What part of "Baroque" didn't you understand?
Grok Headline matches for What part of "Baroque" didn't you understand?
Americans do understand irony
(part 2)
Americans do understand irony
(part 2)
03/19/2003 10:24 PMThe US, as part of our "blow the heck out of Iraq" policy, is pumping
billions of dollars into the...
Microsoft Word's Baroque era
Microsoft Word's Baroque era
05/20/2004 08:41 PMFor those of us working primarily on the Web, Microsoft Word's various
"Smart" features (smart quotes, auto correct, auto format, etc.) have
always been hydras whose heads one had to repeatedly lop off. Even if
you didn't work in Word yourself, colleagues would submit copy
composed in it, and you'd have to deal with the problem of introducing
junk characters. Some of us have become reasonably familiar with
exactly which boxes and buttons you need to press to "web-safe" a Word
installation.
Now Microsoft seems to have grown hip to how frequently we have to
tell Word to "stop doing" the things its programmers have spent years
enabling it to do. This is from today's New York Times review by David Pogue of a new version of Microsoft Office for Mac:
| |
Smart Buttons, descended from a similar feature in Word for Windows,
are tiny pop-up menus that appear in your text whenever Word has
something to offer you. For example, one appears whenever Word
auto-formats something you've typed (a chronic sore spot with
Microsoft customers): turning a Web address into a difficult-to-edit
Web link, for example, or automatically numbering a list. You've
always been able to turn off these intrusions in a dialog box or undo
individual changes by pressing Command-Z. But Smart Tags put "Undo"
and "Stop doing this" commands right in front of you where you can't
miss them. |
I broke out laughing when I read this. Consider the baroque logic:
Microsoft has now reached that rarefied state of software existence in
which it can offer "improvements" in the form of new features that
make it easier to turn off those annoying "improvements" of yesteryear
that were hitherto too difficult to discard!
But how deep within Word's menus must one hunt to turn off "Smart
Buttons" if they get annoying? And is anyone at Microsoft going
to flip the page of the newspaper section in which Pogue's review
appears and read "A
Design Epiphany: Keep It Simple"?
Global Food Technologies, Inc. Announces
Signing of Letter of Intent With Baroque
Corporation
Global Food Technologies, Inc. Announces
Signing of Letter of Intent With Baroque
Corporation
12/19/2004 03:16 PMGlobal Food Technologies, Inc., a Delaware corporation engaged in the
development and commercial launch of its proprietary Best system, a
food processing technology designed to kill pathogens, such as
salmonella, living in poultry, meat and seafood, announced that it has
signed a letter of intent to enter into an asset acquisition agreement
with Baroque Corporation, a shell company and wholly-owned subsidiary
of Quik Pix, Inc. (Pink Sheets: QPIX). [PRWEB Dec 19, 2004]
Something you would need a TV to
understand
Something you would need a TV to
understand
05/04/2004 02:27 AM
If you get all your news from watching
Weekend Update or
The Daily Show, you might find
FootnoteTV helpful.
The site comments and expounds on the newsworthy topics that often
crop up in television shows. The parent site,
newsaic, has subsites that examine
comics and
popular culture, among
other things, as well.
I wish I didn't understand
I wish I didn't understand
04/09/2004 04:09 PMJust a quick note to my few friends in Spain... I had my first chance
to visit your beautiful country...
What Happens When You Don't Understand
The Problem
What Happens When You Don't Understand
The Problem
12/16/2003 06:28 PMThe real source of the vulnerability is not Apple's code, or really
even their implementation. But the DHCP standard itself. (John C.
Welch via MyAppleMenu)
Why I'd like to understand bl0gging
Why I'd like to understand bl0gging
09/18/2004 05:35 AMPeople ask me often what is a "blog". It annoys me to no
end that I cannot give a simple answer, because it tells me how little
I understand of the phenomenon.
A big discussion point in Finland at the moment is that
"blogs" have been translated as "internet
diaries". There is an danger of confusion here: If I tell you
that I play go, and that it is an "old chinese boardgame",
you will immediately understand its nature. But if I say that "I
blog, and it's like writing a diary on the web", your next
question will be "do you really write about your sex life in
public?" And that is because the word "diary" has a
private connotation. Reading someone else's diary is peeping
and wrong. Reading things that someone else published in the hopes
that someone would read them and give feedback, is not. Diary =
private, blog = public.
Most of the significant weblogs in the world are not diaries. But
that's another subject for a later day.
