If you have problems with my logic, feel free to articulate them. However, simply calling them stupid adds nothing to the discussion.
I almost wonder if it's worth articulating the problem if you can't be bothered to read my post. But just to repeat myself - RTFA. Look at Joel's comments on development effort and you'll see the problem.
Whether or not people use the released specs for the Office binary formats is a secondary concern.
And if you read your own post (do you read anything?), you might note the context is a paragraph that starts: "I fail to see the problem with using the specification Microsoft released to write a program that can read and write this binary format." Therefore whether or not someone uses the released specs is in fact the primary concern of that particular argument.
your stance seems to be that you should always do the opposite of what Microsoft wants
And what - apart from shockingly poor logic - would make you think that?
The open source user base would definitely benefit from being able to read Office binary formats with no compatibility issues which is what the release of this specification allows.
Couldn't agree more. However, that is a completely different thing to saying that the workarounds suggested are the worst there's ever been. If that is your real argument, you should have made it rather than posted a genuinely stupid critique of someone else's reasoned analysis. Bear in mind, the article states it would take thousands of years of development effort to do what you describe. The fact that it would be a benefit does not mean it is worth the cost.
I think the design goals were flawed. That's my point.
And I think your ability to assess another's work is flawed courtesy of an over sized ego. That was my point.
You have yet to provide an alternative solution to the problem. Given that one constraint is memory, your inability to be concise suggests you're not capable of coming up with one either. Certainly your "squeeze out a few extra microseconds" comment suggests you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. Yet you persist in calling it bad design. You are strangely smug about what was quite possibly an implicit assumption forced by tough constraints, with no actual interoperability requirements, at a time when they were rarely offered let alone expected. I would stop using "IMHO" - clearly there is nothing humble about your opinion.
Why the bit about metadata, out of interest? It's as if you think the more irrelevant things you can fit into the post, the more we're supposed to be impressed.
Whether it is a genuine concern or a knee jerk reaction does not change the post from being ill informed and badly thought out.
Besides, how do you envisage that a file format which is essentially a detailed description of the actual binary data structure is going to be missing something?
I fail to see the problem with using the specification Microsoft released to write a program that can read and write this binary format
That is almost the the stupidest thing I've read today (RTFA with respect to development costs to figure out why), except for this:
If Microsoft didn't want it to be used, they would not have released it.
We can ignore the shockingly poor logic inherent to this statement and just take it at face value: doing something just because M$ wants you to would easily make the Top 10 Stupid Things To Do In IT list. It's particularly bizarre to hear it on Slashdot.
It's interesting you give a nicely egotistical critique of a well-regarded expert's article, but don't suggest a single alternative to how M$ could have met their design goals, nor explain why the no-interoperability assumption was unreasonable at the time. If you can't appreciate the design goals, nor suggest a way to meet them, what's the point of the rest of your post?
If there are any optional parts of the spec, those parts aren't covered.
RTFA. That's in the FAQ. Yes they are.
If the spec refers to another spec to define some part of the format, that part isn't covered.
In other words - if you do something related to a spec that isn't covered, it isn't covered. How could it be any different?!
I'm not saying that there aren't any flaws, but this kind of ill informed, badly thought out comment (a.k.a. "+5 Insightful", of course) has little value.
I shouldn't have to dig deep to find what they stand for, and I haven't quite found it, outside of general party principles, which I oppose most of the time anyway.
Looking up a web site with the exact same name as the candidate before shooting off your mouth is hardly "digging deep". Some people are happy to hear only what they want to hear, I guess. A few quick points, because it's probably wasted on someone who needs to be spoon fed:
The bias appears right wing to me, because to a Brit both your parties are right wing. To the extent that the US media failed to hold a conservative adminstration to account even as treated the Constitution with contempt and generally screwed the US to no apparent benefit, it is certainly difficult to see a liberal bias.
What are the things the Clintons were not challenged on by the media? Anything on a scale measured in dead Americans, trade and budget deficits, or significant increases in foreign ownership of US assets?
During an internal selection process, it simply isn't the media's role to create the news and invent questions to satisfy the nutjobs in the other party. Filtering out smear tactics is entirely appropriate. You're concluding the media is biased on by doing what it is supposed to do.
