Does anybody know why google.com isnt well-formed?

[Neredbojias]

I've been reading this thread with some amusement at the depth of
outrage from a few people. It seems to me that the purpose of a
standard is to allow programmers to write code that will display
correctly in all browsers (assuming the browsers are compliant). It
should not (and does not) put restrictions on the manner in which
code is written.

I have no doubt that the programmers at Google know exactly what they
are doing and have excellent reasons for their code. (Some have been
pointed out.) Unless you are concerned with maintaining the site
it's non of your business. Let's just congratulate Google on their
depth of knowledge of browser implementation and the tools they most
certainly use to create efficient code.

www.richardfisher

You forgot to say they were perfect, Kingfish...

Tell me about all of Microsoft's good reasons for doing what they do.

 

[dorayme]

Nonsense. Charitable organizations abound. They are designed to break
even, by law. A business, to survive and prosper, must make money.
Cite contrary examples.

Nonsense eh? What has "must make money" got to do with "make a
profit for the owner"? Please explain, mention the customary need
for you to get a stiff drink.

Might. Might. Maybe. Maybe.

Cite real examples.

Why? If I showed you businesses that were kept going (at least
for a while) at no profit and even a small loss for the sake of
the staff, what would you say? That they were not businesses by
definition? They were suddenly charities? There are legal
entities in Australia that are businesses, there is no
requirement for them to run at a profit. It is not definitional.

 

[Helpful person]

You forgot to say they were perfect, Kingfish...

Tell me about all of Microsoft's good reasons for doing what they do.
Why?
--
Neredbojias

http://www.neredbojias.org/http://www.neredbojias.net/- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

 

[dorayme]

Examples?

If I showed you businesses that were kept going (at least
for a while) at no profit and even a small loss for the sake of
the staff, would you say that they were not businesses by
definition? They were suddenly charities? There are legal
entities in Australia that are businesses, there is no
requirement for them to run at a profit. It is not definitional.

You forget to mention what "must make money" has to do with "make
a profit for the owner"?

What a way to spend a few minutes on a Sunday! <g>

 

[Gordon Levi]

Not quite sure what you intend with that. A business's raison d'etre is
to make money for it's owners, whether it's a publicly-held or
privately-held entity. I mean, by definition, a "business" exists to
make a profit. Yes, surely, a company can do other things as well but
its primary reason for existence is to sell goods or services at profit
and provide a profitable return to its investors.

This is a popular view but recent experience indicates the primary
reason is to provide large salaries and bonuses for directors and
senior executives. Profit for shareholders is of secondary concern.

<http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/11/19/autos.ceo.jets/> provides a
classic illustration of my point.

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

Examples?

Back in the 80's, I worked for a small discount stock broker. Because of
some regulartory issues, business went down quite a bit, and there was
talk about closing down.

However, the owner, David Paul Kane really cared about the staff. He
came to each of us and gave us a choice, we could have our salaries
significantly cut, or we could be laid off to collect unemployment, or
find another job. He assured us that times would get better again, and
that when they did, he would bring salaries back or hire you back, which
ever you decided to do.

I decided to take the salary reduction because I really loved my job. He
was good as his word. In three months, the market turned around, and
everybody got their salary back (with a bonus for being nice about it),
or were called back if they had not found another job in the interim.

David did not have to do that. He could have just laid all non-essential
workers off, and worked at a bigger profit. He did not have to bring
everybody's salary back, or call back former employees with large
salaries.

So, yes, there are businesses that will operate at a non-profit or loss
when they care about the employees.

 

[Neredbojias]

Everything exists as a probability. Are you saying a business like
Google willfully ingores potential users? I doubt it.

Yes - a few at least. It would be very odd if they didn't.

Not if I'm an investor in that business. As a stock holder I might
be very happy to Joe go. Along with all of the other "Joes."

And I've been "Joe" so I know of what I speak. No, not dim, nor
unproductive, but when the business had overall hard times and needed
to make cuts I was cut. And it was the right thing to do at the
time. Hell, I'd have done it myself. Kill the highest earners and
keep the cheapest ones and hope for the best. No problem here.

Knowing what I did I divested myself of their stock. Knowing what I
did of another company in which I had similar intrinsic knowledge I
bought.

I didn't raise a social issue.

But it _is_ a social issue. What do I care if the company I work for
makes money if it doesn't benefit me? This is exactly what you are
saying as a shareholder except your benefits are limited to dividends,
capital gains, and stock splits/options. As an owner, you may have
priority on returns over "mere employees", but there will be no more
company if there are no more employees or they are patently
dissatisfied. In a large real sense, that "prime directive" about
making money is bull. It's like saying a baseball bat has to be made
of a solid...

None of this has anything to do with what I posited.

However.

If a business is guilty of your above noted faults, well, the
business will be dealt with via natural selection.

And, by the way, where do you think jobs come from? Good will?
Touchy-feely sentiments? A desire to "do good?" Not.

Profit motive.

Go start a business based on the desire to do good as your primary
motivation. And then use that to try and get funding.

