Actually though, not all rights are "inalienable" rights, and I'd say that our civil rights are not inalienable. This makes what Michael Righi is doing in standing up for his rights even more important, because the rights he is fighting to preserve can be "un-granted".
I completely agree. I really appreciated your critique because the article felt like someone reaching to say bad things, but other than some obvious areas (such as the complaint about using English as the canonical form) I didn't know enough about the actual spec. I appreciate the comments from someone who does.
This isn't to say that I now think that the OOXML spec is w/o issues, I'm still pretty skeptical about it, but this article hasn't make me more suspicious, and your response has helped.
Thanks, I wasn't ready to put in the effort to write what you just did, but I'm glad you did, starting w/ debunking the localization complaint.
I have a ton of issues w/ Microsoft, and I am skeptical off this new standard, but this article didn't give me many reasons to consider OOXML a technical mess. As you said it had a couple of good points, but otherwise struck me as someone stretching to find something bad to say.
I do think that it should be possible to edit the document "by hand", or at least not require a full document analysis to modify the document. That seems to me to be one of the advantages of an xml format. To this extent I don't have a problem with having to fix up various references elsewhere in the document when you make a change, but having to parse formula's is too much (if that is really required as point #1 implies).
One of the most distressing things about OOXML to me from this article was that MS seems not to have rationalized similar functionality into a common schema to describe this functionality (ie the article states that there are many different ways of describing text formatting).
It'd be incredibly inefficient to try to turn every department, grocery, hardware, and convenience store into a recycling center. But they already are, at least here, and most places that have deposit bottle & cans. The law states that if you sell a deposit container you have to take the empties back. I think there are places that the law is similar for motor oil, so extending this for CFL's doesn't seem that much of a stretch.
"The only retailer that I know of that is recycling is IKEA," she says, referring to the Swedish-owned furniture chain store.
Reed says the EPA has been prodding other retailers, such as Wal-Mart, to do more.
Except that as the article implied at one point, the "refueling" stations would store the power in large local ultracapacitors, so there wouldn't be short unpredictable burst requirements but a relatively constant demand.
A previous article also suggested that you have a stationary ultra-capacitor at home that charges slowly (perhaps in 10 hours) which can be used to recharge the ultracapacitor in your car in 5 minutes. That would probably help even out the power demand more so than it is today, because this recharging can be done overnight when there is less other demand.
I haven't used 64bit XP but you're giving the wrong people (Microsoft) a hard time in this case. "Program Files (x86)" is a perfectly valid file name and has been for years.
You really should be getting on the case of the people who wrote the software that can't handle that file name.
Mike
ps I do think it's an odd decision of Microsoft's to separate out 64bit software from 32bit software. It's not like you could use that information to copy the program to a 32bit Windows machine (stupid registry!)
I haven't used 64bit XP but you're giving the wrong people (Microsoft) a hard time in this case. "Program Files (x86)" is a perfectly valid file name and has been for years.
You really should be getting on the case of the people who wrote the software that can't handle that file name.
Mike
ps I do think it's an odd decision of Microsoft's to separate out 64bit software from 32bit software. It's not like you could use that information to copy the program to a 32bit Windows machine (stupid registry!)
I so agree. The other thing that Mozilla has that Firefox has dumbed down is the View | Text Size submenu. I like being able to see what my current text zoom is set at, so I can tell how it relates to 100% zoom, and so I can select a new zoom based on the current zoom.
Without even trying it I'm going to say that isn't a solution.
The mozilla address bar lets you enter a url and hit enter, or enter search terms and then hit the down arrow and enter to do the search. And hitting the down arrow highlights an option that says: "Search Google" followed by your search terms.
I agree with the previous poster that sharing the address control in this way is way better for me than losing space for an inadequately sized search control.
I have to agree completely. That is exactly the method I use searching with Mozilla also. I don't want to waste the real estate for a separate control for searching when having the url bar and search bar shared means I get to see that much more of both.
There are a couple of other small things I prefer in Mozilla over Firefox (such as the menu zoom selections) but I could get over them. Searching however is still better enough that I prefer to stick with Mozilla.
