Well put. I think we share similar internal and external debates between the preservation of rules and the flexibility of language. We're probably just leaning on slightly different sides of the fence. As long as you know that trying to stop the language from changing is like trying to stop the amazon river flowing through sheer willpower.
Actually, life is more like an arbitrarily large number of interrelated grids, with lots of complex logic. This is why more complex stuff is usually shunted off to databases. Or should be. I've seen far too many Excel files that would be way more useful in a database of some sort.
I've struggled a lot to come to terms with a lot of what you're talking about. On the one hand, English is very flexible, and doesn't try to fight to strongly against change. This makes it a very pervasive, as well as convenient language. On the other hand, there's always some need for rules. The pluralizing rule, to me, just helps clarity. Adding an apostrophe to plurals creates confusion.
But by in large, I think that grammar rules should be descriptive of the current norms, and not necessarily prescriptive. Just because you're supposed to say "Just between you and I" instead of "Just between you and me" doesn't mean you have to. To me, if the latter sounds acceptable and gains more popularity, the rules should be adjusted so that that's correct. On the one hand, saying the former rather than the latter makes you seem a little 'higher class' but isn't that just using language as a class barrier of sorts?
To take apart your points in my non-literate, non-formal fashion, here's another point-by-point rebuttal!
a) Just because English as we know it generally originates from Britain, doesn't mean that the language they invented is set in stone. In fact, if they invented English, isn't it just a derivative of some Saxon language from mainland Europe? Couldn't you argue that the Saxons of Europe 'invented' Saxon and that the British bastardized it? So why is it wrong for North Americans, or for that matter, people of the Carribean or anywhere else that there are 'dialects' of English, to change it? (And sorry, not a linguist, so I don't know if "Saxon" was a real language. Just an example.)
b) Bringing it back to the acronyms. Again, I think that rules change in English. Does it burn you up that we don't teach kids to use 'thou' anymore? Or to use 'f's instead of 's's in writing?
Sorry for the rambling - still having my morning cup!
a) I'm in North America, so I I'll probably continue to use North American conventions (as well as speaking English and not one of the other languages you might be speaking about.
b) "Pass me those 10 CD" just sounds weird.
c) The answer is one - "LVs" because I'm pluralizing the acronym, not the phrase itself.
I agree with your points, and I generally don't consider myself a grammar nazi, but come on... " American's " ???
Repeat after me: you don't need an apostrophe to pluralize! The apostrophe is 99% of the time supposed to indicate missing letters, like "do not" becoming "don't". The apostrophe replaces the "o".
The only time you might use an apostrophe to pluralize is in the case of years or other numbers, but I still prefer not to. Like "90s" instead of "90's". And I still like using " CDs" instead of " CD's ".
I'll try to counter all your points:
Privacy:
You either wear a tinfoil hat or you don't. So you either trust Google or you don't. I don't wear a tinfoil hat, and I trust Google. But I guess there's no way I'll convince you or you'll convince me on this point.
Losing all your docs
Dude, it's Google. And I'm sure you'd get some sort of notice that they're shutting the doors, and time enough to back up all your documents if they were shutting the doors.
Features
For basic presentations, it seems fine to me. I think this is more of a 'complement' to OO than a replacement. Put some basic presentation up there. Most presentations I do are pretty basic anyway.
Dumb terminal
I think people moved away from dumb terminals because of the lack of bandwidth. But for a lot of people who use pretty basic programs, they make sense. From a deployment standpoint, they're a great idea. And just because some of the software is online, doesn't mean the whole computer can still be dumb. I can play HL2 and still access Google Docs.
Availability
Two words: Google Gears! Not implemented yet, but great answer to the question of accessing stuff when there's no net connection.
