Why no interest in software as you can not write it all yourself, but interest in hardware that you most likely can not build yourself either? Plugging hardware components together is like cobbling bits and pieces of software together of course.
That said I can program a bit, and like to fool around with Python and Apache/modpython to make interactive web pages. UI is the key here of course. And it's hard to do right, really hard.
And there is a lot gogn on in UI land, outside Apple (lets forget about MS here). Linux distros are doing crazy experimental stuff. I am now using Easy Peasy Linux on my EEE, really cool. It mostly (unfortunately not completely) does away with windows - all is run full screen. No borders, no space lost, no other apps partly visible and taking attention. Seems very suitable as basis for slate type computers as well. And trying out the latest E17 on another box, doesn't make me excited yet but I think there is much more about it than I have seen.
All interesting developments, and while I won't have any influence in it and probably will never make a living with it, it's fun to keep track of.
Limiting the number of choices would give rise to many "how about me!" browser-maker complaints. The easiest choice is between two options. The biggest are now IE and FF. Do you want to favour them so much and exclude all competition? If not then you have to provide more options. Idealistically with space for any browser vendor to have their product "advertised" that way, but then again that would really give a too long list.
All in all seeing the screenshots it looks quite reasonable how they present the first five with their official short description, with choice for some more obscure choices as well.
US compang0ies fined by the EU is (big) news in the US, MS being fined half a million euros probably makes the evening news.
European companies fined by the EU are an internal affair and will not be in the US papers. Well a short bit in the business section maybe.
So basically, from the US consumer pov, all fines issued by the EU for misbehaving companies are to US companies. It is the media bias that is reflected here. A totally understandable media bias, as they target a US audience, which of course is not interested as much in EU internal matters as it is in US related matters.
How much of the hardware you used to type that comment is made in China? I bet most is. Have you ever considered whether you can trust that to do what you think it does, and only what you think it does?
Even worse for the CA (and that is imho the main reason we can trust a CA, Chinese or American or where-ever it is from) is that if this trust is breached it is breached forever. There is a lot to lose by losing that trust, and little to gain (in the long term).
Lucky I am not the only one who started to wonder "why is this only an issue now? What makes China so different from say the UK, the most watched country in the world when it comes to CCTV cameras?".
Last time I checked there were lots of trusted CA's in Firefox, most of which seem to be US based but others clearly from all over the world. And only now such a discussion arises!
I have the same idea. The slowest CPU on the market is way fast enough for almost anything, unless you have very specific needs. The CPU speed issue is solved and done with. I lost interest some 10 years ago, and started to get more interested in what we are actually doing with it: the software that runs on it, and user interfaces.
Knowing MS all the good stuff will have been left out by the time it comes to a release. If ever. Just like what was promised for Win95 is still not fully implemented in Win7.
Depends whether they go for one market place, or for one store. Big difference.
Mobile phones work with any network: there are a few standards, a few radio frequencies, some odd ones of course but in general they just work. Pop in a sim and off you go. Single marketplace, multiple vendors. That's good. Mobile fees are low, choice of networks/plans and phones is huge.
They could do the same with apps. Just that you will have to choose which phone you have as apps will not be cross-platform. Too many platforms, too many hardware options (processor speed and functions: GPS, camera, touchscreen, etc), there can not be a "one size fits all" for apps, impossible and impractical. Many apps will also be country specific, if only because of interface language.
As long as there is a standard on which to authenticate, download, and possibly even manage payments that any store operator can connect to, then we have a single marketplace with many vendors.
I haven't rtfa but somehow I'm afraid that they mean "one store", locking out competition. Otoh the consortium seems to be too large/divers to make that work.
I think no question there as many works of art mention certain facts, or direct references to those facts. Assuming the facts are there to support the opinion, the work as a whole can be copyrighted.
That however would not prevent someone from taking the facts out of it and republish it. For example you may be able to copyright a telephone book, however everyone can take the telephone book, copy the facts, and republish in their own format. They can just not put the book on the copier and create their own copy.
