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As a result of his rather drawn out explanation, however, it appears as though he can achieve the result he desires, just not as simply as he would like and in

As a result of his rather drawn out explanation, however, it appears as though he can achieve the result he desires, just not as simply as he would like and in a manner he'd rather make fun of than use. I understand complaining that about the lack of a feature that everyone seems to agree is decent and desirable, not to mention spelled out in the specification but it is not relevant to that specific discussion to complain that "you can't do X" when you can in fact do X.

pohl 17y ago
I don't see anywhere in the article or in the title where he says that you can't do X. One needs to, again, sweep the author's qualifier "effectively" under the rug in order to construct that straw-man. The title says that you can't effectively do X using Y. I don't see how the fact that one can do X by instead using A and B in combination with Y invalidates that statement, especially with all the hype built up around Y as the savior of all from the evils of F. It doesn't feel right to drop carefully-chosen words in order to wage a critique.
- maggit 17y ago
  Sorry, I am not a native English speaker, but to me it seems the author claims that using Y, you effectively can't do X. This, in contrast to your formulation, means that the effect of certain properties of Y is that X is impossible to achieve. My interpretation agrees with the Webster's dictionary's (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/EFFECTIVELY http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/EFFECTIVELY) first definition of "effectively": "in effect : virtually <by withholding further funds they effectively killed the project>". (There are other ways of killing the project more effectively) I agree with you in the sense that the author goes on rambling about how he is unable to achieve X as effectively ("in an effective manner <dealt with the problem effectively>") as he would like, but this is not the claim he has made in the title.
  - DougBTX 17y ago
    So, your complaint is that he used x is effectively unusable Instead of x is unusable effectively As a native speaker, I would note that English is a flexible language, that the second phrase in a heading would sound odd, and therefore let the first phrase stand for either saying as the meanings are so close together anyway. As far as markup is concerned, he used an img tag, not a video tag, so he couldn't use the video tag in the markup, at which point either meaning is perfectly valid.
  - pohl 17y ago
    This, in contrast to your formulation, means that the effect of certain properties of Y is that X is impossible to achieve. I can see how it might appear that way, but take note of the word "virtually" in the Webster's definition. It's an unfortunate word, because it undermines the absolute strength of the word it modifies...which, in your case, would be the word "impossible" (had you not dropped the word "virtually" from your paraphrasing, that is). Here's another example that shows someone else using the word in the same way that this author does. His system is copying files very slowly, and while technically his system is able to copy files, he feels it can't effectively be used for that purpose, even though a more patient person might disagree: http://www.vistax64.com/vista-performance-maintenance/120356-slow-file-transfer-effectively-cant-copy-move-files.html http://www.vistax64.com/vista-performance-maintenance/120356...

pohl 17y ago

I don't see anywhere in the article or in the title where he says that you can't do X. One needs to, again, sweep the author's qualifier "effectively" under the rug in order to construct that straw-man. The title says that you can't effectively do X using Y. I don't see how the fact that one can do X by instead using A and B in combination with Y invalidates that statement, especially with all the hype built up around Y as the savior of all from the evils of F. It doesn't feel right to drop carefully-chosen words in order to wage a critique.

maggit 17y ago
Sorry, I am not a native English speaker, but to me it seems the author claims that using Y, you effectively can't do X. This, in contrast to your formulation, means that the effect of certain properties of Y is that X is impossible to achieve. My interpretation agrees with the Webster's dictionary's (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/EFFECTIVELY http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/EFFECTIVELY) first definition of "effectively": "in effect : virtually <by withholding further funds they effectively killed the project>". (There are other ways of killing the project more effectively) I agree with you in the sense that the author goes on rambling about how he is unable to achieve X as effectively ("in an effective manner <dealt with the problem effectively>") as he would like, but this is not the claim he has made in the title.
- DougBTX 17y ago
  So, your complaint is that he used x is effectively unusable Instead of x is unusable effectively As a native speaker, I would note that English is a flexible language, that the second phrase in a heading would sound odd, and therefore let the first phrase stand for either saying as the meanings are so close together anyway. As far as markup is concerned, he used an img tag, not a video tag, so he couldn't use the video tag in the markup, at which point either meaning is perfectly valid.
- pohl 17y ago
  This, in contrast to your formulation, means that the effect of certain properties of Y is that X is impossible to achieve. I can see how it might appear that way, but take note of the word "virtually" in the Webster's definition. It's an unfortunate word, because it undermines the absolute strength of the word it modifies...which, in your case, would be the word "impossible" (had you not dropped the word "virtually" from your paraphrasing, that is). Here's another example that shows someone else using the word in the same way that this author does. His system is copying files very slowly, and while technically his system is able to copy files, he feels it can't effectively be used for that purpose, even though a more patient person might disagree: http://www.vistax64.com/vista-performance-maintenance/120356-slow-file-transfer-effectively-cant-copy-move-files.html http://www.vistax64.com/vista-performance-maintenance/120356...