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Source: http://lachy.id.au/log/feed

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<updated>2016-09-30T07:55:11Z</updated>
<title type="text">Lachy’s Log</title>
<subtitle type="text">If I start now, I'll be finished later!</subtitle>
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<entry>
<id>http://lachy.id.au/log/?p=203</id>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[The Content-Language Pragma Directive]]></title>
<updated>2013-09-07T16:35:48Z</updated>
<published>2010-06-29T11:56:01Z</published>
<author>
<name>Lachlan Hunt</name>
<email>lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</email>
<uri>http://lachy.id.au/</uri> </author>
<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2010/06/content-language/feed" thr:count="0" />
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<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="W3C" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="WHATWG" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[This rationale is written in defence of a technically sound and reasoned approach to dealing with the Content-Language pragma directive issue within the HTML Working Group. ]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="http://lachy.id.au/log/2010/06/content-language"><![CDATA[This rationale is written in defence of a technically sound and reasoned
approach to dealing with the <code>Content-Language</code> pragma directive
issue within the HTML Working Group. <a href="http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/88">ISSUE-88</a>
is a request for permitting multiple language tags to be used as the value of
the <code>Content-Language</code> pragma directive. This article argues that
<a href="http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/ContentLanguages">this change proposal</a>
is unsupported by logic or reason, and resolving in its favour will have an
overall negative effect for both authors and implementers.
<h2>Summary</h2>
This summary is presented as an overview of the arguments presented throughout this
article. The supporting rationale in favour of these arguments is presented later.
<ul>
<li>The change proposal is based upon the false premise that the
<code>Content-Language</code> HTTP header and pragma directive are equivalent.</li>
<li>The HTTP header is used to declare the languages of the intended
audience; the only defined function of the pragma directive is to be
used as a fallback language in the absence of the <code>lang</code> attribute.</li>
<li>The use of the pragma directive as part of server configuration is out
of scope of HTML. Specific server side implementation choices need not
affect the conformance definition.</li>
<li>The pragma directive only fulfils its purpose of providing a fallback
language when one language tag is specified. Multiple language tags
are, by definition of the implementation requirements, not useful or
beneficial.</li>
<li>There are no reasons given for why it is beneficial to leave the pragma
directive in the document when the <code>lang</code> attribute is present on the
root element.</li>
<li>Failing to offer a warning about its presence in all cases would
continue to mislead the author about its legitimacy.</li>
<li>The inconsistency of when warnings are issued would be confusing to
authors. It is better to offer a consistent warning about the
presence of a redundant feature.</li>
<li>The defined effect, per the implementation requirements, of declaring
multiple language tags is identical to that of omitting the pragma
directive entirely. No reasons are given to explain why declaring
multiple language tags is useful.</li>
<li>The syntax of the <code>Content-Language</code> HTTP header field is not affected by
the definition of the distinct <code>Content-Language</code> pragma directive in
HTML, with which it only shares a common name and does not share
significant functionality. It is reasonable for this distinct feature
to use a distinct conforming syntax that is suitable for its purpose.</li>
<li>No reason is given explaining why only emitting the warning under
specific circumstances, as opposed to the current specification
requirement, would serve better in encouraging authors to use the
<code>lang</code> attribute instead.</li>
<li>The proposed replacement specification text contains unjustified
changes, inconsistencies, unimplementable requirements and is
overall inappropriate for use in the specification.</li>
<li>The claimed positive <del>benefits</del> <ins>effects</ins> are unsupported by evidence and, in
several cases, blatantly incorrect.</li>
<li>In practice, very few authors use multiple language tags in the pragma
directive, and doing so is not useful. Restricting the syntax to one
language would not have a significant negative impact.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Difference Between <code>Content-Language</code> HTTP Header and Pragma Directive</h2>
This premise of the change proposal is that the <code>Content-Language</code> HTTP header
field is functionally equivalent to the <code>Content-Language</code> pragma directive
using the <code>meta</code> element. This premise is used to support the idea that that
both should share the same syntax and client side processing requirements.
However, this premise is demonstrably wrong, and thus the change proposal is
unsupported by evidence and must be rejected.
In order to demonstrate the differences between the HTTP header and the
pragma directive, it is necessary to analyse the purpose and functionality of
each and see how they compare.
<h3>Declaring the Language of the Intended Audience</h3>
The HTTP <code>Content-Language</code> header field is used by HTTP servers to announce
the language of the intended audience for a given resource representation.
This and other related information exchanged between the client and server
can be used for content negotiation based on language. When the server does
this, it is important for this information to be included in the HTTP header
where it can be seen by both the client and other intermediary servers.
The information declared within the document using the pragma directive is
unsuitable for this purpose, as it will not be parsed by intermediary servers
that would otherwise utilise the information for caching purposes.
<h3>Server Configuration</h3>
It has been claimed that the information declared using a pragma directive
within the document may be parsed by some server implementations, which
subsequently process and echo the value in the <code>Content-Language</code> HTTP header
field. Since this header field is allowed to contain multiple language
values, it is claimed that this ability is limited by permitting only one
language in the pragma directive. However, no evidence has been presented
to demonstrate how widely used this feature is, nor why such a feature should
even be defined within HTML.
This is a layering violation because information intended for server
side processing, and specific implementation details thereof, should not
unnecessarily affect the conformance definition of client side HTML.
That is, it is out of scope for HTML, as a client side markup language,
to define specific processing requirements or features to be used by
servers for implementing HTTP features. There is also no inherent need
for interoperability between different back end implementation details.
Defining the pragma directive in a way that is optimised for specific
server implementation details would be analogous to, for example,
defining an ASP specific feature within HTML for use on Microsoft IIS
platforms. While server implementations are otherwise free to make any
design decision, those design decisions need not affect HTML conformance
requirements.
<h3>Default Document Language</h3>
In practice, <code>Content-Language</code> used within the <code>meta</code> element in the
HTML serves as client side metadata. The functionality of
<code>Content-Language</code> in this case is restricted entirely to the purpose of
specifying a fallback language, to be used in the absence of the <code>lang</code>
attribute. This purpose differs significantly from the purpose of
declaring the languages of the intended audience.
Declaring multiple languages for the document’s intended audience
makes sense in some cases. However, there can only be one default
language. Thus, for this purpose, the functionality as defined requires
that only a single language value be specified. While the HTTP
<code>Content-Language</code> header field is also used for determining the fallback
language in cases where it only has a single language value, that is not
its primary purpose and is thus not a significant similarity between
these two independent features.
Permitting multiple language values to be specified in the pragma
directive is at odds with its implementation requirements. Thus, for the
client-side metadata functionality of the pragma directive, it is not
at all useful to have multiple languages specified, and so it does not
make sense for multiple languages to be considered conforming.
These 3 aspects of the functionality — declaring the language of the
intended audience, server side configuration and default document
language — clearly illustrate that the premise of this change proposal —
the shared functionality between the two features — is fundamentally
flawed. The reality is that the in-document <code>Content-Language</code> pragma
directive only shares its name with the HTTP header field, while its
functionality is closer to that of the <code>lang</code> attribute. And since server
side implementation details are out of scope of HTML, there is no need
for the document conformance definition to permit multiple language
values. The solution chosen for addressing this issue must take this
into account, and thus reject this change proposal.