But for the question whether the model is copyrightable or not (I would argue it is; while a e.g. list of telephone numbers or the results of sports events I would agree is not),to get any useful answer you will have to ask a judge. Or at least a lawyer specialised in the field.
I think you have good chance for making it copyrightable because it is a separate work though based on an actual building (photographs of it are also copyrightable). You may even violate the copyright (if any such exist) on the very design of the building though as photographs are OK I think you're clear there.
Though coming back to uncopyrightable lists, when you create statistics using those sports results those numbers may be copyrightable again, not sure about that. On one hand it is a fact (team A had five wins, three draws and eight losses this season - just counting the numbers), though it needs work to get there from the bare facts. And where that threshold lies... well again better ask a judge.
Now, I'm having the same problem getting people to give up a fax machine, because scan to e-mail is faster, and cheaper, but people
say "we've always had a fax machine".
Sending a fax: (1) walk to fax machine, (2) put down document, (3) enter fax number, (4) press send, and done.
Scan and send as e-mail: (1) walk to scanner (same as my fax, printer and copier so at least it has a sheet feeder, most stand-alone scanners don't), (2) put down document, (3) return to computer and open scan software, (4) scan document, (5) enter name and location to store scan file, (6) create new e-mail, (7) enter address, (8) enter subject and body, (9) add attachment, (10) remember where it was stored and how it was called this time, (11) press send, and done.
Ymmv but for stuff printed already, faxing is for me the easier option! And fax is still more of an "it just works" type of tech than e-mail is, as strange as it may sound.
Receiving faxes otoh I do in e-mail. And if necessary print them out.
And finally businesses are still expected to have a fax. That part certainly is legacy, but also because fax is such an easy and simply to use technology. As easy as the telephone. And in ease of use that can not be beaten by e-mail.
I really wonder how much savings can be gotten here. Personally I'd estimate about 70% of my prints ends up in my archive: I only print out stuff that I want on paper for administrative reasons. For looking up later, or for tax/legal reasons.
The 30% rest is mostly misprints, and of those about half ends up in my archives again: I always attach receipts from shops to a standard A4 size paper, number them, and in future I can always find them again.
And what is still left over... well my little kid loves to draw, and I cut up a lot to A6 size for notes. Overall maybe 5% of my prints go to waste. Very little of those intentionally (as in: printed without intention to keep it).
When I had to write reports (research related) I did print out drafts, but would not use this kind of paper because writing on it with a pen if it works would kill the reusability. And being able to add annotations and other notes to such a draft was part of the reason to make the print. The article mentions manuscripts (how about above mentioned manual notes?) and circulars (anyone that doesn't use e-mail for that, maybe combined with a few prints on a notice board?) don't seem too valid to me.
Now I don't believe in the "paperless office" myth but a little prudence in printing goes a long way. This printer is a cool invention but honestly I can't really think of any large-scale applications where not printing is really not an option to save cost.
The LCD is backlit, and likely by itself uses more than the rest of the device. Much more. There is your problem to get this solar powered, and your problem to get that battery life issue solved (solved: >24 hours normal use on a single charge).
And it indicates how far behind Microsoft is falling.
All they have to offer for a computer like this is an OS that is almost a decade old. It's not that the hardware is low spec. Not at all. Only the "hard drive" is actually slow in there. I still think these small, cheap, relatively low specced devices are going to be a major part of the computer market in the near future.
The competition on the other hand has products that are fully up-to-date available.
I have never been a fan of MS but for a company that size with such enormous influence on computing, it's still kinda sad.
Do you happen to also have stats of hte total amount of bandwidth used? A common argument is that ads are so big, taking up a lot of bandwidth. I'd like to know how much % you save on bandwidth (browsing only of course - e-mail, torrents, etc do not count).
