July 2007

One Year and One Hundred Posts Later…

July 31, 2007

I’m not one for excessive self-reflection. Like the Heresiarchs of Uqbar, I think that mirrors are abominable. However, since I have simultaneously reached my 100th blog post as well as my one year anniversary with An Antic Disposition, I feel that an inward glance is both appropriate and timely. Only 100 posts in a year? [...]

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My comments on the ETRM 4.0 draft

July 29, 2007

This was my response to the call for public comments on the Information Technology Division’s (ITD) Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM) 4.0 draft. I’d like to write to you as a long-time Massachusetts resident and taxpayer. My employer (IBM) will likely submit their own comments, but I’d like to offer you my own personal views [...]

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Competition Optional

July 29, 2007

Regular readers will recall previous posts where I wrote about the abuse of language in the file format debate, including individual posts on the words choice, representation, compatibility and interoperability. Now it is time to slay another dragon, the word “optional.” The OED defines optional as, “That is a matter of choice; depending on choice [...]

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Stranger than Fiction

July 20, 2007

This is taken from slide 21 of Ecma’s “Standards @ Internet Speed” presentation (22 June 2007 version) which you can download here. It appears to be a sales pitch. I’ve joked about the Ecma process before, but I never thought I’d see it written out officially like this. Standards are made available “on time”? Minimize [...]

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The Cookbook

July 19, 2007

The Thimbleberry Inn’s executive chef, Guillaume Portes, was sensational. He took the modest kitchen of this even more modest inn, and using local produce and game, and with a flair for the dramatic, created a menu that drew local, regional and even national attention, in ever widening spirals of epicurean and gastronomic success. Now, fresh [...]

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OOXML Fails to Gain Approval in US

July 15, 2007

On Friday July 13th, INCITS V1 met via teleconference for 3 hours but failed to reach a 2/3 consensus necessary to recommend an “Approval, with comments” position on Microsoft “Office Open XML” (OOXML) document specification. V1 is a Technical Committee of INCITS, an industry forum accredited by ANSI for recommending the US position on ISO/IEC [...]

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The Formula for Failure

July 9, 2007

It has been a boast for around around 6 months now. Microsoft’s OOXML fully defines spreadsheet formulas, and ODF doesn’t. The Microsoft boosters have been parroting the party line for quite some time. Miguel de Icaza gleefully noted back in January: OOXML devotes 324 pages of the standard to document the formulas and functions. The [...]

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