<h2>Arguments Against the Rationale</h2>
The rationale for this change proposal states:
<blockquote>[The current specification] offers no carrot for doing
the right thing. while the fallback language effect stops as soon as the
author adds <code>lang</code> on the root element, the spec requires conformance
checker to continue whining until the <code>http-equiv="Content-Language"</code> <code>meta</code>
element has been removed.</blockquote>
The rationale fails to explain the benefit gained by leaving the
pragma directive in the document when a <code>lang</code> attribute has been
specified on the root element. While leaving it in the document under
those circumstances is mostly harmless, it is redundant metadata that
the author does not need to include in their document. Failing to offer
a warning would continue to mislead the author into thinking that the
pragma directive is both acceptable and useful, which it is not.
<blockquote>
That it prevents authors from legally using multiple
values to replicate the language fallback effect of doing the same thing
in a HTTP header — whether they want to replicate the effect of multiple
tags or a single tag.
</blockquote>
The language fallback effect from using multiple language tags within
the value is that there is no default language. This is exactly the same
effect as would be achieved by omitting the pragma directive, and so the
given reason is blatantly wrong.
i.e. The effect of including a value with multiple languages, like the following:
<pre><meta http-equiv="<code>Content-Language</code>" content="en, fr"></pre>
is identical to that of omitting this pragma directive entirely.
This rationale also fails to provide a reason for wanting to replicate this
effect by copying the same syntax.
<blockquote>
That it underlines the confusion that may exist today, about the
nature of <code>lang</code> versus <code>Content-Language</code>, by requiring:
<ol>
<li>different syntax rules for features that are expected to be
identical (HTTP and <code>http-equiv</code>)</li>
<li>similar syntax rules for features that are different (<code>http-equiv</code> and
<code>lang</code>)</li>
<li>a warning message which asks authors to “use <code>lang</code> instead” – as if
they were juxtaposable alternatives.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
In actual fact, the confusion surrounding this issue is the idea that
the HTTP header and pragma directive are equivalent, as clearly illustrated
by this misguided change proposal. They are different. The HTTP
header is used for declaring the languages of the intended audience, the
pragma directive is used for specifying a default language.
The <code>lang</code> attribute, on the other hand, is an alternative to the
pragma directive when a single language is specified. When multiple
languages are specified, there is absolutely no defined effect, and so it
serves no valid purpose at all. Therefore, the pragma directive is much
closer in functionality to the <code>lang</code> attribute, than it is to the
HTTP header, with which it shares its name.
<blockquote>
Instead of the above, this change proposal propose:
<ol>
<li>the Zero-edit proposal’s warning about using <code>lang</code> instead of
<code>Content-Language</code> should be changed into a warning which informs that
a fallback language measure has kicked in, and recommend that
authors create a language declaration (via lang) rather than relying
on the fallback feature. This warning should be shown regardless of
whether the fallback comes from <code>http-equiv</code> or from the higher level
(HTTP). Justification: Since it is a fallback feature, and with
other semantics, there is no guarantee that the author has used it
for the language effect.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
From the authors perspective, the inconsistency of issuing the
warning about the use of the pragma directive only when the <code>lang</code>
attribute is absent would be confusing. The better alternative is to
issue a consistent warning (or error) that simply says to remove the
pragma directive and use <code>lang</code> instead.
<blockquote>
<ol start="2">
<li>to hold the syntax rules of HTTP (which permits multiple language
tags) as the conforming ones (rather than those of lang, which forbids
multiple languages), will have the effect of underlining that <code>lang</code> and
<code>Content-Language</code> have different purposes. For instance, since the
fallback algorithm doesn’t kick in whenever multiple languages are used
in the pragma or on the server, there would not be any warning in these
cases.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
The syntax requirements for the HTTP Content-Type header are not
affected by the HTML implementation requirements. Since the <code>lang</code>
attribute on the root element and the <code>Content-Language</code> pragma directive
with a single language value do have the same effect, which differs
significantly from the purpose of the HTTP <code>Content-Language</code> header, and
because it is misleading to pretend otherwise, the syntax of the former does not
need to match the syntax of the latter.
<blockquote>
<ol start="3">
<li>a carrot: what we want from authors is that they rely on <code>lang</code> (and
xml:lang) for specifying the language — when the author does that,
he/she should get immediate reward in the form of removal of conformance
warning.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
This rationale fails to explain why that same effect of encouraging
authors to use the <code>lang</code> attribute would not be achieved by a more
consistent warning that states to use the <code>lang</code> attribute and remove the
pragma directive. There is no benefit gained by leaving the directive
in; and merely silencing the validator by inserting a <code>lang</code> attribute
does little to discourage the use of the redundant and totally
unnecessary pragma directive.
<h2>Arguments Against the Proposal Details</h2>
The change proposal suggests replacing the terminology for
“pragma-set default language” with “pragma-set locale language”. None of
the given rationale explains the need for this change in terminology.
The proposed specification text states:
<blockquote>
This pragma contains a <code>Content-Language</code> list, whose semantics and syntax
is defined in the HTTP spec.
</blockquote>
The semantics of the <code>Content-Language</code> header field as defined in RFC 2616
states:
<blockquote>
The <code>Content-Language</code> entity-header field describes the natural
language(s) of the intended audience for the enclosed entity. Note that
this might not be equivalent to all the languages used within the
entity-body.
</blockquote>
This semantic definition does not match the actual purpose of the
<code>Content-Language</code> pragma directive, for specifying a “pragma-set locale
language”. Therefore, referring to RFC 2616 for this semantic definition
is inappropriate. The syntax requirements from RFC 2616 are also
inappropriate, as it defines the following ABNF, which is not directly
compatible with the syntax of the <code>meta</code> element with <code>http-equiv</code> and
<code>content</code> attributes.
<pre>Content-Language = "Content-Language" ":" 1#language-tag
language-tag = primary-tag *( "-" subtag )
primary-tag = 1*8ALPHA
subtag = 1*8ALPHA</pre>
For these syntax requirements to be applicable at all, the
specification would have to state that the value of the <code>content</code>
attribute must match the ABNF production for <code>language-tag</code>. However, see
below regarding the syntax defined in BCP 47.
<blockquote>
An HTML5 parser processes this list into a known or unknown pragma-set
locale language… The <code>Content-Language</code> list may also be defined in a
HTTP header, and will then result in a known or unknown HTTP header-set
locale language.
</blockquote>
The proposed text fails to define what “known or unknown” means in that
context. It is not clear how the implementation determines whether a value is
known or unknown. The phrasing of the requirement seems to indicate that
it would depend upon the result of parsing the value, rather than just the
presence or absence or absence of said value. But the parsing requirements do
not use such terminology, and so there is no way to determine whether a given
value qualifies as known or unknown.
The parsing requirements for the value of this pragma directive are
not specified by the change proposal. However, the change proposal also
does not state that the existing parsing requirements in the
specification are to be removed, replaced or modified in any way. Thus,
by adopting the details of this change proposal, the specification would
be left in an inconsistent state which says that multiple language
values are supported, but where the parsing requirements abort when more
than one value is used.
The aforementioned parsing requirements only focus on parsing the
value of the pragma directive, and as such, there is no implementation
requirement that sets the “HTTP header-set locale language”.
<blockquote>
When a document is lacking a language declaration in the
form of the <code>lang</code> or <code>xml:lang</code> attribute on the root element, the
document’s locale language (pragma-set or HTTP-set) is consulted by the
user agent and used as fallback value for the primary document
language.
</blockquote>
Assuming the value of the “HTTP header-set locale language” comes
from the HTTP <code>Content-Language</code> header, this proposed text fails to
specify the order of precedence of the values specified in the pragma
directive or the HTTP header.