I'm not saying that a business doesn't have to make money; I'm saying
that making money is not really a phenomenon which should take
precedence over each and every issue which arises in a company,
corporate or not. If making money overrides all other concerns, which
is how some people seem to interpret that principle, it would make for
an entrepreneurial tyranny poised to render even today's governmental
excesses as moderate. And funny as it sounds, that is exactly what has
happened recently in parts of the private sector! Just look at the
current economy and the causes for it.

Communism didn't work in Russia because individual people can be
assholes. Whether it'll survive in China or not remains to be seem.
But the assholishness of people can sink a democracy, too, if there are
insufficient checks-and-balances on systems preventing the dominance of
the one class (rich/rulers) over another (poor/peasants). This is
history, man, and a company's making-money credo palls in comparison to
that!

Call me after you go bust. Or better yet, name one business success
using that basis that has been a success.

The Red Cross.

And, by the way, what's their market cap vs. Google or IBM or HP or
any other stock I'd buy? Hey, I'm always open to a new opportunity.

Their market cap? I dunno; maybe it's a purple beanie with a yellow
propellor and an embroidered patch saying "Go MS!"

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

That's a great story. My point was not that businesses /sometimes/
run at a break-even or loss. My point is that to do so continually
can't go on for ever. Even in your story the goal was to outlast the
downturn and return to profitability.

Yup, and I know a lot of businesses where that just wouldn't happen,
mostly larger businesses. Maybe that's why I've never wanted to work in
the "corporate" world.

 

[dorayme]

Sure, sometimes a business will go through a downturn. But eventually
every business needs to turn a profit. If not, what's the point?

You putting on a James Cagney act here, Ed? In one of his films,
on the run from the law, he takes shelter in a nunnery. The nuns
are good to him and he observes their good deeds. He insists
there is some sort of "angle" that the nuns are going for, that
there is some sort of scheme, money or something selfish like and
is always suspiciously asking them what it is!

 

[dorayme]

My point was not that businesses /sometimes/ run
at a break-even or loss. My point is that to do so continually can't go
on for ever. Even in your story the goal was to outlast the downturn
and return to profitability.

The story could be different, it could be purer, it could b that
someone creates a business purely to keep people employed. It is
not a matter of definition that businesses must make a profit in
the short or long or thin or wide term. You *vill* come around to
this conclusion.

 

[dorayme]

If their ultimate aim is not to make a profit it ain't a business in the
commonly accepted definition. It may be an enterprise.

OK. I am going to concede to you now. I just wanted to make you
work a bit harder. I felt you were too complacent. <g>

 

[dorayme]

In what world do you exist where such is possible? Ahh! Your
imagination! Ok, I cede to you the argument then.

Damn! I just sent off a post conceding to you! But it is not
fair! I had not known at the time I posted that you had earlier
conceded to me. But hang on... I detect you are making an
double-backed upside-down inverted Pyrrhic concession.

 

[Neredbojias]

Not a business. By law they can't make a profit. They have no
shareholders. They have no business. They don't sell anything.

Okay, not a business. I just pulled that off the top of my head, but
you're right: technically it's not a business. What I am saying,
though, is that those entities which are businesses have more
responsibilities than simply making a profit and if those
responsibilities are ignored the business has no right to make money in
the first place, thus negating its prime directive as anything other
than a temporary, short-term surge. Sure, some do this, and they ought
to be held liable.

Where's the investment opportunity in The Red Cross? How do I make
money "investing" in The Red Cross? Oh, hey, I might like them as a
charity to leave some money to when I die but, now? While I'm alive?

My wife and I just established a trust to define what happens to our
assets when we die. We have named six charities as benificiaries (in
addition to family members). None of those could remotely be thought
of as "businesses" and they would never think of themselves as such.
In fact, their legal incorporations define them as not businesses.

Uh huh. I don't know the details of your financial doings and don't
want to know but the trend nowadays is to put the kids second (or
essentially not at all). AFAIC, that's a big mistake.

 

[dorayme]

...

Mason, I was thinking of you the other day when I needed a font
for just three words, did you say you had a big collection?
Perhaps it was not you? I wanted you to put my three words in
this font if you had it and send them to me.

I will grant you the privilege of emailing me on this one, so be
honoured. <g>

 

[cwdjrxyz]

Mason, I was thinking of you the other day when I needed a font
for just three words, did you say you had a big collection?
Perhaps it was not you? I wanted you to put my three words in
this font if you had it and send them to me.

