to get it right this time.

It is up to you to preserve your dignity

The problem is that you are making a concerted effort to prevent me from
doing so.

That's a definite threat to badmouth me in public.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

I don't respond well to threats.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

That was selective quotation on my part. I admit it freely.

Well, there you go, then.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember? As you've just admitted.

What if you did? It would say more about you than it did about me.
If you did that, after a while I would probably just killfile you.

With no concern whatsoever for the effects on other people? We have
already seen evidence that the various lies being spread about me are
beginning to sway others, and that's WITH my efforts to neutralize their
effects. I can only imagine how much worse things would be if you, and
the others like you, were spouting as much filthy nonsense about me
without any visible opposition. People might even take my silence as a
guilty one.

Like I said, probably killfile you.

Perhaps you should do that anyway and save us both a lot of grief.

As far as I can recall at present, I haven't actually called you an
idiot even once.

You've suggested, insinuated, and otherwise pushed that viewpoint dozens
of times by now, if not hundreds. Every time you've publicly criticized
anything I wrote, for starters.

What I *have* done is pointed out that you [are an idiot]

See? There you go again. But I am not actually an idiot, so you are
wrong again. Or perhaps lying again.

And I choose not to have my name mentioned in this any more.

[attempt at sophistry deleted]

You cannot excuse the fact that you continue to publicly smear my name
despite my wishes and your own claim that I have the absolute and
inalienable right to have those particular wishes granted.

You keep picking fights but you're just
*terrible* at flaming!

[insult deleted]

Rational? You? That's a laugh.

For it to have been a *personal* attack it would have had to
imply something negative about some specific *person*.
Even granting for the sake of argument (and without prejudice to
future dispute) that this definition is correct, how is my
[implication that Seamus MacRae is an idiot] a "personal attack"?

That you even asked the question speaks volumes about YOUR
intelligence.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

Yes, you did.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

That's a laugh. I'm guessing no more than about seven.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar, remember?

Another threat!

[calls me an idiot]
Wrong!

My my! Perhaps I should be calling the police now,
and nevermind my lawyer or your ISP's abuse department. Your
implication now is that you intend to drive me to suicide!

At this point I can only conclude that you're laughing your socks
off because you're actually trolling. The alternative - that you
are certifiably insane - does not bear thinking about.

I am neither trolling nor insane.

And here is a bit you forgot to address:

By replying to that post, you of course proved me right and yourself
wrong, when you could have easily done the opposite.

It is apparent that not only am I NOT an idiot, I am in fact of greater
intelligence than yourself, and therefore you are outmatched in this
contest. You may as well just give up now, since you're getting your ass
handed to you.

 

[Seamus MacRae]

Seamus MacRae wrote:
) Evidently. I tried being reasonable with both you and Heathfield, but to
) no avail.

When ?

More than a week ago, but no more than three.

 

[MarkH]

Then you're giving up now? Hooray!

No, there's your problem. C.L.L will always be talking about your
fascist crimes and mental malfunctions, so you're basically stuck here
forever, wasting 10 hours or so a week for the rest of your life
responding to the group.

Even if this thread goes away, we'll be sure to bring you up, laugh
behind your back every couple months or so.

 

[Nick Keighley]

There is nothing pitiable about me.


As explained previously, you're discovering an intentional deterrence.

a what?

He's supposed to react to it by knowing better than to argue with me in
the future.
or?

Unfortunately, the deterrence only works on people that are
intelligent enough to be capable of pattern recognition and learning
from the results of their actions.

but the only result is that you got more and more funny!
I fail to see the deterence!


<snip>