The use of the term “locale language” in this context clashes with
the existing use of the term in the specification to refer to the
language set by the user in the user agent’s preferences. This term is
used in the table within step 7 of the algorithm to determine the
character encoding.
The proposed text then goes on to state:
<blockquote>
The following info about the HTTP semantics and <code>Content-Language</code> usage,
is informative:
</blockquote>
However, in the non-normative list given following that statement,
RFC 2119 terminology is incorrectly used to describe what appear to be
authoring requirements. In particular:
<blockquote>
… authors should not define the <code>Content-Language</code> list according to its
parser effect, but according to it semantics.
</blockquote>
This non-normative example text also incorrectly states that “<code>en-US</code>”
would not be parsed into a useful value. However, this value complies
with the syntax requirements specified in RFC 2616, BCP 47 and also with
the existing parsing requirements in the HTML5 specification.
The proposal states that the following requirement is to be removed:
<blockquote>
Conformance checkers will include a warning if this pragma is used.
Authors are encouraged to use the <code>lang</code> attribute instead.
</blockquote>
The rationale provided does not adequately justify the removal of
this warning, and nor does it adequately justify replacing it with a
more limited warning to be issued only when the pragma directive is in
the absence of the <code>lang</code> attribute.
The proposal then states to amend this requirement as follows:
<blockquote>
the <code>content</code> attribute must have a value consisting of a valid BCP 47
language tag, or a comma separated list of two or more BCP 47 language
tags.
</blockquote>
However, the proposal stated earlier that the syntax for the value was
defined by RFC 2616. This requirement now conflicts with that by stating that
the syntax of the <code>content</code> attribute’s value is defined by
BCP 47. This inconsistency negatively affects the quality of the
specification.
The proposal states that this note is to be removed:
<blockquote>
This pragma is not exactly equivalent to the HTTP <code>Content-Language</code>
header, for instance it only supports one language.
</blockquote>
The removal of this note would be misleading, because the note itself
is factually correct as-is with the current specification, and with the
details of this proposal, which, as stated above, leave the parsing
requirements unchanged. The proposal fails to include any implementation
requirements that actually permit multiple language tags to be used.
It has now been clearly demonstrated that the proposed specification
text provided by this change proposal is thoroughly inadequate for its
intended purpose. If the specification were to be amended as required by
this change proposal, the inconsistency and lack of clarity would
negatively affect the ability to read, understand and implement this
specification. As such, this proposal should also be rejected on the
basis that its proposal details are inadequate. However, if this working
group does make the wrong decision to permit multiple language tags,
then I ask that the editor be given full editorial discretion to phrase
the requirements in a way that more clearly expresses the requirements,
rather than being asked to accept the details of this proposal as
written.
<h2>Arguments Against the Claimed Positive and Negative Effects</h2>
<blockquote>
More positive: authors can get rid of the warning by adding something
— <html lang="*"> — this is better than a focus on
removal of the (over all) harmless <code>Content-Language</code> <code>meta</code> element.
</blockquote>
Likewise, authors can get rid of the warning as required by the
current specification by removing the <code>meta</code> element. No rationale is
provided to explain why the act of removing the pragma directive is
significantly more difficult than adding the <code>lang</code> attribute to the root
element. Depending on the authoring tool or CMS, both of these actions
are likely to be just as easy or just as difficult to perform. This
purported benefit is thus unsubstantiated and invalid.
<blockquote>
More stable: same syntax as before continue to be permitted.
</blockquote>
As documented by <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Apr/0307.html">the null change proposal</a>,
observation of the use of this pragma directive shows that only
<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Apr/0088.html">a very small minority of authors use multiple language values</a>.
However, the claimed benefit of continuing to use this syntax is nullified by
the fact that, due to the implementation requirements, multiple language
values are not at all useful.
<blockquote>
More permissive: authors, CMS-es and browsers can continue to take
advantage of HTTP-EQUIV’s ability to reference what the HTTP header
is/was supposed to be, including replicating its fallback effect.
</blockquote>
No rationale is provided to explain why that ability is in any way
beneficial.
<blockquote>
More correct: the difference between <code>lang</code> and <code>Content-Language</code> is pointed
out, while the link between <code>http-equiv</code> and HTTP is emphasized.
</blockquote>
As has been demonstrated, this is blatantly wrong. The <code>lang</code> attribute
and the <code>Content-Language</code> pragma directive share more in common in terms
of functionality, than to the pragma directive and the <code>Content-Language</code>
HTTP header field.
<blockquote>
More useful: a warning that a fallback feature has kicked in, is more
useful than a warning which focuses on one of the places where the
fallback language could potentially kick in from. Why tell the author to
“please use <code>lang</code> instead” if the author has already made sure that the
<code>lang</code> attribute is in place?
</blockquote>
It seems more useful for authors to be informed about the presence of
a redundant and useless feature, than to have them continue to
mistakenly believe that the pragma directive is in any way useful.
However, either way, both of these are highly subjective claims about
what may or may not be useful to authors, which cannot be objectively
evaluated without supporting data.
<blockquote>
Has positive side effect: Encouragement to place a <code>lang</code> attribute on the
starttag of the html element will lead authors to actually type in the
html root element, instead of relying on the parser to generate it for
them.
</blockquote>
Relative to the status quo, the zero edit change proposal, or the
proposal to make <code>Content-Language</code> non-conforming, the above is not a
unique benefit. Both this and the other change proposals require
validators to notify the author about the issue and encourage the use of
the <code>lang</code> attribute.
<blockquote>
More accurate because it does not conceal the problems by introducing
an artificial technical and semantic difference between
<code>Content-Language</code> from the HTTP header and <code>Content-Language</code> inside the
<code>http-equiv</code> <code>meta</code> element.
</blockquote>
This accuracy claim is undeniably wrong, given that the significant
differences between the HTTP header and pragma directive have already
been explained.
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
Based on the arguments presented in this article, it is clear that the change
proposal arguing for multiple language tags to be permitted is misguided, and
lacks any significant or valid supporting arguments. The overall effect of
of the group accepting this change proposal would have a serious negative
impact upon the quality of the specification. It is therefore my strongly
reasoned opinion that the HTMLWG must reject this change proposal either in
favour of the status quo, or in favour of making Content-Language entirely
non-conforming.
]]></content>
</entry>
<entry>
<id>http://lachy.id.au/log/?p=194</id>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Introducing WebM]]></title>
<updated>2013-09-07T16:36:00Z</updated>
<published>2010-05-19T16:32:47Z</published>
<author>
<name>Lachlan Hunt</name>
<email>lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</email>
<uri>http://lachy.id.au/</uri> </author>
<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2010/05/webm/feed" thr:count="0" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2010/05/webm" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Google" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="MarkUp" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Mozilla" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Opera" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="WHATWG" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Today, Google, in co-operation witt Opera, Mozilla, CoreCodec (Matroska developers) and a range of other companies, have announced at Google I/O 2010 that WebM is the new royalty free video codec for the web. Earlier this year, Google purchased On2, the company that developed of a range of video codecs including VP3, VP6, VP7 and … <a href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2010/05/webm" class="more-link">Continue reading Introducing WebM →</a>]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="http://lachy.id.au/log/2010/05/webm"><![CDATA[Today, <a href="http://www.google.com/" title="">Google</a>, in co-operation witt
<a href="http://www.opera.com/">Opera</a>,
<a href="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</a>,
<a href="http://corecodec.com/" title="Home | CoreCodec">CoreCodec</a>
(<a href="http://matroska.org/" title="Matroska Media Container - Homepage | Matroska">Matroska</a> developers)
and a <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/about/supporters/" title="The WebM Project : about : WebM Supporters">range of other companies</a>,
have announced at <a href="http://code.google.com/events/io/2010/" title="Google I/O 2010">Google I/O 2010</a>
that <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/" title="The WebM Project : The WebM Project : Welcome to the WebM Project">WebM</a>
is the new royalty free video codec for the web.
