In science a theory is a falsifiable claim. Hawking put it pretty well in that a theory "must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." So until the string concept can make testable statements, or future predictions, or however you want to talk about it, it's not a theory.
By that argument, wouldn't Evolution disqualify as a scientific theory ? After all there is nothing that the theory of Evolution can predict vis-a-vis biology nor even the future of a species. Not that I disagree with Hawkings statement, but it would seem that predictability is not always the heart of a scientific theory - scientific usually refers to the method of predicting, not the result predicted.
String theory could thus be 'scientific theory' that explains (through scientific methods) a certain observable order - it's lack of predicting something doesn't necessarily imply that it is unscientific. Especially since we treat the theory of Evolution as scientific when it also has failed to produce anything resembling a prediction of observable phenomena.
Though one could argue that Evolution is not a scientific theory on the basis that it is also a non falsifiable claim as it is non-predictive, more of a set of constructs and fundamental ideas (axioms) like string theory rather than a descriptive representation of reality.
They poked, prodded, and tested his theory (both logically and empirically) until they were forced to accept it.
Not to belabor the person's point, but testing the theory implies that the peers saw that it correponds to reality. There is actually only 'interpretation' when something is unclear or not yet really known - when one speaks of the probability of something or an uncertainty. Science as a whole is a knowledge by causes, which means that once one has established that a certain effect is related to another (its cause), the matter is proven - interpretation has very little to do with actual science, but rather with hypotheses and the application of a scientific theory to other branches of knowledge (for instance the philosophical implications of the Heisenberg principle).
Which in reality comes from the old IBM electric typewriters which had 10 char/inch pitch (one some you could change the little ball or typeface to 12 char/inch, called 'Elite' if I remember right). On a standard size paper (8.5 x 11), that gives you an effective 80 characters per line limit. The punchcards often were sold perforated with 3 per page and you could make punchcards using the IBM selectwriter with a special modification, almost like writing in ED without any control functions. I remember even some products that would allow you to fill in mis-punched holes, but that never worked.
Carl Sagan's gift was for the popularizing of science, not so much for actually doing science himself.
True that the book "Contact" is the only ostensibly science fiction work, nonetheless I would classify his many musings on intelligent life on other worlds as part of science fiction as of yet there is absolutely no evidence for it - observable and repeatable experimental data as being one of the criterion for true science. Thus most of his work would be classified as non-scientific in this sense.
Here is a list of his published works that I have found. Almost all of them concern 'personal refections', 'speculations', 'vision of human future in space', etc. This is not science, but personal reflection, even fiction.
One quote gathered from google says that he wrote some 600 peer-reviewed papers, but I have yet to find a single one available on the internet.
I don't see how the rest of Europe could have failed to record it due to lack of interest, though. This wasn't just astronomy, it was a suddenly appearing day-time-visible star, and surely had to be taken as a portent of some kind.
True enough. It is curious that there are few records of this 'new star' in European writings - but then again, how many chronicles do we have of the 11th century? And how many of these chronicles have actually been read? It is perhaps a little over-zealous to conclude that people were to be condemned for astronomy simply from a lack of witnesses to one event.
For what concerns LeMaitre and Copernicus, these were just examples. One could cite works from St. Augustine (died 430), Thomas Aquinas (13th century), Albert the Great's commentary on de Caelo et Mundo - there is an enormous amount of work on astronomy from the beginnings of our era throughout the Middle Ages. Astronomy was a chief subject of study throughout the middle ages, forming part of the Quadrivium. Copernicus didn't just invent his theories of a sun-centered system and changes in the heavens, he inherited them and simply had the observation data to prove its correspondance.
I merely cited these two examples as simple counterexamples to the claim that the Church hated astronomy. The opposite is rather the case - in fact, since the Christians pray to 'Our Father who art in heaven', the heavens were of profound interest to them. Thus I would say that the story you heard was more than just apocryphal - it is just plain wrong.