Obama's stance on the war has been consistent. If you don't think that's positive, then you really are as biased as you're pretending not to be. If you think voting to fund troops stuck in a war zone is the same as wanting to bring those troops home, you are quite simply wrong.
I don't agree with software patents, but that suggestion doesn't work. The point of a patent is to grant someone a monopoly. Your idea would deprive them of that monopoly. The two concepts are mutually exclusive.
No. It is precisely that kind of lazy thinking and willing acceptance of bias that is the problem with America today. Such attitudes have spoiled what used to be the greatest country on Earth.
Your initial point was that a pundit at one end of the political scale shows how the media is biased against his point of view - I say that's not possible. You say there is a liberal bias, I say there is not. These are not similar conclusions, these are opposites. And in the post above, the casual statements of distortion and bias are exactly the kind of thing I was posting against.
"Completely supports" is an absolute, and a complete distortion of accusing someone of failing their oversight duties. It's logically equivalent to saying that the Democrat Congress completely supports Bush. This is the kind of nonsense that propagandists use.
The presence of sensationalism is a given, but what are the actions of the Clinton administration that you feel did not receive coverage because instead they chose to discuss Britney? I don't recall any time where the entire planet was wishing to God someone would start challenging the Bush administration on its various abuses of their own country's principles.
The reason you rarely hear positives about Iraq is because positives are rare. To believe the situation is generally (as compared to completely) negative is not ignorant and idiotic, but to talk once again in absolutes is.
What are the questions that are not being asked? Lack of experience, ties to slum landlords, an extremist liberal voting record, attendance at a Muslim school, divisive politics, failure to deliver on heathcare reform, relying on familiarity rather than achievement, voting for the war but claiming to be against it -these questions have all been asked. What is the difficult question you feel should be asked?
Because Obama seems such an impressive candidate, I've gone through his policies. They're more than detailed enough, especially when you consider that whoever becomes the presidential candidate will have to change their policies to represent their party and not just their own point of view. The role of the President is not to write policy, but to lead the nation. So what is a "serious positive stand"? Or are you just using vague accusatory questions as per standard smear tactics?
But follow the implications: the ownership is right wing and has control not just editorially but also through the ever present "keep the boss happy" dynamic. The result recently (i.e. under a conservative government) is a media diet that heavily supports the conservative agenda by ignoring the oversight role of the press to focus on the trivial. There are just as many right wing pundits as left, and an entire right wing news channel (or comedy channel to non-Americans) in the form of Fox. Against that backdrop, and taking into account the fact that many people who are left wing when young but right wing when older, and I don't see the basis for giving much credence to the fact that journalists graduate from liberal institutions. Universities generally are liberal institutions, but clearly the adult population is not heavily split either way so just how much influence can they have in practice?
So I find the "liberal media" claim difficult to believe. Often when it is used, the context suggests the intended meaning is not "that section of the media which is liberal", which would be fine. Instead it has distinct overtones of "the media has a left wing bias, so ignore what others have to say and listen to me for the truth", which is disgusting and generally corrosive to informed debate - something the US is in dire need of.
I'd like to make an intelligent comment on the lack of detail in the article, or some sensible prediction of what it means. But I'll confess my brain is kind of stuck at the stage of going:
The things is, it can sound stupid even to an "expert" like me. Just imagine a random consumer asking you "so I can't transfer the HD video of my onto a standard DVD" and the ensuing conversation about what actually HD means, and you can quickly see that HD DVD requires an assumption or two to make sense. Confusing names are stupid names.
Personally, I like the Blu-Ray precisely because the meaning of anything normally requires *some* background information. And with Blu-Ray, the easy explanation is that it's use of a blue laser ray rather than the old red one means it can store more information. That gives people something easy to grasp on to. If you can appreciate how the different laser wavelengths are important, great. If not, at least you can still appreciate to some degree there is a fundamental difference in the technology. Either way, you can take onboard a new concept and have an easy-to-use new bit of jargon everyone can work with.