If it works in FF then I will bet it works fine in Opera and Safari (you may want to test to make sure, but that should not be necessary). I don't know of FF specific behaviour, and Opera and Safari are too small to do anything but follow standards.
IE however is a different animal. That one has it's own standard and way of doing things. And how IE works is even version-dependent. Messy at best.
Thanks to IE my web site is designed using tables. I don't have IE, couldn't test it, and the CSS to do it nicely failed in IE so badly that while it worked great in FF and Safari, IE got a blank page. Then I went back to tables... a bitch to change things (I barely do this, static design) but at least it just works.
Every password, every encryption key can be brute-forced, given enough time.
No software is flawless.
No hardware is flawless.
Even the strongest bank vault inside the strongest nuclear bunker under the largest mountain defended by an immense army can be breached.
So in your world there is only place for bad security.
Luckily for the rest of us there is also something like "good enough" security that is so secure that breaking it is so expensive/hard that it becomes practically impossible.
I may differ from the rest but all those things do not bother me.
What does bother me mostly: no multi-tasking. A common work flow for me is receiving an e-mail with shipping information including several photo attachments. I open the photo attachment (may be done inside the e-mailer) to read the container number off of the photo of the container door. Open web browser, type in container number for a quick trace. Oh I forgot the last bit of the number, look at image again, double check number, continue. Then open a word processor (OpenOffice usually, but just has to read.odf) to start writing an invoice. Back to address book to get the company's address. Copy past that in my document. Back to e-mail to get some more details on what to invoice exactly. Back to document, fill it in. Save document, send it to printer (optional), create pdf, send pdf and photos to customer. Potentially an image-editing step in between where I have to "sanitise" an image by removing confidential data. Or a face from a photo. And then e-mail it out. That is a typical 15 minute job. That would be like a dozen app starts and closes on an iPad. And when reading things from a photo to enter in a web site, then that becomes unacceptable.
When replying to business e-mails I usually keep a spreadsheet with an overview of orders open. To look up details, and generally to keep track of things. Something as basic as that can not be done even.
Now I imagine having to do it the iPad way, not being able to keep two applications open at one time. That means opening and closing the mailer several times, same for the word processor, and the image viewer.
It's just a no-go. The device looks cool and affordable to me, except for the lack of multi-tasking. I don't have a VPN to my office. I don't have Exchange. I bet there will be a way to use a normal USB camera (no USB? Another show-stopper for me! I need to be able to read photos off my camera/memory card). I can live without flash. If not enough storage, add a USB stick.
I can see myself using an iPad or similar device on business trips (I now carry my EEEPC 701 but find it lacking mainly on disk space and battery life). Light weight, reasonably small, sturdy. I don't type too much usually, no long reports or anything, so on-screen keyboard will do. But no multi-tasking makes it totally useless to me. When the need arises and I have money left I'll have a look what is on the market but the iPad doesn't stand a chance as it is. And I don't feel like going the Windows way, too many problems software wise.
Well if you followed the story on/. that is indeed quite true. Many MS-allies became member of ISO shortly before this vote (enough in numbers to swing it), and it caused serious controversy in the ISO committees of a.o. Norway. There have been many stories on/. about this voting process and, yes, alleged corruption and loss of integrity within ISO. The whole organisation's image has taken a serious hit with this saga. And these quotes from the MS spokesman confirm many people's fears: MS doesn't see standards as standard, but merely a guideline or starting point to implement their own way.
Subscription prices are crazy not just by European standards, also by Asian standards. Those prices are very high for basically any non-American mobile phone user.
The discount of USD 20 mentioned is about as much as my monthly fee. And then I have a 3G plan now, plan to change back to some 2G plan which starts at less than USD 4.50 per month - including about 800 minutes air time, voice mail, etc.
Getting a USD 20 per month discount for your phone is virtually impossible in Hong Kong, simply because most people don't even pay that much for their mobile phone.
Besides that Norway is not a member of the EU, they are too small to dictate an "international standard". If the EU would opt of OOXML instead then Norway would surely give in and follow by at least exchanging documents in OOXML with other EU partners.
