In the US, the right to keep and bear arms is not based on principle; it's based on a specific written legal framework -- the Second Amendment to the US Constitution -- the first thirteen words of which everyone conveniently ignores. What happened -- did Madison and Jefferson sit down, and look over the list, and Jim said, "Tom, this one's too short"? And Tom said, "All right, Jim, let's add a few words to it. How about these?" Et la voila?
So how does the "prescription" work in this case? If you get drugs, you take them, you run out, you get a refill until the refills run out. Unless you're shooting someone every once in a while, this prescription will never run out. What happens when your mental capacity changes so you're no longer competent to decide who to shoot (assuming, just for argument's sake, that you were before)? Does the doctor ask you to turn it in? "You'll get my Palm Pistol when you pry it from my cold, dead hand -- unless I get you first, suckah!"
You get old, your hearing goes, your eyesight goes, your cognition goes, your temper goes. So are we going to have old geezers shooting their caregivers when they show up, shooting the meals-on-wheels guy, the neighbor who drops by to check up on them?
I work at a very large software company that recruits worldwide. Recently I counted up the women working in my group. All the women in technical positions were from countries other than the US: French, Chinese, Indian, Canadian. None were from the U.S. It could be a biased sample, of course, but it seems to me representative of the staffing makeup.
There's tons of research that black text on a white background is easiest to read. My (biased) quote:
...the most readable color combination is black text on white background; overall, there is a stronger preference for any combination containing black. The two least readable combinations were red on green and fuchsia on blue. White on blue and red on yellow were ranked fairly high, while green on yellow and white on fuchsia were ranked fairly low. All others fell somewhere between these extremes.
The guys at the Language Log (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/, October 15, 2006, More on Pitch and Time Intervals in Speech) don't think it's possible to analyze speech patterns for emotion. They also don't think that you can identify particularly persuasive words (several posts, currently ending October 13, 2006). So maybe the speech recognition guys, the computational linguists are running a scam on the telemarketers. Too good.
It's really generous to say that MS programmers understand RTF. Having spent years working in the belly of the beast, using tools that attempted to convert RTF to other formats, I can confirm that it is really difficult -- if not impossible -- to get a mapping that works, even when the guy who supposedly REALLY knows is just down the hall. (As a matter of practice, not only does he not want to be bothered about work he did last year, he doesn't want to be bothered by small fry like putative customers, internal or external, period.)
The problem with RTF, as another poster notes, is that it specifies text format, and doesn't have to be concerned with niceties like the end of some group of items. Getting a parser (other than Word) to identify the last bullet in a bulleted list, the last number in a numbered list and the like is difficult: The endings are ambiguous.
A fundamental question here is: Does document structure matter? I think almost anyone in the document business would give a resounding yes to that question. And most probably would say that you're a fool to even ask that question, but I say sometimes it's good to get back to first principles. For the reader, document structure is usually signaled by text appearance. (I say usually, because some of you will have had to work with MilSpec docs, where text formatting is at a minimum.)
It is really easier to apply appearance specifications to structure (e.g., SGML, XML) than it is to divine an intended structure from a set of appearance specifications (e.g., RTF). That being the case, it is easier to convert from one (structured) markup language to another, or from one DTD to another, or from a structured markup language with appearance specifications to a set of appearance specifications, and get a similar looking result -- a result where the format signals the structure to the reader -- than it is to convert from appearance specifications to structured markup.
So what about conversions? Well, my history in this business tells me that they will go on from now til evermore. In a distant universe not so long ago, I spent a good deal of time writing a parser to convert Ventura Publisher (what's that?) to MIF. Now is my work being converted from MIF to XML? Could well be. A lot of the conversions -- especially from Word to other formats -- are going to be difficult, time-consuming and ugly.
Better to begin with a standard that makes conversions as easy as possible, if you have the choice. And it's not RTF.
It's really generous to say that MS programmers understand RTF. Having spent years working in the belly of the beast, using tools that attempted to convert RTF to other formats, I can confirm that it is really difficult -- if not impossible -- to get a mapping that works, even when the guy who supposedly REALLY knows is just down the hall. (As a matter of practice, not only does he not want to be bothered about work he did last year, he doesn't want to be bothered by small fry like putative customers, internal or external, period.) The problem with RTF, as another poster notes, is that it specifies text format, and doesn't have to be concerned with niceties like the end of some group of items. Getting a parser (other than Word) to identify the last bullet in a bulleted list, the last number in a numbered list and the like is difficult: The endings are ambiguous. A fundamental question here is: Does document structure matter? I think almost anyone in the document business would give a resounding yes to that question. And most probably would say that you're a fool to even ask that question, but I say sometimes it's good to get back to first principles. For the reader, document structure is usually signaled by text appearance. (I say usually, because some of you will have had to work with MilSpec docs, where text formatting is at a minimum.) It is really easier to apply appearance specifications to structure (e.g., SGML, XML) than it is to divine an intended structure from a set of appearance specifications (e.g., RTF). That being the case, it is easier to convert from one (structured) markup language to another, or from one DTD to another, or from a structured markup language with appearance specifications to a set of appearance specifications, and get a similar looking result -- a result where the format signals the structure to the reader -- than it is to convert from appearance specifications to structured markup. So what about conversions? Well, my history in this business tells me that they will go on from now til evermore. In a distant universe not so long ago, I spent a good deal of time writing a parser to convert Ventura Publisher (what's that?) to MIF. Now is my work being converted from MIF to XML? Could well be. A lot of the conversions -- especially from Word to other formats -- are going to be difficult, time-consuming and ugly. Better to begin with a standard that makes conversions as easy as possible, if you have the choice. And it's not RTF.