But of course that wasn't the object of your post. It is curious though why there are not so many witnesses in Europe - but then again, how many do we have from China? I could only find one through Google, so perhaps the Chinese also have an aversion to astronomy....
The worst darkness is ignorant of history, and to calumniate one's ancestors. If we know more now, it is only because we build upon the achievements of the past. The theories of Isaac Newton would not have been possible if it were not for such men as Bernard of Clairvaux, Anselm of Cantebury, Thomas Aquinas, and a host of persons who lived in the so-called 'dark ages'. Even Aristotle, so vilinised by Sagan actually predates Galileo's theory of inertia by 1800 years. Quotation:
Further, in point of fact things that are thrown move though that which gave them their impulse is not touching them, either by reason of mutual replacement, as some maintain, or because the air that has been pushed pushes them with a movement quicker than the natural locomotion of the projectile wherewith it moves to its proper place. But in a void none of these things can take place, nor can anything be moved save as that which is carried is moved.
Further, no one could say why a thing once set in motion should stop anywhere; for why should it stop here rather than here? So that a thing will either be at rest or must be moved ad infinitum, unless something more powerful get in its way. (Physics IV, 8)
Carl Sagan actually wrote a lot of science fiction, which have little or nothing to do with reality but one's own dreams. Often one doesn't see the light simply because one prefers one's own dreams instead of reality.
Small error - I should not have said that he 'observed it' but rather 'recorded it'. He was writing a chronicle, not his own observations. In any case that only proves that someone did indeed observe it and wrote it down before he compiled his chronicle.
Yet it is conspicuously absent from any other European writings, and the common story (i.e. i can't coroborate at all, may be apocryphal) is that the Church and their "perfect unchanging universe" doctrine made it heresy to even acknowledge that the thing was even there.
What a bunch of nonsense.
SN 1006 was observed by Hepidannus, who happened to be a monk of St. Gaul. So not only was he Catholic, but a member of a religious order (that is, the clergy). He died in A.D. 1088 Quotation:
Nova stella apparuit insolitae magnitudinis, aspectu fulgurans et oculos verberans non sine terrore. Quae mirum in modum aliquando contractior, aliquando diffusior, etiam extinguebatur interdum. Visa est autem per tres menses in intimis finibus Austri, ultra omnia signa quae videntur in caelo. (Hepidanni Annales breves, in Duchesne, Historiae Francorum Scriptores, t. III 1641, p477.
Also a reminder that Copernicus himself was a Franciscan monk and priest.... and that the author of the 'Big Bang' theory was himself a Catholic priest.
Perhaps the lack of European observations might simply be because the black death had taken much of the European interests away from the sky and to things more pressing. In any case your 'theory' about the Church is really just nonsensical.
Gravity provides the centripetal force needed to keep satellites in orbit. If you focus on the simple case of circular orbits, you can use the centripetal force formula with the law of gravity to determine the mass of a planet. Simply set the force of gravity equal to the centripetal force and solve for the mass of the planet M.
M = r * v^2 / G
The period of Eris' moon provides another way to calculate its mass.
Period T = 2pi * sqrt(r^3 / G*M)
Thus I imagine the various images of the moon provided a way to calculate its period and indirectly determine the mass of the central body.
However the article doesn't give any specifics. It would be interesting to know what methods they used and the degree of accuracy of their measurements.
My only real complaint is the premise they were starting from: that most Data-centers are created 'in secret', when in fact not too many people are interested in webcamming an empty room. It would be more logical to set up the servers then install the webcam and post to slashdot, but I suppose that is just me. As nice as it is for them to show them hard at work, I still think this story is a lot of 'much ado about nothing'. Some of us do this type of work routinely and it is just a little strange to call it 'in secret' when in reality some of us just want to get a datacenter working, not webcam it.
If they had spent as much time setting up the datacenter as they had wasted in setting up the webcam, posting to slashdot, reading the commentaries on slashdot and putting their server on ice, they probably would have finished by now....