Good comment, those were my thoughts after I read the apology letter.
Too often the big companies sending out these types of letters refuse to admit there was a mistake. When they do it is usually something that barely admits any error on their part.
Which makes the action of Nintendo really stand out, and this action by Nintendo of both making it clear that they were in error AND actually making some restitution has definitely raised my opinion of the company.
Re:Man, I'm beginning to feel so old.
on
Verified Voting
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· Score: 4, Informative
Oh wait. I forgot. I live in South Carolina where President Bush is already locked in as the winner, so would I be better off just staying at home?
Even if you are voting contrary to your state majority, you should still vote.
Why?
Because you know they are going to count the popular vote anyway, and if once again a candidate wins the electoral college and the presidency, but loses the popular vote, it is that much more impetus to finally change that system.
Mike
Re:For Ohio and California Voters
on
Verified Voting
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· Score: 1
It doesn't work for Massachusetts either, which is too bad. The last couple of times I voted, I wished I could have seen a copy of the ballot before I got to the polling place because there were several races and people that I didn't know.
If I had seen the ballot beforehand, I would have done some research so I could have made an informed choice. As it is I tend to not vote in races where I don't know the views of the people running.
Hmm, perhaps a parachute is a needless expense and we should land all spacecraft in the same way?
Re:the whole IP issue is invalid
on
Is IP Property?
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· Score: 1
Well said.
The copyright concept is a payment by society to an author for an idea. Without copyright the author of an idea would get nothing (not 100% true since I suspect they would be some recompense for at least some ideas in some way).
However what has never been determined is what price gets society the best return on its investment. Our government keeps raising the price paid for new ideas. Why? Well they say that by paying more for an idea we'll get more ideas. But like most economics I don't think this is a straight line deal.
(Let's not even discuss the fact that our government decided to pay more for ideas that had already been purchased for less!)
If we cut the current payment (length of copyright) in half, does anyone really think that there would be half the number of new ideas produced? Personally I think we could reduce the current payment by 90% (95 years to 10) without much of a noticable effect.
In fact it could be that cutting the copyright period to 10 years would increase the number of new ideas as more people would be free to build on the ideas that are entering the public domain more quickly.
Unfortunately our government is not acting responsibly towards the people in this case they are listening only to those people who are resting on old ideas.
Yeah, actually it's Democrats like Tom Daschle that have kept me from giving money to the Democratic party.
Copyright is a very important issue to me and although I really want to see the Republicans lose the majority in Congress and even more I want Bush gone, I can't convince myself to give money that might support Democrats like Daschle.
Unlike at any time in the past, I have contributed to several other candidates individually. And I support Rick Boucher who has been fighting on the peoples side for several years now.
What you aren't covering is auditability, ie a recount. That is the major thing that a voter verified paper trail provides.
There needs to be a way to check that the electronic vote reported by a particular polling place matches the actual votes cast.
The easiest conceptual method is another object, not subject to undetectable manipulation, that the voter can assure themselves matches the vote(s) that they cast. Paper with the votes printed on it fits that bill pretty damn well. This object is kept by the vote collector NOT by the voter.
I'm not a statistician, but if a random 1-5% of the polling places had their electronicly reported results audited against these other records to verify that they matched, I'd be pretty satisfied that the electronically reported totals were within the percentage error of the audited sites.
In an election that was won by less than the audited sites percentage error, a full recount at all sites could be done.
I agree. I had emailed him in the past indicating my approval and support for his efforts to preserve the public's interest in copyrighted works, and recently got an email from him asking for a campaign contribution. It was the 2nd campaign contribution I've ever made in my life. I am not one of his direct constituants, but he is representing my interests and I want to see him remain in Congress.
Just to make it clear, I've received other emails from his office since my initial message, all relating to my interest in the copyright issue and none requesting money. I think the fact that my initial contact did not result in a constant deluge of requests for money is another reason that I respect him and sent him a check when he asked.