To make that statement strongly implies that ONLY the ownership is biased towards making money. This requires the assumption that journalists are never biased by the desire to be well paid, a famous pundit, or generally just have reliable, professional income. It doesn't stand up to the most cursory inspection.
It is a useful thing to believe if you wish to justify a believe that the media has a liberal bias, of course. How convenient.
There is absolutely no parallel between cutting off a ranting, racist nutjob with no knowledge of the history of his country on a single occasion four years ago, and the repeated shameful neglect by the US media of a well known, well funded, highly visible, rather popular presidential candidate.
Did you have a point, or did you just want to prove you know how to cut and paste?
The TFA is the counter argument. It clearly conveys M$'s intent to make OOXML an open standard.
Incidentally, pointing out that a post with no facts or references and relies upon an unquestioning thought process that thrives amongst the ideologically inclined may be harsh, but it's not necessarily wrong, and certainly not an ad hominem attack. I'd appreciate it if you refrained from that kind of accusatory bullshit and actually justified your position. Anyone on Slashdot will know there's plenty of groupthink here, so what they've "observed for themselves" is hardly a convincing argument.
it doesn't change that you're being pretty harsh on somebody you don't know, while leaving yourself open to mockery for errors.
Fair point. Although I'm confident that making something of an error made during a few milliseconds of typing on an online forum leaves yourself open for much more mockery than me.
Given the smug arrogance of someone saying I'm wrong because they understood the GPL with no problem, I simply wasn't worried about being harsh. I carefully chose my wording to refer to their post and not to be ad hominem attack, but nonetheless it was just egotistical bullshit and I'm happy to point that out.
As for "challenging a person's interpretation of a document" or chiding them for a "lack of effort", I did no such thing. That would certainly be an insult, but you appear determined to put words in my mouth. Presumably this is a well intentioned desire to be politically correct, but in preference to a fair interpretation of what was actually written it is kind of annoying. Your view is clear, but the reason you hold it is not.
No, I don't agree with that logic. It is pure FUD - only as substantial as the fear and doubt you give it. You only have to look at the way M$'s claim of 200 LInux patents has been generally ignored to know that people are concerned about them, but not to the extent of letting it affect their decisions.
And look at the GPL. I'll bet that the people that took my original post from being modded Insightful down to 0 would endorse the notion that this is legitimate FUD, but would have decried the FUD about the GPL. It stinks of hypocrisy, and so I challenge it.
I praise the BBC and its unique ownership structure. I criticise the effect of ratings and advertisers, which covers Fox, The Sun, etc.
The fact you've taken the exact opposite meaning out of my post by quoting part of it completely out of context simply supports my point of view that individuals are unreliable. I consider my point of view on this specific issue to be objective, not elitist.
I think the GP was responding to my question ("What's the rant for?") by pointing out the ranter has a seven digit UID. Might even have meant to imply that said poster may be lacking in patience, intelligence or experience.
Of course, you've proven that six digit UIDs can have similar problems:)
No they don't. There is no part of the linked page where they are giving any more than the simplest, most obvious, "don't ask us to define the law" response regarding the GPL. The same answer makes it clear that OSP is intended to allow open source implementations. That is completely different to advising people to get legal advice.
Not quoting the full sentence does not make a quote out of context. The entire argument is about the existence or otherwise of wriggle room and ambiguity. The full sentence is logically null because it claims both the presence and absence of clarity. It is perfectly valid to select only one clause for the purposes of a clear debate.
Besides, you rather hypocritically choose to drop the other half of my quote, which is perfectly logical substitute for the part I "failed" to quote. It would make no difference to my argument or the GP's if I simply quoted the sentence as you did, except that I felt my selection conveys my point better. Repeating the GP's belief that there is no ambiguity serves no purpose.
Also, you may not realise it but you're actually agreeing with me. My very point was that there is no such thing as a document which someone can't find ambiguous if they wanted to. So it's just pointless FUD to do so.
Why can't they give a legal promise not to use their patents against Free and Open Source software?
My comment was that I don't like FUD. That doesn't mean I'm going to start defending M$ on patents. I think all software companies should lobby the US government to get rid off software patents altogether. They don't exist here in the UK now, but they might if America doesn't get its act together.
