On Sophistical Refutations

Written by Aristoteles, 350 B.C.E. Translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge.

Part 1

Let us now discuss sophistic refutations, i.e. what appear to be refutations but are really fallacies instead. We will begin in the natural order with the first.

That some reasonings are genuine, while others seem to be so but are not, is evident. This happens with arguments, as also elsewhere, through a certain likeness between the genuine and the sham. For physically some people are in a vigorous condition, while others merely seem to be so by blowing and rigging themselves out as the tribesmen do their victims for sacrifice; and some people are beautiful thanks to their beauty, while others seem to be so, by dint of embellishing themselves. So it is, too, with inanimate things; for of these, too, some are really silver and others gold, while others are not and merely seem to be such to our sense; e.g. things made of litharge and tin seem to be of silver, while those made of yellow metal look golden. In the same way both reasoning and refutation are sometimes genuine, sometimes not, though inexperience may make them appear so: for inexperienced people obtain only, as it were, a distant view of these things. For reasoning rests on certain statements such that they involve necessarily the assertion of something other than what has been stated, through what has been stated: refutation is reasoning involving the contradictory of the given conclusion. Now some of them do not really achieve this, though they seem to do so for a number of reasons; and of these the most prolific and usual domain is the argument that turns upon names only. It is impossible in a discussion to bring in the actual things discussed: we use their names as symbols instead of them; and therefore we suppose that what follows in the names, follows in the things as well, just as people who calculate suppose in regard to their counters. But the two cases (names and things) are not alike. For names are finite and so is the sum-total of formulae, while things are infinite in number. Inevitably, then, the same formulae, and a single name, have a number of meanings. Accordingly just as, in counting, those who are not clever in manipulating their counters are taken in by the experts, in the same way in arguments too those who are not well acquainted with the force of names misreason both in their own discussions and when they listen to others. For this reason, then, and for others to be mentioned later, there exists both reasoning and refutation that is apparent but not real. Now for some people it is better worth while to seem to be wise, than to be wise without seeming to be (for the art of the sophist is the semblance of wisdom without the reality, and the sophist is one who makes money from an apparent but unreal wisdom); for them, then, it is clearly essential also to seem to accomplish the task of a wise man rather than to accomplish it without seeming to do so. To reduce it to a single point of contrast it is the business of one who knows a thing, himself to avoid fallacies in the subjects which he knows and to be able to show up the man who makes them; and of these accomplishments the one depends on the faculty to render an answer, and the other upon the securing of one. Those, then, who would be sophists are bound to study the class of arguments aforesaid: for it is worth their while: for a faculty of this kind will make a man seem to be wise, and this is the purpose they happen to have in view.

Clearly, then, there exists a class of arguments of this kind, and it is at this kind of ability that those aim whom we call sophists. Let us now go on to discuss how many kinds there are of sophistical arguments, and how many in number are the elements of which this faculty is composed, and how many branches there happen to be of this inquiry, and the other factors that contribute to this art.

Friends!

I have already been a victim of the so called "moderation" abuse countless times but this time it was something completely new and absolutely frightening:

Karma Blackmail!

Please contact moderation@slashdot.org, abuse@slashdot.org and/or posting@slashdot.org to report the shameful abuse of the Slashdot moderation system like I did and tell them what do you think about it and ask them to set $rtbl so hopefully this person would never be able to abuse Slashdot any more.

This just cannot be tolerated.

Also, just in case this person starts to unfairly moderate my posts down, please metamoderate every down-moderation done to my comments as unfair and/or moderate said posts as Underrated, Informative, Interesting and/or Insightful. This is the only way we can fight the Slashdot moderation system abuse. Thank you.

--
Pan Tarhei Hose, PhD.

My friends,
Dear Slashdotters,
Fellow owners of a Mensa membership card,

After my last good experience with the Slashdot moderation system (as well as several rather shameful ones which I will not even mention) I was a victim of another censorship attack (sic!) once again!

This time, many of my old comments which had been moderated up (as Funny, Informative, Interesting and---most importantly---Insightful) where suddenly moderated down as Overrated! (Truly brilliant, is it not?) The question is: who could possibly have the power to use more than ten moderation points in the matter of minutes?! This question has yet to be answered.

A trustworthy source (which asked me to remain anonymous) told me that this incident seems to me closely correlated with the not so distant discussion in which I was subsequently called an "idiot" not less than 13 times (sic!) by GooberToo (74388), despite the failure to prove that very assertion. You can draw your own conclusions.

