jon said:
>   I guess you have rejected it.

nah.  your "praise" had no effect on me.

what would it mean to be an "expert"
on a 4th-grade topic anyway?         :+)

i just wanted you to realize that i was
immune to the dale carnegie approach,
so you wouldn't get frustrated it didn't work.


>   You know, if you instead worked *with* people
>   (rather than viewing everyone else as enemies
>   that you must outwit), and started a SourceForge project,
>   assembled like-minded people, you'd be much further along,
>   and would probably have won a lot more hearts and minds.

i have no desire to "win" hearts or minds.
or to "win" friends or "influence" people...

i am merely a messenger.

for those who will listen...


>   First, ZML is not sufficient for mastering texts for
>   multiple digital publication purposes. For example,
>   you've not bothered to address how in ZML you will
>   enable standardized intra- and inter-publication
>   deep linking, a powerful ebook function

and there you go again.  and this is why i say
you don't know jack about z.m.l.  when you see
how finely-grained i can "deep-link", and realize
what you would have to do to get that functionality
with your heavy markup, you'll get a knot in your gut.

and i'll be able to give people a program that will do it
_right_now_, today, even on trailing-edge machinery,
while your methodology will necessitate telling them
they must use browser x, after buying a new machine.

deep-linking is ridiculously easy with permanent url's.
and, coincidentally, absolutely impossible without them.


>   it will be ignored by the world.

and you still don't see that i don't care.
i really don't.  i'm doing the world a favor,
showing it a better way of doing something.
if it is too stupid, or resentful, or stubborn,
or whatever, to realize that, it will be no skin
off my nose.  i'll still be as fat and sassy as ever.


>   open-source

as i've said before, any people who want to
work on a z.m.l.-like open-source project
should join with john gruber's "markdown".
he's over at http://www.daringfireball.net.


>   moderation

ockerbloom moderates every poster, while you
make a special exception of moderating michael.


>   How many times have you replied to me
>   when you said you'd no longer reply to me?
>   I've rather enjoyed the (mostly) quiet times.

i've enjoyed the (mostly) quiet times too, jon.

one of my few resolutions for 2005 was to
get off the noring merry-go-round.  i did well,
i think, wasting far less of my time there this year
than i have in previous years.  as you point out,
i wasn't perfect, mostly since you seemed to want
to provoke me by routinely misrepresenting z.m.l.,
but on the whole, i still did well.  and i expect to
waste even less time in your circles in the next year.

(by the way, my big resolution for 2006 is to get off
the michael hart anti-google merry-go-round, which
wasted far too much of my time in 2005.  i've already
started practicing that one, and it is going well too.)

and jon, i do believe that even you will get off of
your own merry-go-round in 2006, because you
will finally have some rubber-meets-road reality
when thoutreader releases an openreader viewer.

i've long said that your format-centric approach
would become much stronger if it was tempered
with input from a programmer on its weaknesses.
(such input teaches format's relative irrelevance;
what really matters is how you manipulate content,
not so much the container wherein it is packaged.)

and with the improvement in your confidence that
an actual app will give you, you probably will not
need to use the shrill argumentation of your past.
because the proof really is in the pudding...

at least we can hope you'll leave the preaching behind.

and i too will be dealing more in pudding next year.
it's been fun, and all, seeing just how long y'all would
continue to insist that z.m.l. "cannot do the job", but
it's time for me to stop toying with you, and give proof.

at least, once you throw just a _little_ bit more money
in the poker pot, in the form of your time and energy...    :+)

so here it is, another post on the noring merry-go-round,
to commemorate 2005 quickly becoming a year of the past...

-bowerbird