I hate it when video, audio, and slideshows are used when text will suffice. I like text news articles the best. Text takes less time to load, is easier to search, and often contains more relevant infomation. I can read text a lot faster than an actor reading the same text out loud, so it's faster for me to read an article than to listen to the audio. When I want to be entertained, an audiovisual experience will do fine for that purpose. But when I need to be informed, text and the occasional photo gets the job done.
Here's an example. It's a story about internet acronyms. This could have easily been a quick, informative, text-based article. Instead I have to wait for each damn photo to load as I read the article. I have a cable modem but even it can get slow during peak periods. I'm suddenly nostalgic for the late 90's again, when websites adhered to the KISS principle.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Pet Peeve
When I use my 5 disc CD changer, I want to listen to uninterupted music for several hours. I don't want to listen to commercials, and I don't want a couple minutes of silence either. This is why I hate "hidden" songs on CD's.
Remember when you left your CD player on with "Dookie" by Green Day in it? You might having been all by yourself when you heard Tre Cool singing "All By Myself". Completely by accident, you have found the hidden track. You've just stumbled on the biggest secret since Paul McCartney died shortly before impregnating Mama Cass.
It was cool when they did it in 1994. It is not cool after 14 years of different artists and bands doing the same gimmick over and over. CD's are going to have to come up with new tricks in order to compete with MP3's.
Remember when you left your CD player on with "Dookie" by Green Day in it? You might having been all by yourself when you heard Tre Cool singing "All By Myself". Completely by accident, you have found the hidden track. You've just stumbled on the biggest secret since Paul McCartney died shortly before impregnating Mama Cass.
It was cool when they did it in 1994. It is not cool after 14 years of different artists and bands doing the same gimmick over and over. CD's are going to have to come up with new tricks in order to compete with MP3's.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
What is a bigger hassle than spam?
Capchas are bigger hassle than spam. I just had to type in a captcha to send a blasted email from my Yahoo account, and it actually takes me longer to enter the code than it takes me to type the email. This is supposed to prevent spam, but it is more annoying than the annoyance it is designed to prevent.
Sure, I use word verification on my blogs. But that is to prevent porn ads from being posted in the comment section. I'm trying for a PG rating on this blog. Porn ads in my email inbox I can just delete.
Sure, I use word verification on my blogs. But that is to prevent porn ads from being posted in the comment section. I'm trying for a PG rating on this blog. Porn ads in my email inbox I can just delete.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
I have been sick this week
Not that any of you really care about my physical well-being, but I have been sick and that is why I haven't posted all week.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Majoring in economics
A friend of mine is going back to school to major in economics. Good for him. The first thing he will learn about is the laws of supply and demand. The second thing he will learn about is that there is no demand for economics majors.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Spammers
I still get emails that try to sell me pharmaceutical drugs. Is there anyone out there who is willing to buy pills from a guy who spells "Viagra" with the numeral "1"?
As the Internet becomes more accessible, the average IQ among all users will decline. There was a time when only the best and brightest nerds roamed free among the bulletin boards. Then AOL hit the scene, but at least back then a user still had to know how to log in. Now you can get DSL and be online all the time. You don't even need to know how to read to use a computer anymore.
Still, there can't possibly be that many transactions that take place through spam enough to make it lucrative. The customer has to open an email that normally would have been ignored or deleted. They have to read a sales pitch with deliberately poor grammar. They have to somehow come to the conclusion that it is a good idea to turn your credit card over to someone who cannot structure a sentence. Of course, sometimes all it takes is one doofus to fall for the scam to make it profitable. But I have to wonder how someone that dumb gets a credit card in the first place.
I'm starting to wonder if most of the spam in my inbox isn't a sales pitch at all. It could be hackers who are simply trying to annoy people. Or it could be sleeper cells trying to contact their handlers. Ever see on TV where a spy places a fake classified ad, so that his contact knows if his mission was successful? How much revenue are newspapers losing because spies and terrorists no longer have to buy fake classified ads?
As the Internet becomes more accessible, the average IQ among all users will decline. There was a time when only the best and brightest nerds roamed free among the bulletin boards. Then AOL hit the scene, but at least back then a user still had to know how to log in. Now you can get DSL and be online all the time. You don't even need to know how to read to use a computer anymore.
Still, there can't possibly be that many transactions that take place through spam enough to make it lucrative. The customer has to open an email that normally would have been ignored or deleted. They have to read a sales pitch with deliberately poor grammar. They have to somehow come to the conclusion that it is a good idea to turn your credit card over to someone who cannot structure a sentence. Of course, sometimes all it takes is one doofus to fall for the scam to make it profitable. But I have to wonder how someone that dumb gets a credit card in the first place.
I'm starting to wonder if most of the spam in my inbox isn't a sales pitch at all. It could be hackers who are simply trying to annoy people. Or it could be sleeper cells trying to contact their handlers. Ever see on TV where a spy places a fake classified ad, so that his contact knows if his mission was successful? How much revenue are newspapers losing because spies and terrorists no longer have to buy fake classified ads?
Friday, January 25, 2008
"Star Wars: Force Unleashed"
I saw some of the previews for "Star Wars: Force Unleashed". The developers tout the new physics engines used in the game. Nice, but how is the gameplay? Is it me or does the game just consist of your character throwing stuff around?
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