Perhaps I am an elitist, purist and academic. But I would still
really, really like to be explain to my grandmother what it is that I
care so much about.
State Politicians Don't Understand P2P
Either
State Politicians Don't Understand P2P
Either
08/05/2004 03:50 AMWhat is it with the difficulty politicians seem to have understanding
what a P2P file sharing network is, and why none of the networks have
control over the content being shared? The latest is that a group of
40 states have teamed up to
write a threatening
letter to file sharing companies accusing them of all sorts of bad
things. In whose name are they doing this? Even though the courts
have recognized file sharing networks for what they are, it appears
that the state attorneys general seem to believe that they can ignore
what the law says when the entertainment industry starts telling them
how evil file sharing networks are.
Update: Ernest Miller asks,
"why
shouldn't the state attorneys general condemn email and FTP as
well? An awful lot of child porn is shared via email. Shouldn't
email providers be doing more to stop it?"
Companies Understand Themselves By
Powerpoint
Companies Understand Themselves By
Powerpoint
04/09/2004 05:29 PMWhile there are some who still believe
Powerpo
int is evil, it's become a standard necessity in every day
business life. In fact, David Weinberger suggests that
Powerpoint is how companies understand themselves.
It's replaced the company story and has become "the company myth," so
that employees themselves can understand the organization they belong
to. Even in creating a sales pitch, companies focus on creating the
Powerpoint slides - mostly because it reinforces their own
understanding of the company they work for. While there are both good
and bad results that come out of this, I think it's also a statement
on corporate culture. Who gets to write the official version? While
you can make changes on your own, you tend to leave the corporate
story alone. While I'm not sure it's for everyone, I'd think that
more "bottom up" style corporations would be better off using
something like a wiki to define the corporate story. If you're
building a story around the corporate culture, shouldn't those
participating be a part of writing the story as well?
When Even Mathematicians Don't
Understand the Math
When Even Mathematicians Don't
Understand the Math
05/24/2004 08:17 PMWhat does it mean when mainstream explanations of our physical reality
are based on stuff that even scientists cannot comprehend?
Read this and understand the P2P wars
Read this and understand the P2P wars
05/15/2004 05:48 AMTimothy Wu is a law prof at the University of Virginia, and a very
clever copyright reformer to boot. When Timothy and I last met, he was
called Timmy, and we were both students at ALP, the hippie alternative
school in Toronto that we both attended until grade eight. One of the
weirdest coincidences in my life to date is that
two alumni
of a tiny school in Toronto would both end up moving to the US to
pursue something as obscure as copyright reform.
Back to Tim(my)! His latest paper, "Copyright's Communications
Policy," has me absolutely floored. Tim traces the history of
copyright law, the way that we've spent a century undergoing a
once-a-decade copyfight, in which representatives of inventors faced
down representatives of artists and duked it out in the courts and
Congress.
The parallels to today's fights are downright spooky. For example, the
first music pirates (the recording industry, who ripped off sheet
music) got this proper dressing-down from John Phillip Sousa,
who told Congress:
These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of
music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in
the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the
songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines
going night and day. We will not have a vocal chord left. The vocal
chord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of
man when he came from the ape.
I mean, I though Jack Valenti's
Boston Strangler
testimony was over the top, but clearly, Jack took his cues from Sousa
et al.
Thirty-odd years later, the another group of pirates -- radio
broadcasters, who refused to pay royalties for the music they
file-shared over the airwaves -- violated Godwin's Law decades
before it was formulated, comparing the entrenched rights
societies that served the recording industry (the pirates of their
boyhoods) to Adolph Hitler.
Tim runs down the history of cable versus broadcasters, and other
copyfights down through the ages. He does so clearly and engagingly,
in ways that non-lawyers and non-historians can readily grasp. And
when it's done, the most amazing thing is the certainty that
copryight-disrupting technologies every bit as wooly as file-sharing
have been invented over and over again, and that the P2P fight is not
a new one -- that piracy is the norm, not the exception.
If you want to understand the P2P fight, read this -- it is the most
concise, thorough and engaging text on the subject to date.
560k PDF Link
MegaTokyo - relax, we understand j00
MegaTokyo - relax, we understand j00
01/11/2004 09:25 PMhttp://www.megatokyo.com/
Wow, I just wasted 3 hours on one site.... Just kept reading... The
blog is below the Comic, but the Comic is friggin funny.... Well
worth the 3 hours...
Who says Americans don't understand
Irony?
Who says Americans don't understand
Irony?