As soon as I get the appropriate report via the Slashdot system messaging system I will post more details. Stay tuned. And watch out who you are being called an idiot by, because he might have powerful friends. He might indeed.

--
??=define name "Pan T. Hose"
??=define title "PhD"
??=include <stdio.h>
int main() ??< printf("%s, %s??/n", name, title); return 0; ??>

_________________________________________________

"There Is A Fine Line
Between Being Funny And Flamebaitous
So Always Choose The Insightfulness..."
_________________________________________________

--- Anonymous Genius.
_________________________________________________

Comments Disabled

Hi,

I am not absolutely terrified any more, but still angry and confused. I got up and have been reading for about three or four hours straight since then, mostly the PsychEducation.org and some Wikipedia articles. I am thinking about one thing which my psychiatrist didn't consider at all, i.e. if it is possible that my problems with mood could be strengthened by my completely disorganized life style and not only the other way around.

I don't sleep regularly at all. Sometimes I sleep at night, sometimes during the day, sometimes I stay awake 20 or 40 hours straight (with or without caffeine) and sometimes as little as 8 or even 4 and go back to sleep (not a nap, but a full sleep). Sometimes I sleep 4 hours a day and sometimes 20 hours. There is no pattern at all.

The same thing with eating. It is not at all unusual for me to not eat anything at all for two days, or eat nothing but a little can of nuts a day for a week, but there are days where I eat enormous piles of food, eating half a week worth of food (i.e. what a normal person eats during at least three or four days) in one day, for few days in a row, or just in a single day with next day eating much less or nothing at all (I am hungry all the time, no matter if I eat or not, so my hunger doesn't force any regularity on me). Again, no pattern.

The same is with caffeine: there are days with 1.5g of caffeine (20 red bulls) and there are days with none. Physical exercises: exactly the same. Intellectual exercises: the same as above. Social interactions, going out, reading, programming, watching TV, driving around, walking around, shopping, eating, cooking, sleeping, exercising, jogging, going to the theater or cinema, listening to music, you name it. Absolutely everything.

Now it strikes me. There is absolutely no aspect of my life style which is even remotely regular or organized anyhow. Literally everything I do looks the same. I don't go out for a week and then take a six hours walk after which I cannot move my legs. I don't read for a week and then read for twenty hours with almost no breaks (when I don't eat or drink, I don't even need many breaks to go to the bathroom). I don't excercise for weeks and then I make forty pushups and constantly work out for an hour after which I am so exhausted that I feel that I am loosing consciousness. Everything, from physical to intellectual, from art to the most basic tasks.

And now, what's even more strange when I'm thinking about it, all of those different aspects of my life style don't seem to be correlated with each other in any way, not even with my mood swings. Everything is totally indeterministically chaotic and completely independent in that. I think I haven't ever thought about it before, but there is no clear connection between my mood, eating, exercising or any other activity.

Now, the question is: what if I started to organize myself? What effect would it have on my mood? After all, even if totally overlooked by my psychiatrist, regular sleep and eating is a basic and essential part of bipolar disorder treatment (and probably any other affective disorder, for that matter).

Could my chaotic life style be actually one of the casues of my problems and not merely an otherwise unimportant symptom of my disease? What do you think? What would you suggest? Should I organize? How do you try to organize your day yourselves?

Now when I'm thinking about it I don't even have such thing as a "day" anymore... There is random sleeping, random events, emotions, which are not organized in the day-night cycles, or in any other pattern for that matter. Does it make sense to try to organize everything? What effect does the failure to organize have on your mood and your life? Any thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks and sorry for typos or chaotic writing (no pun intended, really) I'm in a hurry right now, I have to make some serious decisions and I'm totally confused and completely overwhelmed with all of this, I'm angry and tired.

I just got home after visiting a psychiatrist and I started to read about the drugs I got. It is Depakine Chrono 500 made by Sanofi-Winthrop which is natrii valproas and acidum valproicum (I got 500mg/day) and in the booklet inside the box I've read that it's a drug for epilepsy and it is actually very dangerous and has lots of terrifying side effects. I don't know what to do. I have really no idea. The psychiatrist after I asked her about this drug's side effects couldn't say anything and told me to read the booklet so I thought it will be something minor, like increased thirst or something like that. I'm really scared. I have absolutely no idea what to do now.