As I implied above, the ctrl x,c and v are just fine if you're right handed, and use the mouse with your right hand, but when you use the mouse w/ your left hand they are a real pain, and ctrl-ins, shift-ins and shift-del are the way to go being much easier to press with your right hand while using the mouse w/ your left.
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Actually though, not all rights are "inalienable" rights, and I'd say that our civil rights are not inalienable. This makes what Michael Righi is doing in standing up for his rights even more important, because the rights he is fighting to preserve can be "un-granted".
Check out the wikipedia link above,
Mike
I completely agree. I really appreciated your critique because the article felt like someone reaching to say bad things, but other than some obvious areas (such as the complaint about using English as the canonical form) I didn't know enough about the actual spec. I appreciate the comments from someone who does.
This isn't to say that I now think that the OOXML spec is w/o issues, I'm still pretty skeptical about it, but this article hasn't make me more suspicious, and your response has helped.
Mike
Thanks, I wasn't ready to put in the effort to write what you just did, but I'm glad you did, starting w/ debunking the localization complaint.
I have a ton of issues w/ Microsoft, and I am skeptical off this new standard, but this article didn't give me many reasons to consider OOXML a technical mess. As you said it had a couple of good points, but otherwise struck me as someone stretching to find something bad to say.
I do think that it should be possible to edit the document "by hand", or at least not require a full document analysis to modify the document. That seems to me to be one of the advantages of an xml format. To this extent I don't have a problem with having to fix up various references elsewhere in the document when you make a change, but having to parse formula's is too much (if that is really required as point #1 implies).
One of the most distressing things about OOXML to me from this article was that MS seems not to have rationalized similar functionality into a common schema to describe this functionality (ie the article states that there are many different ways of describing text formatting).
Mike
I'm hoping they eventually make it a requirement for stores that sell the bulbs to accept them back for disposal.
I found this article which said the following:
http://www.deadlikeme.tv/
Except that as the article implied at one point, the "refueling" stations would store the power in large local ultracapacitors, so there wouldn't be short unpredictable burst requirements but a relatively constant demand.
A previous article also suggested that you have a stationary ultra-capacitor at home that charges slowly (perhaps in 10 hours) which can be used to recharge the ultracapacitor in your car in 5 minutes. That would probably help even out the power demand more so than it is today, because this recharging can be done overnight when there is less other demand.
Thank You! I agree 100%, now if we could only make "our" representives see that. Mike
So how long after the pictures are taken will the entire moon be available on GoogleMoon?
(reformatted, oops I should have used preview!)
I haven't used 64bit XP but you're giving the wrong people (Microsoft) a hard time in this case. "Program Files (x86)" is a perfectly valid file name and has been for years.
You really should be getting on the case of the people who wrote the software that can't handle that file name.
Mike
ps I do think it's an odd decision of Microsoft's to separate out 64bit software from 32bit software. It's not like you could use that information to copy the program to a 32bit Windows machine (stupid registry!)
I haven't used 64bit XP but you're giving the wrong people (Microsoft) a hard time in this case. "Program Files (x86)" is a perfectly valid file name and has been for years. You really should be getting on the case of the people who wrote the software that can't handle that file name. Mike ps I do think it's an odd decision of Microsoft's to separate out 64bit software from 32bit software. It's not like you could use that information to copy the program to a 32bit Windows machine (stupid registry!)
I so agree. The other thing that Mozilla has that Firefox has dumbed down is the View | Text Size submenu. I like being able to see what my current text zoom is set at, so I can tell how it relates to 100% zoom, and so I can select a new zoom based on the current zoom.
Without even trying it I'm going to say that isn't a solution.
The mozilla address bar lets you enter a url and hit enter, or enter search terms and then hit the down arrow and enter to do the search. And hitting the down arrow highlights an option that says: "Search Google" followed by your search terms.
I agree with the previous poster that sharing the address control in this way is way better for me than losing space for an inadequately sized search control.
Mike
thanks, I was hoping someone would point that out! Too many people still say ASCII when what they really mean is plain text.
I have to agree completely. That is exactly the method I use searching with Mozilla also. I don't want to waste the real estate for a separate control for searching when having the url bar and search bar shared means I get to see that much more of both.
