We do need to nip this conversation in the bud. While it is tangentially on-topic, it's not likely to be tolerated for long. If I were watching it as a moderator rather than participating in it, I'd be waiting to pounce.
You've misinterpreted the "direction" (for the lack of a better way to articulate it, not enough coffee) of my point. It's not a matter of someone dictating to you what you can and cannot do with your stuff, it's a matter of you making good decisions about what you do and don't do with your stuff.
To illustrate my point: If I just happened to be the owner of the Mona Lisa, I would take great care of it. I don't particularly like the Mona Lisa; I think it's a fairly unattractive painting of a fairly unattractive person and I just don't see the appeal. But I am aware that most of the rest of the world practically worships it, and I would take great care of it for THAT reason. If I really, really needed a dartboard, I could certainly use the Mona Lisa as a dartboard. Of course, because I own it, I can do whatever I damn well please. But would I? Of course not, because (in this context at least) I am not an asshole. This is the difference between "ownership" and "custodianship".
That's the best I can do today to illustrate the point I'm trying to make. The degree of importance of an item to a person or persons is immaterial (Mona Lisa vs. an HP 141T), the logic is the same.
This mailing list serves many purposes for many people who are interested in HP gear for different reasons. One of those purposes is to try to preserve that gear.
-Dave
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On 11/15/21 8:04 AM, Chuck Harris wrote:
I didn't come looking for an argument.... only a friendly
discussion, and clarification of some words you wrote.
Your assumptions about my attitude are probably as unfounded
as any assumption I could make about your attitude. All I know
of you is from what you write, and what our mutual friends and
acquaintances have told me of you.
Calling me an asshole because I have, in the past, instructed
employees to scrap "valuable" things that nobody was willing
to pay even scrap prices for, is fairly reductive. Why go there?
Warehouse space is expensive, and my businesses invariably
end-up smothering themselves in the things I save, hoping
to extract their value. I always lose money on those things...
Always.
Offhanded statements about how people: ..."don't understand the
difference between "ownership" and "custodianship"...", would
seem by their very existence to imply a lack of belief in the
property rights of *others*.
You say that is not true of you, while calling me an idiot...
I still haven't heard an explanation of what you meant by those
words.
If I have misjudged your beliefs on this subject, I surely
do apologize.
It is fairly well known that loss of property rights, such
as happened during feudalism, and later with communism and
socialism, leads to (or comes from) the loss of rights over
your person. Loss of property rights, communism, socialism,
and slavery are all pretty tightly intertwined throughout
history.
I brought that up originally purely as an example. It didn't
occur to me until later that the words would trigger you.
-Chuck Harris
Sun, 14 Nov 2021 20:21:50 -0500 "Dave McGuire"
<mcguire@...> wrote:
Ok, I really, really didn't want to entertain your desire for an
argument about this, because I've known people with this attitude
before, but you've made it so I cannot resist.
Yes, of course, don't be an idiot, you go right ahead and do what
you want with whatever you own, and I will do the same. But if you
own something that you know is rare, beloved, sought-after, etc etc
by other people, and you destroy it, that makes you an asshole, plain
and simple.
Nothing more. There is nothing about "slavery" here. ("Slavery"?
Really?) Don't read anything else into what I've typed, and I'm not
going to argue with you about it.
-Dave
On 11/14/21 6:18 PM, Chuck Harris wrote:
That is just a voluntary restriction you have placed on
yourself by choice. An owner's prerogative.
I similarly choose not to beat-up my car with hammers, rocks
and baseball bats... but I could if it pleased me to do so
for some reason...
If you want to scrap the instrument and turn it into little
metal shavings, you can, and nobody can do a thing about it.
That isn't really a custodial relationship.
I get touchy about this subject because I have seen numerous
cases where people that do not have any stake in some thing,
be it a house, aircraft, computer, test equipment, cars, or
another, attempt to force the owner not to employ that item
in a way that the non-stake holder feels may cause it harm.
They never seem to have the money to buy out the owner, but
always want control, at the owner's expense.
-Chuck Harris
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Dave McGuire