What the fuck?! Searching Google for acidum valproicum bipolar disorder gives no hits and searching for natrii valproas bipolar disorder gives one fucking hit (a PDF in Czech!) while for example searching for lithium carbonate bipolar disorder gives 4050 hits! OK, what the fuck should I do now? I have no idea. Please tell me what to do. I really don't know. And no, it is not a joke or troll or whatever, this is the most fucking serious thing I've ever posted on Slashdot. This is really too much, I just cannot stand it any more. I have to get out from here.

OK, there's 2.5h left to 2004-01-07T09:00:00 GMT. I'm going out. I'll drive around, take a walk, or otherwise waste some time, and finally get to the appointment. Everything should be fine, but I'm scared a little. I'll write more when I'm back. Greetings.
--
Pan T. Hose, PhD.

Dear Slashdot,

In the long tradition of writing when I have absolutely nothing interesting to write about... [No, that's not a good beginning. Let me start once again...]

Dear Slashdot,

In the long tradition of writing very interesting stories which (judging from the number of countless comments) enormous number of people enjoy reading and discussing [now, that's more like it] here is the next journal entry of mine, which is quite unique in the way that I write it during The Last Hours Of Insanity, because in about twenty something hours, i.e. on 2004-01-07T09:00:00+0000 Earth time, I will see my psychiatrist who will most likely prescribe me some psychotropic drugs (mmmm... drugs...), some magic anti-madness pills after which I will no longer be a psychopath anymore, which means that there will no longer be the good old Pan T. Hose, PhD, you all know and love so much, who apparently has some serious problem with constructing overly complex sentences which would probably span across many paragraphs if it was only possible.

To make the long story short, I always was a psychopath, I still am, but I will be completely cured by tomorrow. However it just stroke me that even though I am seeing my psychiatrist tomorrow, I don't even know her name, nor do I know the name of my psychologist or even the name of the clinic as well as the phone number thereof. It looks like I will have to go to the reception and say to the receptionist (who, unlike most of people who work there, is a young, beautiful girl (don't get me wrong, there are quite a few very attractive women there, including my psychiatrist (whom I can't help but keep having some sinful thoughts about), but this receptionist is just the youngest and the cutest one), which I don't exactly enjoy making idiot out of myself in front of) and say:

"Hello, my name is Pan T. Hose and I have an appointment at nine o'clock GMT with the lady from the room number six, while I've been seeing the lady from the room number five for quite some time now and I wonder if I have to take some files from you, because I have really no idea what is going on here nor do I know what am I talking about right now."

Needless to say, in that case telling her that I am a psychopath would be rather redundant. But then again, they would be probably more surprised if I don't make idiot out of myself, so if I don't want to get too much attention, I should just be myself.

Last time I was there, I came few minutes late. I was hearing some voices behind the door but I wasn't sure if there was still a patient there or maybe just my psychologist was using the phone or talking with some other doctor while waiting for me, so I didn't know if I should knock or just wait, so I talked to some other doctor who went out of the next room:

"Excuse me," I asked her, "Is there someone in that room," pointing at the door and by someone I meant a patient, "because I am hearing some voices but I am not sure..." and before I said that I am not sure if it is a patient or just my doctor talking to someone while waiting for me, the lady looked at me and slowly and carefully said: "Yes, there is someone in that room" and walked away.

I felt quite uncomfortable when everyone waiting in the hall started to look at me, as I knew that they thought, just like the lady I talked to, that I was asking if there is anyone in that room, because I hear voices but it doesn't mean that there actually is someone talking, as I often hear those voices...

I always behave quite strangely when I am there (or when I am anywhere else, for that matter) so I am prepared for feeling stupid tomorrow. To make things worse, I am afraid that my psychiatrist might not tie me up and force me to have sex with her. Not that I ever secretely wanted her to do so, it's just that when I first saw her, I thought she looks just like a woman who wears a latex underwear and who would like to beat me up and... You know... Never mind...

Now when I'm thinking about it, I might not get any drugs yet, as she will probably send me to electroencephalography and possibly computer tomography or magnetic resonance first. I hope that it will not take too long, though. I already decided to to screw everything and just wait for the drugs and try to actually change anything after I start controlling my mood, and meanwhile just, as we say here, "have everything in my arse" (not literally of course). I already know that without any help of psychopharmacology I am completely unable to change anything, as I have already tried countless times only to fail miserably, so I might just screw it as well and only think about it after I actually start the treatment. That's funny, it looks like I am already addicted to those drugs even though I have yet no idea even what drugs those are.