There are a couple of other small things I prefer in Mozilla over Firefox (such as the menu zoom selections) but I could get over them. Searching however is still better enough that I prefer to stick with Mozilla.
Good comment, those were my thoughts after I read the apology letter.
Too often the big companies sending out these types of letters refuse to admit there was a mistake. When they do it is usually something that barely admits any error on their part.
Which makes the action of Nintendo really stand out, and this action by Nintendo of both making it clear that they were in error AND actually making some restitution has definitely raised my opinion of the company.
Even if you are voting contrary to your state majority, you should still vote.
Why?
Because you know they are going to count the popular vote anyway, and if once again a candidate wins the electoral college and the presidency, but loses the popular vote, it is that much more impetus to finally change that system.
Mike
It doesn't work for Massachusetts either, which is too bad. The last couple of times I voted, I wished I could have seen a copy of the ballot before I got to the polling place because there were several races and people that I didn't know.
If I had seen the ballot beforehand, I would have done some research so I could have made an informed choice. As it is I tend to not vote in races where I don't know the views of the people running.
Funny that is exactly what I had been thinking when I saw the topic.
Mike
Hmm, perhaps a parachute is a needless expense and we should land all spacecraft in the same way?
Well said.
The copyright concept is a payment by society to an author for an idea. Without copyright the author of an idea would get nothing (not 100% true since I suspect they would be some recompense for at least some ideas in some way).
However what has never been determined is what price gets society the best return on its investment. Our government keeps raising the price paid for new ideas. Why? Well they say that by paying more for an idea we'll get more ideas. But like most economics I don't think this is a straight line deal.
(Let's not even discuss the fact that our government decided to pay more for ideas that had already been purchased for less!)
If we cut the current payment (length of copyright) in half, does anyone really think that there would be half the number of new ideas produced? Personally I think we could reduce the current payment by 90% (95 years to 10) without much of a noticable effect.
In fact it could be that cutting the copyright period to 10 years would increase the number of new ideas as more people would be free to build on the ideas that are entering the public domain more quickly.
Unfortunately our government is not acting responsibly towards the people in this case they are listening only to those people who are resting on old ideas.
Yeah, actually it's Democrats like Tom Daschle that have kept me from giving money to the Democratic party.
Copyright is a very important issue to me and although I really want to see the Republicans lose the majority in Congress and even more I want Bush gone, I can't convince myself to give money that might support Democrats like Daschle.
Unlike at any time in the past, I have contributed to several other candidates individually. And I support Rick Boucher who has been fighting on the peoples side for several years now.
What you aren't covering is auditability, ie a recount. That is the major thing that a voter verified paper trail provides.
There needs to be a way to check that the electronic vote reported by a particular polling place matches the actual votes cast.
The easiest conceptual method is another object, not subject to undetectable manipulation, that the voter can assure themselves matches the vote(s) that they cast. Paper with the votes printed on it fits that bill pretty damn well. This object is kept by the vote collector NOT by the voter.
I'm not a statistician, but if a random 1-5% of the polling places had their electronicly reported results audited against these other records to verify that they matched, I'd be pretty satisfied that the electronically reported totals were within the percentage error of the audited sites.
In an election that was won by less than the audited sites percentage error, a full recount at all sites could be done.
I agree. I had emailed him in the past indicating my approval and support for his efforts to preserve the public's interest in copyrighted works, and recently got an email from him asking for a campaign contribution. It was the 2nd campaign contribution I've ever made in my life. I am not one of his direct constituants, but he is representing my interests and I want to see him remain in Congress.
Just to make it clear, I've received other emails from his office since my initial message, all relating to my interest in the copyright issue and none requesting money. I think the fact that my initial contact did not result in a constant deluge of requests for money is another reason that I respect him and sent him a check when he asked.
As I implied above, the ctrl x,c and v are just fine if you're right handed, and use the mouse with your right hand, but when you use the mouse w/ your left hand they are a real pain, and ctrl-ins, shift-ins and shift-del are the way to go being much easier to press with your right hand while using the mouse w/ your left.
Applications really should support both.