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In the US, the right to keep and bear arms is not based on principle; it's based on a specific written legal framework -- the Second Amendment to the US Constitution -- the first thirteen words of which everyone conveniently ignores. What happened -- did Madison and Jefferson sit down, and look over the list, and Jim said, "Tom, this one's too short"? And Tom said, "All right, Jim, let's add a few words to it. How about these?" Et la voila?
So how does the "prescription" work in this case? If you get drugs, you take them, you run out, you get a refill until the refills run out. Unless you're shooting someone every once in a while, this prescription will never run out. What happens when your mental capacity changes so you're no longer competent to decide who to shoot (assuming, just for argument's sake, that you were before)? Does the doctor ask you to turn it in? "You'll get my Palm Pistol when you pry it from my cold, dead hand -- unless I get you first, suckah!"
You get old, your hearing goes, your eyesight goes, your cognition goes, your temper goes. So are we going to have old geezers shooting their caregivers when they show up, shooting the meals-on-wheels guy, the neighbor who drops by to check up on them?
I work at a very large software company that recruits worldwide. Recently I counted up the women working in my group. All the women in technical positions were from countries other than the US: French, Chinese, Indian, Canadian. None were from the U.S. It could be a biased sample, of course, but it seems to me representative of the staffing makeup.
There's tons of research that black text on a white background is easiest to read. My (biased) quote:
So I'd ask how much power savings do we trade for optometrist bills.
But you can choose your own (biased) answer from the list if you Google "readability text color studies" and check out the 1 million+ results.
As for me, if I run across a site with white text (or yellow text or red text) on a black background, I don't even bother.
Can you imagine that guy taking questions from the press? I don't think it would exactly inspire the voters.
Similar article posted to Slate Oct. 19.
The guys at the Language Log (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/, October 15, 2006, More on Pitch and Time Intervals in Speech) don't think it's possible to analyze speech patterns for emotion. They also don't think that you can identify particularly persuasive words (several posts, currently ending October 13, 2006). So maybe the speech recognition guys, the computational linguists are running a scam on the telemarketers. Too good.
It's really generous to say that MS programmers understand RTF. Having spent years working in the belly of the beast, using tools that attempted to convert RTF to other formats, I can confirm that it is really difficult -- if not impossible -- to get a mapping that works, even when the guy who supposedly REALLY knows is just down the hall. (As a matter of practice, not only does he not want to be bothered about work he did last year, he doesn't want to be bothered by small fry like putative customers, internal or external, period.)
The problem with RTF, as another poster notes, is that it specifies text format, and doesn't have to be concerned with niceties like the end of some group of items. Getting a parser (other than Word) to identify the last bullet in a bulleted list, the last number in a numbered list and the like is difficult: The endings are ambiguous.
A fundamental question here is: Does document structure matter? I think almost anyone in the document business would give a resounding yes to that question. And most probably would say that you're a fool to even ask that question, but I say sometimes it's good to get back to first principles. For the reader, document structure is usually signaled by text appearance. (I say usually, because some of you will have had to work with MilSpec docs, where text formatting is at a minimum.)
It is really easier to apply appearance specifications to structure (e.g., SGML, XML) than it is to divine an intended structure from a set of appearance specifications (e.g., RTF). That being the case, it is easier to convert from one (structured) markup language to another, or from one DTD to another, or from a structured markup language with appearance specifications to a set of appearance specifications, and get a similar looking result -- a result where the format signals the structure to the reader -- than it is to convert from appearance specifications to structured markup.
So what about conversions? Well, my history in this business tells me that they will go on from now til evermore. In a distant universe not so long ago, I spent a good deal of time writing a parser to convert Ventura Publisher (what's that?) to MIF. Now is my work being converted from MIF to XML? Could well be. A lot of the conversions -- especially from Word to other formats -- are going to be difficult, time-consuming and ugly.
Better to begin with a standard that makes conversions as easy as possible, if you have the choice. And it's not RTF.
It's really generous to say that MS programmers understand RTF. Having spent years working in the belly of the beast, using tools that attempted to convert RTF to other formats, I can confirm that it is really difficult -- if not impossible -- to get a mapping that works, even when the guy who supposedly REALLY knows is just down the hall. (As a matter of practice, not only does he not want to be bothered about work he did last year, he doesn't want to be bothered by small fry like putative customers, internal or external, period.) The problem with RTF, as another poster notes, is that it specifies text format, and doesn't have to be concerned with niceties like the end of some group of items. Getting a parser (other than Word) to identify the last bullet in a bulleted list, the last number in a numbered list and the like is difficult: The endings are ambiguous. A fundamental question here is: Does document structure matter? I think almost anyone in the document business would give a resounding yes to that question. And most probably would say that you're a fool to even ask that question, but I say sometimes it's good to get back to first principles. For the reader, document structure is usually signaled by text appearance. (I say usually, because some of you will have had to work with MilSpec docs, where text formatting is at a minimum.) It is really easier to apply appearance specifications to structure (e.g., SGML, XML) than it is to divine an intended structure from a set of appearance specifications (e.g., RTF). That being the case, it is easier to convert from one (structured) markup language to another, or from one DTD to another, or from a structured markup language with appearance specifications to a set of appearance specifications, and get a similar looking result -- a result where the format signals the structure to the reader -- than it is to convert from appearance specifications to structured markup. So what about conversions? Well, my history in this business tells me that they will go on from now til evermore. In a distant universe not so long ago, I spent a good deal of time writing a parser to convert Ventura Publisher (what's that?) to MIF. Now is my work being converted from MIF to XML? Could well be. A lot of the conversions -- especially from Word to other formats -- are going to be difficult, time-consuming and ugly. Better to begin with a standard that makes conversions as easy as possible, if you have the choice. And it's not RTF.