Microsoft Slaves

At work someone asked if I knew C#, the programming language. C# is Microsoft's version of Java, a way of trying to dominate everything by taking away what Sun has. I said I could probably pick it up. People in the past 20 years have told me that certain programming languages have advantages. Usually it is because they like the language. I find they divide into two groups. One tells me I should use or learn Java, C++, Pascal, Perl, and Delphi. Mathematicians frequently fall into this group. The other group recommends ASP, Visual Basic, IIS, and Microsoft Access VBA. I call these people Microsoft Slaves. They use everything that Microsoft comes out with. I suppose that makes things easy, because Microsoft writes most of the operating system and other fundamental software today and you need to converse with these to work and be popular. But that makes Microsoft the dictator of everything. You have to do it the Microsoft way. That is one reason I never went for certification in using Microsoft products. The certification shows how much you have subserved yourself in Microsoft's favor. The problem with this is that competition is stifled, and the other is that Microsoft can at any time throw conniptions into your work by changing the operating system, the programming languages and so forth. Witness all the fuss that happened when Microsoft rolled out .NET.

So I want to be conversant in computer programming proficiency but I don't want to be a Microsoft slave. That is why I don't have Microsoft certification.

Random stuff

Some more substituted clichés. This time I try "my * lies over the ocean" -bonny -bonnie. I get:

body - interesting twist
boner
gummi - this one does not seem to make sense
dollar
ocean - self-reference
commie
bunny
blogger
Barney
Duckie
father

There are a lot of them, but I find Barney the most interesting. You can always find solace in a purple dinosaur.

Some lyrics that suddenly stop. Suddenly stopping is nothing new. Some of these come from Hofstadter in his book Metamagical Themas. Take a look at these old limericks. All of them tended to

There was a young man named Hort
Whose limericks tend to be short
He wrote them and then
He proceeded to end
Suddenly.

There was a woman named Flor
Whose limericks end at line four.
When asked why she stopped
She said no ideas popped

There was a good man named Lee
Whose limericks end at line three.
When asked why he stopped

There was a young lass named Sue
Whose limericks end at line two.

There was a young man from Verdun

Here's another limerick:


End of limerick. It was supposed to have said something about ending at line zero.