Re:Separating Content from Presentation a Good Thi
on
Office 2003 and XML
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· Score: 1
This may be bad (keeping in mind the jury is still out on exactly how Microsoft is making this work) because in the case of office documents, the style is actually *part* of the content, from the perspective of Joe Office User.
So let me get this straight: Is it better to ignore standards to make things easier for Joe User (as IE is vilified for doing with accepting broken HTML) or is it better to follow standards and break what Joe User wants (as you are vilifying Office for doing)?
Religion does not answer the question of where the universe came from because it leaves the question of where God came from unanswered.
However, that does not prove that it is wrong. The scientific method does not prove religion wrong. The fact that supporters of an argument cannot formulate their beliefs in terms of scientific principles does nothing to prove or disprove their beliefs.
Religion creates a self-consistent view of the world and history. However unlikely and construed this world view is, science cannot disprove this world view because it is self-consistent (i.e. all inconsistencies are explained away by saying that is what God willed).
The only scientific test that the theory of Religion fails is Occam's razor and that is not a hard-and-fast test, just a general rule of thumb.
So now the Slashdot editors have a way to get people who actually read the site (i.e. not the editors) to read the stories before they go up and tell them when they posted dupes, movie reviews for movies that came out a year ago, etc.
Not only that, they actually get to pay for the privilege. This is brilliant!
This software is free for use, redistribution and modification by any entity for any purpose as long as any form of it is never used to do something we don't like
First you exclude military purposes, then you exclude people who indulge in kiddie-porn or hate speech, then anti-abortionists, and so on...
Freedom is freedom. Freedom with restrictions is not freedom.
Here's a test which is much more clueful than the dumb examples on your web page.
The ad on the Opera page does not look stretched or mis-sized so I can only guess that it is a splash ad or popup or similar. Regardless, it is certainly not misrendered. You give no basis for comparison between that and the other pages.
I don't think you can turn off HTML email. However, when an email contains a web bug, you will typically get a message saying "Warning: The page is accessing information that is outside its control" or something similar indicating that you are downloading content from outside your email.
Also, by default your email is set to run in the "restricted sites" zone, which limits what can be done in the email.
Public Holidays (of which we get alot fewer than you 'merkins),
I don't see how you get off on saying that the UK has a lot fewer public holidays than the US.
According to this site, I can count 9 days that are holidays in the UK. Ireland and Scotland have more.
In the same year, most US businesses had the following: New Years Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving (2 days) and Christmas, giving you a grand total of 7.
Maybe those competitors should get a better business model instead of trying to sell utilities that should be included in the OS for little or no cost?
Laws don't exist to protect companies with flawed business model. It's a much, much better value proposition to consumers to receive basic utilities which no operating system should ship without for a fraction of the cost. The average end-user pays about $30-$40 for their OEM copy of Windows XP. You can hardly buy any of those add on utilities for that price. Why should we force consumers to shell out more?
The mandate calls for serving a local audience - not for appeasing Union Labors job needs. There's a difference.
Whether or not you like what Clear Channel is doing is a wholly different matter and people should and will vote for or against this with their listening $ - this is nothing for the government to be involved in, however.
Nonsense. No PS2 is being used for SCUDS. PC Hardware is cheaper and much more powerful at that.
Basically what happened was that Sony released the PS2 in Japan and saw it being exported to Europe and the US in large quantities. Sony didn't like that because it wanted to control the release of the PS2 in other markets so it asked the Japanese government to stop it from happening. The Japanese government complied and said "would you also like your shoes cleaned, master?".
OK, maybe I missed something, but what's the difference between buying all the gaming companies one at a time, and buying them all at once?
Seems to me that if buying them all is illegal, then buying them one at a time would be illegal too - or do we wait until there is only one left, and say "you're not allowed to buy that one!"? (At which point it're pretty irrelevant, because one small company competing against a near-monopoly is pretty much doomed anyway.)
You are correct.