I often wonder how the treatment will change my life, how it will be like to start literally everything from the ground up, how I myself will change. I wonder if they suggest me a group therapy. A year ago I would never agree, but now I'm not so sure. It would be rather uncomfortable at first, in an emotionally exhibitionistic way, that's for sure, but might be actually quite interesting and even somewhat entertaining as soon as I get used to it. Something like the nudist beach, I imagine.

I don't know what to do with those last hours. I know I won't do anything even remotely constructive and I won't even try. I only wish I won't fall down before the appointment. Unfortunately I feel some physical signs that I will get down pretty soon. And with my rapid cycles "pretty soon" might mean the next hour... In any case, when I will start falling down, I will not be able to avoid it, not before the treatment, so instead of trying to not fall down, I will have to focus on not giving it too much of a significance. It's easy to talk about it now, but I have never succeeded to emotionally ignore a depressive episode. Well, obviously... It's hard to emotionally ignore depression, which is in itself as emotional as it can possibly get.

Oh, yes, I'm almost sure I'll be going down in the next few hours. I feel like I had a fever, but I don't. I don't feel like writting any more. Maybe I'll try to read something and then get some sleep, but the problem is that I don't want to sleep when I'm feeling that way, because I know I will have some terrible nightmares.

I've just found a very strange Slashdot link with equally strange comments and many links to quite interesting discussions, like this one I've just read. Or maybe it's not strange at all, but just my skewed perception makes it so right now. I should probably get back to it when I feel more "normal." Now I feel quite strangely but it's actually pretty usual in my case when I'm down or going down. I feel exactly as if I had a fever. I always keep a thermometer nearby, to make sure if I have a fever or only feel like I had. An hour ago I had 36.7 and now I have 36.5 Celsius degrees which is hardly a fever by any stretch of imagination, still I am very cold, I have shudders, but when I try to heat myself, I only get more shudders and start sweating.

I really hate feeling that way because I don't understand it. When I feel that I have a fever and I indeed have a fever then I know that everything is more or less under control, I know what to do, I'd get some aspirin, have a cup of tea, get some sleep and get better, but now, when I feel like I had a serious fever and I have no fever at all, I have really no idea what to do, I don't understand what's going on. I have to remember to tell my psychiatrist about it.

Just in case there is anyone who is still reading at this point, please take my sincere apology for mercilessly boring you to death. I think I'll stop writing now, post it already and start reading something which is not very intellectualy challenging, as my intellect is starting to seriously malfunction. Slashdot seems perfect.

The pointa? There is no other than the rather obvious conclusion that I most definitely need professional help. Period. Well, maybe the fact that I have already accepted my need for help and got to the point where I even make fun of my psychopathia is a sign that I am going forward. I can only hope so. But I don't want to think about it before I visit my psychiatrist, because that very visit is the beginning of moving forward. As a sidenote I might add that this journal is probably going to be an interesting... journal of my long journey towards the sanity. Have a nice day.

Sincerely,
Pan T. Hose, PhD.

My Dear Slashbots, Fellow Mensans, Moderators,
Ladies and Gentlemen!

I wish all of you a Happy New Year!

The year 2003 was a Bad Year, the most manic-depressive year in my life. The 2004 is going to be the year of psychiatric treatment and psychotropic drugs, i.e. a Good Year (even though I use Debica (pun most definitely indended)).

In the last journal of mine as well as in the previous one I was talking about a major depressive episode which seemed to be starting. Well, actually it was not the case. Most probably I cought flu and the fever caused the usual psychotic features, but without the full-featured episode of extreme depression. There was a paranoia and some moderate attacks of panic, I was completely overwhelmed by obsessive, compulsive thoughts hijacking my entire focus, which were, however, not stricte depressive in nature.

Anyway, with a little help of paracetamol and lots of caffeine in the form of numerous cappuccinos, espressos, nearly a dozen of Red Bulls and some pills (now when I'm thinking about it I consumed at least 1500mg of caffeine during that day; note to self: find out the LD50) I stayed awake, sane and headacheless during the New Year's Eve, but then I felt asleep for something like twenty hours, woke up, drank four Red Bulls and some Coke to get rid of the headache, felt asleep again after few hours, slept some more, I'm not quite sure for how long or even whether it was the last time, and now I'm still a little bit out of phase and somehow confused. Not depressive though, just apathetic and totally confused.