Earlier this year, Google purchased <a href="http://on2.com/" title="On2 Technologies - Making Video Possible, from Handhelds to HD">On2</a>, the company that developed
of a range of video codecs including VP3, VP6, VP7 and VP8. VP3 is a
well known codec that formed the basis of Theora. VP6 is a codec
supported by Adobe Flash, VP7 is used by Skype for video conferencing.
Their latest offering, VP8, now forms the basis of the new WebM video
format. <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/code/" title="The WebM Project : code : Explore the WebM Source Code">The code for the VP8 codec</a>
has been released royalty free under the BSD licence.
WebM, which stands for Web Media, is a format based on 3
technologies:
<ol>
<li>Container: A variation of Matroska called WebM.</li>
<li>Video codec: VP8.</li>
<li>Audio codec: Vorbis.</li>
</ol>
<h2>The Container Format</h2>
<a href="http://www.matroska.org/technical/specs/index.html" title="Specifications | Matroska">Matroska</a>
is a widely supported container format, which is able to
contain a wide range of codecs, including, among others, h.264, VC-1,
Theora, AAC, AC3 and Vorbis. This is due to the high degree of
flexibility inherent in the design of Matroska.
Matroska itself if based on a binary markup language called EBML, the
design of which was inspired by XML. In short, EBML files contain a
header that declares the DocType and version information, followed by a
tree of elements and data, marked up using a special binary notation.
The Matroska specification defines a range of elements, and their binary
notation, that can be used for marking up the data in Matroska files.
The WebM format is a subset of Matroska, which has been optimised for
streaming over HTTP.
WebM, which uses the DocType “webm”, can be distinguished from
Matroska, which uses the DocType “matroska”. Technically speaking, a
valid WebM version 1 file supports a subset of elements from Matroska
version 1, and WebM version 2 supports those in addition to some of the
additional elements from Matroska version 2.
To further optimise WebM for use on the WebM, some additional formatting
guidelines are imposed upon WebM files, over and above the Matroska counterpart.
These guidelines include plaicing the indexing information at the beginning
of the file, and keyframes stored at the beginning of clusters.
The WebM container is only permitted to contain the codecs VP8 and
Vorbis, and browsers will not support any other codecs within WebM – not
even Theora or h.264. Although there are no technical limitations with
WebM that inherently prevent such codecs from being used, this was an
intentional decision to improve the usability of WebM.
The idea being that if you have a player that supports WebM, you can
be more confiden that the file will play without having to install
additional codecs. This is a problem that has plagued container formats
like AVI for years. You can’t easily determine what it contains until
you start playing it. Some AVI files may contain DivX, Xvid, h.264 or a
wide range of other codecs.
<h2>Benefits of Matroska</h2>
Matroska presented some nice benefits over competing container
formats, sucha s MP4, commonly used with h.264, or even Ogg, which is
supported by Opera, Firefox and Chrome for Theora and Vorbis. Like Ogg,
Matroska is publicly specified and available to use freely, unlike, for
example, MP4.
The main benefit of Matroska over Ogg is that the seeking information
can be placed at the beginning, making it significantly easier to seek
in a WebM file being transferred over HTTP. When the user tries to
seek, if that part of the video hasn’t yet downloaded, then the browser
needs to request that section from the server.
For Ogg, browsers have to do at least 2 separate requests when a
video loads — one to get the beginning of the file and a range request
to get the end — before the length of the video can be determined, and
before seeking can occur, which then potentially results in additional
requests.
For WebM, all the information is presented up front, meaning that if
a user seeks the video, the browser knows exactly where in the video to
go, or which part of the file to request from the server.
This is not to say that Ogg itself is a bad format. Quite the
contrary, it’s just optimised for different use cases. Ogg is very good
to use as a streaming container format where seeking is not required, or
for storing your Vorbis encoded music collection locally, where the
player isn’t subject to the overhead of HTTP requests.
WebM, on the otherhand, had to be specifically designed for use with
the HTML video element served over HTTP, and as such, benefited from the
design decisions of Matroska.
<h2>Audio and Video Codecs</h2>
The VP8 codec provides significant quality enhancements over its
predecessors; most notably Theora. Comparisons between Theora and h.264
have shown that the quality of Theora is not up to scratch. Thanks to
Google, VP8 has now been released freely.
There haven’t yet been any serious, independent comparisons between
h.264 and VP8, so it’s difficult to say which is better. Although h.264
is certainly more mature than VP8, and has a lot more hardware support
in existing devices, VP8 is likely to continually improve over the
coming years.
The main limitation with VP8 at the moment is the lack of hardware
acceleration. Firefox, Opera and Chrome all currently use software
decoding of VP8, which means that it can increase CPU usage,
particularly for high definition videos, and watching a lot of video
will drain your battery more than hardware decoded h.264.
However, Google have announced that they are working with hardware
partners, and its possible that we’ll see devices shipping with support
within a year or two.
Vorbis, of course, has been supported by Firefox, Opera and Chrome
for a while already, and so it was a natural choice to use in
combination with VP8 in WebM.
<h2>YouTube</h2>
Over the past few weeks, YouTube has been working to convert many
existing videos into WebM. To try this out using a browser
that supports WebM, follow the
<a href="http://www.webmproject.org/users/">instructions provided by the WebM Project</a>.
While not all videos have been re-encoded yet, thousands of videos are already
available in WebM format, and will work in Opera, Firefox and Chrome.
<h2>Demo Time</h2>
Just so you can see for yourself what VP8 looks like, get yourself a
copy of the preview releases of Opera, Firefox and Chrome, sit back,
relax and watch Elephant’s Dream from the Orange Open Movie Project
(<a href="http://www.elephantsdream.org/" title="Elephants Dream">website</a>).
I encoded this myself from the lossless source files using a special build of
ffmpeg with libvpx_vp8 (the VP8 codec library).
<video preload="none" src="http://lachy.id.au/lib/media/elephantsdream/Elephants_Dream-360p-Stereo.webm" width="640" height="360" controls></video>
<h2>Creating Your Own Videos</h2>
The absolute easiest way to create your own WebM video is to upload
your source video to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a> and
wait for it to be encoded. Other services, including <a href="http://encoding.com" title="On Demand Video Encoding">encoding.com</a>
and <a href="http://www.hdcloud.com/" title="HD Cloud - Video Encoding and Video Transcoding In The Cloud">HD Could</a> also offer transcoding
services for a small fee.
If you want to encode the videos yourself, you need to get your hands
dirty with a tool like ffmpeg with libvpx_vp8, or a commercial
alternative. Google have released the source code for libvpx_vp8, and
builds of ffmpeg with it should be available shortly. More information is
available on the <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/tools/" title="">The WebM Project tools page</a>
The Matroska developers have also been working on on updating their
Matroska muxing software to support the WebM profile. New tools called
<a href="http://www.matroska.org/downloads/mkvalidator.html" title="mkvalidator tool | Matroska">mkvalidator</a> and
<a href="http://www.matroska.org/downloads/mkclean.html" title="mkclean tool | Matroska">mkclean</a> will help you to validate your WebM files, and to
clean and remux files that aren’t valid. mkclean will also remux MKV files containing VP8/Vorbis to WebM.
