WILLOBIE says:

See also, the Zahir, a very short story by Jorge Luis Borges about an object that destroys the mind of the beholder. This link is a summary: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jatill/175/SUMZahir.htm

leal says:

tengo q leerlo para inglés y me parece bastante bonito pero es un puro coñazo al estar en ingles ya que se me dan bastante mal y me cuesta mucho entender lo que pone

Andrew says:

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a Spanish translation of either story, leal. And yes, I can appreciate that it would be hard to read without one!

Emily says:

Mr. Kantor:

I’m not a technology columnist and I dont’t play one on television, but I recognize when a format’s description has been edited to the point of absurdity. If, “That’s not the point”, then why bother misleading your audience?

I know you can hand code links to informative articles because I’ve seen you do it.

I wonder if Apple’s OS is susceptible to the same danger?

On the other hand, I loved Stephenson’s Snow Crash and appreciate the pointers to similar stories.

Andrew says:

I included the brief bit about WMF — that it’s a vector, not a bitmap format — as an explanation for people who had never heard of it, or were curious what it was.

I said “That’s not the point” because the point of the post was the danger, not the details about the format. But I often add bits of related information like that to give people a more-complete picture.

Emily says:

Had you limited your explanation to the vector vs. bitmap point, then no harm. However, the implication that the JPEG format is used for detailed images and the WMV format for simple ones is incorrect and more to your “point”, misleading. The potential danger of metafiles such as the WMV lies in the fact that they are composed of a series of commands that can, apparently, through your computer’s OS, not only direct the graphics hardware to produce a complex, scalable image, but wreak havoc with the system.

Emily says:

Sorry, that’s WMF.