And in an era when many major data-center projects are shrouded in secrecy, these guys are putting the entire effort online....
Really? Data-Center projects shrouded in secrecy ?
Maybe it is simply because you want it to work before the customers actually connect to it, not like the actual datacenter which can't handle the load of a few slashdot users....
The thing is, Microsoft aren't the only folks who can do this, and interested third parties have already decided that supporting ODF from Word is worth the time and money. See the da Vinci ODF plugins for Office. In short -- MS Word already is an ODF editor, though roundtrip support will be substantially improved after ODF 1.2 comes out.
That link was very interesting - thanks for pointing it out. I hope this plug-in works out. Perhaps its technology could be 'ported' to other applications. I was thinking of InDesign or Scribus which could use an ODF importer - not to mention that I would no longer have to 'save as' in OpenOffice or include a link to download it to colleagues - I could just simply tell them to install this plug-in and let them use the program they like.
These kinds of projects make me more hopeful for the future of ODF - when I can use whatever program to open and use the same document, technology will finally be at the service of human thought and not simply a means to transmit it.
As I think I've established, the market leader among the tools is already -- with the use of some zero-cost 3rd-party software -- able to use either format. This means that the folks who do care about the format can select that independently. For some of my purposes, the ability to use XPath and XSLT-style templates with ODF is extremely helpful; other folks are more concerned about long-term document compatibility, lest Office 2043 be unable to read documents created today with Office 2003.
The fact that it is zero-cost is absolutely vital in my opinion - it is already painful enough just to download it. If they would have to pay for it, I will have to continue to "save as..."
For what you say about XPath and XSLT, I would grant that that would be useful - especially in a corporate environment or publishing house - but there are many programs that use XML (such as Apple's Pages program) whose formats are only theoretically interesting as they can't be opened by any other application. Sure one could use a Pages doc in the same way, but you are fundamentally stuck to one application. It is only really by this plugin which you gave the link to that one has the freedom to use the editor of one's choice - much like plain text gives one the freedom to use vim or emacs
Putting my idealist hat on, I'd argue that in cases where documents are intended to be disseminated to the public at large, accessibility (to those who can't afford MS Office or those who run on a platform where Office is unavailable) is socially responsible as well.
I couldn't agree with you more. One might even argue that the greatest cause of software piracy is the fact that only one program can create Word documents....
To be sure, lossy conversion is available -- but using a format developed as an open standard with ease-of-implementation and standards reuse in mind in mind (and thus which is reasonably implementable by more than one vendor) strikes me as the Right Thing to do. Taking the idealist hat back off, I still support ODF -- because it makes the things I want to do with my IT infrastructure (using XPATH and a bunch of preexisting infrastructure to build servers based on the contents of site survey forms provided by sales reps) easy, and allows me the ability to leverage 3rd-party implementations of reused standards for which open toolkits are available in future infrastructure as well.
I might even go further - if.odf actually works, it will fundamentally change communication. As I said before, the tools usually determine the format. IF odf becomes a common medium, then the tool becomes merely a tool, indifferent to the content. A fundamental paradigm shift, much like what papyrus did to cuneiform - any ink can write on paper, but only a triangular shaped tool can make cuneiform.
The consequences for civilization could be as far reaching
Office is an application suite. ODF is a document format. They're apples and oranges. With appropriate plugins, Office will interoperate with ODF documents -- just as any number of other applications will.
True, they are different things, but one is the cause of the other. Put in another way - what good would.odt be without a program that can read them and produce them? Having the best and most capable document standard (SGML comes to mind) doesn't mean that anyone will actually use it (how many SGML editors are there?).
True enough Office could interoperate with almost any format - the question is whether it is worth the time and money to develop the software to do so... and probably from the MS standpoint, probably not, as they get more money from people being forced to use documents in their format (and thus with their program). Microsoft plays the format wars because they know that no matter what format you have, you still need the program to use it.