<h2>Browser Support</h2>
Preview releases have been released for <a href="http://labs.opera.com/news/2010/05/19/" title="Welcome, WebM <video>">Opera</a>,
<a href="http://nightly.mozilla.org/webm/">Mozilla Firefox</a> and, of course,
<a href="http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots">Google Chrome</a>.
More details are available on <a href="http://webmproject.org/">WebMProject.org</a>.
]]></content>
</entry>
<entry>
<id>http://lachy.id.au/log/?p=185</id>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[HTML 5: The Markup Language]]></title>
<updated>2013-09-07T16:36:58Z</updated>
<published>2009-02-24T23:35:30Z</published>
<author>
<name>Lachlan Hunt</name>
<email>lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</email>
<uri>http://lachy.id.au/</uri> </author>
<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2009/02/markup-spec/feed" thr:count="0" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2009/02/markup-spec" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="MarkUp" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Standards" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="W3C" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[A relatively new editor’s draft entitled HTML 5: The Markup Language has been proposed in the HTML working group as an attempt to define the vocabulary and syntax of HTML, without any implementation conformance criteria or associated DOM APIs.]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="http://lachy.id.au/log/2009/02/markup-spec"><![CDATA[A relatively new editor’s draft entitled
<a href="http://www.w3.org/html/wg/markup-spec/"
title="HTML 5: The Markup Language">HTML 5: The Markup Language</a>
has been proposed by Mike Smith. This draft is an attempt to define the
vocabulary and syntax of HTML, without any implementation conformance
criteria or associated DOM APIs. It’s being positioned as a replacement,
normative definition of the language over the existing HTML 5 spec, and its
proponents claim that it’s better for authors. But don’t be deceived; this
draft isn’t what it claims to be, and is not really beneficial for the vast
majority of web developers.
<h3>About the Draft</h3>
The document itself is largely generated from two primary sources, with
some additional explanatory material included manually. It incorporates
selected statements and conformance criteria from the spec itself, which is
fine. This is a useful technique to help ensure that it and the spec stay
relatively in sync with each other. But it also incorporates the RelaxNG
schemas and regular expressions that are being developed for the HTML 5
Validator. This is part of the source code from one particular validator
implementation, and it’s important to note that this code was not primarily
written for human consumption, but rather machine processing.
Yet, despite this, it is being pushed as a suitable, human readable method
for describing the conforming syntax and element content models of HTML.
In a sense, it’s analogous to the DTDs used within the HTML 4.01
specification, except that it’s more difficult to read.
From past experience, we know that many web developers were not comfortable
reading the DTD syntax, and preferred to check reference guides, tutorials,
or ask others on mailing lists or forums to explain things. So the notion
that such a document would be useful for the majority of web developers is,
frankly, absurd.
But don’t just take my word for it. Let’s take a look at some examples of
this notation and see for ourselves. This is the regular expression that
describes the conforming DOCTYPE syntax:
<code>doctype = <![dD][oO][cC][tT][yY][pP][eE]\s+[hH][tT][mM][lL]\s*></code>
If that’s not scary enough, how about this which defines the conforming values for the target attribute:
<code>browsing-context-or-keyword = ()|([^_].*)|(_[bB][lL][aA][nN][kK])|(_[sS][eE][lL][fF])|(_[pP][aA][rR][eE][nN][tT])|(_[tT][oO][pP])</code>
To be fair, it is accompanied by a plain text list of examples of the four
predefined values, but simply looking at the examples alone doesn’t the
reader anything about case insensitivity, nor indicate that other custom
values are not allowed to begin with an underscore. The only way to deduce
that is from the above RegExp.
Finally, take a look at
<a href="http://www.w3.org/html/wg/markup-spec/#a">the definition of the
a element</a>, or any other, and see if you can understand what it
means. Personally, I know how the a element is defined in the spec, but
even I can’t easily figure out what that schemas are trying to say.
The a element’s content model is actually defined as Transparent in the
spec, which you can think of as basically meaning that its content model is
inherited from the parent element. (This is a slight over simplification
of its actual meaning, but we can ignore the subtleties for now.)
i.e. When it’s included as a child of an element that only permits phrasing
content, that applies to the a element too. But when it’s parent permits
flow content, so does the a element. If you were able to decipher that on
your own from the proposed draft, then well done. I couldn’t.
By now, you may be asking, if this proposal isn’t really suitable for web
developers, then who is it suitable for? It’s a question that has been
asked several times on the mailing list, and yet one that has not yet been
adequately answered. I’ll do my best to explain how I see it shortly. But
first, there’s a little background to cover.
<h3>The Spec Splitters</h3>
Within the working group, as expected, many people have a very diverse
range of opinions. In particular, a number of individuals share the
opinion that the current HTML 5 spec is far too monolithic and that it
should be split. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that position,
per se. There are indeed sections of the spec that nearly everyone agrees
should be, or have already been, separated out into their own
specifications.
For instance, XMLHttpRequest was, at one time, part of HTML5. This was
taken out a long time ago and moved to the WebApps working group, where it
has thrived independently from HTML5 ever since. More recently, the web
sockets protocol and API have also been split into their own specs, as has
the the content sniffing, HTTP Origin header, <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2009Jan/0049.html" title="Re: HTML5 and XHTML2 combined (a new approach) from Ian Hickson on 2009-01-22 (www-html@w3.org from January 2009)">and more</a>.
The issue is that a number of individuals want the spec split in ways that
aren’t entirely sensible. This includes the idea of splitting the spec
along the lines of a conforming, declarative language definition and
separate implementation requirements. There are even those who would go so
far as to say that only the former should be defined, effectively leaving
the implementers to fend for themselves. But I’ll spare you from the
horror of such extremes, as the group moved beyond that debate long ago,
and merely deal with those who want to split the spec.
From high level perspective, the concept of splitting the spec along those
lines looks reasonable. These two seemingly independent components
intuitively feel like they could be defined separately. That is, until you
start to appreciate just how intertwined these sections are, and where
exactly they want to draw the line.
It is argued that the language spec should only describe the conforming
syntax and content models of the HTML markup alone. This would omit any
details about how such features are processed and provide limited
information about what they do. It would also omit any and all details
about the associated DOM APIs.
The semantics of elements and attributes are closely related to what
functionality they provide, which is itself closely related to the
implementation requirements. Consider, for example, the heading and
sectioning elements. Their semantics are useful for providing hierarchical
document structures, with varying levels of headings. This is very closely
related to the processing requirements for creating an outline. Authors
need to know how to mark up their heading structures, and implementers need
to know how to interpret them.
Consider also, many of the DOM APIs for many elements reflect the values of
the content attributes. The processing requirements for getting and
setting such properties is very dependent upon the processing requirements
for the attributes themselves, which is itself dependent upon the
conforming values of those attributes.
There are many more examples of such interconnected dependencies, but I
won’t try to list them all. Suffice it to say that the problem is that by
splitting the spec, it becomes much harder to manage the integration points
between these highly interconnected sections, and creates a greater risk of
things not being defined well. Such a situation would inevitably lead to
interoperability problems, which doesn’t only end up hurting implementers,
but everyone involved including authors and users.