Now, I forgot what was my point... Sorry.

By the way, I'm somewhat concerned about the interaction of caffeine with antidepressants and mood stabilizers. In few days I will have some psychotropic drugs prescribed and as you can see I tend to overdose caffeine sometimes. The caffeine itself is not such a big deal but I'm afraid it can strengthen the effect of some other drugs. Fortunately I don't use nicotine, ethanol or any other drugs, so the interaction issue is quite straightforward, only caffeine and whatever drug I will get, still I wouldn't like to do anything stupid nonetheless.

If anyone of you has any experience with heavy doses of caffeine (something of the abovementioned example's caliber) combined with drugs commonly used in the treatment of bipolar disorder, unipolar depression and other affective disorders, please drop me a line and share your experience. Thanks.

OK, I feel that it's getting harder to think flawlessly, so I think I'll read something relaxing about application-level memory management and then get some sleep.

Once again, Happy New Year!

Pan T. Hose, PhD.

I can't fall down before the New Year party. I have to do something. But I don't know what. I have no idea. Maybe I'll just try to get some sleep. Damn it, I was in the middle of the spectrum for so long and now, just before the party, I'm falling down. I have a terrible headache, my head is empty, hurts like hell, and I am starting to panic. I have to get some sleep and try to think when I get up. Maybe lots of caffeine will help me. I can only hope. Wish me good luck. Thanks. Sorry for my writing, it's terribly difficult to think or do anything right now. Happy new year... Pan T. Hose.

Dear Slashdotters,

As all of you remember, in "I Was a Victim of Another 'Mod-Bombing' Censorship Attack," my previous journal entry, I wrote, I quote:

Dear Slashdotters,

I am sure some of you might remember my last journal entry entitled The Slashdot Forum Seems To Be Broken, where I have written, I quote:

Dear Slashdotters,

I am not sure whether anyone will be able to read this article, as there seem to be rather strange problems with the Slashdot forum lately. Just few minutes ago, when trying to send a long post explaining the often overlooked but remarkably essential difference between capability system in the sense of Norman Hardy's research and the POSIX capabilities as implemented in the GNU Hurd kernel and why it will not be straightforward to implement native capabilities in any POSIX-compliant Unix kernel using the example of the famous BSD port to KeyKOS system, I got this erroneous message and completely lost the effect of nearly two hours of writing:

<!-- error message -->
<!-- newdiscussion form.newdiscussion -->
<!-- Error type: comments post limit daily -->

Call It A Night, Cowboy!

Slashdot only allows a user with your karma to post 10 times per day (more or less, depending on moderation). You've already shared your thoughts with us that many times. Take a breather, and come back and see us in 24 hours or so.

If you think this is unfair, please email posting@slashdot.org with your username "Pan T. Hose". Let us know how many comments you think you've posted in the last 24 hours.

<!-- end error message -->

As you can plainly see, something is apparently broken. I will not email posting@slashdot.org because probably many other Slashdot users are experiencing the very same error and have already reported it, and I don't want to slashdot Slashdot (pun not intended) overwhelming them with another instance of the same error report. [...]

Now, this new journal entry is an update to the two abovementioned older ones, the most important and equally unbelievable issue being the fact that soon after publishing the very last journal of mine, the whole ISP I am using was banned from using Slashdot! That's right. When trying to post a comment (in my own journal, I might add) I got this erroneous message:

Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet [as I found out it was a subnet, actually a class B network] comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email moderation@slashdot.org with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, [...] and (optionally, but preferably) your IP number [...] and your username "Pan T. Hose".

So, I have not written to posting@slashdot.org last time but I have written to moderation@slashdot.org this time. Of course I thought "this [was] unfair" to punish most of the city I live in for four of my comments even if (I said if) those comments were indeed inappropriate.

At the time of this errour I already knew I was going to be able to post only few comments per day (all of them with Score:-1) but as soon as I tried to actually post one, it turned out that I (and, in fact, the city as a whole) was not going to be able to post even one post ever again. So, after few days of "sit[ting] in the timeout corner" I said "That's it!" and decided to contact moderation@slashdot.org. I wrote a long letter explaining in details why I strongly believe it is not fair for the whole city to suffer for what I did and that even though I cannot agree with the degree of inappropriateness of said four posts of mine, I am more than willing to personally take full responsibility nonetheless, asking the Slashdot management to stop censoring every citizen of my city except myself, for they had not done anything wrong whatsoever.

