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natch said:
> When the comment is little more than distilled sarcasm,
> with no actual content, it's not criticism, in my book,
> It comes closer to sniping.
"with no actual content"?
did you not get the content in that post of mine?
if so, then let me explain it to you a little bit more directly...
_lots_ of people have already spent _lots_ of time and energy
thinking about these questions, running up solutions, and
actually putting _even_more_ of their own time and energy
to code experimental solutions so that they could be tested.
the results have largely confirmed what most of us suspected,
namely that there is no reliable way to point to a piece of info
if someone (else) has the ability to change that info any time,
up to and including the option of completely _removing_ it...
because, hey, it's hard to point to something that ain't there.
a fact which -- in retrospect -- seems to be fairly "obvious",
and which might have been a tip-off from the very beginning
that maybe this was one of those problems with no solution...
because, realistically_, that _is_ the situation which we're in.
someone (else) _is_ going to have control over the info that
we want to point to. it's called copyright, and it's our burden.
furthermore, when someone here suggests that the people
over at i.p.d.f. should pay some attention to this question,
that implies that i.p.d.f. has _not_ paid any attention to it...
when the fact of the matter is that they _have_. they've paid
more attention than you know, including enough attention
to understand (which y'all here don't seem to have grasped)
that this is one of those problems with no solution, or at least
no "really good solution".
so to imply that they "need to consider this" is _stupid_...
so here's my choice. i can either use a little bit of sarcasm,
which -- last i checked -- is considered a form of _humor_
(albeit not as happy-go-lucky and feel-good as slapstick),
or i can instead go for the "explain everything to them like
they were a bunch of second-graders, and let the fact that
they've ignored some basic reality give the solid impression
that they're not just second-graders, but kinda stupid ones,
even though that ain't the impression i _want_ to leave...".
i went for the form of humor. was that a mistake?
-bowerbird
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