I will grant you the privilege of emailing me on this one, so be
honoured. <g>

Why, you can even get strange fonts without emailing . It uses a
graphics extension of php that is installed on many servers. Since
Halloween is coming soon, perhaps you would like Armenian Frankenstein
or perhaps 8th century Anglo-Saxon. See http://www.cwdjr.net/php/ttfAFW.php
for the Armenian Frankenstein font. You just have to right click on
the image and select to save on your computer as a png. Or you can
avoid the image download and instead use the php code that produces
the image. The php code is:

$image = imagecreate (250,32);
$back_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 200, 200, 200);
$draw_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 0);
$text ='SLIDE SHOW';
/* $font = 'Anglo-Saxon, 8th c.'; */
$font = 'ARMFRANK.TTF';
ImageTTFText ($image, 25, 0, 0, 26, $draw_color, $font, $text);
imagecolortransparent($image, $back_color);
header('Content-Type: image/png');
imagepng($image);
imagedestroy($image);

I left off the open and close php tags to avoid possible problems with
this post. Servers often have many fonts installed, but you likely
will have to install the $font file for these unusual fonts.

An example of the old Anglo-Saxon font is: http://www.cwdjr.net/php/ttfalkermes.php
..

Finally, you might like a nice php Halloween frog. It also is
downloaded by right clicking, but in this case you download a htm page
rather than an image file.

Now this 50+ response thread is about as far off topic as we can
get , but if everyone tries hard, perhaps we can exceed 100
responses. There has not been that much action around here in a long
time.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

Finally, you might like a nice php Halloween frog. It also is
downloaded by right clicking, but in this case you download a htm page

A url might help . See http://www.cwdjr.net/php/ASCimage.php .

 

[dorayme]

<[email protected]
m>,

Why, you can even get strange fonts without emailing . It uses a
graphics extension of php that is installed on many servers. Since
Halloween is coming soon, perhaps you would like Armenian Frankenstein
or perhaps 8th century Anglo-Saxon. See http://www.cwdjr.net/php/ttfAFW.php
for the Armenian Frankenstein font. You just have to right click on
the image and select to save on your computer as a png. Or you can
avoid the image download and instead use the php code that produces
the image. The php code is:

$image = imagecreate (250,32);
$back_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 200, 200, 200);
$draw_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 0);
$text ='SLIDE SHOW';
/* $font = 'Anglo-Saxon, 8th c.'; */
$font = 'ARMFRANK.TTF';
ImageTTFText ($image, 25, 0, 0, 26, $draw_color, $font, $text);
imagecolortransparent($image, $back_color);
header('Content-Type: image/png');
imagepng($image);
imagedestroy($image);

I left off the open and close php tags to avoid possible problems with
this post. Servers often have many fonts installed, but you likely
will have to install the $font file for these unusual fonts.

I tried this for Times (adding the opening and closing <?php
...... ?> no luck so far. If I wanted Times, would one only need
to put

$font = 'TIMES.TTF';

Is there a simple way to get an on screen print out of server
supported fonts?

 

[Neredbojias]

What responsibilies? Who says so? No law does. Is it morally
desirable that they do? Maybe, depending upon your own sense of
morality. But, they are required to do nothing of the sort. A
business is beholden to its shareholders, public or private.
Different rules (legal) apply depending. But there is zero
requirement for a business to do anything except comply with the law.
And the law doesn't mandate "goodness" or "responsibilities" to
which you allude.

Actually, it does, but I can see you're set in your opinion and I am
set in mine. Besides, this sub-thread is getting more and more
off-topic even for its own topic so I will harangue you no further
regarding the essence of realities that exist whether recognized or
not.

 

[Neredbojias]

This thread about Google's naughty web pages is
forgetting that many businesses are incorporated.

The incorporation states the socially-useful purpose
of the business -- the justification for the limited
liability.

Corporations are legally required to have a goal other
than profit.

Profit is not essential for any business; it is useful
to accumulate a reserve for times of loss. Prolonged
loss can, of course, kill a business.

(Non-profits can pay their "owner-managers" handsomely.)

The owner profits from (1) salary and (2) the market
value of the company. No dividend for shareholders
is necessary and many corporations do not pay a
dividend.

I agree. Furthermore a buusiness cannot do many things (legally) like
hire illegal immigrants or operate with "sweat-shop rules" or thousands
of other things. My point, though, was that businesses _should_
operate willfully in a moral and ethical manner. If they don't, they
are usually liable somehow or other. But the topic is probably too
general and extensive to discuss in a usenet html group...

 

[cwdjrxyz]

<[email protected]
m>,

I tried this for Times (adding the opening and closing <?php
..... ?> no luck so far. If I wanted Times, would one only need
to put

 $font = 'TIMES.TTF';

Is there a simple way to get an on screen print out of server
supported fonts?

The php used is gd which is an extension of php and sometimes it has
not been installed on a server. Fortunately it is easy to find out if
it is installed.
Go to my page at http://www.cwdjr.net/php/test/serverinfo.php to get a
dump of what the php does and does not do. Go way down the page until
you find a table labeled "gd" Notice it and everything in it is listed
as enabled, including png. You now need to write one of the most
simple web pages you likely have ever written. Go to my page at
http://www.cwdjr.net/php/test/serverinfo.phps and copy the php code.
That is the entire contents of your web page. Next write such a page
and use it to find out if your server supports gd and if it is
enabled. My server supports a package of free fonts, but it would take
a bit of research to see if Times is included. I likely would just do
a Google search for fonts on the desired one and install the .ttf or
other file type for it to save time.