03/13/2003 10:14 AMThough maybe one of his speechwriters is British. Last week, Bush made
a speech chiding the world community for not...
I really don't understand how the iTunes
store...
I really don't understand how the iTunes
store...
12/02/2003 01:06 AM
I really don't understand how the iTunes store has sold so much music. Every single time I've tried
to use it in the past few weeks, I've gotten this. (I wondered if this
was just happening via Windows, but I just tried it on my Mac and got
the same thing.)
2 Small Caps You Can Understand
2 Small Caps You Can Understand
07/07/2004 11:33 AMA look at two small caps with clear business models, market-beating
growth prospects, and moderate risk.
2 More Small Caps You Can Understand
2 More Small Caps You Can Understand
07/14/2004 11:27 AMHere are two companies with clear business models, market-beating
growth prospects, and moderate risk.
Just How Much Do The Music Labels Not
Understand?
Just How Much Do The Music Labels Not
Understand?
05/04/2004 02:29 AMLast month we wrote about how the music industry was, inexplicably,
looking to (a) raise prices on digital downloads and (b) force people
to
buy a
bad song to get a good song. They clearly have no clue that
they're basically killing the one, very minor, success they've had in
the world of digital downloads. Now, even folks in mainstream
magazines like Newsweek are
screaming about how the labels
just don't get it. Steven Levy takes a look at a number of
downloadable albums that cost
more than their CDs, while giving
the user less (one of the CDs comes with a DVD as well). He also
can't believe that the industry hasn't pushed to make downloadable
songs play on a variety of devices, as that would
encourage
more people to buy. However, the folks who run the labels
don't get it. They only look at digital downloads and see
piracy. They are blind to the idea that it might be an opportunity,
and thus they have no real reason to come up with reasons to encourage
it. Of course, all this really does is push end-users to seek less
than legal alternatives.
What the media don't understand about
bl0gging
What the media don't understand about
bl0gging
07/24/2004 11:27 AMI want to try to answer better a question I got asked by Larry Magid
who's putting together a 30 second piece for CBS Radio: What don't the
media understand about blogging? To the print and broadcast media,
bloggers usually look like little, vanity-press versions of the mass
media. That's because the media focus on the A-List. After all, the
A-Listers are the ones who have succeeded in the mass media's terms...
...continued at Boston.com...
Computers learn to understand Sefrican
Computers learn to understand Sefrican
04/10/2004 09:41 PMSunday Times South Africa Apr 11 2004 0:17AM GMT
EU Commissioner says we need to better
understand benefits of e-Government
EU Commissioner says we need to better
understand benefits of e-Government
06/22/2004 02:46 AMPublicTechnology.net Jun 22 2004 7:04AM GMT
BLACKFIVE: Media Still Doesn't
Understand the Military
BLACKFIVE: Media Still Doesn't
Understand the Military
07/01/2004 05:38 AMjournalists are making fools of themselves via their ignorance of
things military: .. this Blackfive article ..
Blackfive
blackfive.net/main/2004/06/media_still_doe.html
track this
site | 5 links
Stuff That I Don't Really Understand But
Sounds Cool Anyway
Stuff That I Don't Really Understand But
Sounds Cool Anyway
04/18/2005 02:02 AMRAC on Mac: In the
64-bit technology space, no company can match the Apple OS X / Darwin
technology and price.
Building Robots to Understand Brains
Building Robots to Understand Brains
03/22/2005 04:20 PMAn article
in The Online Engineer describes the work of Tony Prescott
and other researchers at the Sheffield University Department of
Psychology.
In an attempt to better understand vertebrate brains, they are
designing
and building control systems for multitasking robots. The work
involves
computational modellers, neuroscientists, and neurobiologists in the
Department's Adaptive Behaviour
Research Group. Their initial goal is to build
robots based on reverse-engineered rat brains. They hope that an
understanding of rat brains will eventually lead to an understanding
of
the human brain.
Online Marketers Try To Understand Women
Online Marketers Try To Understand Women
05/05/2004 12:04 AMAmazing. Last week we joked about Yahoo
realizi
ng that women use the internet too, and now Salon has an article
on the same conference looking at
exactly how to market to women online. In both cases
the conference comes off as this sort of stunning world where it turns
out to be a surprise that women actually use the internet. Why is
this so shocking? Even more to the point, why is it so surprising
that you can't classify all women into a single group? Did marketers
really assume that all women only went online to research cleaning
products? It's pretty sad that a conference was needed to explain all
this, and it will be even sadder watching these same marketers try to
take these "lessons" and turn them into new advertisements for women.
