https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdb/1996Mar/0000.ht...

The simplest objection I can see is orbital mechanics.

It reminds me, in an encouraging way, of the way that German military planners regarded the Soviet Union in the lead-up to Operation Barbarossa. The Slavs are an obviously inferior race; their Bolshevism dooms them; we have the will to power; we will succeed. Even now, when you ask questions like what you ask of that era, the answers you get are genuinely not better than "yes, this should have been obvious at the time if you were not completely blinded by ethnic and especially ideological prejudice."

Come on, you can’t mean this in any kind of robust way. I can’t get my job done without a computer; am I an “addict” who has “lost the ability to work on my own?” Every tool tends to engender dependence, roughly in proportion to how much easier it makes the life of the user. That’s not a bad thing.

Your reaction is a sane and normal one: you remember a good time, and you have some inkling to recreate it. Certainly. And to most people that makes sense. But alcoholics are different from most people, and their understanding that is an essential first step to recovery.

But John, your cheerleading for Israel's genocide --- man. Way before the election of the current cheerleader-in-chief for that effort, you were ahead of the game.

You said that students who protested this genocide should be expelled from college (you've got a friend in the White House now, John!):

> These students should be expelled from college, not placated.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/10/19/violence

And, most sickening of all, you cheered the indiscriminate pager attack that maimed children, which your friend in the White House has now got a golden pager memorializing:

> This whole operation sounds like it would make for a great movie.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/09/17/israel-hezbolla...

I could go on, but the effect was heartbreaking. My old friend, the voice in my little Pasadena apartment all those years ago, clapping for the maiming of children and howling for the expulsion of students who disagree with him? Who was this guy? Who is this guy? Had I read him wrong the whole time? Had I changed --- would I have loved those blown-up Lebanese kids back in 2002, and now I'd gone soft? I don't know. But if I'd visited DF for the first time in 2003 and found content calling for the expulsion of Iraq War protesters, I don't think I'd have made a second visit.

This made me curious and I started doing research on other problematic name collisions. Did you know that Valve’s game distribution service has a name that’s already widely used in the scientific community for the gaseous form of heated water? It looks like steam has been around for several centuries at least so Valve really ought to have known better.

Anyway, if you’re interested, I’m putting together a long investigation on whether Microsoft’s flagship operating system is in collision with a very common term used in the construction and glass industry. Hope to have it done soon