However as the rest has not (yet) made a choice, there is a good chance that instead they will have a close look at Norway, see how it works out for them, and follow the now tried and tested option. As long as no other country opts for OOXML instead this alone will be an advantage for ODF.
One of the core principles behind a standard I think is that it is immutable. It is a fixed, a priori known way of doing things. So that as long as you write a document following the standard, everyone can read and lay-out that document correctly by just following that same standard. Even if the document is from 10 years ago, or longer. Such as the standard with which a CD is recorded.
But obviously not so for Microsoft:
"It's natural in the development of standards that the standards evolve. That's the nature of standards,"
says a MS representative as quoted in TFA. This as reaction to the allegation by the Norwegian committee that OOXML is "unstable" and thus unsuitable as standard.
Of course during the DEVELOPMENT a standard evolves, that's what development is about. After that it becomes a standard, and it becomes frozen to that standard. One can of course continue development, but that is going to be a new standard. An OOXML1.1 or so. Like with HTML which now and then gets an update in the form of a new standard.
It seems to me that MS with such a statement confirms that from the beginning didn't plan on this to be a true standard, but that it would be a basis for them to start tacking on proprietary extensions, that then would prevent the standard to work across platforms. Luckily Norway saw through that, calls the standard "unstable" and refuses to included it in "recommended formats" for government use.
The standard being proprietary has obviously nothing to do with it, as they happily do include Adobe's pdf format.
Back in college I learned that if I really wanted to learn something, I had to take notes by hand, and then go back and organize my notes in a more linear way and type them up.
That makes total sense to me, and I think will work for most people, the reason being that to organise your notes you not only read them again, you actually HAVE to understand what you have written down. And that is where the learning part is. Especially in science: as soon as you understand something you have more or less memorised it as well. And going through your notes that way will make sure you understand it.
Slashdot Mirror
Why no interest in software as you can not write it all yourself, but interest in hardware that you most likely can not build yourself either? Plugging hardware components together is like cobbling bits and pieces of software together of course.
That said I can program a bit, and like to fool around with Python and Apache/modpython to make interactive web pages. UI is the key here of course. And it's hard to do right, really hard.
And there is a lot gogn on in UI land, outside Apple (lets forget about MS here). Linux distros are doing crazy experimental stuff. I am now using Easy Peasy Linux on my EEE, really cool. It mostly (unfortunately not completely) does away with windows - all is run full screen. No borders, no space lost, no other apps partly visible and taking attention. Seems very suitable as basis for slate type computers as well. And trying out the latest E17 on another box, doesn't make me excited yet but I think there is much more about it than I have seen.
All interesting developments, and while I won't have any influence in it and probably will never make a living with it, it's fun to keep track of.
Limiting the number of choices would give rise to many "how about me!" browser-maker complaints. The easiest choice is between two options. The biggest are now IE and FF. Do you want to favour them so much and exclude all competition? If not then you have to provide more options. Idealistically with space for any browser vendor to have their product "advertised" that way, but then again that would really give a too long list.
All in all seeing the screenshots it looks quite reasonable how they present the first five with their official short description, with choice for some more obscure choices as well.
US compang0ies fined by the EU is (big) news in the US, MS being fined half a million euros probably makes the evening news.
European companies fined by the EU are an internal affair and will not be in the US papers. Well a short bit in the business section maybe.
So basically, from the US consumer pov, all fines issued by the EU for misbehaving companies are to US companies. It is the media bias that is reflected here. A totally understandable media bias, as they target a US audience, which of course is not interested as much in EU internal matters as it is in US related matters.
How much of the hardware you used to type that comment is made in China? I bet most is. Have you ever considered whether you can trust that to do what you think it does, and only what you think it does?
Even worse for the CA (and that is imho the main reason we can trust a CA, Chinese or American or where-ever it is from) is that if this trust is breached it is breached forever. There is a lot to lose by losing that trust, and little to gain (in the long term).