So, the question is - at what point do we say "Ok, now you're leveraging your monopoly?"
That's where you are wrong. The above actions are illegal (and anti-trust) but are not "leveraging your monopoly". The actions you described above would be illegal whether they were committed by Microsoft or Sun or RedHat or JoeSchmoe. Where the money comes from is irrelevant. The term "leveraging your monopoly" specifically applies when you do something that someone without that monopoly couldn't do - like tie Windoes to all those games somehow. Using money (regardless of source) is not "leveraging a monopoly".
Again it relates to Microsoft using money obtained from one monopoly and using it to crush competition in another which is illegal under the sherman anti trust act.
Umm.. No. That is NOT illegal. It is only illegal to leverage a monopoly in one area to crush competition in another area. As long as you are not leveraging the monopoly itself, you are free to use the money from the monopoly to do pretty much as you please.
On the other hand, it would be illegal if they were to use the money (regardless of source) to buy up all the gaming companies and thus choke out the competition.
Please educate yourself about what you are talking about before posting again.
Back when Henry Ford was starting to build cars, one of the famous things he did was to yes, work his workers hard, but he also gave them wages far above what was normal for the day and age. This was to help prime the pump of demand for his product. If you had a country of poor people, then no-one could really buy your expensive product, and you would never have a mass market. Thus it was in his long term interest to pay his workers well.
Wow! Your economics teacher is in tears right now. Let me get this straight. You seriously think that paying the miniscule fraction of the US population that worked in his factory a little more money helped get the entire country richer to the point that they could all afford the cars that small percentage of workers produced at the higher prices? You seem to have drank the Reaganomics kool-aid.
Here's the Reuters story on this from a few days ago which contains more information.
"Microsoft's secret plan was to plunder the small company of its proprietary information, technical expertise, market knowledge, customers and prospective customers," the filing said.
So now stealing "customers and prospective customers" is a crime for a competitor to commit? Sounds like a case of another company (hint, Sun) which can't achieve success through selling its product so hopes to achieve it through litigation.
Umm.. no. AT&T Broadband, here in Seattle offers ESPN and ESPN2 in the standard package but ESPN Classic is digital-only. I know because I have standard cable.
Yes, but the big difference here is that since Reynolds owned all the bauxite mines there was no way for a competitor to exist.
The same is not true for Windows. Witness Apple, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. There is nothing stopping someone else from building a competing OS and selling it. With Reynolds owning all the bauxite mines that was physically impossible.
From reading the article it did not sound as if the UK had made a final decision on the subject:
The United Kingdom's Patent Office issued a statement on its Web site saying it was still considering a variety of view points on the matter and would endeavor to implement the directive by March 31, 2003.
Sounds more like the bill is still with the Patent Office which is figuring out the minutae before sending it to parliament to be voted upon.
This is the same guy who hosts the pointless trivia show on Comedy Central "Win Ben Stein's Money".
Yes, let's not discuss the ideas. Let's attack the source instead.
The winnings in Ben Steins show are paltry. The maximum the winner can make is $5,000 - hardly a sum of money you can get rich of. On the other hand, the show provides entertainment (which is the purpose of TV) while delving into the knowledge of history, politics, art, religion and science.
I have to disagree with you on that. Sex is a huge tool for personal gratification to us as humans. As such, the ability to have sex is a huge component of the quality of life.
Given that over half the human population in this country is over 40, something that enables them to gratify themselves is a great innovation. You might not appreciate it now but you will when you are older.
Slashdot Mirror
This may be bad (keeping in mind the jury is still out on exactly how Microsoft is making this work) because in the case of office documents, the style is actually *part* of the content, from the perspective of Joe Office User.
So let me get this straight: Is it better to ignore standards to make things easier for Joe User (as IE is vilified for doing with accepting broken HTML) or is it better to follow standards and break what Joe User wants (as you are vilifying Office for doing)?
What a bunch of logicbabble!
