Some decades ago, a few young hackers were putting together an implementation of the BASIC programming language, using a prominent university's computers. (Harvard? I think.) Naming it Microsoft BASIC, they tried to sell it, but the university claimed that the usage of their computing resources forbad it. One of these programmers, Bill Gates, complained about this position, noting that world-famous researchers had used Harvard's library for tremendous personal gain, while he was denied the same opportunity.
Bill Gates and his company turned out pretty well, though.
In my mind, bundling IE with the OS was at least somewhat legitimate, since it enhanced the functionality of the computer system as a whole. It was leveraging its OS monopoly into the browser market, but both really fell under the same category of software for a computer system.
This action, however, is clearly a flagrant abuse of monopoly power. They are controlling the content the viewer sees, not just the mechanism that's used to view and use the content. This far-reaching power can be abused infinitely for propaganda or other reasons, as many have described above.
I sincerely hope that in a court of law or at least public opinion, this distinction can be recognized. What if the paper suppliers for newspapers refused to sell to ones of a certain political persuasion? What if the manufacturer of radios remotely reprogrammed yours to block stations that considered undesirable? Microsoft's Smart Tags are the tip of the iceberg, and their crossing of the line between viewers to content is a slippery slope justifying propaganda and censorship on a near unlimited scale.
Your computer and its software is a tool. In this case, it should be a tool to view and interact with web pages. As long as it stays ONLY a tool, everything stays fine.
I believe that governmental forcing of a division between viewing mechanism and content providers is totally legitimate. Monopolies have to stop somewhere, and essential freedoms must be preserved. Fortunately, this delineation is a very clear one (unlike in the IE bundling debate) so there is some hope for sane heads to prevail.
Phonetic writing is one of the greatest inventions of mankind. All a speaker needs to be literate is to learn the mapping between sounds and letters. Could anything be easier?
No offense, but your post reeks of the naive, self-absorbed Western arrogance that the entire world hates. Have you actually LEARNED or even had tiny experience with a non-phonetic written language? There are COMPLETELY different ways of communicating ideas or expressing emotions. Forcing billions of people to convert to your culturally imperialist straitjacket isn't just infeasible, it ignores an entire dimension of humanity.
I agree there is a serious problem of understanding texts written in the "old way". There is a simple solution here, too, i.e., we just translate what's most important to the "new way" and let scholars work on the texts that don't get translated. Before anyone gets too hot here, the situation is not that much different than translating literature from one language to another. It is too much work to translate everything that is written in English into French, so one focuses on the texts that are important enough for translation.
Um... Ever read a great piece of literature in one language, then read the translation? It's NEVER the same. Languages are much more than communication -- they embody ways entire modes of thinking, of cultural assumptions. Any modern linguist (Noam Chomsky comes to mind) could tell you that. In the case of, say, poetry, you will always lose the meter and rhythm. In the case of, say, political works, you will always substitute in words that have the wrong connotations or sound funny in the new language. Translators ALWAYS struggle with these issues.
While the author of this original article may be misinformed on the particulars of Unicode, or may be flawed in asserting Unicode should accomodate every single character system that exists, it's the overall message from your post that is most misinformed -- that the language YOU use is the best, and the rest of the world should convert to YOUR way of thinking and communicating without your even having to try to understand them. Anyone who actually has studied the issue would not reach the sadly shallow conclusion you have.
I realize this is way too utopian. We Americans can't even move to metric, much less anything more "radical". I just needed to respond to the whining.
Who's whining? People who point out the horrendous exclusion and bias in the Western-dominated technological conferences that dictate standards of communication, or people like you who don't understand anything past what you grew up with?
This is nothing like the metric system. Ditching the inch and pound carries is nothing like ditching the bedrock texts of your culture.
Personally, I do not fully agree with the article's author. Of course ancient documents don't need to be represented in the character set intended for everyday use by businesses or other entities. However, the attitude expressed in your post is what causes so much resentment and pain in the first place.
I'm sorry if this post sounds rantish. I'm just ashamed to belong to a community that produces posts like yours.
Language is about what people think, how people live, and at root, their culture. Language is not about the undefinable concept of "efficiency."
Music sharing has been going on a large scale for barely a few years. Like any other industry, this one takes a little time to react. Once enough of the burning & playback software gets integrated into Windows and used by 90% of consumers, they can drop in all sorts of controls and payment systems they want. Microsoft is certainly used to using its market power to impose its will; I'd estimate 5 years max for this pervasive-charge system to be in widespread use.
There IS no difference. I've used "Music" CD-R's to burn data many a time.
The point is that Wal/KMart is making a profit by selling CD-R's that are to be used to hurt RIAA & the music industry's sales. Their marketing scheme is bowing to consumer demand for easy, copyable music. It seems almost inevitable that copying is going to happen -- thus, IMHO, the drive to charge for the act of copying itself.