Lucky I am not the only one who started to wonder "why is this only an issue now? What makes China so different from say the UK, the most watched country in the world when it comes to CCTV cameras?".
Last time I checked there were lots of trusted CA's in Firefox, most of which seem to be US based but others clearly from all over the world. And only now such a discussion arises!
I have the same idea. The slowest CPU on the market is way fast enough for almost anything, unless you have very specific needs. The CPU speed issue is solved and done with. I lost interest some 10 years ago, and started to get more interested in what we are actually doing with it: the software that runs on it, and user interfaces.
Knowing MS all the good stuff will have been left out by the time it comes to a release. If ever. Just like what was promised for Win95 is still not fully implemented in Win7.
Depends whether they go for one market place, or for one store. Big difference.
Mobile phones work with any network: there are a few standards, a few radio frequencies, some odd ones of course but in general they just work. Pop in a sim and off you go. Single marketplace, multiple vendors. That's good. Mobile fees are low, choice of networks/plans and phones is huge.
They could do the same with apps. Just that you will have to choose which phone you have as apps will not be cross-platform. Too many platforms, too many hardware options (processor speed and functions: GPS, camera, touchscreen, etc), there can not be a "one size fits all" for apps, impossible and impractical. Many apps will also be country specific, if only because of interface language.
As long as there is a standard on which to authenticate, download, and possibly even manage payments that any store operator can connect to, then we have a single marketplace with many vendors.
I haven't rtfa but somehow I'm afraid that they mean "one store", locking out competition. Otoh the consortium seems to be too large/divers to make that work.
I think no question there as many works of art mention certain facts, or direct references to those facts. Assuming the facts are there to support the opinion, the work as a whole can be copyrighted.
That however would not prevent someone from taking the facts out of it and republish it. For example you may be able to copyright a telephone book, however everyone can take the telephone book, copy the facts, and republish in their own format. They can just not put the book on the copier and create their own copy.
But for the question whether the model is copyrightable or not (I would argue it is; while a e.g. list of telephone numbers or the results of sports events I would agree is not),to get any useful answer you will have to ask a judge. Or at least a lawyer specialised in the field.
I think you have good chance for making it copyrightable because it is a separate work though based on an actual building (photographs of it are also copyrightable). You may even violate the copyright (if any such exist) on the very design of the building though as photographs are OK I think you're clear there.
Though coming back to uncopyrightable lists, when you create statistics using those sports results those numbers may be copyrightable again, not sure about that. On one hand it is a fact (team A had five wins, three draws and eight losses this season - just counting the numbers), though it needs work to get there from the bare facts. And where that threshold lies... well again better ask a judge.
Now, I'm having the same problem getting people to give up a fax machine, because scan to e-mail is faster, and cheaper, but people say "we've always had a fax machine".
Sending a fax: (1) walk to fax machine, (2) put down document, (3) enter fax number, (4) press send, and done.
Scan and send as e-mail: (1) walk to scanner (same as my fax, printer and copier so at least it has a sheet feeder, most stand-alone scanners don't), (2) put down document, (3) return to computer and open scan software, (4) scan document, (5) enter name and location to store scan file, (6) create new e-mail, (7) enter address, (8) enter subject and body, (9) add attachment, (10) remember where it was stored and how it was called this time, (11) press send, and done.
Ymmv but for stuff printed already, faxing is for me the easier option! And fax is still more of an "it just works" type of tech than e-mail is, as strange as it may sound.
Receiving faxes otoh I do in e-mail. And if necessary print them out.
And finally businesses are still expected to have a fax. That part certainly is legacy, but also because fax is such an easy and simply to use technology. As easy as the telephone. And in ease of use that can not be beaten by e-mail.
I really wonder how much savings can be gotten here. Personally I'd estimate about 70% of my prints ends up in my archive: I only print out stuff that I want on paper for administrative reasons. For looking up later, or for tax/legal reasons.