Claiming that OOXML is better than ODF because MS Office is better than OpenOffice is disingenuous; there's no reason MS Office and ODF can't be used together, and quite a bit of money and development time is being poured into making that an effective solution.
Well, even if ODF was vastly superior to OOXML, if the tool you have to create documents is vastly inferior, there is no question as to what tool to use - and the format will follow the tool, not the other way around.
I think most people simply use any office suite simply to write documents. They probably couldn't care less as to what format they are in as long as they can write them with ease. The only time the format really becomes a problem is when you want to share that information with someone else (who doesn't use the same tools) or use it in some other medium (such as the web, etc.).
Thus there is some point to the fact that MS Office is 'better' than Open Office - if the tool isn't easy to use, powerful enough for one's purpose, and stable, there isn't much point in creating documents in the format that it uses. Though I haven't really seen how MS Office is all that much better than OpenOffice.
Thus ODF might be the best for interoperability, as it is an 'open standard' but most of the time interoperability is accidental to the process of creating actual documents. But one might even question the interoperability of ODF, as the only application that I know of that uses it is Open Office - none of my other programs can even read this format (except vim when you unzip the archive). Until OpenOffice provides something for this purpose better than MS Office, the question of format will never be important.
Oh, and by the way I do use Open Office, as it is good enough for my purposes - as a Physics teacher - but really couldn't care less about its format as long as my students can read the printed text.
1/ in-line advertisements 2/ multi-page articles 3/ 256kb for one page
I can remember when 256kb was an enormous amount of memory for a computer. And yet one could surf the BBS's and actually READ the information without needing more than a 300 baud modem - this is now impossible. Even on high-speed internet connection I have to wait for the javascript to load all these banner ads, click through to another 256k download for another paragraph of text.
And the articles seemed so much more interesting in those days. There were very few trolls, no adverts, no pop-ups, just information that you needed.
There seems to be an inverse proportion to the available means of communication and the actual value of what is communicated. Sometimes I just really hate technology....
Perhaps this comment is completely offtopic, but since most comments on this story concern politics, I'll risk a few words.
It seems that democracy such as it is in America is a fundamentally flawed system. Consider these two citizens:
Citizen A works a good job, contributes over $10,000 to the general welfare through the IRS, takes interest in politics and tries to vote conscientiously having studied the issues and their possible ramifications on the life of his fellow citizens and the country at large. After some consideration - not much, mind you - he casts his vote for the candidate he seems best apt for the function.
Citizen B works, but barely clears enough to keep his apartment. Concerning taxes and contributions through the IRS, close to zero. Having no family, politics really don't interest him. He gets up in the morning of November 6 and votes, but more to get even with 'the man' than with any knowledge of what the candidate wants to accomplish.
Many would agree that Citizen A contributes more to the common good of the country - and yet the political system grants him no more power than that which Citizen B has. The reality is that their votes are equal, independently of whether they have even the intention of promoting the general welfare and even independently of their ability to contribute to it.
At face value such a system seems nonsensical - but it is the system in which we live. And worse, we can't even seem to count the votes that are cast, as the debacle of the elections of the year 2000 showed.
Perhaps it is un-American to pose such fundamental questions, but really the situation as it stands really should be thought through:
1/ is the system one man one vote really indicative of the actual political power of the average citizen?
2/ is the democratic system even capable of representing the people (as it claims) when only 45% of the populace even votes? Does it even have the mandate to rule when the majority don't even cast a vote?
3/ isn't it unjust to give Citizen B the same political power as Citizen A?
Ironically it seems that the average citizen had more political power under monarchical rule, for at least the ruler was a known entity whose person could be influenced. Yet now we are ruled by the candidate who sells himself to the lowest common denominator, or who simply has more TV time than the others.
Just some food for thought. Anyone here actually think that these candidates are even interested in the common good? But I guess we have the leaders whom we deserve....
