From: soh3@quads.uchicago.edu (min-woong sohn)
Subject: Re: Good news for 2.0 and other Tidbits.
Reply-To: soh3@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 00:50:53 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.180844.4739@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>
>     You didn't use an example - you made a statement.  "OS/2 is a
>totally different story.  Once you install it, you use it."  Your
>statement has been proven false by counterexample.  Why are you
>having a hard time understanding that?

Yes, I made a statement in the portion of the text left on the Wolfgang's
followup, which doesn't contain your name and the questions that I raised
to you.  That deleted part is the meat, and it contains examples and
questions.  And I couldn't care less if my statement quoted in your
followup is proven false or not, because it is not that I want to direct
your attention to.  Please don't just play on words.  Argue with substance.

Again, going back to my statement "os/2 is .... once you install it, you 
use it".  I think I still feel that I am right in saying it.  How many
cases do you need to prove it false?  Well, let's find a similar but
simpler case here.

"A crow is black" is a statement that can be proven false by a single
non-black crow.  But let's say, for the sake of argument, that a crow is
genetically a black species.  Thus a crow is by definition black.  Now,
if I hit upon a white crow, which must be some kind of bad mutant.  Do
you think in this case "a crow is black" can be falsified?

In case you don't understand, we are dealing with definition here, not
proposition. A proposition is a statement that can be proven to be false,
but a definition can be bad but not something that can be proven true or
false.  Now, an operating system is such that if it is installed it is sure
to be used.  That's why it is installed in the first place.  This is the
difference between an ordinary application and an operating system.

OS/2 can surely be installed and not used.  But this shouldn't be understood
as os/2 can be installed and used only occasionally as Widnows does, 
simply because os/2's ability to dual-boot to dos (or it's ability to
boot from boot manager) is a very kind and user-friendly add-on to a
bona fide operating system that is meant to be used when installed.
Thus, if there is a person who installed os/2 and do not use it, or use
it only occasionally, I think this person is ***like the white crowd, a
bad mutant***, not the original black crow.  So, still I feel that I
didn't make any mistake in saying "when it comes to os/2, if you
install it, you use it".  That's true by definition.

BTW, in case, you still don't know, I remind you that os/2 2.0 is
***better DOS than DOS and definitely better WINDOWS than WINDOWS***.
I am trying Win-os2 3.1 (Windows 3.1 that will come with os/2 2.01),
and it is even faster than the original!!!!!

>
>
>>can be installed and not be used.  I supplied a couple of cases that
>>support the original poster's point and said your ***assertion*** that
>>his argument was ***fallacious*** and based on ***unfounded assumptions***.
>
>     I have supported my assertion in a previous post.

Hey, I followed every single post from you in this thread and you didn't 
do that.  

>>Now, back to the example business.  The reason why I didn't respond to
>>Wolfgang's post was simply because I thought his post was not worth
>>comment or counter-argument.  You can't win an argument by way of
>>just saying I know such and such case. 
>
>     You can win an argument by presenting counter-evidence to
>contradict a claim.  Wolfgang's evidence was anecdotal, but still
>quite believable.  Are you seriously suggesting that he was lying?

See above.  I don't think he was lying, but it was hard to believe.  I
wish I had an extra 30+ megabytes of disk space.

>
>> For example, I can simply
>>say that for every copy of unused os/2 I can match 100 copies of
>>unused copies of Windows.
>
>      I find this statement less reasonable that Wolfgang's, and
>would require further evidence to support it.

You again didn't follow what I mean.  Wolfgang said he saw so and so not
using os/2 after installing it.  I can just report one hundred cases of
case where windows is installed and not used in 100 followups to Wolfgang's
message.  You obviously didn't require an evidence for Wolfgang's anecdote
(instead you asked if I think he way lying.......).  Then would you require
evidence for my 100 followup posts?  Obviously, I do not win an argument
that way.  In other words, anecdotes do not count in a debate like this.
It's marvelous that you require an evidence for such a statement.

Be smarter next time.  

Min