MS's support logic

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 07:48:15 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:


Then there's the Northumbrian Smallpipes - a very sweet sound. (No lung
power involved, though I don't know if that has anything to do with the
sound.)


As I understand it, there's really never any lung power involved. the
sound is made by the player's arm pressing against the bag to force
air through the pipes. The blowing is only used to keep the bag
inflated, and if the song is short enough or the bag big enough, that
isn't needed.

Interesting. The Northumbrian pipes don't have a mouth tube though -
they're _entirely_ elbow-power. (I think the bellows must have a valve.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur". ("Anything is more impressive if
you say it in Latin")

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 11:19:52 -0700, Gene Wirchenko
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Aug 2014 09:10:52 -0400, Wolf K
wrote:

[snip]

The animus against accordions is like that against the pipes. I suspect
a nervous-system glitch of some kind, which prevents the victim from
hearing the sweet sounds of these instruments. ;-)

I suspect that many who dislike accordions do not like them
played badly. I am that way myself.


I dislike *all* instruments played badly.

I know what you mean - though when done for comic effect, it _can_ be
entertaining. It requires skill at the instrument in question, though -
just abuse of an instrument by a "comedian" doesn't do anything for me.
But Tommy Cooper, Victor Borge and others can be great fun. And for
ensemble playing, I'd recommend the Portsmouth Sinfonia - the tracks
where they really work at it, I mean, not just the ones where someone
got lazy and just speeded up or otherwise manipulated the recording.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur". ("Anything is more impressive if
you say it in Latin")

On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 21:14:44 +0100, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

As I understand it, there's really never any lung power involved. the
sound is made by the player's arm pressing against the bag to force
air through the pipes. The blowing is only used to keep the bag
inflated, and if the song is short enough or the bag big enough, that
isn't needed.

Interesting. The Northumbrian pipes don't have a mouth tube though -
they're _entirely_ elbow-power. (I think the bellows must have a valve.)

The Uilleann pipes are pumped by a bellows as well.

But AFAICT, *all* bagpipes have a check valve. Certainly, the Balkan
ones I see do. It becomes obvious when you see the player continuing to
play while the filler pipe is hanging loose.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 12:21:39 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 11:18:25 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"

In Europe, lots of them are called gaida or similar words, which happens
to be cognate with the English word goat. Look closely at Balkan
bagpipes and you will know why.

I didn't know the word "gaida," but without looking I know why it's
cognate with goat.

:-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 8/8/14, 2:01 PM, pjp wrote:


Isn't stopping IE as well as XP security updates kinda like extortion
and/or blackmail on MS's part?

They act as if money isn't an issue for most people and it's little to
no "effort" for most people to simply throw out their old computer and
buy another.

Get a Mac, you can easily use a Mac for 5+ years.


See, I really don't give a rat's ass about malware, virus's etc. So what
if they cause DOS attacks etc. That's MS's problem for not fixing their
software not mine for using it. As I said, I can reimage anytime so if
it don't affect me ...


Well, if Law enforcement traces something back to your machine, it can
be your problem really quickly. Unlikely, but possible. Most of the
usenet spam in the binaries groups come from compromised windows
machines. If they can post spam they can post anything.

Get a Mac, you won't have to worry about malware or viruses. It's a
simple fact.

On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 21:14:44 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 07:48:15 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:


Then there's the Northumbrian Smallpipes - a very sweet sound. (No lung
power involved, though I don't know if that has anything to do with the
sound.)


As I understand it, there's really never any lung power involved. the
sound is made by the player's arm pressing against the bag to force
air through the pipes. The blowing is only used to keep the bag
inflated, and if the song is short enough or the bag big enough, that
isn't needed.

Interesting. The Northumbrian pipes don't have a mouth tube though -
they're _entirely_ elbow-power. (I think the bellows must have a valve.)


If the bags aren't inflated by mouth, they must be inflated some other
way--perhaps a foot-operated device.