Incidentally, it's hard to believe anyone knows EXACTLY what's going to happen when they talk in standard/. groupthink memes. I'd much prefer intelligent arguments - it would give me some faith that maybe the US government might be presented with good reasons to get rid of software patents.
Slashdot Mirror
I almost wonder if it's worth articulating the problem if you can't be bothered to read my post. But just to repeat myself - RTFA. Look at Joel's comments on development effort and you'll see the problem.
And if you read your own post (do you read anything?), you might note the context is a paragraph that starts: "I fail to see the problem with using the specification Microsoft released to write a program that can read and write this binary format." Therefore whether or not someone uses the released specs is in fact the primary concern of that particular argument.
And what - apart from shockingly poor logic - would make you think that?
Couldn't agree more. However, that is a completely different thing to saying that the workarounds suggested are the worst there's ever been. If that is your real argument, you should have made it rather than posted a genuinely stupid critique of someone else's reasoned analysis. Bear in mind, the article states it would take thousands of years of development effort to do what you describe. The fact that it would be a benefit does not mean it is worth the cost.
And I think your ability to assess another's work is flawed courtesy of an over sized ego. That was my point.
You have yet to provide an alternative solution to the problem. Given that one constraint is memory, your inability to be concise suggests you're not capable of coming up with one either. Certainly your "squeeze out a few extra microseconds" comment suggests you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. Yet you persist in calling it bad design. You are strangely smug about what was quite possibly an implicit assumption forced by tough constraints, with no actual interoperability requirements, at a time when they were rarely offered let alone expected. I would stop using "IMHO" - clearly there is nothing humble about your opinion.
Why the bit about metadata, out of interest? It's as if you think the more irrelevant things you can fit into the post, the more we're supposed to be impressed.
Whether it is a genuine concern or a knee jerk reaction does not change the post from being ill informed and badly thought out.
Besides, how do you envisage that a file format which is essentially a detailed description of the actual binary data structure is going to be missing something?
Of course. So are the monopolies they grant. How is this relevant?
That is almost the the stupidest thing I've read today (RTFA with respect to development costs to figure out why), except for this:
We can ignore the shockingly poor logic inherent to this statement and just take it at face value: doing something just because M$ wants you to would easily make the Top 10 Stupid Things To Do In IT list. It's particularly bizarre to hear it on Slashdot.
It's interesting you give a nicely egotistical critique of a well-regarded expert's article, but don't suggest a single alternative to how M$ could have met their design goals, nor explain why the no-interoperability assumption was unreasonable at the time. If you can't appreciate the design goals, nor suggest a way to meet them, what's the point of the rest of your post?
RTFA. That's in the FAQ. Yes they are.
In other words - if you do something related to a spec that isn't covered, it isn't covered. How could it be any different?!
I'm not saying that there aren't any flaws, but this kind of ill informed, badly thought out comment (a.k.a. "+5 Insightful", of course) has little value.
Looking up a web site with the exact same name as the candidate before shooting off your mouth is hardly "digging deep". Some people are happy to hear only what they want to hear, I guess. A few quick points, because it's probably wasted on someone who needs to be spoon fed:
The bias appears right wing to me, because to a Brit both your parties are right wing. To the extent that the US media failed to hold a conservative adminstration to account even as treated the Constitution with contempt and generally screwed the US to no apparent benefit, it is certainly difficult to see a liberal bias.
What are the things the Clintons were not challenged on by the media? Anything on a scale measured in dead Americans, trade and budget deficits, or significant increases in foreign ownership of US assets?
During an internal selection process, it simply isn't the media's role to create the news and invent questions to satisfy the nutjobs in the other party. Filtering out smear tactics is entirely appropriate. You're concluding the media is biased on by doing what it is supposed to do.
Obama's stance on the war has been consistent. If you don't think that's positive, then you really are as biased as you're pretending not to be. If you think voting to fund troops stuck in a war zone is the same as wanting to bring those troops home, you are quite simply wrong.