<h3>The Wedge Strategy</h3>
Despite the significant resistance to splitting out the language
definition, there has still been a significant push for there to be a
document that normatively defines it separately from the implementation
requirements, and this draft has been put forth with the intention of doing
just that.
However, since the spec has not been split in the way described above, and
hopefully won’t be, we are left with a situation where we have two drafts,
the HTML5 spec itself and this proposal, each claiming to normatively
define the language.
But some people seem to be willing to use this to get their way, even if it
means normatively defining the language twice, in two separate specs. This
is of course absurd. With two normative documents, each defining things in
their own way, will inevitably lead to conflicts between the two specs,
which then raises the question of which takes precedence.
While people claim that it’s possible to define things normatively in two
separate specs and keep them in sync, there is no evidence to support that
situation and plenty of evidence against it. But suffice it to say that it
won’t work and will lead to one of two possible outcomes:
<ol>
<li>The conforming language definition is split from the main spec,
leaving it to be defined only in this proposal. This, as I explained
above, would be bad.</li>
<li>The proposal becomes non-normative, leaving the spec itself as the
single authoritative normative source. This is what I have been and
will continue to push for.</li>
</ol>
<h3>The Audience of the Proposal</h3>
As I briefly explained above, given the content of the draft, it is not
really suitable for the vast majority of web developers. In fact, its
audience is, in practice, despite claims to the contrary, severely limited
in scope to a small minority of people that are comfortable with reading
complicated schemas and regular expressions, and whom actually have some
use for them.
Schemas are primarily designed for the purpose of conformance checking.
Specifically, tools that read the document and compare it with the grammar
described in the schema. This is effectively what validators do, although
it should be noted that schemas are not the only means of achieving this
goal.
So it is somewhat useful for people writing tools with conformance checking
features, since they can, if they choose, incorporate the schemas from the
spec into their own tools, or use them as a guide for creating their own.
However, it doesn’t provide all the information necessary for such
developers, as they will still need to turn to the main spec for many
implementation requirements, particularly parsing.
<h3>What about Web Developers?</h3>
Web developers certainly haven’t been forgotten. Their needs are just as
important to address as implementers. But I and many others recognise that
such developers, many of whom aren’t comfortable with normative spec
language, need something specifically targeted at them. For this, there
are now two separate, non-normative drafts, under development.
The first, currently entitled the
<a href="http://dev.w3.org/html5/html-author/"
title="HTML 5 Reference">HTML 5 Reference</a>, really a reference guide
for web developers that will explain the elements, attributes and their
semantics, the syntax and DOM APIs, and provide plenty of explanatory
material and examples showing how and why to use each feature. This is a
draft that I’m working on and have recently started to make some
significant progress with it.
The second is a new proposal by Dan Connolly, but which there is currently
no draft available. This document is intended to be more of a
step-by-step, cookbook-style guide to writing pages using HTML5, with a big
focus on the multimedia aspects. e.g. It will provide things like:
<ul>
<li>How to embed a video within a page and provide customised controls
using the DOM API,</li>
<li>How to indicate the completion status of a web application using a
progress bar.</li>
<li>How to markup images with captions</li>
<li>etc.</li>
</ul>
]]></content>
</entry>
<entry>
<id>http://lachy.id.au/log/?p=182</id>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Google’s Favicon: Yikes!]]></title>
<updated>2013-09-07T16:37:09Z</updated>
<published>2009-01-10T14:19:43Z</published>
<author>
<name>Lachlan Hunt</name>
<email>lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</email>
<uri>http://lachy.id.au/</uri> </author>
<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2009/01/google-favicon/feed" thr:count="0" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2009/01/google-favicon" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="General" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Google’s new favicon is horrible!]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="http://lachy.id.au/log/2009/01/google-favicon"><![CDATA[<a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/googles-new-favicon.html">Google’s new favicon is horrible!</a>
<img decoding="async" src="/lib/images/2009/google-favicon-20090110.png" alt=""/> The final icon
According to the Google blog, the icon was based on a submission from André Resende, which I think looks better than the final version. However, I still think both are absolutely horrible.
<img decoding="async" src="/lib/images/2009/google-favicon-andre-20090110.png" alt=""/> André Resende’s original submission
As you can see, Google shifted the ‘g’ from the centre to the far left making it look unbalanced. Overall, I find it rather displeasing to the eye. I guess I will have to find some way to either block the icon entirely or make my browser use a custom icon instead.]]></content>
</entry>
<entry>
<id>http://lachy.id.au/log/?p=178</id>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Selectors API 2nd Last Call]]></title>
<updated>2013-09-07T16:37:19Z</updated>
<published>2008-11-26T10:10:02Z</published>
<author>
<name>Lachlan Hunt</name>
<email>lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</email>
<uri>http://lachy.id.au/</uri> </author>
<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/11/selectors-api-2nd-last-call/feed" thr:count="0" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/11/selectors-api-2nd-last-call" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Script" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Standards" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="W3C" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Selectors API has been published as a Last Call for the second time and will proceed to Candidate Recommendation shortly.]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/11/selectors-api-2nd-last-call"><![CDATA[Selectors API was again <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-selectors-api-20081114/">published as a Last Call</a> on 14 November. For anyone who hasn’t heard about this before, this is an API designed for selecting elements in the DOM by querying using Selectors, as used in CSS.
This is expected to be the last round before proceeding to Candidate Recommendation around mid-December. If you have any further comments to make, you have until 12 December to send them in, preferably to public-webapi@w3.org and to ensure I don’t miss it, please include <kbd>[selectors-api]</kbd> in the subject.
The implementations of API have progressed nicely, with each of the for major browsers: Firefox, Opera, Safari and IE, expected to include support in their next major release. JavaScript libraries, such as JQuery, are also expected to take advantage of the feature in upcoming releases, which should mean performance improvements for users with updated browsers; although they will continue to fall back to their own script-based implementations in older browsers.]]></content>
</entry>
<entry>
<id>http://lachy.id.au/log/?p=176</id>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[I Hate Religion]]></title>
<updated>2013-09-07T16:37:33Z</updated>
<published>2008-11-02T18:32:06Z</published>
<author>
<name>Lachlan Hunt</name>
<email>lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</email>
<uri>http://lachy.id.au/</uri> </author>
<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/11/religion/feed" thr:count="0" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/11/religion" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Personal" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[The story of how I became so vehemently opposed to religion.]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/11/religion"><![CDATA[The idea of an invisible, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent supernatural being, who was supposedly responsible for the creation of the universe, has never really seemed plausible to me. From a young age, barely old enough to actually comprehend the ludicrous notions being taught in scripture, I rejected it and all the mythology that came with it. I couldn’t, and still can’t, understand why people have to resort to explaining the origin of the universe by saying “god did it”, and yet be content with having no explanation of where this so-called “god” came from. It made no sense to me then, and it still makes no sense to me now.
My disdain for religion began as a young schoolboy, of no more than about 7 or 8, possibly younger. It’s difficult to be more specific than that. Thankfully, I was never forced into religion by my parents, neither of whom are overly religious themselves. Mum seems quite indifferent to the whole thing and while Dad still attends church every weekend, he rejects fundamentalist dogma and biblical literalism, like any rational person should.
Luckily, I attended a public school and so I didn’t have it forced down my throat there either. However, students were still sent to scripture for about half an hour a week, for part of the year, separated into groups by denomination. Unfortuantely, the separation of church and state in Australia isn’t quite as clear cut as it’s supposed to be in the USA, and so some religion is still allowed in public schools.