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Some decades ago, a few young hackers were putting together an implementation of the BASIC programming language, using a prominent university's computers. (Harvard? I think.) Naming it Microsoft BASIC, they tried to sell it, but the university claimed that the usage of their computing resources forbad it. One of these programmers, Bill Gates, complained about this position, noting that world-famous researchers had used Harvard's library for tremendous personal gain, while he was denied the same opportunity.
Bill Gates and his company turned out pretty well, though.
In my mind, bundling IE with the OS was at least somewhat legitimate, since it enhanced the functionality of the computer system as a whole. It was leveraging its OS monopoly into the browser market, but both really fell under the same category of software for a computer system. This action, however, is clearly a flagrant abuse of monopoly power. They are controlling the content the viewer sees, not just the mechanism that's used to view and use the content. This far-reaching power can be abused infinitely for propaganda or other reasons, as many have described above. I sincerely hope that in a court of law or at least public opinion, this distinction can be recognized. What if the paper suppliers for newspapers refused to sell to ones of a certain political persuasion? What if the manufacturer of radios remotely reprogrammed yours to block stations that considered undesirable? Microsoft's Smart Tags are the tip of the iceberg, and their crossing of the line between viewers to content is a slippery slope justifying propaganda and censorship on a near unlimited scale. Your computer and its software is a tool. In this case, it should be a tool to view and interact with web pages. As long as it stays ONLY a tool, everything stays fine. I believe that governmental forcing of a division between viewing mechanism and content providers is totally legitimate. Monopolies have to stop somewhere, and essential freedoms must be preserved. Fortunately, this delineation is a very clear one (unlike in the IE bundling debate) so there is some hope for sane heads to prevail.
Phonetic writing is one of the greatest inventions of mankind. All a speaker needs to be literate is to learn the mapping between sounds and letters. Could anything be easier?
No offense, but your post reeks of the naive, self-absorbed Western arrogance that the entire world hates. Have you actually LEARNED or even had tiny experience with a non-phonetic written language? There are COMPLETELY different ways of communicating ideas or expressing emotions. Forcing billions of people to convert to your culturally imperialist straitjacket isn't just infeasible, it ignores an entire dimension of humanity.
I agree there is a serious problem of understanding texts written in the "old way". There is a simple solution here, too, i.e., we just translate what's most important to the "new way" and let scholars work on the texts that don't get translated. Before anyone gets too hot here, the situation is not that much different than translating literature from one language to another. It is too much work to translate everything that is written in English into French, so one focuses on the texts that are important enough for translation.
Um... Ever read a great piece of literature in one language, then read the translation? It's NEVER the same. Languages are much more than communication -- they embody ways entire modes of thinking, of cultural assumptions. Any modern linguist (Noam Chomsky comes to mind) could tell you that. In the case of, say, poetry, you will always lose the meter and rhythm. In the case of, say, political works, you will always substitute in words that have the wrong connotations or sound funny in the new language. Translators ALWAYS struggle with these issues.
While the author of this original article may be misinformed on the particulars of Unicode, or may be flawed in asserting Unicode should accomodate every single character system that exists, it's the overall message from your post that is most misinformed -- that the language YOU use is the best, and the rest of the world should convert to YOUR way of thinking and communicating without your even having to try to understand them. Anyone who actually has studied the issue would not reach the sadly shallow conclusion you have.
I realize this is way too utopian. We Americans can't even move to metric, much less anything more "radical". I just needed to respond to the whining.
Who's whining? People who point out the horrendous exclusion and bias in the Western-dominated technological conferences that dictate standards of communication, or people like you who don't understand anything past what you grew up with?
This is nothing like the metric system. Ditching the inch and pound carries is nothing like ditching the bedrock texts of your culture.
Personally, I do not fully agree with the article's author. Of course ancient documents don't need to be represented in the character set intended for everyday use by businesses or other entities. However, the attitude expressed in your post is what causes so much resentment and pain in the first place.
I'm sorry if this post sounds rantish. I'm just ashamed to belong to a community that produces posts like yours.
Language is about what people think, how people live, and at root, their culture. Language is not about the undefinable concept of "efficiency."
Music sharing has been going on a large scale for barely a few years. Like any other industry, this one takes a little time to react. Once enough of the burning & playback software gets integrated into Windows and used by 90% of consumers, they can drop in all sorts of controls and payment systems they want. Microsoft is certainly used to using its market power to impose its will; I'd estimate 5 years max for this pervasive-charge system to be in widespread use.
There IS no difference. I've used "Music" CD-R's to burn data many a time. The point is that Wal/KMart is making a profit by selling CD-R's that are to be used to hurt RIAA & the music industry's sales. Their marketing scheme is bowing to consumer demand for easy, copyable music. It seems almost inevitable that copying is going to happen -- thus, IMHO, the drive to charge for the act of copying itself.