What was the Slashdot reaction, you might ask? I am hereby proud to announce that almost instantly after my intervention, not only my entire city (to my great surprise, including myself) got access to Slashdot back, but also my "Karma" was restored to the exellent state from before this sahemful "moderation-bombing" incident! I am still impressed. Thank you, Slashdot, and have a Happy New Year!

(And now please excuse me because I feel that I'm falling down. It looks like the next major depressive episode is starting or something. God damn it... I can't even write normally. Sorry. Fortunately I will get some drugs soon. I can't think. I feel that my head is empty. Thinking is so hard and painful. This is hopeless. I'm sorry. Happy New YEar.)

Sincerely,
Pan T. Hose, PhD.

Dear Slashdotters,

I am sure some of you might remember my last journal entry entitled The Slashdot Forum Seems To Be Broken, where I have written, I quote:

Dear Slashdotters,

I am not sure whether anyone will be able to read this article, as there seem to be rather strange problems with the Slashdot forum lately. Just few minutes ago, when trying to send a long post explaining the often overlooked but remarkably essential difference between capability system in the sense of Norman Hardy's research and the POSIX capabilities as implemented in the GNU Hurd kernel and why it will not be straightforward to implement native capabilities in any POSIX-compliant Unix kernel using the example of the famous BSD port to KeyKOS system, I got this erroneous message and completely lost the effect of nearly two hours of writing:

<!-- error message -->
<!-- newdiscussion form.newdiscussion -->
<!-- Error type: comments post limit daily -->

Call It A Night, Cowboy!

Slashdot only allows a user with your karma to post 10 times per day (more or less, depending on moderation). You've already shared your thoughts with us that many times. Take a breather, and come back and see us in 24 hours or so.

If you think this is unfair, please email posting@slashdot.org with your username "Pan T. Hose". Let us know how many comments you think you've posted in the last 24 hours.

<!-- end error message -->

As you can plainly see, something is apparently broken. I will not email posting@slashdot.org because probably many other Slashdot users are experiencing the very same error and have already reported it, and I don't want to slashdot Slashdot (pun not intended) overwhelming them with another instance of the same error report. I just wanted to warn you about this error and strongly urge you to make backup copies of every Slashdot comment you write. [...]

Now, this new journal entry is an update to the abovequoted older one. But first let me explain why did I think that the Slashdot Slashcode code was broken in the first place. The reason is actually quite simple, yet shocking. Let us focus on this part of the erroreous message: "Slashdot only allows a user with your karma to post 10 times per day" (emphasis added).

Of course while reading this very message I found it quite impossible or at least hard to believe (now, why shouldn't I?) that Slashdot might limit in any way posts posted by users with Karma: Excellent and therefore I naturally assumed it had to be caused by some error, as there was no other plausible explanation.

At that time, I had no idea what I was going to find out very soon. To my great surprise, it turned out that my Karma was no longer Excellent! That's right. But why?! --- you might ask. Why indeed...

Because of an attack. The evidence is here . Just in case it is removed, here's a copy:

Slashdot Message for Pan T. Hose
[ Message Preferences | List Messages ]
Comment Moderation
sent by Slashdot Message System on 1:05 Saturday 27 December 2003

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Funny (+1).

It is currently scored Funny (2).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Funny (+1).

It is currently scored Funny (3).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Funny (+1).

It is currently scored Funny (4).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Funny (3).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Funny (+1).

It is currently scored Funny (4).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Funny (+1).

It is currently scored Funny (5).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Funny (4).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Funny (+1).

It is currently scored Funny (5).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Funny (4).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Funny (3).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Funny (2).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Funny (1).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (0).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Funny (+1).

It is currently scored Funny (1).

No, this is NOT funny at all , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (0).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (0).

I will not "fucking live with it" (sic) , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (0).

I will not "fucking live with it" (sic) , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (-1).

No, this is NOT funny at all , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (-1).

This is not funny , posted to Weird Presents Anyone? , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (-1).

Is this legal? , posted to Science & Industry 0.97b Half-Life Mod Release , has been moderated Offtopic (-1).

It is currently scored Offtopic (0).

Is this legal? , posted to Science & Industry 0.97b Half-Life Mod Release , has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (-1).