I wasn’t overly happy about that arrangement. I didn’t want to go just to be taught stories I didn’t believe. As far as I know, there was no alternative available for non-believers; or if there was, I don’t know why I wasn’t sent there. So I did what any rebellious kid would do. I acted out in various ways; not always, but frequently enough. Unfortunately, the details of my exploits mostly elude me. It’s hard to remember that far back.
But on one occasion that I do remember, we were given some kind of work sheet to fill out, with various questions about the fables being read to us. I remember repeatedly scrawling phrases like “GOD DOES NOT EXIST!!!” and “JESUS WAS NOT THE SON OF GOD!!!” as my answers. I haven’t a clue what the questions were. I then spent the remaining time filling up the rest of the page with exclamation points as my way of emphasising the fact that I didn’t believe any of that nonsense and really didn’t want to be there. Sadly, I can’t recall the response of the minister when he saw it. I’m sure it wasn’t particularly positive.
So in a sense, I took <a href="http://www.blasphemychallenge.com/">The Blasphemy Challenge</a> about a decade and half before it was considered cool, and well before I knew it meant my eternal damnation! But hey, now that I do, I have something to look forward to.
That was by no means my only form of protest during school scriptures. Other times were a little more disruptive. But it was around this time that I vowed, when I grew up, I would fight to have all religion abolished from public schools. I still hope that this will happen one day.
Anyway, this may seem odd for a kid as young as I was back then to be so vehemently opposed to religious dogma. I certainly knew of no other in my position—at least none of my friends were—and there was no-one else in my life from whom my blasphemous anti-religious sentiments spawned. But the fact is, I was an atheist long before I even knew what the word meant, let alone knew of anyone else who shared my disbelief. To be honest, I believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny longer than I believed in a god.
Of course, all of this was well before I knew anything about the scientific explanations for the origin of life, the universe and everything. I knew nothing of the Big Bang Theory, Evolution, nor anything else in between. My rejection of religion was not based on scientific knowledge. So then the question arises how and why did I manage to not only avoid, but to actively reject indoctrination, especially at such a young and impressionable age? The answer to this will become apparent later.
But despite these views of mine, I did in fact occasionally attend scripture at church on Sundays. Not because I was ever dragged there against my will, kicking and screaming; but by my own choice. It was a tough choice to make though, and most of the time I chose not to. By this stage, I had already firmly rejected any sort of faith-based beliefs, and there was no chance of me ever converting. So why did I attend? Simple: because my friends did and sometimes the activities were fun, as was running around playing in the church yard afterwards.
I still find it somewhat amusing that over the years, given my anti-religious convictions, two of my closest friends have been deeply religious. One was the son of our church minister, who sometimes taught my scripture class at school. I’ve no-doubt he was on the receiving end of my aforementioned protests, most likely on more than one occasion. Although he actually respected my views and never tried to force his onto me, and we developed a kind of mutual respect for each other. I suppose it helped that his son and I were good friends. But the irony of this was that I spent many afternoons, after school, hanging out a minister’s house — almost the last place you’d expect to find a radical atheist.
Unfortunately they moved to another town during the later years of primary school and I’ve not seen much of them since. After this, I never voluntarily attended scripture again.
But the problem was not only did one of my good friends move away, the replacement minister, who happened to move into that same house I’d spent so many memorable afternoons, was not nearly as pleasant or respectful. I despised him for the way he treated me unfairly from the rest of the students in the class, largely because of our diametrically opposed views. But, I must admit, it was probably partially compounded by my occasional disruptive, rebellious conduct. But let’s just say he started it and he still owes me a <a href="http://www.nestle.com.au/schoolprojects/smarties.asp">Mintie</a>, and leave it that.
The other one of my closest friends considers himself to be a born-again, fundamentalist christian who I’m pretty sure still believes everything I don’t. I’m not entirely certain though, as we stopped discussing religion after our arguments started getting in the way of our friendship.
We’re still friends today, but our arguments largely centred around the non-existence of God and the implausibility of many of the biblical myths that he took so literally, such as Adam and Eve; Noah’s Ark; Moses parting the Red Sea; God dictating the Ten Commandments to him; the “virgin” birth; the many miracles claimed to be performed by Jesus; the resurrection, and many other stories that any rationally thinking person would unquestionably reject as myths and allegories, had they not been indoctrinated into believing from childhood.
When I questioned how he could believe, or know any of it was true, the answer always came down to one thing: faith. Nothing but blind, unwavering, unsupported and utterly irrational faith! I’m sure that comes as no surprise, as it’s a fairly typical requirement of any religious person. But it’s the concept of faith that I was never able to grasp, and this is why I rejected religion so early in my life.
I simply could not accept as true: outlandish stories which could not be verified, depended upon unfounded assumptions or invoked supernatural beings or powers, based on nothing more than faith. Nor could I understand what could possibly make any one religion more true or at least more believable than any other.
I viewed all of these myths as outright lies handed down from one generation to the next, infecting peoples minds with irrational belief in what can only be described as fairy tales. It destroys all sense of reason. It discourages critical thinking by encouraging belief in spite of reason. This anti-intellectualism, I thought, was quite dangerous in and of itself, and it had to be stopped. Though it wasn’t till much later in life that I realised just how dangerous religion can be towards not only science and progress in general, but to civilisation as a whole. I now realise that it absolutely must be stopped.
Until this point, my exposure to religion, specifically christianity, had been largely limited to the toned down versions of the biblical myths aimed at children. I had never actually read the real bible in its entirety, and still haven’t read most of it to this day. But I’ve now read enough of it to see how violent, discriminatory, bigoted, immoral and just plain evil that the characters and events depicted in the bible, including “God” himself, can be. It’s disgusting!
If there’s one place in the western civilisation where the anti-intellectual, anti-scientific nature of religion is most clearly illustrated, it’s in the god-fearing, bible bashing, United States of America. Led by organisations like <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/" title="Answers in Genesis - Creation, Evolution, Christian Apologetics">Answers in Genesis</a>, <a href="http://www.drdino.com/" title="Creation Science Evangelism - Creation, Evolution, Dinosaurs, and the Bible.">Creation Science Evangelism</a> and the <a href="http://www.icr.org/">Institute for Creation Research</a>, among others, the USA’s constitutional separation of church and state has been and is still being attacked and eroded by fundamentalists.
Ranging from getting the phrase “In God We Trust” added to the US currency; the words “Under God” inserted into the pledge of allegiance; hijacking the Boy Scouts of America and turning it into a homophobic christian organisation; right up to the continuing, though thankfully failed, attempts to get Creationism, Intelligent Design, “Teach the Controversy” or whatever you want to call it next, taught in public schools. It certainly doesn’t help that the current US President considers himself to be a born-again christian, nor that the candidates for the upcoming election aren’t any better in this respect.
To an outside observer, the <a href="http://www.creationmuseum.org/">Creation Museum</a> surely seems like an hilarious attempt at mocking the faith and highlighting the absurdities of these Bronze Age myths. Well, it would be if the anti-science organisation responsible for it wasn’t so serious about actually believing such propaganda. In reality, it’s just sad.
I should point out that even though I’ve focussed largely on the myths and lies of Christianity, that’s only because it’s the one religion I’ve had the most exposure too. But rest assured, when it comes to insulting religion, I’m an equal opportunity offender.