On 8/12/14 2:13 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Wolf K
writes:
On 2014-08-12 2:16 PM, Gene Wirchenko wrote:
On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 08:11:00 -0400, Wolf K
wrote:

[snip]

Principles for good writing:
a) Know your audience.

Well, of course. That's why you need to know them.

b) Clarity, concision, correctness, in that order.

Correctness is first for me, then clarity, then conciseness. Why
bother if you are not going to go for correctness first?

Because "correctness" is for too many writers the silly rules they
learned in Grade Six, is why.

Ah, I'm sure I'm not the only one who misunderstood you - I think Gene
may have. I (we?) assumed you meant correctness of content (which we
couldn't understand not being first), not "correctness" of grammar.
Obviously, the priorities might vary when you're writing other than
factual material.

For factual writing, I'd say correctness (of the facts) _is_ the most
important - but I'm not sure whether conciseness or correctness comes
next. _Probably_ conciseness, _provided_ any incorrectnesses in the
grammar aren't so crass as to make the meaning hard to discern.

Absolutely! I know of an aircraft accident where the manufacturer had
to absorb one-third of the responsibility because the service manual was
in error.

For fiction/poetry/whatever, I'd say quality of content (how good a
story it is) comes first, probably analogous to factual accuracy in
factual writing. The next most important, I'm less sure of in this case.

And surely you know that Shakespeare broke every one of those rules.
Including the one that forbids verbing a noun.

Have a good day,



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 25.0
Thunderbird 24.6.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 8/12/14 4:40 PM, Justin wrote:
On 8/8/14, 2:01 PM, pjp wrote:


Isn't stopping IE as well as XP security updates kinda like extortion
and/or blackmail on MS's part?

They act as if money isn't an issue for most people and it's little to
no "effort" for most people to simply throw out their old computer and
buy another.

Get a Mac, you can easily use a Mac for 5+ years.

You can use any computer for 5+ years, as long as it's running and does
what you want.

The question should be, is it supported for 5+ years? If this question
is asked, MS wins hands down.

I bought this Mac 5.5 years ago. It came with 10.5 Leopard. Leopard is
no longer supported. When 10.6 Snow Leopard was released, I upgraded.
Snow Leopard is no longer supported. The oldest OS X version that still
receives support is Lion, 10.7. Released July 10, 2011. That's less
that 5 years.

http://macdailynews.com/2014/02/26/a...le-to-attacks/

How long did MS support XP? How old is Vista?


See, I really don't give a rat's ass about malware, virus's etc. So what
if they cause DOS attacks etc. That's MS's problem for not fixing their
software not mine for using it. As I said, I can reimage anytime so if
it don't affect me ...


Well, if Law enforcement traces something back to your machine, it can
be your problem really quickly. Unlikely, but possible. Most of the
usenet spam in the binaries groups come from compromised windows
machines. If they can post spam they can post anything.

Get a Mac, you won't have to worry about malware or viruses. It's a
simple fact.

Also not true, but you get to worry about it a lot less. Apple has made
many patches to OS X for malware that targeted OS X.

The same is true for Linux. If you go search the web, you'll find there
is malware for Linux also.



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 25.0
Thunderbird 24.6.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Hi, Gene.

"It is important to write so that you can be understood. It is far more
important to write so that you cannot be misunderstood."

I don't know where that line originated, but I saw it 40 years ago in The
CPA Handbook. The author was emphasizing the importance of accuracy and
clarity in writing financial reports, especially when expressing an
auditor's opinion on financial statements after examining those reports.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2012 (Build 16.4.3528.0331) in Win8.1 Pro with Media
Center


"Gene Wirchenko" wrote in message
...

On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 08:11:00 -0400, Wolf K
wrote:

[snip]

Principles for good writing:
a) Know your audience.

More importantly, write for your audience.

b) Clarity, concision, correctness, in that order.

Correctness is first for me, then clarity, then conciseness. Why
bother if you are not going to go for correctness first?

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Justin wrote:

Get a Mac, you can easily use a Mac for 5+ years.

Get a Mac, you won't have to worry about malware or viruses. It's a
simple fact.