Slashdot Mirror
In science a theory is a falsifiable claim. Hawking put it pretty well in that a theory "must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." So until the string concept can make testable statements, or future predictions, or however you want to talk about it, it's not a theory.
By that argument, wouldn't Evolution disqualify as a scientific theory ? After all there is nothing that the theory of Evolution can predict vis-a-vis biology nor even the future of a species. Not that I disagree with Hawkings statement, but it would seem that predictability is not always the heart of a scientific theory - scientific usually refers to the method of predicting, not the result predicted.
String theory could thus be 'scientific theory' that explains (through scientific methods) a certain observable order - it's lack of predicting something doesn't necessarily imply that it is unscientific. Especially since we treat the theory of Evolution as scientific when it also has failed to produce anything resembling a prediction of observable phenomena.
Though one could argue that Evolution is not a scientific theory on the basis that it is also a non falsifiable claim as it is non-predictive, more of a set of constructs and fundamental ideas (axioms) like string theory rather than a descriptive representation of reality.
They poked, prodded, and tested his theory (both logically and empirically) until they were forced to accept it.
Not to belabor the person's point, but testing the theory implies that the peers saw that it correponds to reality. There is actually only 'interpretation' when something is unclear or not yet really known - when one speaks of the probability of something or an uncertainty. Science as a whole is a knowledge by causes, which means that once one has established that a certain effect is related to another (its cause), the matter is proven - interpretation has very little to do with actual science, but rather with hypotheses and the application of a scientific theory to other branches of knowledge (for instance the philosophical implications of the Heisenberg principle).
JJ +
Which in reality comes from the old IBM electric typewriters which had 10 char/inch pitch (one some you could change the little ball or typeface to 12 char/inch, called 'Elite' if I remember right). On a standard size paper (8.5 x 11), that gives you an effective 80 characters per line limit. The punchcards often were sold perforated with 3 per page and you could make punchcards using the IBM selectwriter with a special modification, almost like writing in ED without any control functions. I remember even some products that would allow you to fill in mis-punched holes, but that never worked.
Goodness I feel old now.
Carl Sagan's gift was for the popularizing of science, not so much for actually doing science himself.
True that the book "Contact" is the only ostensibly science fiction work, nonetheless I would classify his many musings on intelligent life on other worlds as part of science fiction as of yet there is absolutely no evidence for it - observable and repeatable experimental data as being one of the criterion for true science. Thus most of his work would be classified as non-scientific in this sense.
Here is a list of his published works that I have found. Almost all of them concern 'personal refections', 'speculations', 'vision of human future in space', etc. This is not science, but personal reflection, even fiction.
One quote gathered from google says that he wrote some 600 peer-reviewed papers, but I have yet to find a single one available on the internet.
I don't see how the rest of Europe could have failed to record it due to lack of interest, though. This wasn't just astronomy, it was a suddenly appearing day-time-visible star, and surely had to be taken as a portent of some kind.
True enough. It is curious that there are few records of this 'new star' in European writings - but then again, how many chronicles do we have of the 11th century? And how many of these chronicles have actually been read? It is perhaps a little over-zealous to conclude that people were to be condemned for astronomy simply from a lack of witnesses to one event.
For what concerns LeMaitre and Copernicus, these were just examples. One could cite works from St. Augustine (died 430), Thomas Aquinas (13th century), Albert the Great's commentary on de Caelo et Mundo - there is an enormous amount of work on astronomy from the beginnings of our era throughout the Middle Ages. Astronomy was a chief subject of study throughout the middle ages, forming part of the Quadrivium. Copernicus didn't just invent his theories of a sun-centered system and changes in the heavens, he inherited them and simply had the observation data to prove its correspondance.
I merely cited these two examples as simple counterexamples to the claim that the Church hated astronomy. The opposite is rather the case - in fact, since the Christians pray to 'Our Father who art in heaven', the heavens were of profound interest to them. Thus I would say that the story you heard was more than just apocryphal - it is just plain wrong.
