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At first I felt kind of stupid posting the question, but after reading the responses I think it was mod'd up for being a valid question. I completely missed the point, yes. It converts XML to ODF - but the question is still valid, no? what's the point. Where's the actual practical use. Heck, I should get +5. Nobody can really tell me aside from,

"You're NO LONGER GOING TO BE CRUSHED UNDER THE WEIGHT OF MICROSOFTS PROPRIETARY XML.... which isn't proprietary...."

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speaking of a big crush

Ok, my mistake - it converts TO ODF from XML ; but aside from the incredible sense of freedom you experience getting out from under the crushing weight of MS proprietary format (haha) -- does this actually, at the moment, open up any new avenues for anybody?

Like someone else commented, OpenOffice and already import and export to microsoft word. So is this really a practical utility, or does it just make everybody happy that hates Microsoft but still actually uses them?

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Open What?

Can I ask, since the article doesn't seem to really explain -- what good is this? I know converting to XML is supremely important _in theory_ so that your documents can be easily parsed and used among other software applications - but say for example:

I have a document
I convert it to XML

then what? Is this excellent news in theory, or is there a demand for this?

I honestly don't know, I'm not claiming there isn't. Please tell me.

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this isn't xml

I think on the one hand, Gawker Media has gotten a *lot* of publicity from this - particularly after being discovered. Every news story on the incident has a link to their web page. But on the other hand, they now face a barrage of legal battles after admitting publicly that the uploader (belowtheradar) is '[their] video guy...'.

I doubt anybody will follow in their footsteps once the courts make an example of them, and that is very likely to happen.

In related news, The halfwit blowhard Amanda Congdon managed to get her little 'quote' of disdain in to the news article above ; so it's official, every worthless media-wh0&e not worth watching has gotten their 15 minutes of fame. Way to push the story.

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speaking of 15 minutes of fame.

hahahahaha, Universities are repositories of advanced knowledge!

that's awesome. Do they keep it in cans? Or ziplock baggies?

You failed to proof read his post, demand footnotes and show approval of future edits with, "So long as people understand, _I_ would have no problem".

Pompous academic.

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speaking of pompei

I think the problem is that the system is defrauded by the government itself *cough*bush*cough* with a paper system or a touch-screen system when the votes AREN'T TALLIED BY REAL PEOPLE.

Look at the scene in Fahrenheit 911 where they show a recount finding a whole stack of identical votes stuck together and inserted into the tallying system. Do you think pencil would rule that out? HUMAN COUNTING FIXES THAT.

People will not have confidence in the voting system for a very long time, dubya made sure of that.

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speaking of very long time

I'm not saying Microsoft hasn't screwed up here, but the author of this little 'blurb' put a very anti-microsoft spin on it. The representative they spoke to had said Microsoft was taking care of the issue and offered the only possible solution that could be offered - refund or waiting for a new key.

This wouldn't be unacceptable if you had a problem _installing_ vista and the sales guy at the store said, "I don't know why you're having a problem, we'll have to have a technical rep. get back to you". It just sounds horrible because it's something simple like a 'product key'. Well guess what - not everybody can make those.

They are probably under the tightest lock & key system microsoft has because you _don't_ want anybody, even most of your own employees, to be able to create valid keys.

I think the article's overzealous hatred of microsoft is apparent when the author says, " If Microsoft does not have this issue fixed very soon, they are going to have a lot of unhappy customers ". I'm sorry but I think Microsoft actually knows that, and so do I.

Don't insult our intelligence.

That whole anti-ms rant was written based on 1 phone call to a rep that sounded, surprise! reasonable.

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surprise!

Just like a trade-show where you're selling your product to consumers, you want to sell your company to these potential hiree's. You can't argue that hot women don't attract more men to your booth, and make them more likely to remember you and what your company does. The same goes for attractive men if you're trying to attract women.

It's hard to attend a trade-show now where at least one company hasn't hired for the show directly from a modeling agency. And of course there are staffing-companies setup for the same purpose.

speaking of hot chicks.

Just like Metallica's bull$#&T war against piracy Microsoft benefits from and was built on the concept of _almost every computer_ running it's software. The company might 'claim' to have a serious problem with piracy, hell they might fund major sting operations and propaganda to dissuade piracy but what they really want to dissuade is people not buying their software when they can afford to.

