Binary Bonsai

Here is the single most annoying habit of highly annoying bloggers: Bloggers who want to decide for other bloggers how to run their blogs, presented in list-form.

And here’s a free ‘extra premium list of the most annoying habit of highly annoying readers of annoying blogs’: Said same complaining bloggers who don’t unsubscribe for everybody’s benefit.

My lists aren’t as verbose as some perhaps, and I sure-gosh-darnnit hope that doesn’t mean I make a list of ‘The Most Annoyingly Succinct Bloggers Out There’, cuz I just ain’t sure I could take that kind of a rejection.

I don’t mind Jeremy, and I don’t mean to be antagonistic, but come on. You have to just face the fact that not only do you seriously undermine your intentions by whining about how others have chosen to run their blog in the first place, but putting said whine into <ul> glass pretty much screams Hey! This isn’t a serious entry. I want to be on Digg! Please! Traffic! Digg me! Please!

In the case against intelligent design, I say it’s time we stop worrying about the appendix — that wretched evolutionary deadend — and start focusing in on what must surely be the single most retarded piece of code in our collective reptilian brains; Kinetosis.

Or, in the common tongue: ‘motion sickness’.

If you’re one of the lucky two in three who don’t suffer from motion sickness, let me break it down to you: There you are, minding your own business, happily playing a computer game of some sort. For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s Doom. And it’s going really swell for you to boot, offing hell spawn left and right like a crazed war vet left behind by society and now armed with a high powered rifle and scars on his soul that wake him up bathed in sweat at odd hours of the night.

Then BOOM! Our of nowhere, you’re nauseous. You stomach feels bloated. You can’t concentrate and you feel like you’ve been up for days. And the only thing in the world that can possible counter this horrible condition is… Nothing.

Yes. Nothing. There’s not a damn thing you can do about it! You can lie down, close your eyes and feel as if you’re going to puke your guts out. But it won’t help, so…

Luckily there are some early warning signs that can help you avoid a full on attack of motion sickness in case its trying to creep up on you. To help out fellow kinetosists, I’ve gathered them up here: Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip.

One moment you’re fine. Ready to take on the world, raise children and trade stocks. The next, BOOM! You’re mistaken for a drug addict as you scramble around on all fours, drooling from the side of your mouth and mumbling some indecipherable language only perceptible by fellow kinetosists, and which in general translates to: ‘Fuck this shit, I want out!’.

And if there is a God, and she would be willing to do this to her flock, then she ain’t benevolent. I’m tellin ya.

Rikke and I both use Google Reader and its share items freely, not only with each other, but in my case also with the general public. As it turns out, the new ‘Friend’s Shared Items’ is being scorned by a range of people, one of who even goes so far as to say it has ‘RUINED CHRISTMAS’ for him and his family.

The problem arises when items are shared using under the new feature, they automatically become available to any of your gmail contacts who are also Google Reader users. And there is no way to disable the new feature, or indeed manage the contacts that can make use of it.

This has caused something of an outcry (via Gruber), where at least one user goes so far as to exclaim this feature as having RUINED CHRISTMAS for my family!.

Give me a break.

I have no delusions of being able to turn the tide on this trend. But since it was brought home to me in extraordinary fashion in the past few months, just how reactionary people become when they’re given the channels to do so, at least I can raise a flag of dissent, and hope to be heard.

Gruber doesn’t think it’s a good idea to turn Google Reader into ‘a sort social site’. I disagree. I make good use of it, and while being able to manage who of your contacts are able to follow your shares, or the simpler solution, being able to turn off the feature entirely, is of course a needed option.

But you have to be something of a nincompoop, to point your finger at Google for ruining Christmas, when the real problem in fact, is hiding your true colors behind white lies and hopes of ignorance, lacking the courage of your your own convictions.

Or, you simply fail to understand, that on the intarwebs, nothing remains secret forever.

More:
Security through obscurity.

Update:
Lo and behold, they fixed it.

Watch, as the man sent back from the future to save Sarah Connor, is crying like a little girl, because of the title for the new Terminator film.

Fucktards. Asshats. These are the most gentle words that come to mind, when I read the likes of:

Now for the big news: we’ve finally gotten a title — drum roll please — Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. Not bad, and it definitely gives me the impression that WB is in this for the long haul. #

First off, it’s not that I want to kill the messenger and throw her limp body in a vulcano, but Jessica Barnes, writer for Cinematical, skip the fucking drumroll and sound the funeral horn. This isn’t ‘big news’, and it isn’t ‘not bad’; it’s catastrophic, on a biblical level. So, sorry, you’re a bit off track there. But, you’re right about one thing, it sure as shit gives off the impression that WB is in this things for the long haul.

As in, the long motherfucking haul. The one where the future isn’t ruled by robots, but by execs gangraping franchises over and over and over.

‘Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins’? Are you fucking serious? ‘Terminator Whatever: Bland Unnecessary Subtitle’ would’ve been better. ‘Terminator Franchiserape: The Termination of a Franchise’ would’ve been more accurate.

Did anyone see T3, let alone the Terminator TV series? That is the level of commitment this once great franchise is getting, because these monkey-grubbing suits don’t have one iota of taste or common sense in their ‘soon to be pulverized and run over by a HK’-bones.

If James Cameron was alive he’d tell you to get some gloves and call him when you’re ready.

Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.

Retards.

I recently served as a “consultant’s consultant,” advising a world leader in his field on what to do about his website. In particular, this expert asked me whether he should start a weblog. I said no. #

And I say: Yes, by all means, go for it!

I don’t care what field you’re a ‘world leader’ in, I guarantee you, a lot of people out there want to hear your small, hastily written thoughts on whatever topic you might find interesting at any given moment. A hell of a lot more so, than they want to read your deeply serious, hoity toity, graph-ridden ‘article’, which while surely very interesting in its own right, is not where the connection between you and your audience will thrive.

This is because we are humans, and humans, while superficially interested in graphs, long paragraphs and high-concepts, are just hardwired towards seeking human contact. This is why we have idolization and fandom. It’s driven by our basic desire to follow the people we admire.

Translated to my personal sphere of idolization, you could say that while I would surely read a lengthy graph-ridden article by Joss Whedon on Equality now, but conversely, I would just as much like to read a three paragraph quickie on why science fiction movies largely disappoint.

Joss Whedon being a world leader in Whedonesque matters, is thus just as well off with going down either path, if the desired result is ‘attracting customers’.

The problem with Jakob Nielsen — or perhaps rather his audience as it were — is that his articles, top 10’s and ‘usability tests’ are outdated, largely irrelevant and when applicable, made up of nothing but easily thought up logical conclusions aimed at the dull gray ‘we want to be hip with the youngsters, yo’ corporate market, from which he makes his money.

So if you’re hip, down with the beat and ‘happenin’, save yourself the headache, use your brain, not useit.com, and the rest should come easily.

We can measure expertise as some combination of intelligence, education, experience, correct methodology, professionalism (say, avoiding profanities and politics), and willingness to be frank.

I don’t mean to be the ‘look at me, we’re revolutionary’-idiot with the sign around his neck, because, let’s face it, my content isn’t exactly revolutionary as such. But what a piece of elitist ego-stroking generalized no-sharp-edges PR-friendly bullshit.

Jakob Nielsen, there’s a telegraph for you; it reads: “2007 going well stop. Hope you are also well in 1997 stop. Please stop stop.”

More:
Should Bloggers Assume that Their Readers are Dumber than They Are?
Jakob Nielsen Sounds Off About Web 2.0… Again!