gizmomagico

In case you didn't notice, he then proceeded to tell you that they know everything about you already.

You did present it as following your own advice and seeing if it works. Seeing if it really works requires you to be in square one.

I'll be looking forward to seeing you mention this on your blog, perhaps even in the comments for the latest post.

No matter when it's deemed "finished", HTML5 is coming along nicely. It feels like you can already start using it a little, and after some time, all browsers that matter (which might not even include IE anymore) will support HTML5 & CSS3 well enough that you can actually use them.

That's really cool, and Microsoft has done absolutely nothing to make that happen - quite the contrary.

They were pretty much refusing to co-operate for as long as possible, naturally, and when they realized that the IT world wasn't going to wait for them anymore, that they had become irrelevant, only then did they actually do something to support standards.

Make the existing specifications work, but add more (useful) functions.

That's not an implementation of a standard anymore. In fact, even the browser-specific way Safari and Firefox have approached CSS3 is really weird - why not just freaking use the names that are going to be used eventually anyway? It makes no sense.

You can't support MS adding their own proprietary shit on top of open standards just because they happened to produce XHR while doing exactly that.

The other browser developers are all coming around to implementing HTML5 and CSS3, and if MS wants to stay in the game, right now they actually have to do the same, as they've apparently realized. If they had the choice, they'd be doing everything in their power to fuck everything up and make the world depend on IE once again - you can count on that.

So please, stop the misguided MS-love.

- Make sure that you at least quadruple the amount of incompetent middle managers at Microsoft.

- Ensure that all important decisions are made by douchey sales guys.

- Maintain bass-ackwards-compatibility as long as you possibly can.

- Make IE 9 not conform to any standards, especially now that you've said it would. This will allow you to force everyone to make web-apps on your terms, and help you maintain your death grip on the entire industry, and there will be much rejoicing.

- Start more projects that don't go anywhere. I really liked the Kin. Kin One. Kin Two. "vahn-tah-iihm, tooh tah-iihm". It was possibly the most magnificent product you've ever had.

- This reminds me, I think the world is just itching to get their hands on another Zune. Name it something like "Zune For Portable Music PlayersForSure". If you build it, they will come!

- Spend even more exorbitant amounts of money on inane ads. The butt-wiggle was a nice touch, but not enough. Something even more eccentric will help you connect with today's youth. Imagine Lady Gaga in her flesh-attire, licking a Kin 3 prototype while staring intently at the camera. No words, no background music. It will be perfect, and vast quantities of units will be shifted once Kin 3 comes out five years later.

- Whatever you do, please don't write a new OS from scratch. Just keep on keepin' on.

There. That should work. Do it for, you know, the greater good.

Actually I wanted to write something somewhat different, but that would have been downvoted into oblivion.

Wow! Are you actually suggesting they try and hold back the development of the web for another 5-10 years, if they can pull it off?

"Just make everything about websites IE-specific again and we're all good!"

But I don't think that's related to people saying things like "70% of all communication is non-verbal". I just took it at face value, and tried to point out that it's not. It's just a comment that's tempting to throw around because it's kind of dramatic.

Instead of slapping an arbitrary percentage value on it, I'd be more comfortable saying "a considerable part of our communication is non-verbal", which it obviously is. 70% is just too high a percentage to be realistic.

Yes, language had to start somewhere, and because grunting and gesturing just isn't enough, it had to evolve to what we have now.

It's pretty difficult to believe it makes anyone feel safer, and if it does, it's comparable to believing in "change you can believe in".

Actually it usually goes only one way..

That's a popular idea to throw around nowadays. Try body-languaging and voice-toning "excuse me, could you point me towards the nearest post-office?" to someone.

But yes, a really negative attitude usually shows.

Your point is that being perhaps even particularly polite in situations like this would reduce the potential for trouble for yourself, but the author's aim was just to make a stand. It's actually a pretty noble goal, to do that on behalf of pretty much everyone else, who would just meekly comply.

I think something like "Good afternoon officer, how are you?" is even a bit excessive, although maybe it's become more like necessary when traveling in the US, which seems to be quite a police state nowadays.

What was it like at airports before 9/11? Exactly what benefit does the TSA actually provide? Why can't I bring a freaking bottle of water with me at pretty much any airport in the world anymore? -Why doesn't it matter if I volunteer to take a sip of my explosive liquids in front of the guards?

This bears repeating. People here keep saying you shouldn't care about downvotes, but you nailed it. In effect, it amounts to "silencing dissent" (when applicable).

But at least I got some discussion going.

(^) Can't really tell.

  - Outside of the realm of rainbows & unicorns
  - Inconvenient truths (about the world we live in)

You said "you're full of shit", which I thought lacked tactfulness. You're right, I didn't read the earlier comment carefully enough. I guess it needed to be quite forcefully pointed out that Chinese people don't realize how hard their language is to learn.

> Talking about the lack of perspective, why don't you tell us what is your native language? It won't be news to us if a speaker of a Indo-European language finds another Indo-European language easier to learn than a Sino-Tibetan language.

Well, let's go through what I said again:

Not having tones and no huge obstacle to becoming literate makes English a hell of a lot easier to learn.

I still think that's true. You seem to be saying that people find it easier to learn languages that are more related to their native language than some others, but how is that related to my point about Chinese being quite an undertaking to learn?

You quote some literacy statistics, but that's not really relevant to what I said either, is it? An intentional distraction, perhaps.

Chinese has got a huge alphabet, and most other languages don't. This means that it's much more difficult to attain literacy in Chinese. Whatever amount of characters you want to draw the line at, it'll still be much more than 26.

> I would not stand by idly seeing people slandering the language I love

Oh please. No one has slandered your beloved language. The fact remains though, that the tones and characters are a big burden on someone who wants to learn it.

As someone whose native language is neither, having studied both, I'd say English is much easier.

The tones in Chinese really fuck with someone whose native language isn't tonal (and most aren't), and wouldn't you rather become literate by learning 26-30 symbols than by learning thousands of symbols? Makes sense, doesn't it?

Words in Chinese don't get conjugated much (if at all), but you've got a relatively strict word order, whereas in English, you've got particles and a more relaxed word order.

Not having tones and no huge obstacle to becoming literate makes English a hell of a lot easier to learn.

The point here is that Google is just another huge, evil(1) company among others like it, and that all its recent talk about openness is just PR-bullshit.

(1) Whatever your definition may be.

Also, they know who you are, Mr. ergo98.