At the end of the Salon article there's quite a telling quote. A
young woman is asked: "How do you feel about Yahoo trying to get into
your life?" She responds: "They pay you enough, and you don't care."
Welcome to the internet. Advertising isn't about intrusiveness and
annoying people, it's about giving people something of value - whether
monetarily or otherwise.
NBOR: The Coolest Thing I Can't
Understand
NBOR: The Coolest Thing I Can't
Understand
01/09/2004 09:58 PMNew 'NBOR' Software to Debut Next Month: This
looks interesting, but I got confused halfway through. This guy has
spent 15 years of his life building it. Here's to hoping it works out
for him.
The software, called "No Boundaries Or Rules," or NBOR,
includes an intuitive user interface for writing, drawing, compiling
multimedia presentations and other PC tasks. It allows real-time
collaboration and sends large files over the Internet at lightning
speed.
The cornerstone of NBOR is "Blackspace," software for word
processing, desktop publishing, slideshow presentation, graphics,
drawing, animations, audio, photo cropping, instant messaging and
real-time conferencing.
This knocks Britney Spears off her perch, making her the second
coolest thing I don't understand.
Click here to comment on this entry
Help business drivers understand the
reports that they will need
Help business drivers understand the
reports that they will need
01/11/2003 02:05 AMCNET Jan 11 2003 1:27AM ET
Dogs Understand Human Language
Dogs Understand Human Language
06/10/2004 02:50 PMWired News Jun 10 2004 7:22PM GMT
Research Shows Dogs Understand Language
(AP)
Research Shows Dogs Understand Language
(AP)
06/10/2004 08:22 AMAP - As many a dog owner will attest, our furry friends are listening.
Now, for the doubters, there is scientific proof they understand much
of what they hear.
Oracle Tip: Understand the difference
between IN and EXISTS in subqueries
Oracle Tip: Understand the difference
between IN and EXISTS in subqueries
08/23/2004 02:48 AMCNET Aug 23 2004 7:15AM GMT
Kids Understand The Difference Between
Texting And Writing
Kids Understand The Difference Between
Texting And Writing
12/24/2004 12:18 PMFor years, now, we've been hearing horror stories about how kids who
are growing up learning "txt spk" on instant messenger programs and
via phone SMS messages are hurting their ability to write proper
English. There was never actually any
evidence of this --
other than some anecdotal horror stories. Also, as we pointed out,
there's nothing wrong with understanding txt abbreviations as long as
the person
knows
what is appropriate at the right time. It's like knowing two
different languages -- which most parents and teachers consider to be
a
good thing. Thus, the focus shouldn't be on freaking out
about kids learning to tap away in abbreviated format, but in making
sure they know what's appropriate for what venues. Supporting this
theory is a new study suggesting that
kids who text have comparable writing skills to those who
don't. The study was quite small, and the methodology could clearly
be questioned -- but it is some initial evidence that kids are smart
enough to understand when text talk is appropriate and when it's not.
Much more interesting, though, was the finding that those who used
messaging regularly also wrote more concisely. While the article
suggests this is a downside, being able to write concisely is a useful
talent. If text messaging helps people better organize their thoughts
this way, perhaps it's a benefit.
'I hope Fox News viewers will understand
the computer has to be on.'
'I hope Fox News viewers will understand
the computer has to be on.'
05/12/2004 08:06 PM
Blah Blah Blogging
::
"The following is a meticulously detailed recap of a news
segment that appeared on the Chicago FOX news affiliate on Wednesday,
May 5th, 2004." -- Intelligent blogger agrees to appear in
puff piece about blogging for FOX news. These are the results.
Research shows dogs understand language
Research shows dogs understand language
06/10/2004 09:37 AMTelstra took days to understand BigPond
virus
Telstra took days to understand BigPond
virus
11/03/2003 01:03 AMZDNet Australia Nov 3 2003 0:25AM ET
Wireless Broadband Companies Need To
Understand The Competition
Wireless Broadband Companies Need To
Understand The Competition
04/15/2004 02:23 PMWhen you hear something like this, it seems quite obvious - but many
wireless broadband players still haven't quite figured it out. When
offering wireless broadband services, they are
competing against wired broadband services in the minds of
customers. Too many wireless broadband providers only seem to focus
on the other wireless players - and therefore price things too high
for service levels that don't match wired broadband at all. This was
exactly the problem that Metricom ran into years ago with their
Ricochet service - and which many wireless broadband players are now
repeating. The article points out that hopefully this is changing
with
Nextel'
s wireless broadband announcement yesterday as they seem to be
moving as quickly as possible towards true DSL/cable broadband speeds
at prices not that far off from their wired competitors.