But of course that wasn't the object of your post. It is curious though why there are not so many witnesses in Europe - but then again, how many do we have from China? I could only find one through Google, so perhaps the Chinese also have an aversion to astronomy....
The worst darkness is ignorant of history, and to calumniate one's ancestors. If we know more now, it is only because we build upon the achievements of the past. The theories of Isaac Newton would not have been possible if it were not for such men as Bernard of Clairvaux, Anselm of Cantebury, Thomas Aquinas, and a host of persons who lived in the so-called 'dark ages'. Even Aristotle, so vilinised by Sagan actually predates Galileo's theory of inertia by 1800 years. Quotation:
Further, in point of fact things that are thrown move though that which gave them their impulse is not touching them, either by reason of mutual replacement, as some maintain, or because the air that has been pushed pushes them with a movement quicker than the natural locomotion of the projectile wherewith it moves to its proper place. But in a void none of these things can take place, nor can anything be moved save as that which is carried is moved.
Further, no one could say why a thing once set in motion should stop anywhere; for why should it stop here rather than here? So that a thing will either be at rest or must be moved ad infinitum, unless something more powerful get in its way. (Physics IV, 8)
Carl Sagan actually wrote a lot of science fiction, which have little or nothing to do with reality but one's own dreams. Often one doesn't see the light simply because one prefers one's own dreams instead of reality.
Small error - I should not have said that he 'observed it' but rather 'recorded it'. He was writing a chronicle, not his own observations. In any case that only proves that someone did indeed observe it and wrote it down before he compiled his chronicle.
JJ +
Yet it is conspicuously absent from any other European writings, and the common story (i.e. i can't coroborate at all, may be apocryphal) is that the Church and their "perfect unchanging universe" doctrine made it heresy to even acknowledge that the thing was even there.
What a bunch of nonsense.
SN 1006 was observed by Hepidannus, who happened to be a monk of St. Gaul. So not only was he Catholic, but a member of a religious order (that is, the clergy). He died in A.D. 1088 Quotation:
Nova stella apparuit insolitae magnitudinis, aspectu fulgurans et oculos verberans non sine terrore. Quae mirum in modum aliquando contractior, aliquando diffusior, etiam extinguebatur interdum. Visa est autem per tres menses in intimis finibus Austri, ultra omnia signa quae videntur in caelo. (Hepidanni Annales breves, in Duchesne, Historiae Francorum Scriptores, t. III 1641, p477.
Also a reminder that Copernicus himself was a Franciscan monk and priest.... and that the author of the 'Big Bang' theory was himself a Catholic priest.
Perhaps the lack of European observations might simply be because the black death had taken much of the European interests away from the sky and to things more pressing. In any case your 'theory' about the Church is really just nonsensical.
Gravity provides the centripetal force needed to keep satellites in orbit. If you focus on the simple case of circular orbits, you can use the centripetal force formula with the law of gravity to determine the mass of a planet. Simply set the force of gravity equal to the centripetal force and solve for the mass of the planet M.
M = r * v^2 / G
The period of Eris' moon provides another way to calculate its mass.
Period T = 2pi * sqrt(r^3 / G*M)
Thus I imagine the various images of the moon provided a way to calculate its period and indirectly determine the mass of the central body.
However the article doesn't give any specifics. It would be interesting to know what methods they used and the degree of accuracy of their measurements.
JJ +
My only real complaint is the premise they were starting from: that most Data-centers are created 'in secret', when in fact not too many people are interested in webcamming an empty room. It would be more logical to set up the servers then install the webcam and post to slashdot, but I suppose that is just me. As nice as it is for them to show them hard at work, I still think this story is a lot of 'much ado about nothing'. Some of us do this type of work routinely and it is just a little strange to call it 'in secret' when in reality some of us just want to get a datacenter working, not webcam it.