I don't know if I'm the only one that does this, but I *don't* enable the deafault AdBlock Plus filters. I just start fresh and build my filters fresh. I honestly don't mind all ads, and I like supporting sites that I go to a lot. But if there's a really irritating flash ad or animated GIF, I'll block it. If it's an animated ad promoting a smiley toolbar or something saying my computer is infected, then the domain the ad comes from (or the subfolder if it's the same domain as the site) gets blacklisted.
I'm not trying to promote this method; this is just a personal choice.
My music collection was once 1000 songs too. Ahh, 1999. A great year.
I guess this is why there are different iPods for different tastes. The Touch is for people who love eye candy (and possible the bigger screen for movies) the shuffle is for joggers and athletes, and the nano is for people who like cute things. For me, I'll probably always stick with the iPod Classic for its huge capacity, as my music collection is about 20 gigs and growing by about 25% each year. For me, the best part of having an iPod is bringing EVERYTHING with me because I'll never know what I want to listen to/watch while I'm on the go.
I was stupid enough to provide my gmail address as a mailto: link in a Slashdot submission that got accepted. I now get about 200 spam messages a day in my inbox. Luckily, there seem to be few false positives, and probably only about 0.5% slips through to my inbox. It seems to learn really well.
Insightful my ass. I'm a big iPod fan. I wouldn't care if it looked like a piece of shit, it's the most easy to use and straightforward MP3 player there is. They've actually put a lot of thought into how people would like to use the device and people generally have a good experience using them.
The most popular car in North America is the Corolla. Not because it looks 'hip' but because it's dependable and reliable. Same reason the iPod is the number one MP3 player in NA.
I find the wheel really accurate. I haven't had anything but good experiences with the Apple UI, which is more than I can say for 99% of other devices I've used.
The whole point of Ubuntu is that it's supposed to be all free software, and since the MP3 isn't an open codec, it's not supported. And I'm pretty sure you're not even allowed to distribute Ubuntu with closed formats enabled by default. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here...
It would be nice though if they could provide a distro that does everything that most users want, right out of the box, including playing MP3's, syncing with an iPod, etc - all of which can be done in Ubuntu, but after some command line magic which most people aren't that into. And if they did offer VLC or other 'restricted' features in Ubuntu right of the box, Nelson Mandela would kick the shit out of them!
I'll admit that recorded music was a major paradigm shift in the way music was enjoyed and distributed, and yes, they are different than sheet music in that you need a particular human skill to enjoy them.
However, I still contend that music itself (if not performance of music) was seen as a commodity and product before recorded music was invented, albeit at a smaller scale. And I still think that there is a definite paralell to sheet music and recorded music, in that both require an external force (computer vs. human) to actually make music. So either you pay for a CD Player (or the skill required to make the CD player), or you pay a musician to play it.
But by that same argument, you could say that a CD is just a listing of components, in the form of 1's and 0's that goes into making music, which a computer plays to produce music. I don't see how sheet music is any different from a CD, or a vinyl record, except that the latter are more thorough reproductions.
The fact is that before CD's and vinyl, there was (and still is) a fairly large business of selling sheet music as products. And copyright enforcement on music isn't a new thing - Beethoven sued over copyright infringement over the use of his music.
I'm not standing up for DRM here, and I don't think that small-scale copying is a bad thing, but you can't argue that the invention of recorded music ushered in the idea of copyright protection.
Wait a second buddy... what about sheet music? That's existed for hundreds of years, and was copyrighted and sold, like a 'product'. How is that a service?
As an FYI, most real home theatre nuts will have a standalone DVD player and separate receiver. Mostly it's the people on the low-end who have a 'home theatre in a box' with a DVD player/receiver.
All of the benefits you mentioned greatly outweigh even the cost of maintaining a couple of workstations and an internet connection for the staff. Benefits like that are difficult to properly ROI, but are nonetheless important.
There are places that do this legally for a large catalogue?
