The Toshiba Standoff (Linux Journal)

Posted Sep 13, 2002 22:15 UTC (Fri) by rmdirms (guest, #2659) [Link]

Say, AJCAMP,

You have to attack Toshiba the way the Japanese think. Honor and anger might have stewed from the turn of the century out to 1941ish. Appeal to someones inner rage, however deeply surpressed it is when you need to FORCE them to look at an issue which deserves a chance to serve the public rather than line the pockets of poly/psuedocrats. After all, the REAL stooges are either Americans running Toshiba locally, OR they are Japanese stooges "assigned" here but who got to comfy living in America, on relatively cheaper living costs or who OWN tons of ms shares and thus could care LESS what you or I think of the morally defunct position Toshiba, Sony, and others hold in the PC market.

Ask the Toshiba rep if he thinks the US REALLY needed to drop the nukes, (in the voice of/as Gene Hackman said in "Crimson Tide" ("USS Alabama" in overseas/European markets) "Yes'sir! Drop those nyooks. Drop those #*$kers TWICE! Heck, just as the British were SEEEEEETHING that Japanese torpedo plane sank their beloved cruisers and capital ships, the US was SEETHING that "at dawn we slept" despite some intel showing a chance and a credibility of a Japanese strike. Ask Mr. Toshiba Director, "Sir, would you cautiously consider the possiblity that the US COULD have cabled the Emperor and said, Yo' Empy. We gotta show you a demonstration out in Nevada. Send over 50 to 100 of your best, most regarded staff and some Leica/Yashica/Fuji camera-totin', journalists to your coast. Give us the coordinates. We'll let you have, for a week or two, custody of some of our important, yet disposable flotsam from the cabinet and business circles. We'll send your boys back, alive, intact, and with all their faculties, plus a dazzle or two. They can take ALL the pictures they want! Give us our boys back alive, in the same condition we loande them to ya for this evolution. But, again, referring to SEETHING statesmen and drowned sailors, I think pure, unadulterated REVENGE and Emperical Data Collection had more to do with the dropping of the nukes. After all, stick cities in the desert can only produce so much information. There comes a time when "REAL", HARD data has to be collected, and I think Pearl Harbor was the fuel that burned through any logic that might have said (heck, with all the pre-eminent grey matter of the time, I am sure the question and positing had to have expressed) "Due to the immense, medical, infrastructural, historical, and moral & morale effects of this idea, maybe we should FIRST give a demonstration, in OUR deserts, to sober them up...) (Disclosure: I LIKE military hardware, such as ships and subs, and could care less about pistols and guns. I LIKE computers, from a light-tech to a heavy consumer/prosumer slant, but I DESPISE wanton or misapplicaiton of them...I belive that qualifes me a not being a true warmonger...)

Now, if that demo failed, Mr. T Director, don't you think the nEXT step the US could have made was to bring the demo a little closer to home, oh, say, 200 miles off the coast. You'd at first think the surface effect was an off-season Tsunami (not a "really august day" was it?), but then you'd realize it was a repeat. Couldn't this have happened in stages, Mr. T. Talk about ESCALATION, as in IT work?"

Well, if that is treasonous, on my part, then SO BE IT. We are ALWAYS raised or taught to THINK before we act. Well, maybe a LOT of lives would have been lost and unable to reach this technology-laden age we live in now, but I HONESTLY think Japan would have capitulated as soon as their cameramen landed ashore back home. To do otherwise would have been VASTLY more humiliating than all those friars and admirals and cannons arriving in Tokyo bay oh a hundred years ago.

So, THIS kind of message JUST might be what it takes to KILL microstorf. Toshiba, Sony, Canon, Hitachi, even EUROPE, ALL jump to the INTERNATIONAL aspects of Linux and STOP rewarding, via corporate and manufacturer LAZINESS, rewarding microsoft for being the wretched BULLY it is. I know this is hot and political, but SHEESH, sometimes an example of extremes has to be made.

I think the youth of Japan enjoy tinkering with technology. Hence Linux (Turbo Linux) is popular, despite what ms would like to see. Eventually, China will dislike the supine as well as the posterior splaying positions for microsoft. WHen your ears don't ring anymore 'cuz their as solid as quick-dry cement, it only means your will fall under the logging weight. By the time our sell-your-granny-for-a-buck CEOs wake up, it'll be TOO late. Myopia trips up the arrogamt again. (I think a LOT of people like technology, but what we DO with it or FAIL to do with it are important problems...)

On another note, I have a very good friend, Vietnamese, with whom I worked back in 1997 when we did a major NT roll out (before I learned of Linux) at Stanfor GSB (Graduate School of Business). All the Novell was being trashed or kicked out. Netscape on the desktop was being hidden, and msie was being given front and center on the desktop. Being a rogue, I deprecated the msie shortcut off the desktops in the Library and moved Netscape to front and center. I was kvetching one morning about bill gates, and my friend walked in, and overheard me.

He scowled, indignantly, and nasally, "Don't be talkin' like that 'bout Bill Gates. Don't be talkin' 'bout bill gates. Bill Gate is my MANNNN. I LOVE BILL GATES. If it wasn't for Bill Gates, I wouldn't have my 4Runner. If it wasn't for Bill Gates, I would be able to pay my brother's medical bills. If it wasn't for Bill Gates, I wouldn't be able to pay my parent's mortgage. Don't be talkin' about bill gates. I LOVVVE Bill Gates, I'll do ANYTHING for Bill Gates!"

To which I angrily/snydely retorted (lacking the faculties to succinctly summon up any logic-class worthy response), "I bet you LOVVVEE bill gates S O M U C H you'd let him *#ck you up the ##s."

To which HE replied, "H*ll yah I would! And I'd let him C^M for a BONUS, TOO!"

I was Sooo taken aback by such a response from an immigrant (anyone, actually, for he's been here since he was maybe 10 years old, but I guess was 25 at the time of our workign together) almost FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR in shocklarity (Shock and Hilarity).

WHAT HAS THIS WORLD COME TO, where people SELL or would SELL their soul to a megalomanica (or to anyone, for that matter...)? WHen I relate that story, most people almost fall out of THEIR chairs, too, out of SHOCKLARITY, almost drop their drinks or spit out whatever is in their mouths, trying to contain total surprise.... I have to admit, I like the way our spat played out, and it was TOTALLY original yet (FIENDISHLY FIENDISHLY) servile and obsequious on his part but FUNNY enough to stay in my brain all these years.

WHEW, this was too heavy for a tech post, but it's necessary to drive Linux into places it DESERVES to be but is unfairly turned away. All it takes for Toshiba to recoup from investing in or shipping Linux is putting their name behind it. Enough Consumer/Prosumer pressure on KDE and Gnome and other GUIs will lead to quicker and better-paid product showings to ramp up user interest. Unfortunately, far too many Linux packages either have poor advertising, no advertising, or suffer vexing dependency issues. This legitimately could be dogging Toshiba, rather than having ms' rectus probiscus cracking Toshiba's vertibras (hehehe)...

Toshiba, it's better to stand on our OWN two feet, instead of being uprodded by someone elses who IS on their own two feet whose inertia is keeping you off your feet flailing like a scarecrow...

WHEW, I got started again...

Regards,

David the implausibly babbling Heretic.

This article is copyrighted by David Syes, 2002, under the GNU Free Documentation License. As such, the article may be reproduced free of charge so long as this notice is preserved and the author, David Syes, is notified. Do NOT take me out of context! Therfore, ANY quotations MUST not be paraphrased! Otherwise, wake up, enjoy, learn...

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