The Nikon web site is much improved as of 2004. You can get a manual in PDF format for any camera.
-- Michael Domino, October 12, 2004
Alejandro "Alex" Ramirez writes:The instruction on multiple truths looks good on paper, but let's talk about its functionality: I am, in real life, a Web Design class student who just finished reading this page. I was confronted by the comment refuting Nikon's website's criticism. What happens when the graduated Webmaster: makes a website, carefully plans and choreographs it to present his/her view, and then hosts a contradictory account at the end? Answer: Uselessness. The person who has just rewarded the webmaster with his valuable Time will leave, possibly, more Against than for what was expressed in the entire website. Such as, when 1) someone thinks "The author's site says some good things but- Hey, if this person is offering guidelines on web publishing, why does their site look so low on design quality?" (which happens all the time after reading webmaster's instructional sites) or 2) someone does not agree with multiple truths. Truth is not relative; only perspectives and opinions are. Example:
Neglected wife seeks fellowship with other male figures outside of her partner,
Misinterpreting husband assumes marital infidelity,
Confronted wife expresses the misinformation and illusion which is being held;
Unreachable husband murders his wife.
What was the truth? Summed up from an omniscient view in Example one. What were the multiple truths?
Wife: That loser of a workaholic doesn't care about me. I just want a friend who will listen to me.
Husband: I am trying my best to be a provider for this too-demanding woman.
The following are not just multiple truths; they are part of the one "Truth" which can only be appreciated from an omniscient narrator to this story:
Wife: I'm not cheating! There is no emotional involvement and no physical contact with my male friends! I haven't even been alone in the same place with them!
Husband: I work all day and come home to find answering machine messages from Joe Shmoe and Guy Doe!
These next comments would be "multiple truths" offered by for or against supporters in the court case for the murdering husband:
"Put that animal to sleep!"
"The gentleman just suffered from some work stress and communicational breakdown barriers. He should be spared the sentence."
"Being faithful to him, and then dying at his hand? An eye for and eye!"
"Ah, that woman got what was coming to her. You don't have to kiss to cheat on a guy!"
And the opinions (a.k.a. multiple truths,...) go on and on.
The example of the Berlin/Prague story shows just the very argument for multiple truths: "Although many different opinions might be held, there is only one valid one: the omniscient point of view." Our invisible author would write: 1) A gentleman wrote a story which contained his idea of what happened, and; 2)another gentleman had another take on the story, because he was there or claimed to be there and have actual first-person knowledge of the site and events which were quoted.
None of us can stake a claim to saying only the truth or holding one of the many individual truths that are supposedly existent. Therefore, the theory should be rewritten: "Each one holds a view or opinion to the one truth of which no mere human can be the sole owner. Every individual has the right to hold his or her view on any number of subjects, places, or events. Nonetheless, no one of these should be the basis for any decision being made."
This sums up my difficulty with the opinion that is held. I have to do a paper for a college web design course in which the teacher obviously agreed with this, but not necessarily with the rest of the opinions expressed in the book. After having to read through each paragraph several times, I first tried to understand everything that is being said. This might be from lack of clarity in each sentence expression, or lack of clarity in the expression of a true thing. My opinion (or fragment of the truth) states this caused part of the failure of the WWW. More user time seems spent deciphering through differing opinions and motives than ever becoming conversant in any area or discipline.
If this discussion was not allowed, then the average reader would have to accept the information being told as an absolute. However; users can hold to narrow-minded opinions; I'll make a list. Let's say, justifying genocide, domestic violence in other-than-American-cultures, class structure which maintains the rich rich and the poor poor, incest, rape, bigamy, bestiality, and/or our children's bombardment with graphic images of all this at schools. Allowing everyone's opinion in schools, politics, and even websites would be a very good way of making a free marketplace for militants to find apprentices to their view of life.
This site gets an A+ in functionality, browsing through and excellent for user input. However, my previous assignments taught me the same things without having to convince the world that the author still has his Berlins.
-- Alejandro Ramirez, February 13, 2005
Alejandro: Your point makes the assumption that an omniscent POV can be reached by any partaking individual. This is sorely mistaken. Perhaps there is an omniscient POV. No single human can come to the concluion on their own.To make the internet serve the views of an omniscient POV is, in reality, to make the internet serve the purposes of a tyrannical warlord. You need multiple views to ensure fairness and discourse away from genocide or such. After all, genocide does not come about from a free airing of free-market ideas, but from a tightly controlled propaganda system shoved down consumer's throats. The internet provides a way to change this, by allowing individuals to stack up on as many different sides of a situation as they can, and thus, coming as close to a true Omniscent POV as possible.
-- Jose Luis Nunez, May 31, 2008