Religion does not answer the question of where the universe came from because it leaves the question of where God came from unanswered.
However, that does not prove that it is wrong. The scientific method does not prove religion wrong. The fact that supporters of an argument cannot formulate their beliefs in terms of scientific principles does nothing to prove or disprove their beliefs.
Religion creates a self-consistent view of the world and history. However unlikely and construed this world view is, science cannot disprove this world view because it is self-consistent (i.e. all inconsistencies are explained away by saying that is what God willed).
The only scientific test that the theory of Religion fails is Occam's razor and that is not a hard-and-fast test, just a general rule of thumb.
So now the Slashdot editors have a way to get people who actually read the site (i.e. not the editors) to read the stories before they go up and tell them when they posted dupes, movie reviews for movies that came out a year ago, etc.
Not only that, they actually get to pay for the privilege. This is brilliant!
How long before we hear that quote again - this time attributed to Bush?
How about we change that to what you really mean?
This software is free for use, redistribution and modification by any entity for any purpose as long as any form of it is never used to do something we don't like
First you exclude military purposes, then you exclude people who indulge in kiddie-porn or hate speech, then anti-abortionists, and so on...
Freedom is freedom. Freedom with restrictions is not freedom.
And I put my phone number on it - but it has the same area code and extension as the main number, so it could be a non-main phone line.
Yes, and then we have a phone number and fax number to reach you at when you are to be pulled in for "Felony Impersonation of a Police Officer".
Here's a test which is much more clueful than the dumb examples on your web page.
The ad on the Opera page does not look stretched or mis-sized so I can only guess that it is a splash ad or popup or similar. Regardless, it is certainly not misrendered. You give no basis for comparison between that and the other pages.
they made MSN break Opera browsers and it sure pissed off a lot of people, (especially me).
More Slashdot repeated as if it were fact.
I don't think you can turn off HTML email. However, when an email contains a web bug, you will typically get a message saying "Warning: The page is accessing information that is outside its control" or something similar indicating that you are downloading content from outside your email.
Also, by default your email is set to run in the "restricted sites" zone, which limits what can be done in the email.
Public Holidays (of which we get alot fewer than you 'merkins),
I don't see how you get off on saying that the UK has a lot fewer public holidays than the US.
According to this site, I can count 9 days that are holidays in the UK. Ireland and Scotland have more.
In the same year, most US businesses had the following: New Years Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving (2 days) and Christmas, giving you a grand total of 7.
Maybe those competitors should get a better business model instead of trying to sell utilities that should be included in the OS for little or no cost?
Laws don't exist to protect companies with flawed business model. It's a much, much better value proposition to consumers to receive basic utilities which no operating system should ship without for a fraction of the cost. The average end-user pays about $30-$40 for their OEM copy of Windows XP. You can hardly buy any of those add on utilities for that price. Why should we force consumers to shell out more?
Great! Now I can play Breakout, Super Breakout and Photoshop easily!
The mandate calls for serving a local audience - not for appeasing Union Labors job needs. There's a difference.
Whether or not you like what Clear Channel is doing is a wholly different matter and people should and will vote for or against this with their listening $ - this is nothing for the government to be involved in, however.
just like Iraq is using PS2 for their SCUDS.
Nonsense. No PS2 is being used for SCUDS. PC Hardware is cheaper and much more powerful at that.
Basically what happened was that Sony released the PS2 in Japan and saw it being exported to Europe and the US in large quantities. Sony didn't like that because it wanted to control the release of the PS2 in other markets so it asked the Japanese government to stop it from happening. The Japanese government complied and said "would you also like your shoes cleaned, master?".
OK, maybe I missed something, but what's the difference between buying all the gaming companies one at a time, and buying them all at once?
Seems to me that if buying them all is illegal, then buying them one at a time would be illegal too - or do we wait until there is only one left, and say "you're not allowed to buy that one!"? (At which point it're pretty irrelevant, because one small company competing against a near-monopoly is pretty much doomed anyway.)