I own a Mac, but would not be in a rush to promote
it to others.

For an example why, go to the Wireshark site, and try and figure
out which version of executable, runs on your machine. Programs
released for the Mac, are OS version specific, and an installer
can insist it will only run on some other version of OS. The
Wireshark people did not mark their archive list in any way,
leaving you with a ton of files to try and match against
your machine. My Mac runs MacOSX 10.3.

The Mac wasn't always that picky, and there were some eras
with good backward compatibility.

There were certain exploits for Safari (web browser), so
in some respects it's no different than running browsers
on other platforms.

It's really security by obscurity. If a significant market
share existed for Mac, there would be malware. Even if it
was social engineering at work, such as offering software
in a disk package, to tip over the machine. People love
free software, enjoy adding browser plugins when prompted
and so on. Getting something into the machine and getting
the user to click it, isn't going to be all that difficult.

On Linux, people accept PPAs at the drop of a hat, so
again, social engineering can be used to achieve a
desired result. The human at the machine, is the
weakest link. "Click monkeys" tend to get infected,
no matter what platform they're on.

https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA

Paul

| For an example why, go to the Wireshark site, and try and figure
| out which version of executable, runs on your machine. Programs
| released for the Mac, are OS version specific, and an installer
| can insist it will only run on some other version of OS.

I think that's the real issue with OS support. It's nice
if a company supports their OS, but the bigger issue is
that 3rd-party companies often use main support as a
guideline. If MS or Apple drops support it's a "valid" excuse
for other software companies to stop writing to that
version.

I didn't realize quite how bad Macs were in that
regard until I was helping a blind friend, a couple of
years ago, who needed to download software that
would allow him to use an audiobook download service.
The windows version of the software supported back to
Win2000. He had XP, so that was fine. The Mac version
supported back one version of MacOS.
But judging from my otherwise normal, Mac-using friends,
I get the feeling that they like the way Apple does it. The
forced obsolescence gives them an excuse to buy a shiny,
new Mac.

On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 20:01:46 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:


You can use any computer for 5+ years, as long as it's running and does
what you want.


I've been using this computer for 6+ years, and it's still going
strong. The only things I've done to it is replace a drive or two.


The question should be, is it supported for 5+ years? If this question
is asked, MS wins hands down.



It's not so much whether the computer is supported (Microsoft doesn't
do that); it's whether its operating system is supported. This
computer started with Vista, went to Windows 7, and is now running
Windows 8. I don't yet know whether I'll upgrade it to the next
version of Windows or whether I'll instead buy a new one.

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 06:52:25 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 08:11:00 -0400, Wolf K
wrote:


My motto was, If you can read Shakespeare, you can read anything.

Beowulf?

My question would have been Japanese camera manuals from the 60's; I
like your question better.


My favorite manual was for 1970' era Toyota Corolla - where 'cigarette
lighter' was spelled 'cigalette righter'.

--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

On Wed, 13 Aug 2014 11:29:56 -0400, ". . .winston"
wrote:


My favorite manual was for 1970' era Toyota Corolla - where 'cigarette
lighter' was spelled 'cigalette righter'.


ROFL!

On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 14:24:52 -0400, Wolf K
wrote:

On 2014-08-12 2:16 PM, Gene Wirchenko wrote:
On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 08:11:00 -0400, Wolf K
wrote:

[snip]

Principles for good writing:
a) Know your audience.

Well, of course. That's why you need to know them.

b) Clarity, concision, correctness, in that order.

Correctness is first for me, then clarity, then conciseness. Why
bother if you are not going to go for correctness first?

Because "correctness" is for too many writers the silly rules they
learned in Grade Six, is why.

And surely you know that Shakespeare broke every one of those rules.
Including the one that forbids verbing a noun.

I was thinking of correctness of material.

However, good grammar counts for a lot. I used to tutor at my
uni's Writing Centre. I have read horrible writing that was so badly
messed up with regard to pronouns that I could not figure what the
person intended. I wish I had saved a sample.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko