Posts by Charles Wolfe

Linguists have proven that terms such "erm", "ugh" and a few others are common to all languages -- speakers employ them while putting together sentences in "real time". They have no particular meaning, they are "placeholders" in conversation.

The suggestion to stick to old English is interesting. That has not been the common form of English for several centuries. Does he actually read and speak old English? He seems to write Modern English fairly well.

"internet" can't be lower cased

AP has not done their research. Unless the owner has abandoned it, "internet" (lowercase i) is a registered trademark. AP, and a host of others, are infringing on the trademark. That is a major reason for calling the network of networks Internet (upper case I). While "internet" is being used like aspirin, in essence, making an everyday word out of a brand name, the practice should be discouraged. Upper case I is the legal and proper way to spell the word.

Phone (Voice) problems also

I'm having a problem calling people whose service is now Frontier. I now have Frontier as well. DSL has been pretty good (Sylmar CA). Usually get the recording that the number has been disconnected or no longer in service. At first I believed it, but then I placed a call using my cell phone and got thru to one of the numbers. The others are not reachable by landline or cell phone. ALSO: The AOL e-mail that Verizon moved to is not as good as the old Yahoo.

The article is correct

I fully agree with the author. XP SP3 does all I need to do including develop complex math, scientific, medical, and related software. Office 2003 is much easier to work with than 2007. With Office 2007 I can add function buttons/icons to the little area given over to the user "toolbar", but I cannot add a critical function to the relevant section of a stupid "tool bar" ribbon. I have old equipment that functions perfectly fine using XP, e.g. a plotter designed for DOS! Why should I throw out perfectly functioning equipment because MS decides not to support the OS anymore or e.g. drop support for tape backup? My industrial sewing machine is about 40 years old and was bought used. It is still supported by the repair community and parts can still be had; same for my 1968 GMC pickup truck.

Before continuing, I propose a law for software vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle and IBM modeled after the law pertaining to automobile and truck manufacturers, at least in the U.S. They must support a vehicle for 10 years after "release" date. I propose software companies must support for 20 years, roughly the "average" lifetime of industrial equipment. If I buy a "turn-key" system for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, I don't want it made worthless by an action of the OS supplier -- hey, if MS goes "belly up". tomorrow is any of their code in escrow so someone could at least give us a graceful exit from MS's world?

Since I grew up in the era of mainframe and mini computers, the concept that all OS and related software is leased and there is a cost for most support, the idea of paying MS a reasonable fee (from my perspective, not necessarily Microsoft's) is not repugnant. I prefer that to having to do anything in the "cloud". I have 45 years dealing with computer security issues. Keeping a private time-share network with "umpteen" terminals attached via hard wire, phone lines and microwave secure was difficult enough. Having my programs and data in the hands of a 3rd party who could disappear at any time for any reason is wholly unthinkable. Suppose AMAZON decides to get out of the "cloud" business and just shuts it down? What if some day MS decides "Office in the Cloud" was a bad idea, not unlike "Bob" or, as described in other comments, Flight Simulator, what happens?

I can update my laptop to Vista easily because I "downgraded" to XP (but Vista!). I can still get an OEM Win 7 for our 2 desktop machines. I'd much rather Microsoft just made a good, reliable product and made actual market driven improvements to it (e.g. improved security) rather than wasting so much of our time and grabbing our money for software that has truly become mostly sugar and very little protein. I know a number of Ph.D. former employees of MS. Why former? Because they got tired of being paid to do good work that was thrown out by marketing or some other idiot bureaucrat.

I've gone on long enough ...

What the inventor thinks of it now

As a former colleague of the inventor of this system, I can tell you that he specified the tree should never go more than 3 levels deep and not more than a "handful" of options at any level. He was greatly disappointed by what happened to the technology when set lose in the "wild".

Invalid patent

I have been doing this same thing manually (pencil, paper and my brain) for at least 45 years for many organizations, including governmental bodies. There is nothing new here from what I read in the article. The patent is merely describing the partial automation of existing, prior art.