Not yet. But eMusic and Amie St have lots of great independent music. And for now I'll continue to buy CD's and rip them for anything that's not available there. I'd rather put my money in those places to encourage more artists and labels to start making their music available without DRM. The more people that start doing this and shunning the DRM stores, the more chance that all music will be DRM-free. I don't know if it will work, but I'm doing so and encouraging everyone I know to do so. Ultimately, the market will decide whether people will accept DRM.
If Apple didn't really care if people stripped the FairPlay from its songs, why did iTunes version 6 update FairPlay so it couldn't be decrypted by several of the Fairplay stripping apps out at the time?
No matter how liberal Apple is with the DRM (and I'll admit that they are) I still don't like another company deciding what privileges I have with music that I've bought. What if Apple gets bought out by Sony 10 years from now and they decide to change the DRM so you can't even burn an audio CD anymore? Those changes would apply retroactively to all music you've bought from them.
This is why I'll continue to vote with my wallet and only buy songs with no DRM. That way, I'll always have control over what I can do with my music.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, life is more like an arbitrarily large number of interrelated grids, with lots of complex logic. This is why more complex stuff is usually shunted off to databases. Or should be. I've seen far too many Excel files that would be way more useful in a database of some sort.
But by in large, I think that grammar rules should be descriptive of the current norms, and not necessarily prescriptive. Just because you're supposed to say "Just between you and I" instead of "Just between you and me" doesn't mean you have to. To me, if the latter sounds acceptable and gains more popularity, the rules should be adjusted so that that's correct. On the one hand, saying the former rather than the latter makes you seem a little 'higher class' but isn't that just using language as a class barrier of sorts?
To take apart your points in my non-literate, non-formal fashion, here's another point-by-point rebuttal!
a) Just because English as we know it generally originates from Britain, doesn't mean that the language they invented is set in stone. In fact, if they invented English, isn't it just a derivative of some Saxon language from mainland Europe? Couldn't you argue that the Saxons of Europe 'invented' Saxon and that the British bastardized it? So why is it wrong for North Americans, or for that matter, people of the Carribean or anywhere else that there are 'dialects' of English, to change it? (And sorry, not a linguist, so I don't know if "Saxon" was a real language. Just an example.)
b) Bringing it back to the acronyms. Again, I think that rules change in English. Does it burn you up that we don't teach kids to use 'thou' anymore? Or to use 'f's instead of 's's in writing?
Sorry for the rambling - still having my morning cup!
b) "Pass me those 10 CD" just sounds weird.
c) The answer is one - "LVs" because I'm pluralizing the acronym, not the phrase itself.
Heh heh... oh yeah, I forgot. Now I sound kinda dumb.
Repeat after me: you don't need an apostrophe to pluralize! The apostrophe is 99% of the time supposed to indicate missing letters, like "do not" becoming "don't". The apostrophe replaces the "o".
The only time you might use an apostrophe to pluralize is in the case of years or other numbers, but I still prefer not to. Like "90s" instead of "90's". And I still like using " CDs" instead of " CD's ".
I'll try to counter all your points: Privacy: You either wear a tinfoil hat or you don't. So you either trust Google or you don't. I don't wear a tinfoil hat, and I trust Google. But I guess there's no way I'll convince you or you'll convince me on this point. Losing all your docs Dude, it's Google. And I'm sure you'd get some sort of notice that they're shutting the doors, and time enough to back up all your documents if they were shutting the doors. Features For basic presentations, it seems fine to me. I think this is more of a 'complement' to OO than a replacement. Put some basic presentation up there. Most presentations I do are pretty basic anyway. Dumb terminal I think people moved away from dumb terminals because of the lack of bandwidth. But for a lot of people who use pretty basic programs, they make sense. From a deployment standpoint, they're a great idea. And just because some of the software is online, doesn't mean the whole computer can still be dumb. I can play HL2 and still access Google Docs. Availability Two words: Google Gears! Not implemented yet, but great answer to the question of accessing stuff when there's no net connection.
I'm not trying to promote this method; this is just a personal choice.
