Rant/Slashdot/Standards
Monday 18 July 2005 ◷ 03:49
Triggered by total clueless threads on /. (and listening to Andy Panthen & Mat Diaz's Clubmix of Amerika might have something to do with it as well...) I have to make the following remarks:
- You can find out your own level of clue by reading the posts on slashdot which scored 5, and then guess on what scale that is. Switch to a logarithmic scale everytime you encounter a post you think rightfully scored maximum points, if it were marked funny instead of insightful. Nerds that matter should at least regard the posts scoring 5 as being on a scale of 50, because inbreeding in a value system like slashdot uses leads to a converging circle of bullshit judgements. The only way out is to set traps by posting bullshit stories and reverse everyones judgement on other stories when they attribute to the "insightfullness" of bullshit. But it appears they are trying that for quite some time now and it doesn't work...
- Recommendations are not "Standards". Anyone just talking about "webstandards", "standard HTML", "standard CSS" obviously doesn't know what a standard is. And when they realise it's not ISO-HTML they are going on about, they are like "but it's kind of a standard...". Yeah, like a platform over 90% of your visitors use is kind of a standard... But these are about the same people that Jobs can trick into thinking that by buying the same iPod everyone else has, they are different. Gates sells the comfort of thinking you are the same as anyone else, Jobs sells the comfort of thinking you are different than everyone else. Linux confronts you with the reality that nobody has the same problem you are having, and you have to fix it yourself. And while fixing things on the bleeding edge you might find out there is no point in following standards if that doesn't solve your problem. Elevating recommendations to standards is for losers who can't handle the freedom of thinking outside the box and defining their own rules.
- There are so many users on the internet, any moron can find about 1000 even bigger morons who can make him think he's a guru. And whether such a moron/guru has any clue is then usually measured by scoring 5 on insightfullness on /., scoring #1 on Google for some keyword, selling lots of dead trees to the even more clueless or any other method of recycling false arguments through the big "argument-laundering" machine the internet with all it's blogs is today: Any moron can state what he has written on his blog is true because 1000 other blogs write the same lies without thinking again. Because thinking requires consiousness, people are more comfortable being unconsious after finding a group of people who they know will think the same so they can stop thinking for themselves and just repeat the same arguments when they just mean to vote, but "me too" is a bit obvious. There are not many discussions on the internet, just a lot of people stating someone else's opinion they can't even write argumentation for: They just link to their guru's blog completely ignoring the fact that their opponent probably already knows that argumentation. And then everyone else with a different opinion just gives up trying to convince them and the whole internet transforms into a myriad of spirals that spiral groups into believing their own lies. And the traditional media are more than willing to pick up the amazing scoops that form at the centre of these spiralling lies.
- There is no point in arguing with people who think they are right because they are not wrong. Sure, if you start your own company and make a million bucks a year, you might know something about what you are doing. But another guy might also make that kind of money in the same business, and have a totally different approach. But when these two get into an argument about what is the best way to do it, fat chance both assume the other is making less money and therefore can learn from the more succesful one. The result is about as interesting as arguing about whether the best approach is "heads" or "tails".
- Argument rot: In the old days when Windows was 3.1 and Linux was Slackware, there was some point discussing what was better. But Windows Server 2003 vs. Redhat isn't the same anymore. It looks like when the differences get ten times smaller, the discussion about those differences gets ten times bigger. It's the same with browsers: Netscape 4 vs. Internet Explorer 4 was quite something, but anyone complaining about the differences between Firefox, IE6, Opera 8, Safari, etc. probably wasn't around yet during the version 3 and 4 issues. During that era standards-evangelists were against browser upgrades because they didn't need the latest propietary features, now they promote browser upgrades because they are more "standards"-complaint. Point is that they are still lazy bastards who like to tell their audience how to fix their problems instead of fixing the audiences problems for them. And they wonder why Microsoft is so succesful...
- If the User-Agent string is such an evil thing, why does your favorite browser have one? Did you already file a bug report about your browser being bloated with this non-standard proprietary WMD?
- Firefox is like Linux for people who can't give up their Windows, like an iPod is like an Apple for people who can't give up their Windows. Using Firefox on Windows for security reasons is like locking your bathroom door to prevent your stereo from being stolen. But the whole Windows/Mac/Linux discussion is also rotted, since we don't have to spend $10.000 on a PC anymore, but can get all three flavours for a fraction of that price. And the tabbed-browsing discussion is something multi-desktop or multi-screen users just leave to the poor bastards working with one browser on one desktop on one screen.
- Seeing a CNN reporter in London mentioning the bombers while in the background a big ad on a bus says "Fantastic Four", makes you wonder...
- Running 2.6.12.3 now
carl gistout
Saturday 15 September 2007 ◷ 06:34
re: Rant/Slashdot/Standards
Just a notification of being cited as quotable metaphors/analogies in "Archive of Metaphor and Analogy".
Thank you.
http://gistout.com