You are correct.
So, the question is - at what point do we say "Ok, now you're leveraging your monopoly?"
That's where you are wrong. The above actions are illegal (and anti-trust) but are not "leveraging your monopoly". The actions you described above would be illegal whether they were committed by Microsoft or Sun or RedHat or JoeSchmoe. Where the money comes from is irrelevant. The term "leveraging your monopoly" specifically applies when you do something that someone without that monopoly couldn't do - like tie Windoes to all those games somehow. Using money (regardless of source) is not "leveraging a monopoly".
Again it relates to Microsoft using money obtained from one monopoly and using it to crush competition in another which is illegal under the sherman anti trust act.
Umm.. No. That is NOT illegal. It is only illegal to leverage a monopoly in one area to crush competition in another area. As long as you are not leveraging the monopoly itself, you are free to use the money from the monopoly to do pretty much as you please.
On the other hand, it would be illegal if they were to use the money (regardless of source) to buy up all the gaming companies and thus choke out the competition.
Please educate yourself about what you are talking about before posting again.
Back when Henry Ford was starting to build cars, one of the famous things he did was to yes, work his workers hard, but he also gave them wages far above what was normal for the day and age. This was to help prime the pump of demand for his product. If you had a country of poor people, then no-one could really buy your expensive product, and you would never have a mass market. Thus it was in his long term interest to pay his workers well.
Wow! Your economics teacher is in tears right now. Let me get this straight. You seriously think that paying the miniscule fraction of the US population that worked in his factory a little more money helped get the entire country richer to the point that they could all afford the cars that small percentage of workers produced at the higher prices? You seem to have drank the Reaganomics kool-aid.
The article is light on details but from reading it there were two things I gathered they were doing:
1. When asking for bids, the requirements wouldn't specify Microsoft - rather specify the true requirements.
2. Computer textbooks wouldn't teach Word or Excel - rather teach how to use word processors and spreadsheets.
Both are things they should be doing regardless of Linux. It's asinine to do otherwise.
Here's the Reuters story on this from a few days ago which contains more information.
"Microsoft's secret plan was to plunder the small company of its proprietary information, technical expertise, market knowledge, customers and prospective customers," the filing said.
So now stealing "customers and prospective customers" is a crime for a competitor to commit? Sounds like a case of another company (hint, Sun) which can't achieve success through selling its product so hopes to achieve it through litigation.
Umm.. no. AT&T Broadband, here in Seattle offers ESPN and ESPN2 in the standard package but ESPN Classic is digital-only. I know because I have standard cable.
Yes, but the big difference here is that since Reynolds owned all the bauxite mines there was no way for a competitor to exist.
The same is not true for Windows. Witness Apple, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. There is nothing stopping someone else from building a competing OS and selling it. With Reynolds owning all the bauxite mines that was physically impossible.
From reading the article it did not sound as if the UK had made a final decision on the subject:
The United Kingdom's Patent Office issued a statement on its Web site saying it was still considering a variety of view points on the matter and would endeavor to implement the directive by March 31, 2003.
Sounds more like the bill is still with the Patent Office which is figuring out the minutae before sending it to parliament to be voted upon.
The GPL: Free as in Herpes.
This is the same guy who hosts the pointless trivia
show on Comedy Central "Win Ben Stein's Money".
Yes, let's not discuss the ideas. Let's attack the source instead.
The winnings in Ben Steins show are paltry. The maximum the winner can make is $5,000 - hardly a sum of money you can get rich of. On the other hand, the show provides entertainment (which is the purpose of TV) while delving into the knowledge of history, politics, art, religion and science.
I have to disagree with you on that. Sex is a huge tool for personal gratification to us as humans. As such, the ability to have sex is a huge component of the quality of life.
Given that over half the human population in this country is over 40, something that enables them to gratify themselves is a great innovation. You might not appreciate it now but you will when you are older.