Governments trying to stop spam is like...governments trying to be efficient.
Apr 30, 2001
Spam. Mass-market advert blitz email shuttled directly into your mailbox. I hate it. You hate it. We all hate it.
Okay, except for maybe that one weirdo in Whoville who also, coincidentally, has a complete set of every catalogue ever sent out by Lillian Vernon™.
Would you believe that the US government is once again trying to do something about it? While that’s very admirable (actually they’re just putting on a show to pacify their grumpiest constituents), I think it will work about as well as gun control laws do at keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals. A completely new approach is called for here.
Keywords: | spam | laws | futility |
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Gentlefolk, get on your soapboxes.
Apr 26, 2001
My favourite thing about the Internet is that ever since I started using it — I hopped on USENet, back in 1986 — I was instantly empowered to make my contribution. Posts to newsgroups. A reply on a BBS. Then a web page, the ubiquitous guest book signings, and then my own web site full of whatever I wanted to say, whenever I wanted to say it.
Radio, television, and the printed word may reach lots of people (sometimes), but those industries got their paradigms set decades ago. To be on television or radio, or to print a book or even a pamphlet, you had to have money, connections, and some modicum of talent. You could also be given a gag order by the commercial PTBs: we don’t want to publish your book/give you airtime/hear what you have to say. Go sit down and be a good little consumer. Sure, things like public radio and vanity presses (and in the 1990s, public-access cable) let more people come to the party. But even then, there was more of an initial investment — usually in money, which is nice to have for those pesky things like rent and food. On the Internet, anyone can sign up for a free site and publish nearly any kind of web content they want — and unless they break some local or federal law, no one can shut them up.
Sure there may be a lot of crap out there. Some may argue that this site is a steaming example thereof. But I get to talk about whatever I want, whenever I want...and people get to read it whenever they want. They don’t have to buy a book or tune in at a particular time. They can take a break in the middle and get a coffee — or repaint a room in the house. They can read while naked (and if that’s the case, pleaseandthankyou, I really don’t care for details. If you’re not so good looking, it’ll just annoy me. If you’re good looking, it’ll just frustrate me. Neither is particularly delightsome.)
Rail all you want. Decry the gradual lowering of content standards. Get really bored with this site and fire off an angry missive. Then go back to your own site, with your own journal, and rant about how unutterably stupid, how quelle pathetique, this laughing muse person is…
...because I’m not shutting up any time soon. I hope you don’t, either.
Keywords: | opinions | blogs |
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CSS design repositories help folks transition from using tables as layout tools. Or, in other words, steal this code.
Apr 25, 2001
- Glish's CSS Layout Repository
CSS3 hints at giving designers wrapping, fluid multicolumnar control, which is very cool. However, in the meantime, CSS does offer a way for you to produce those multicolumnar layouts without having to use TABLE codes and bloat your page to Hecate and back. Check out this CSS layout resource including tutorials, visible source code, and goodies galore.
- CSS Layout Reservoir
Another excellent CSS resource, from Blue Robot.
Keywords: | CSS |
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The name is...what?!??
Apr 24, 2001
In the latest foofaraw with the incident between the Americans and the Chinese — the plane collision, the demand for an apology, that whole kerfuffle — it has been alleged that the Chinese pilot was hotdogging, and turned too close to the American craft — thus causing the collision and his own death.
It’s grimly amusing, then, that his name was Wang Wei (pronounced Wong Way).
Keywords: | language | international incidents | humor |
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Microsoft prepares to be the Overlords of Information. No, really. Quit snickering.
Apr 19, 2001
- Do you trust Microsoft? Not on your life...
ZDNet is displaying this article about Microsoft's .NET initiative, consumer and online privacy, and what's going on with the latest whizbang outta Redmond, called HailStorm. (My only gripe with this piece is that, once again, the editorial voice of the article seems to not realize that companies exist outside of US borders. This attitude is going to come back and bite hard.)
Keywords: | information | digital privacy |
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Trying to keep up with technology? May as well take up cat herding.
Apr 18, 2001
XHTML 1.0 may soon become yesterday’s news. The W3C has moved XHTML 1.1 to proposed recommendation status. This doesn’t mean that XHTML 1.0 is outmoded — just that a new version of the language will soon be available. Wonder what new toys they’ll give us to play with…
Meanwhile, amateur and professional coders should keep abreast of the W3C’s markup activity. You can find all sorts of interesting things on that page, neatly summarised for your skimming pleasure. (F’rinstance, did you know that Nokia has stated their intention to develop products that can read XHTML?)
Keywords: | W3C | usability | coding |
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