The 30% rest is mostly misprints, and of those about half ends up in my archives again: I always attach receipts from shops to a standard A4 size paper, number them, and in future I can always find them again.
And what is still left over... well my little kid loves to draw, and I cut up a lot to A6 size for notes. Overall maybe 5% of my prints go to waste. Very little of those intentionally (as in: printed without intention to keep it).
When I had to write reports (research related) I did print out drafts, but would not use this kind of paper because writing on it with a pen if it works would kill the reusability. And being able to add annotations and other notes to such a draft was part of the reason to make the print. The article mentions manuscripts (how about above mentioned manual notes?) and circulars (anyone that doesn't use e-mail for that, maybe combined with a few prints on a notice board?) don't seem too valid to me.
Now I don't believe in the "paperless office" myth but a little prudence in printing goes a long way. This printer is a cool invention but honestly I can't really think of any large-scale applications where not printing is really not an option to save cost.
That 1.2W is only for the Xcore processor.
The LCD is backlit, and likely by itself uses more than the rest of the device. Much more. There is your problem to get this solar powered, and your problem to get that battery life issue solved (solved: >24 hours normal use on a single charge).
And it indicates how far behind Microsoft is falling.
All they have to offer for a computer like this is an OS that is almost a decade old. It's not that the hardware is low spec. Not at all. Only the "hard drive" is actually slow in there. I still think these small, cheap, relatively low specced devices are going to be a major part of the computer market in the near future.
The competition on the other hand has products that are fully up-to-date available.
I have never been a fan of MS but for a company that size with such enormous influence on computing, it's still kinda sad.
Do you happen to also have stats of hte total amount of bandwidth used? A common argument is that ads are so big, taking up a lot of bandwidth. I'd like to know how much % you save on bandwidth (browsing only of course - e-mail, torrents, etc do not count).
If it works in FF then I will bet it works fine in Opera and Safari (you may want to test to make sure, but that should not be necessary). I don't know of FF specific behaviour, and Opera and Safari are too small to do anything but follow standards.
IE however is a different animal. That one has it's own standard and way of doing things. And how IE works is even version-dependent. Messy at best.
Thanks to IE my web site is designed using tables. I don't have IE, couldn't test it, and the CSS to do it nicely failed in IE so badly that while it worked great in FF and Safari, IE got a blank page. Then I went back to tables... a bitch to change things (I barely do this, static design) but at least it just works.
Every password, every encryption key can be brute-forced, given enough time.
No software is flawless.
No hardware is flawless.
Even the strongest bank vault inside the strongest nuclear bunker under the largest mountain defended by an immense army can be breached.
So in your world there is only place for bad security.
Luckily for the rest of us there is also something like "good enough" security that is so secure that breaking it is so expensive/hard that it becomes practically impossible.
Btw, please don't tell me you missed the Print link... or that you didn't even look for it.
I may differ from the rest but all those things do not bother me.
What does bother me mostly: no multi-tasking. A common work flow for me is receiving an e-mail with shipping information including several photo attachments. I open the photo attachment (may be done inside the e-mailer) to read the container number off of the photo of the container door. Open web browser, type in container number for a quick trace. Oh I forgot the last bit of the number, look at image again, double check number, continue. Then open a word processor (OpenOffice usually, but just has to read .odf) to start writing an invoice. Back to address book to get the company's address. Copy past that in my document. Back to e-mail to get some more details on what to invoice exactly. Back to document, fill it in. Save document, send it to printer (optional), create pdf, send pdf and photos to customer. Potentially an image-editing step in between where I have to "sanitise" an image by removing confidential data. Or a face from a photo. And then e-mail it out. That is a typical 15 minute job. That would be like a dozen app starts and closes on an iPad. And when reading things from a photo to enter in a web site, then that becomes unacceptable.
When replying to business e-mails I usually keep a spreadsheet with an overview of orders open. To look up details, and generally to keep track of things. Something as basic as that can not be done even.