What they won't admit, and what would crush them completely is if they actually got rid of every pirated copy of microsoft windows in the world. If the entire country of romania never ran microsoft products, you would have an entire country of linux fans contributing to linux's evolution and coding software exclusively (or mostly) for linux platforms.

What kind of jolt would that be to Microsoft? A major one I think. But romania would have lost out as well (numbers wise), since Linux has traditionally been more complicated for new-users to use and receive support on than windows.

Metallica can afford to sue and chase-down and arrest their own fans, because after they used bootlegging of tapes to become world-famous while fans footed the bill of reproduction and distribution -- they have enough money to re-write history and say that napster is bad. How many people buy music they've never heard before? You can't sell CD's to the world by just showing off a picture of some faggy guys in tights, just like Microsoft can't possibly sell Windows to 90% of the people on earth using personal computers.

But trust me, they want to be on 90% of the computers.

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metallicas new album?

What we need is a foam-cell with a small chunk of unreacted potassium enveloped in a bucky-ball attached to it, with a detonator mechanism.

"Oohhh, jeeez my chest feels like it's on fire"
"You're probably just getting over a heart-attack... drink some milkshake, it'll cool ya down"

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speaking of milkshake

It's interesting that they're reporting this ; but you can't take flat-out numbers with a grain of salt. They're either correct or complete lies ; and I think we all know they have to be complete lies.

These companies don't report half the cases of identity theft to end-consumers, banks and definitely not the police because they don't want to alarm anybody -- especially when the case is unsolvable. I've had my bank card 'suspended' 3 times in the past two years because someone has stolen my pin and copied the card at a gas station or variety store and the bank tells me only, "The card was copied along with a number of other cards. Your account hasn't been effected, just come into the bank for a new card and choose a new pin".

My account hasn't been affected because the bank noticed it and silently footed the bill ; only even bothering to tell me because I couldn't use the card. I imagine a credit card that has no PIN on it - you would never notice ; and how much easier would it be to copy a credit card. You don't need to read the pin over someone's shoulder.

If theft is down or up you'll never know the truth. If it's down by half, why wouldn't they say it's down by 3/4's. Even a reduction, if it occurred would likely be embellished.

Speaking of embellished.

This looks to me like a promising step towards machinery for cleaning arteries. I imagine it won't be past our own life-times (we that aren't close to dead) before technology like this silently and efficiently ensures we never die of clogged arteries, strokes, blood clots.

Then we can sit in front of our computers all day long eating cheesy nacho's and injecting ourselves with nano fat collectors.

Mmmmm... nachos.

I was 1.walking down Yonge Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and my 2.RIM started vibrating. I was really surprised to find I had received an advertisement. An advertisement that I did not request, and definitely did not want to see. It was just a link to a web page but even still, it was very upsetting.

3.I think we need to get on top of this problem before it gets out of hand. Bluetooth marketing is going to go viral in very short time. 4.Once someone realizes that they can offer this type of advertising medium to the less-tech-savvy businesses out there with simple technology, everybody is going to jump on board. Not because it's particularly effective, but because it is particularly CHEAP. Just like mass email marketing ; but technically-involved enough to cut out the average small and even medium-sized businesses from doing it themselves. Instead of silently advertising, the concept of bluetooth spamming is going to be promoted and marketed by marketing companies.

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Footnotes:
1 : This never happened.
2 : RIM sounds like a synonym for anus.
3 : I don't really think that, I hardly care.
4 : Surprisingly, this statement is actually true.

I think it's obvious the entire slashdot community is going to be 'against' this initiative. We all have experience using 'more than average' time on the internet and particularly the world wide web ; it is completely impossible to 'guide' people on the internet.

China would have to have a ginormous amount of 'censors' constantly surfing and updating their own database of acceptable internet sites to have anything close to a 'guidance initiative'. This is just a media spin on what china has been doing all along, blocking major portions of the internet off completely from it's own citizens.

You can see the ridiculous tracert douginadress.com takes to reach chinese citizens right now ; another comment on China's inability to even provide standard censorship

douginadress

douginadress.com