If they had spent as much time setting up the datacenter as they had wasted in setting up the webcam, posting to slashdot, reading the commentaries on slashdot and putting their server on ice, they probably would have finished by now....
And in an era when many major data-center projects are shrouded in secrecy, these guys are putting the entire effort online....
Really? Data-Center projects shrouded in secrecy ?
Maybe it is simply because you want it to work before the customers actually connect to it, not like the actual datacenter which can't handle the load of a few slashdot users....
That link was very interesting - thanks for pointing it out. I hope this plug-in works out. Perhaps its technology could be 'ported' to other applications. I was thinking of InDesign or Scribus which could use an ODF importer - not to mention that I would no longer have to 'save as' in OpenOffice or include a link to download it to colleagues - I could just simply tell them to install this plug-in and let them use the program they like.
These kinds of projects make me more hopeful for the future of ODF - when I can use whatever program to open and use the same document, technology will finally be at the service of human thought and not simply a means to transmit it.
As I think I've established, the market leader among the tools is already -- with the use of some zero-cost 3rd-party software -- able to use either format. This means that the folks who do care about the format can select that independently. For some of my purposes, the ability to use XPath and XSLT-style templates with ODF is extremely helpful; other folks are more concerned about long-term document compatibility, lest Office 2043 be unable to read documents created today with Office 2003.
The fact that it is zero-cost is absolutely vital in my opinion - it is already painful enough just to download it. If they would have to pay for it, I will have to continue to "save as..."
For what you say about XPath and XSLT, I would grant that that would be useful - especially in a corporate environment or publishing house - but there are many programs that use XML (such as Apple's Pages program) whose formats are only theoretically interesting as they can't be opened by any other application. Sure one could use a Pages doc in the same way, but you are fundamentally stuck to one application. It is only really by this plugin which you gave the link to that one has the freedom to use the editor of one's choice - much like plain text gives one the freedom to use vim or emacs
Putting my idealist hat on, I'd argue that in cases where documents are intended to be disseminated to the public at large, accessibility (to those who can't afford MS Office or those who run on a platform where Office is unavailable) is socially responsible as well.I couldn't agree with you more. One might even argue that the greatest cause of software piracy is the fact that only one program can create Word documents....
To be sure, lossy conversion is available -- but using a format developed as an open standard with ease-of-implementation and standards reuse in mind in mind (and thus which is reasonably implementable by more than one vendor) strikes me as the Right Thing to do. Taking the idealist hat back off, I still support ODF -- because it makes the things I want to do with my IT infrastructure (using XPATH and a bunch of preexisting infrastructure to build servers based on the contents of site survey forms provided by sales reps) easy, and allows me the ability to leverage 3rd-party implementations of reused standards for which open toolkits are available in future infrastructure as well.I might even go further - if .odf actually works, it will fundamentally change communication. As I said before, the tools usually determine the format. IF odf becomes a common medium, then the tool becomes merely a tool, indifferent to the content. A fundamental paradigm shift, much like what papyrus did to cuneiform - any ink can write on paper, but only a triangular shaped tool can make cuneiform.
The consequences for civilization could be as far reaching
JJ+
True, they are different things, but one is the cause of the other. Put in another way - what good would .odt be without a program that can read them and produce them? Having the best and most capable document standard (SGML comes to mind) doesn't mean that anyone will actually use it (how many SGML editors are there?).
True enough Office could interoperate with almost any format - the question is whether it is worth the time and money to develop the software to do so... and probably from the MS standpoint, probably not, as they get more money from people being forced to use documents in their format (and thus with their program). Microsoft plays the format wars because they know that no matter what format you have, you still need the program to use it.
Claiming that OOXML is better than ODF because MS Office is better than OpenOffice is disingenuous; there's no reason MS Office and ODF can't be used together, and quite a bit of money and development time is being poured into making that an effective solution.Well, even if ODF was vastly superior to OOXML, if the tool you have to create documents is vastly inferior, there is no question as to what tool to use - and the format will follow the tool, not the other way around.