Boston.com / News / Blogs / DNC: What
the media don't understand about
bl0gging
Boston.com / News / Blogs / DNC: What
the media don't understand about
bl0gging
07/25/2004 09:11 AMWhat don't the media understand about blogging? .. continued at
Boston.com .. Dave Weinberg
says
boston.com/news/blogs/dnc/2004/07/what_the_media.html
track this
site | 3 links
Some Understand Covert Journey; Others
Fear Bad Precedent (washingtonpost.com)
Some Understand Covert Journey; Others
Fear Bad Precedent (washingtonpost.com)
12/02/2003 12:28 AMRecording Industry Thinks The UK Doesn't
Understand Exchange Rates
Recording Industry Thinks The UK Doesn't
Understand Exchange Rates
05/20/2004 01:05 PMWe've already had stories about how the recording industry is looking
for any possible way to
raise
prices on digital downloads (showing just how little they
understand the concept of an emerging market), and now we find out
that the standard $1 price is really more for marketing reasons. Now
that Napster has launched in the UK, they seem to think that it's a
good idea to use the "1 standard unit of currency" as the main price -
probably because it looks better in advertisements. So, in the US, a
track is $1.
In the UK
it's £1. Now, while the recording industry couldn't be
bothered, most users understand exchange rates, and realize that
£1 = ~ $1.77 (with some fluctuations). In other words, for the
sake of being able to use the "1 standard unit of currency" pricing,
the recording industry gets to nearly double the price in the UK.
This doesn't seem likely to encourage much adoption - but may
encourage plenty of resentment. Of course, by this point, it appears
the recording industry thrives on resentment.
Musicians don't understand copyright,
but they don't like the RIAA suing their
fans
Musicians don't understand copyright,
but they don't like the RIAA suing their
fans
05/03/2004 11:00 AMThe Pew Internet and American Life project has just concluded a survey
of 2,700+ musicians, measuring their attitude to the lawsuits the
record labels have brought against their fans in their name:
When asked what impact free downloading on the Internet has had on
their careers as musicians, 37% say free downloading has not really
made a difference, 35% say it has helped and 8% say it has both
helped and hurt their career. Only 5% say free downloading has
exclusively hurt their career and 15% of the respondents say they
don't know...
67% say artists should have complete control over material they
copyright and they say copyright laws do a good job of protecting
artists...
Some 60% of those in the sample say they do not think the Recording
Industry Association of America's suits against online music swappers
will benefit musicians and songwriters. Those who earn the majority
of their income from music are more inclined than "starving
musicians" to back the RIAA, but even those very committed musicians
do not believe the RIAA campaign will help them. Some 42% of those
who earn most of their income from their music do not think the RIAA
legal efforts will help them, while 35% think those legal challenges
will ultimately benefit them.
220K PDF Link
(
Thanks, Wendy!)
Trying to Understand WiMax? The Wall
Street Journal Explains
Trying to Understand WiMax? The Wall
Street Journal Explains
05/24/2004 02:21 PMThe Journal's Nick Wingfield lays out the WiMax field, including the
basis of its technology, its potential for rollout, and the current
state of wireless broadband: Wingfield's article is a solid portrayal
of the state of the industry, including the likely date for real
equipment being available in the U.S. (2006, he notes, which jibes
with fellow editor Nancy Gohring's research among WiMax-backin
gcompanies), the market size, and the potential competition with
cellular data and existing wireline services. WiMax and its early
relatives has the best potential in areas in which service is
difficult to obtain (the prairie or Manhattan), wireline services
offer limits to uploads and downloads far below a wireless broadband
offering (at the edges of DSL coverage, for instance), or where
wireless broadband is just plain cheaper. In some cases, early
wireless broadband offers high speeds at cost that are the same or as
little as half of competing wireline offerings. I'm not bullish on
WiMax's mobile options, which are even further out in the future for
deployment because by the time that standard is set, the cell
companies will have had three or four years dealing with the first and
probably second iterations of 3G cellular data. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi might
blanket whole cities, an increasing trend. [link via Brian Chin]...
Grok Description matches for What part of "Baroque" didn't you understand?
GrokA matches for What part of "Baroque" didn't you understand?
What part of "Baroque" didn't you understand?