For instance, imagine for the moment that I had been born into an Islamic nation and attended an Islamic school, yet still developed my same contempt for religion. I’m quite sure I’d have been stoned to death by now for my blasphemy. Sadly, that particular sin still carries the death penalty in some sick middle eastern countries that are ruled by an Islamic theocracy. Although I’m quite sure there are some christians who would support the same penalty.
Both the Bible and Qur’an are filled with countless examples of brutally stoning people, rape, torture, discrimination against homosexuals, segregation of women and other horrendous acts. It really is a wonder how any Christian or Muslim can honestly claim their faith as the basis of morality. It’s just absurd.
The bottom line is, I have no respect for religion at all. At least, not the theistic religions. I have mildly more respect for non-theistic religions like Buddhism, which I view as really more of a philosophy and way of life, than a religion, though I’m not really familiar with it.
I respect people, and I not only respect, but would defend anyone’s freedom to believe whatever they want, including religion; but I have no for respect religious belief itself.
I hate religion. Fuck Christianity. Fuck Islam. Fuck Judaism and Hinduism. Fuck Scientology and all other crazy cults. Fuck ’em all. Respect people, not religion. The world would be a much better place without it.
]]></content>
</entry>
<entry>
<id>http://lachy.id.au/log/?p=174</id>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[about:internets]]></title>
<updated>2013-09-07T16:37:43Z</updated>
<published>2008-09-03T00:20:10Z</published>
<author>
<name>Lachlan Hunt</name>
<email>lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</email>
<uri>http://lachy.id.au/</uri> </author>
<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/09/aboutinternets/feed" thr:count="0" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/09/aboutinternets" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Google" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Humour" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="User Agents" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[The internets really is a series of tubes!]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/09/aboutinternets"><![CDATA[Many people didn’t believe <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens">Senator Ted Stevens</a> when he said that the Internet was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes">series of tubes</a>. Well now, thanks to Google, there is proof that he was right! In <a href="http://www.google.com/chrome/">Google Chrome</a>, if you have it, visit <code>about:internets</code>. This provides a graphical illustration of the internet which looks very much like a series of tubes to me.
It appears to based upon the Windows 3D Pipes screensaver. It uses the mixed joints, but I’m not sure if it also includes the teapots, like the real screensaver. If you see one, let me know.]]></content>
</entry>
<entry>
<id>http://lachy.id.au/log/?p=173</id>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Google Chrome]]></title>
<updated>2013-09-07T16:38:10Z</updated>
<published>2008-09-01T23:33:36Z</published>
<author>
<name>Lachlan Hunt</name>
<email>lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</email>
<uri>http://lachy.id.au/</uri> </author>
<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/09/google-chrome/feed" thr:count="0" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/09/google-chrome" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Google" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Mozilla" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Opera" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="User Agents" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Google Chrome has been announced as Google's new web browser.]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/09/google-chrome"><![CDATA[The rumours have been going around the web for years about the possibility of the Google browser, with some rather wild speculation about what exactly it would be like. John Rhodes seems to be one of the earliest to float the idea of <a href="http://webword.com/moving/googleclient.html">the Google Client</a> in September 2001, and in August 2004, based on Google’s relationship with Mozilla at the time, <a href="http://kottke.org/04/08/the-google-browser">Kottke predicted a Mozilla-based Google browser</a>.
In February this year, it was reported that <a href="http://thetruthaboutmozilla.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/the-google-browser/">Google had assembled a team to work on on a WebKit based browser</a>, then known as GBrowser. Now just over 7 months later, all the rumours and predictions have finally been realised. <a href="http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-01-n47.html" title="Google Chrome, Google's Browser Project">Google Blogoscoped announced</a> and leaked a <a href="http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/" title="Google on Google Chrome - comic book">comic book entitled Google Chrome</a> earlier today describing many of the innovative features developed for the new browser. Shortly afterwards, the official Google blog <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html">admitted that it was mistakenly released a day early</a>.
It should be noted that the concept also includes a few ideas based on features in other browsers, such as Opera’s Speed Dial, and both Firefox and Opera’s address bar (a.k.a. Awesome bar), called omnibox.
The comic was drawn and created by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_McCloud" title="Scott McCloud - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia">Scott McCloud</a> and has been released under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5" title="Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Generic">Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.5 licence</a>. <del datetime="2008-09-01T23:35:33+00:00">The comic has currently been taken down due to server load</del> <ins datetime="2008-09-01T23:35:33+00:00">(it’s up again)</ins>, but I have published <a href="http://lachy.id.au/dev/2008/google-chrome/">a copy of the whole comic</a> here for you to see it, if you haven’t already. You can also download a <a href="http://lachy.id.au/lib/images/2008/google-chrome/google-chrome.tar.gz">tarball of all the images</a>.]]></content>
</entry>
<entry>
<id>http://lachy.id.au/log/?p=172</id>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2]]></title>
<updated>2013-09-07T16:38:31Z</updated>
<published>2008-08-30T23:36:50Z</published>
<author>
<name>Lachlan Hunt</name>
<email>lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</email>
<uri>http://lachy.id.au/</uri> </author>
<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/08/internet-explorer-8-beta-2/feed" thr:count="0" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/08/internet-explorer-8-beta-2" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Microsoft" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="User Agents" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 released, and demonstrating a solution to run multiple versions of IE simultaneiously.]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/08/internet-explorer-8-beta-2"><![CDATA[A few days ago, <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/08/27/internet-explorer-8-beta-2-now-available.aspx">the 2nd beta of IE8 was released</a>. Although I haven’t had much time to play with it and find out what it does and doesn’t support, I have come across a few bugs with it.
But one of the big problems we still have with IE is the inability to run several versions side by side. The one solution continually offered by Microsoft is the ability to <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/08/29/updated-vpc-images-now-available.aspx">download virtual machines</a>, which are set to expire after a limited amount of time. The problem with this is that you still need a separate virtual machine for each version of IE you want to run, and after they expire, you need to get a new one.
Anyway, I have a found an even better solution. One that lets me run IE6, IE7, IE8b1 and IE8b2 side by side, all within the same copy of Windows XP, which I also have running in a single virtual machine on Mac OS X. I don’t have time to elaborate on the solution now, but I will try to do so over the next few days. For now, <a href="http://lachy.id.au/lib/images/2008/simultaneous-ie-versions.png">here’s a screenshot</a> showing them all running together, with each demonstrating how badly they fail Acid 3.]]></content>
</entry>
<entry>
<id>http://lachy.id.au/log/?p=170</id>
<title type="html"><![CDATA[Interview about HTML5 on Boagworld]]></title>
<updated>2013-09-07T16:38:22Z</updated>
<published>2008-07-02T23:14:42Z</published>
<author>
<name>Lachlan Hunt</name>
<email>lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au</email>
<uri>http://lachy.id.au/</uri> </author>
<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/07/boagworld-interview/feed" thr:count="0" />
<link rel="alternate" href="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/07/boagworld-interview" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Security" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="Style" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="User Agents" />
<category scheme="http://lachy.id.au/log" term="WebKit" />
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Boagworld is a web design and development podcast based in the UK. In today’s episode, they interview me about HTML5. In it, we discuss the current state of HTML5, some of the new features that are currently, or are being implemented, and what we can expect in the future.]]></summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/07/boagworld-interview"><![CDATA[Boagworld is a web design and development podcast based in the UK. In <a href="http://boagworld.com/podcast/124/">today’s episode</a>, they interview me about HTML5. In it, we discuss the current state of HTML5, some of the new features that are currently, or are being implemented, and what we can expect in the future.]]></content>
</entry>
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