I think most people simply use any office suite simply to write documents. They probably couldn't care less as to what format they are in as long as they can write them with ease. The only time the format really becomes a problem is when you want to share that information with someone else (who doesn't use the same tools) or use it in some other medium (such as the web, etc.).
Thus there is some point to the fact that MS Office is 'better' than Open Office - if the tool isn't easy to use, powerful enough for one's purpose, and stable, there isn't much point in creating documents in the format that it uses. Though I haven't really seen how MS Office is all that much better than OpenOffice.
Thus ODF might be the best for interoperability, as it is an 'open standard' but most of the time interoperability is accidental to the process of creating actual documents. But one might even question the interoperability of ODF, as the only application that I know of that uses it is Open Office - none of my other programs can even read this format (except vim when you unzip the archive). Until OpenOffice provides something for this purpose better than MS Office, the question of format will never be important.
Oh, and by the way I do use Open Office, as it is good enough for my purposes - as a Physics teacher - but really couldn't care less about its format as long as my students can read the printed text.
Another list for Annoying Technology:
1/ in-line advertisements
2/ multi-page articles
3/ 256kb for one page
I can remember when 256kb was an enormous amount of memory for a computer. And yet one could surf the BBS's and actually READ the information without needing more than a 300 baud modem - this is now impossible. Even on high-speed internet connection I have to wait for the javascript to load all these banner ads, click through to another 256k download for another paragraph of text.
And the articles seemed so much more interesting in those days. There were very few trolls, no adverts, no pop-ups, just information that you needed.
There seems to be an inverse proportion to the available means of communication and the actual value of what is communicated. Sometimes I just really hate technology....
Wow. That post has a pretty dense nonsense to acronym ratio. Asymptotic to 1.0 - Congrats!
Perhaps this comment is completely offtopic, but since most comments on this story concern politics, I'll risk a few words.
It seems that democracy such as it is in America is a fundamentally flawed system. Consider these two citizens:
Citizen A works a good job, contributes over $10,000 to the general welfare through the IRS, takes interest in politics and tries to vote conscientiously having studied the issues and their possible ramifications on the life of his fellow citizens and the country at large. After some consideration - not much, mind you - he casts his vote for the candidate he seems best apt for the function.
Citizen B works, but barely clears enough to keep his apartment. Concerning taxes and contributions through the IRS, close to zero. Having no family, politics really don't interest him. He gets up in the morning of November 6 and votes, but more to get even with 'the man' than with any knowledge of what the candidate wants to accomplish.
Many would agree that Citizen A contributes more to the common good of the country - and yet the political system grants him no more power than that which Citizen B has. The reality is that their votes are equal, independently of whether they have even the intention of promoting the general welfare and even independently of their ability to contribute to it.
At face value such a system seems nonsensical - but it is the system in which we live. And worse, we can't even seem to count the votes that are cast, as the debacle of the elections of the year 2000 showed.
Perhaps it is un-American to pose such fundamental questions, but really the situation as it stands really should be thought through:
1/ is the system one man one vote really indicative of the actual political power of the average citizen?
2/ is the democratic system even capable of representing the people (as it claims) when only 45% of the populace even votes? Does it even have the mandate to rule when the majority don't even cast a vote?
3/ isn't it unjust to give Citizen B the same political power as Citizen A?
Ironically it seems that the average citizen had more political power under monarchical rule, for at least the ruler was a known entity whose person could be influenced. Yet now we are ruled by the candidate who sells himself to the lowest common denominator, or who simply has more TV time than the others.
Just some food for thought. Anyone here actually think that these candidates are even interested in the common good? But I guess we have the leaders whom we deserve....
JJ+
Here is a link to a more informative article: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050411/asp/knowhow/ story_4560152.asp