I don't agree with software patents, but that suggestion doesn't work. The point of a patent is to grant someone a monopoly. Your idea would deprive them of that monopoly. The two concepts are mutually exclusive.
No. It is precisely that kind of lazy thinking and willing acceptance of bias that is the problem with America today. Such attitudes have spoiled what used to be the greatest country on Earth.
Your initial point was that a pundit at one end of the political scale shows how the media is biased against his point of view - I say that's not possible. You say there is a liberal bias, I say there is not. These are not similar conclusions, these are opposites. And in the post above, the casual statements of distortion and bias are exactly the kind of thing I was posting against.
"Completely supports" is an absolute, and a complete distortion of accusing someone of failing their oversight duties. It's logically equivalent to saying that the Democrat Congress completely supports Bush. This is the kind of nonsense that propagandists use.
The presence of sensationalism is a given, but what are the actions of the Clinton administration that you feel did not receive coverage because instead they chose to discuss Britney? I don't recall any time where the entire planet was wishing to God someone would start challenging the Bush administration on its various abuses of their own country's principles.
The reason you rarely hear positives about Iraq is because positives are rare. To believe the situation is generally (as compared to completely) negative is not ignorant and idiotic, but to talk once again in absolutes is.
What are the questions that are not being asked? Lack of experience, ties to slum landlords, an extremist liberal voting record, attendance at a Muslim school, divisive politics, failure to deliver on heathcare reform, relying on familiarity rather than achievement, voting for the war but claiming to be against it -these questions have all been asked. What is the difficult question you feel should be asked?
Because Obama seems such an impressive candidate, I've gone through his policies. They're more than detailed enough, especially when you consider that whoever becomes the presidential candidate will have to change their policies to represent their party and not just their own point of view. The role of the President is not to write policy, but to lead the nation. So what is a "serious positive stand"? Or are you just using vague accusatory questions as per standard smear tactics?
Couldn't agree with you more on that one.
But follow the implications: the ownership is right wing and has control not just editorially but also through the ever present "keep the boss happy" dynamic. The result recently (i.e. under a conservative government) is a media diet that heavily supports the conservative agenda by ignoring the oversight role of the press to focus on the trivial. There are just as many right wing pundits as left, and an entire right wing news channel (or comedy channel to non-Americans) in the form of Fox. Against that backdrop, and taking into account the fact that many people who are left wing when young but right wing when older, and I don't see the basis for giving much credence to the fact that journalists graduate from liberal institutions. Universities generally are liberal institutions, but clearly the adult population is not heavily split either way so just how much influence can they have in practice?
So I find the "liberal media" claim difficult to believe. Often when it is used, the context suggests the intended meaning is not "that section of the media which is liberal", which would be fine. Instead it has distinct overtones of "the media has a left wing bias, so ignore what others have to say and listen to me for the truth", which is disgusting and generally corrosive to informed debate - something the US is in dire need of.
I'd like to make an intelligent comment on the lack of detail in the article, or some sensible prediction of what it means. But I'll confess my brain is kind of stuck at the stage of going:
...
Oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please
The things is, it can sound stupid even to an "expert" like me. Just imagine a random consumer asking you "so I can't transfer the HD video of my onto a standard DVD" and the ensuing conversation about what actually HD means, and you can quickly see that HD DVD requires an assumption or two to make sense. Confusing names are stupid names.
Personally, I like the Blu-Ray precisely because the meaning of anything normally requires *some* background information. And with Blu-Ray, the easy explanation is that it's use of a blue laser ray rather than the old red one means it can store more information. That gives people something easy to grasp on to. If you can appreciate how the different laser wavelengths are important, great. If not, at least you can still appreciate to some degree there is a fundamental difference in the technology. Either way, you can take onboard a new concept and have an easy-to-use new bit of jargon everyone can work with.
To make that statement strongly implies that ONLY the ownership is biased towards making money. This requires the assumption that journalists are never biased by the desire to be well paid, a famous pundit, or generally just have reliable, professional income. It doesn't stand up to the most cursory inspection.
It is a useful thing to believe if you wish to justify a believe that the media has a liberal bias, of course. How convenient.
