Re: Dumb Question about Recent Email

At 09:03 PM 6/10/99 -0700, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
>At 09:00 PM 6/10/1999 , Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>>And Q.E.D. is an abbreviation for the latin phrase [...]
>
>I knew that much, but I wanted to make sure it didn't mean
>anything here in this context.  In other words, the subject
>line is supposed to say "the medium is the message, end of
>story"?  If so, then I'm not entirely sure what the point that
>was being made was (how do you apply "the medium is the message"
>to web design?  CAN you, given the nature of the medium?), nor
>that it was made well.
>
>But maybe I'm worrying too much about a subject line. :)
>

[Shameless plug for the archives]

If the subject line is perplexing, perhaps read the message.  The message
that originally coined that subject line contains the paragraph:

>Could we please try to demonstrate by example before explaining the method.
>This system has a very ancient precedent QED. quad erat demonstrandum, or
>what was to be shown.


http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/1999AprJun/0361.html

Al

PS:

QED was the teaser that had to be explained in the body of the message.
'McLuhan' is a classical allusion that makes the subject matter obvious, at
least for those who recognize the allusion.  

This vocabulary is reasonable to assume for a well-read audience dealing
with the Web.  In writing for Wired, one would avoid over-use of McLuhan's
name as a 'tired' cliche, it has been so heavily used.