[Am-info] Embarrassing stuff left in Word docs on MSFT sites

[Erick Andrews]

On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 12:18:21 +0900 (JST), Stephen A. Carter wrote:

>On Thu, 01 Apr 2004 21:54:13 -0400 (EDT), Erick Andrews wrote:
>>The issue of 'embedded' stuff in MS documents has been understood
>>by many folks for many years.
>
>Yes indeedy.  And isn't it ironic that a whole bunch of folks at
>Microsoft still haven't cottoned on.

You know they know.  The principals don't want to.  Money and power.

>>Is there a public policy position
>>that you are proposing to safeguard individual authorship?
>
>I thought the closing comment at the end of the web page was cute --
>"if you come up with an intuitive technology, you must next find a way
>to curb its use" -- but no, I'm not proposing any public policy
>position to safeguard individual authorship.

It could be useful.  I wish I could, a more acceptable one, that is, one
that respects the ownership of intellectual property v. individual privacy.

>Are we even looking at the same website?

Well, I just looked at it again.  I must not have waited for the whole page 
to load the first time where at the bottom it says, yep, like you say, "The 
point is, if you come up with an intuitive technology, you must next find
a way to curb its use :-)".

I think at minimum though, the 'intuitive technology' at its basic is text.
I guess that's my starting point about word processors.

Technology and public policy nowadays often don't make a fair civil union.

However, my gut feel is that there are other collaborative word processors
and document sharing programs (uh, don't hit me...Emacs?), maybe StarOffice, 
Lotus WordPro, et al., that don't leave crap in them that should have been
expunged or exposed, unlike MS Word.  I haven't verified them specifically.  
Which one(s) would you recommend instead of the MS Office stuff?  I'm open 
on this.

>Maybe I caught you without your sense of humor today.  If so, then you
>have my apologies.

Nah.  But I tend to lose my sense of humor when the subject is Microsoft.

I'll tell you nicer than funny though...tonight I got a "Crunky" chocolate bar 
from my wife's colleague who just returned from Japan.  The only thing in 
English on the package I could read (I lost my En/Jp dictionaries years ago)
was http://www.lotte.co.jp.  Hah!  I ate it.  Yummy.

Arigato,
Erick