There is absolutely no parallel between cutting off a ranting, racist nutjob with no knowledge of the history of his country on a single occasion four years ago, and the repeated shameful neglect by the US media of a well known, well funded, highly visible, rather popular presidential candidate.
Did you have a point, or did you just want to prove you know how to cut and paste?
The TFA is the counter argument. It clearly conveys M$'s intent to make OOXML an open standard. Incidentally, pointing out that a post with no facts or references and relies upon an unquestioning thought process that thrives amongst the ideologically inclined may be harsh, but it's not necessarily wrong, and certainly not an ad hominem attack. I'd appreciate it if you refrained from that kind of accusatory bullshit and actually justified your position. Anyone on Slashdot will know there's plenty of groupthink here, so what they've "observed for themselves" is hardly a convincing argument.
Fair point. Although I'm confident that making something of an error made during a few milliseconds of typing on an online forum leaves yourself open for much more mockery than me.
Given the smug arrogance of someone saying I'm wrong because they understood the GPL with no problem, I simply wasn't worried about being harsh. I carefully chose my wording to refer to their post and not to be ad hominem attack, but nonetheless it was just egotistical bullshit and I'm happy to point that out.
As for "challenging a person's interpretation of a document" or chiding them for a "lack of effort", I did no such thing. That would certainly be an insult, but you appear determined to put words in my mouth. Presumably this is a well intentioned desire to be politically correct, but in preference to a fair interpretation of what was actually written it is kind of annoying. Your view is clear, but the reason you hold it is not.
No, I don't agree with that logic. It is pure FUD - only as substantial as the fear and doubt you give it. You only have to look at the way M$'s claim of 200 LInux patents has been generally ignored to know that people are concerned about them, but not to the extent of letting it affect their decisions.
And look at the GPL. I'll bet that the people that took my original post from being modded Insightful down to 0 would endorse the notion that this is legitimate FUD, but would have decried the FUD about the GPL. It stinks of hypocrisy, and so I challenge it.
I praise the BBC and its unique ownership structure. I criticise the effect of ratings and advertisers, which covers Fox, The Sun, etc.
The fact you've taken the exact opposite meaning out of my post by quoting part of it completely out of context simply supports my point of view that individuals are unreliable. I consider my point of view on this specific issue to be objective, not elitist.
The GP says I have no credibility, which is an ad hominem attack. Further, I don't consider rants to be arguments.
I made exactly the same assumption as you.
I think the GP was responding to my question ("What's the rant for?") by pointing out the ranter has a seven digit UID. Might even have meant to imply that said poster may be lacking in patience, intelligence or experience.
:)
Of course, you've proven that six digit UIDs can have similar problems
No they don't. There is no part of the linked page where they are giving any more than the simplest, most obvious, "don't ask us to define the law" response regarding the GPL. The same answer makes it clear that OSP is intended to allow open source implementations. That is completely different to advising people to get legal advice.
Not quoting the full sentence does not make a quote out of context. The entire argument is about the existence or otherwise of wriggle room and ambiguity. The full sentence is logically null because it claims both the presence and absence of clarity. It is perfectly valid to select only one clause for the purposes of a clear debate.
Besides, you rather hypocritically choose to drop the other half of my quote, which is perfectly logical substitute for the part I "failed" to quote. It would make no difference to my argument or the GP's if I simply quoted the sentence as you did, except that I felt my selection conveys my point better. Repeating the GP's belief that there is no ambiguity serves no purpose.
Also, you may not realise it but you're actually agreeing with me. My very point was that there is no such thing as a document which someone can't find ambiguous if they wanted to. So it's just pointless FUD to do so.
You couldn't even be bothered to read the web page, could you?
Read the FAQ. Cut the bullshit.
My comment was that I don't like FUD. That doesn't mean I'm going to start defending M$ on patents. I think all software companies should lobby the US government to get rid off software patents altogether. They don't exist here in the UK now, but they might if America doesn't get its act together.
Incidentally, it's hard to believe anyone knows EXACTLY what's going to happen when they talk in standard /. groupthink memes. I'd much prefer intelligent arguments - it would give me some faith that maybe the US government might be presented with good reasons to get rid of software patents.