Now I imagine having to do it the iPad way, not being able to keep two applications open at one time. That means opening and closing the mailer several times, same for the word processor, and the image viewer.
It's just a no-go. The device looks cool and affordable to me, except for the lack of multi-tasking. I don't have a VPN to my office. I don't have Exchange. I bet there will be a way to use a normal USB camera (no USB? Another show-stopper for me! I need to be able to read photos off my camera/memory card). I can live without flash. If not enough storage, add a USB stick.
I can see myself using an iPad or similar device on business trips (I now carry my EEEPC 701 but find it lacking mainly on disk space and battery life). Light weight, reasonably small, sturdy. I don't type too much usually, no long reports or anything, so on-screen keyboard will do. But no multi-tasking makes it totally useless to me. When the need arises and I have money left I'll have a look what is on the market but the iPad doesn't stand a chance as it is. And I don't feel like going the Windows way, too many problems software wise.
Well if you followed the story on /. that is indeed quite true. Many MS-allies became member of ISO shortly before this vote (enough in numbers to swing it), and it caused serious controversy in the ISO committees of a.o. Norway. There have been many stories on /. about this voting process and, yes, alleged corruption and loss of integrity within ISO. The whole organisation's image has taken a serious hit with this saga. And these quotes from the MS spokesman confirm many people's fears: MS doesn't see standards as standard, but merely a guideline or starting point to implement their own way.
Subscription prices are crazy not just by European standards, also by Asian standards. Those prices are very high for basically any non-American mobile phone user.
The discount of USD 20 mentioned is about as much as my monthly fee. And then I have a 3G plan now, plan to change back to some 2G plan which starts at less than USD 4.50 per month - including about 800 minutes air time, voice mail, etc.
Getting a USD 20 per month discount for your phone is virtually impossible in Hong Kong, simply because most people don't even pay that much for their mobile phone.
Besides that Norway is not a member of the EU, they are too small to dictate an "international standard". If the EU would opt of OOXML instead then Norway would surely give in and follow by at least exchanging documents in OOXML with other EU partners.
However as the rest has not (yet) made a choice, there is a good chance that instead they will have a close look at Norway, see how it works out for them, and follow the now tried and tested option. As long as no other country opts for OOXML instead this alone will be an advantage for ODF.
One of the core principles behind a standard I think is that it is immutable. It is a fixed, a priori known way of doing things. So that as long as you write a document following the standard, everyone can read and lay-out that document correctly by just following that same standard. Even if the document is from 10 years ago, or longer. Such as the standard with which a CD is recorded.
But obviously not so for Microsoft:
"It's natural in the development of standards that the standards evolve. That's the nature of standards,"
says a MS representative as quoted in TFA. This as reaction to the allegation by the Norwegian committee that OOXML is "unstable" and thus unsuitable as standard.
Of course during the DEVELOPMENT a standard evolves, that's what development is about. After that it becomes a standard, and it becomes frozen to that standard. One can of course continue development, but that is going to be a new standard. An OOXML1.1 or so. Like with HTML which now and then gets an update in the form of a new standard.
It seems to me that MS with such a statement confirms that from the beginning didn't plan on this to be a true standard, but that it would be a basis for them to start tacking on proprietary extensions, that then would prevent the standard to work across platforms. Luckily Norway saw through that, calls the standard "unstable" and refuses to included it in "recommended formats" for government use.
The standard being proprietary has obviously nothing to do with it, as they happily do include Adobe's pdf format.
Back in college I learned that if I really wanted to learn something, I had to take notes by hand, and then go back and organize my notes in a more linear way and type them up.
That makes total sense to me, and I think will work for most people, the reason being that to organise your notes you not only read them again, you actually HAVE to understand what you have written down. And that is where the learning part is. Especially in science: as soon as you understand something you have more or less memorised it as well. And going through your notes that way will make sure you understand it.