Things I hate
Ok, time for a little vocabulary lesson, kiddies:
Information Superhighway
As much as the phrase is used today, there is NO
Information Superhighay, Info Superhighway, or even Info Highway. What
exists today could be more accurately referred to as the Information
Sludgepipe. The Internet (it doesn't really
exist either, and is only a noun. You cannot "Internet" something, your
friend, farm animals, etc... And you can't 'do Internet' or be 'on
Internet.' At least give it the respect it deserves and give it a measly
article!) is the closest thing we have to any kind of 'path' for sending
and receiving electronic information right now and it is no speedway. The
"Information Superhighway" was the phrase developed by our noble Vice
President Al Gore (or someone smarter than him) to describe what the
Internet, in the United States, at least may become someday. We're
talking a wire that comes in your house that connects to your phones,
your televisions, your computers, your lights, your toasters, your dogs,
everything. Along this sacred wire will come 32-bit 60 fps video along
with 44.1 khz CD-quality audio. You'll be able download your new
kitchen's new operating system from Egypt in about 5 seconds while you
O.D. on Interactive QVC. This, my friends will be, excuse my French, the
shit.
Generation X
Ok, some guy decided to write a book about the emerging leaders of the
country, (me, for example) and gave it an interesting slant: they're all
lazy unemployed bastards who do nothing but watch MTV all day and eat
junk food. Now every media source in the nation decided that this cute
little name would be convenient to describe anyone under 30, or maybe
just anyone they don't like. "Baby Boomers" was cute. Generation X is a
sell-out. Send me email with "Generation X" in it and prepare to be
mailbombed.
Update: Ok, in two very weird situations, I met Douglas
Coupland, the guy who wrote the book Generation X. He's a
pretty weird guy. I doubt he cares that he inadvertantly scarred the
name of an entire generation.
More things that piss me off
- Books for $19.95 that come with a free disk full of software.
Shareware to be exact. You are buying a blank disk, people. To actually
own the software, you need to mail the authors of the dozen and a half
pieces of software something from $5 to $35. A lot of times, the software
won't do much unless you send the money and get the 'real' version. The
book, meanwhile, tells you all kinds of stoopid and useless things that
you could get from the little readmes that come with each program. You
want cool software? Check out sumex-aim or umich. A lot of the stuff there is
FREE.
Could some one tell me: What is the point of these??
To date, I have never been physically hurt by a web page, yet people insist on posting these wasteful gifs all over, saying that they're not done yet.
The worst ones make some poor metaphor to "Constructing the Information Superhightway" (see above).
NEWS FLASH: The world is under construction, but you don't see a big 'ol sign up there hanging next to the moon flashing .
If your page is so bad that it needs one of these, fix it, or better yet type this: chmod 600 *. Save yourself some inevitable embarrassment and the rest of us from wasting our time.
What's more annoying are pages that have these pictures yet it probably took longer to put in the graphic than it would take to finish the dumb page.
Update: More construction sign rantings
More things I hate to come when something sufficiently pisses me
off...
Conclusion: I think I'm going to write a book. I'm going to call it
The Generation X
guide to doing Internet on The Information Superhighway. I'm going to
include a free disk too. Unformatted.
Go ahead back to my page if you're feeling frisky.
Jeff Boulter
"It's hard to work in a group when you're omnipotent." -Q from ST:TNG