This moderation pattern might surely look strange to some of you, especially those who are new here. It is called "mod[eration]-bombing" and as much as I'd love to believe otherwise, this is hardly the first time such an attack on my person has taken place.

I am suspecting that someone is trying to censor me because I dared to say that I am a psychopath, a member of menthal minority not tolerated by many ignorants for some reason. Having an exceptionally high intelligence quotient makes the interaction with the (mostly stupid, I might add) society annoying enough without being foolishly discriminated by the abovementioned psychopathophobic society. But of course those ignorant fools couldn't possibly understand it.

Now, back to the meritum. Most of this down-moderating farce has taken place in a discussion where the message "Go FUCK Yourself!" (original emphasis) was actually moderated up as Insightful! (You can check it out for yourself if you don't believe me.) When I saw this "Insightful" comment it was already clear to me that the moderators of this discussion were hardly judging our comments stricte meritoriously, to say the very least.

You can draw your own conclusions (which should be quite obvious at this point already).

Now, what is even more surprising is the fact that I don't remember posting most of the messages which were moderated as "Troll" during this "mod-bombing" marathon in the first place... Could Slashdot be possibly compromised? I hope not. It is one of the most important parts of the Internet, as far as the free exchange of intelligent thought and freedom of speech is concerned. It would be a shameful day in the history of freedom. Scary thought...

--
??=define name "Pan T. Hose"
??=define title "PhD"
??=include <stdio.h>
int main() ??< printf("%s, %s??/n", name, title); return 0; ??>

Dear Slashdotters,

I am not sure whether anyone will be able to read this article, as there seem to be rather strange problems with the Slashdot forum lately. Just few minutes ago, when trying to send a long post explaining the often overlooked but remarkably essential difference between capability system in the sense of Norman Hardy's research and the POSIX capabilities as implemented in the GNU Hurd kernel and why it will not be straightforward to implement native capabilities in any POSIX-compliant Unix kernel using the example of the famous BSD port to KeyKOS system, I got this erroneous message and completely lost the effect of nearly two hours of writing:

<!-- error message -->
<!-- newdiscussion form.newdiscussion -->
<!-- Error type: comments post limit daily -->

Call It A Night, Cowboy!

Slashdot only allows a user with your karma to post 10 times per day (more or less, depending on moderation). You've already shared your thoughts with us that many times. Take a breather, and come back and see us in 24 hours or so.

If you think this is unfair, please email posting@slashdot.org with your username "Pan T. Hose". Let us know how many comments you think you've posted in the last 24 hours.

<!-- end error message -->

As you can plainly see, something is apparently broken. I will not email posting@slashdot.org because probably many other Slashdot users are experiencing the very same error and have already reported it, and I don't want to slashdot Slashdot (pun not intended) overwhelming them with another instance of the same error report. I just wanted to warn you about this error and strongly urge you to make backup copies of every Slashdot comment you write. Have a nice day and have a happy new year!

Dear friends, fellow Mensans, Slashdotters,

It was a long time since I wrote on Slashdot. During that period I kept experiencing the usual symptoms of bipolar disorder with rapid cycling and psychotic features, sometimes cycling faster, sometimes slower, but quite consistently getting stronger over time on both sides of the spectrum lately.

I came to the rather obvious conclusion that I have completely wasted my whole life. I have no doubts about it and the only thing which is changing is that sometimes for that reason I literally cannot move for hours, while when I feel manic I find it funny that I am such a loser.

In about two weeks I will start a psychiatric treatment. I can only hope that the drugs I will have prescribed will be an effective cure for my misery. As a sidenote I wonder if anyone remembers coding ANSI-C on ISO 646-1983 ICS. Yes, I am changing the subject because I desperately try to focus on something else while waiting for the medication.

I spent the "Marry X-Mas" alone and totally down. The "Happy New Year" is likely to look the same. I do really hope the year 2004 is going to be better than 2003, the most (manic-)depressive year in my wasted life.

Now, all I can say for sure is that I need drugs. When I'm down I don't see any way to possibly change anything. When I'm high I don't see any need. What about the middle? Well, actually I don't know, I don't get there very often, but let's find out with a little help of mood stabilizers. Meantime, maybe I'll write something interesting on Slashdot, but I wouldn't count on it.

Happy New Year, greetings from your favorite psychopath.

--
Pan T. Hose, PhD