4 ms·

I'm much more shocked about how poorly-written Bill's email is. He sounds like he's almost illiterate. Any random post here on HN is far better written and mo

I'm much more shocked about how poorly-written Bill's email is. He sounds like he's almost illiterate. Any random post here on HN is far better written and more understandable. How did this guy get where he is now? Anyway, his account sounds like a typical Windows user experience, especially from that time. I guess that shows the power of having a monopoly: users are forced to put up with it, no matter how awful it is.

knaik94 4y ago
No one reads long emails. I similarly noticed that people don't miss things in my email when I format them like texts or discord messages. He wasn't writing up technical requirements for Moviemaker, he was just sharing his experiences. I also suspect that most people that are as busy as him mainly use their phone to access email. I know 90% of the time I've heard back from, who I consider, busy people, there was a "sent from my iphone" signature in the email footer.
- yywwbbn 4y ago
  Not sure the phone part was really true in 2003. Maybe he was using his iPAQ, though
exotree 4y ago
This is pretty par for the course and the quality of writing largely makes sense, especially if you’re sending to an internal team of people you work with somewhat regularly. He just sent a pretty complex and in-depth walk thru of a terrible experience in probably about 15 or minutes or less (not including the time it took to actually go through this process).
KingLancelot 4y ago
[dead]
pleb_nz 4y ago
You didn't understand what he was trying to communicate?
- midoridensha 4y ago
  There were a few places where the text didn't even parse, probably because of missing words. Normally, when I see writing that bad (like on a discussion forum like this one), I just dismiss the author and skip the comment. A mistake here or there is understandable, but this was too much.
  - adlpz 4y ago
    Well, then today you (I hope) learned that by doing that you may be skipping on the likes of Bill Gates, who is very much a person who can provide really interesting insights in many topics.
  - pleb_nz 4y ago
    For me, what's important is the message not the format, syntax or any errors it contains. We're humans and we're.not.9erfect.
  - pifm_guy 4y ago
    > There were a few places where the text didn't even parse, I suspect that to be some artifact of the way the email has been stored/archived over the years. Sorta looks like the email was line wrapped to 100 chars, then line wrapped again to 95, and whatever words fell off a line were deleted.
tailspin2019 4y ago
Some of the typos and spurious spaces make me wonder if this was originally a printed/scanned/bitmap document (since it comes from court filings) and then was later OCR’d back again for publishing online. But that said, it’s no more poorly written than some of my emails would be if I’m tapping them out in a state of frustration, as he seems to be!
- dgellow 4y ago
  I felt like the original email had some embedded screenshots, that are now missing. Switching from the website issue to the file system doesn’t make too much sense as written, but if you had a screenshot of the file explorer in—between the text makes some sense.
porcheetoh 4y ago
I have this heuristic I use to determine whether someone is worth listening to, or whether I should ignore them. Look, it rejects Bill Gates! I’m very smart. Look, everyone uses heuristics to assess the world. Turns out yours is somewhat broken. Might want to update it.
dartharva 4y ago
I'm much more shocked about how poorly-thought midoridensha's comment is. He sounds like he's almost illiterate. Any random discussion here on HN is far better written and more considerate. How did this guy get where he is now? That's what you sound like. They are discussing technical user experience, not engaging in some Oxford debate. His articulation is good enough for the message to pass through.

knaik94 4y ago

No one reads long emails. I similarly noticed that people don't miss things in my email when I format them like texts or discord messages. He wasn't writing up technical requirements for Moviemaker, he was just sharing his experiences. I also suspect that most people that are as busy as him mainly use their phone to access email. I know 90% of the time I've heard back from, who I consider, busy people, there was a "sent from my iphone" signature in the email footer.

yywwbbn 4y ago
Not sure the phone part was really true in 2003. Maybe he was using his iPAQ, though

exotree 4y ago

This is pretty par for the course and the quality of writing largely makes sense, especially if you’re sending to an internal team of people you work with somewhat regularly. He just sent a pretty complex and in-depth walk thru of a terrible experience in probably about 15 or minutes or less (not including the time it took to actually go through this process).

KingLancelot 4y ago

[dead]

pleb_nz 4y ago

You didn't understand what he was trying to communicate?

midoridensha 4y ago
There were a few places where the text didn't even parse, probably because of missing words. Normally, when I see writing that bad (like on a discussion forum like this one), I just dismiss the author and skip the comment. A mistake here or there is understandable, but this was too much.
- adlpz 4y ago
  Well, then today you (I hope) learned that by doing that you may be skipping on the likes of Bill Gates, who is very much a person who can provide really interesting insights in many topics.
- pleb_nz 4y ago
  For me, what's important is the message not the format, syntax or any errors it contains. We're humans and we're.not.9erfect.
- pifm_guy 4y ago
  > There were a few places where the text didn't even parse, I suspect that to be some artifact of the way the email has been stored/archived over the years. Sorta looks like the email was line wrapped to 100 chars, then line wrapped again to 95, and whatever words fell off a line were deleted.

tailspin2019 4y ago

Some of the typos and spurious spaces make me wonder if this was originally a printed/scanned/bitmap document (since it comes from court filings) and then was later OCR’d back again for publishing online. But that said, it’s no more poorly written than some of my emails would be if I’m tapping them out in a state of frustration, as he seems to be!

dgellow 4y ago
I felt like the original email had some embedded screenshots, that are now missing. Switching from the website issue to the file system doesn’t make too much sense as written, but if you had a screenshot of the file explorer in—between the text makes some sense.

porcheetoh 4y ago

I have this heuristic I use to determine whether someone is worth listening to, or whether I should ignore them. Look, it rejects Bill Gates! I’m very smart. Look, everyone uses heuristics to assess the world. Turns out yours is somewhat broken. Might want to update it.

dartharva 4y ago

I'm much more shocked about how poorly-thought midoridensha's comment is. He sounds like he's almost illiterate. Any random discussion here on HN is far better written and more considerate. How did this guy get where he is now? That's what you sound like. They are discussing technical user experience, not engaging in some Oxford debate. His articulation is good enough for the message to pass through.