My music collection was once 1000 songs too. Ahh, 1999. A great year. I guess this is why there are different iPods for different tastes. The Touch is for people who love eye candy (and possible the bigger screen for movies) the shuffle is for joggers and athletes, and the nano is for people who like cute things. For me, I'll probably always stick with the iPod Classic for its huge capacity, as my music collection is about 20 gigs and growing by about 25% each year. For me, the best part of having an iPod is bringing EVERYTHING with me because I'll never know what I want to listen to/watch while I'm on the go.
I was stupid enough to provide my gmail address as a mailto: link in a Slashdot submission that got accepted. I now get about 200 spam messages a day in my inbox. Luckily, there seem to be few false positives, and probably only about 0.5% slips through to my inbox. It seems to learn really well.
Isn't naming the product part of the marketing of it? Apple just has better marketers.
Oh, and another difference? One is easy and intuitive to use, the other is confusing and awkward. Can you guess which is which?
The most popular car in North America is the Corolla. Not because it looks 'hip' but because it's dependable and reliable. Same reason the iPod is the number one MP3 player in NA.
I find the wheel really accurate. I haven't had anything but good experiences with the Apple UI, which is more than I can say for 99% of other devices I've used.
The whole point of Ubuntu is that it's supposed to be all free software, and since the MP3 isn't an open codec, it's not supported. And I'm pretty sure you're not even allowed to distribute Ubuntu with closed formats enabled by default. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here...
It would be nice though if they could provide a distro that does everything that most users want, right out of the box, including playing MP3's, syncing with an iPod, etc - all of which can be done in Ubuntu, but after some command line magic which most people aren't that into. And if they did offer VLC or other 'restricted' features in Ubuntu right of the box, Nelson Mandela would kick the shit out of them!
I seriously doubt that Dell would offer Ubuntu as an option. No MP3 support out of the box? That would really kill off the casual adopter.
Touché. It was a good discourse!
However, I still contend that music itself (if not performance of music) was seen as a commodity and product before recorded music was invented, albeit at a smaller scale. And I still think that there is a definite paralell to sheet music and recorded music, in that both require an external force (computer vs. human) to actually make music. So either you pay for a CD Player (or the skill required to make the CD player), or you pay a musician to play it.
The fact is that before CD's and vinyl, there was (and still is) a fairly large business of selling sheet music as products. And copyright enforcement on music isn't a new thing - Beethoven sued over copyright infringement over the use of his music.
I'm not standing up for DRM here, and I don't think that small-scale copying is a bad thing, but you can't argue that the invention of recorded music ushered in the idea of copyright protection.
Wait a second buddy... what about sheet music? That's existed for hundreds of years, and was copyrighted and sold, like a 'product'. How is that a service?
As an FYI, most real home theatre nuts will have a standalone DVD player and separate receiver. Mostly it's the people on the low-end who have a 'home theatre in a box' with a DVD player/receiver.
All of the benefits you mentioned greatly outweigh even the cost of maintaining a couple of workstations and an internet connection for the staff. Benefits like that are difficult to properly ROI, but are nonetheless important.
Not yet. But eMusic and Amie St have lots of great independent music. And for now I'll continue to buy CD's and rip them for anything that's not available there. I'd rather put my money in those places to encourage more artists and labels to start making their music available without DRM. The more people that start doing this and shunning the DRM stores, the more chance that all music will be DRM-free. I don't know if it will work, but I'm doing so and encouraging everyone I know to do so. Ultimately, the market will decide whether people will accept DRM.
No matter how liberal Apple is with the DRM (and I'll admit that they are) I still don't like another company deciding what privileges I have with music that I've bought. What if Apple gets bought out by Sony 10 years from now and they decide to change the DRM so you can't even burn an audio CD anymore? Those changes would apply retroactively to all music you've bought from them.
This is why I'll continue to vote with my wallet and only buy songs with no DRM. That way, I'll always have control over what I can do with my music.