scottsimpson.net

So I took my mac to the Apple Store last evening… they’re replacing the screen for free. It developed white spots some time ago (a known problem with the first run of the Aluminum Powerbook G4’s). So now I’m mac-less, which is a weird thing kind of… I’m back to leaving up an away message most of the time on someone elses computer and using the web to access my mail. Very strange. Anyway, it should be done by June 4th (though I estimate it will be sooner), and to top it all off, they’re shipping it to my house. Go Apple.

It occurs to me, in looking at today’s news, that there really isn’t that much of note going on in the world. Sure, there’s that Iraq thing, but it’s old news and it’s only by virtue of political games that it’s even really making headlines anymore. The new variant of Ebola in Sudan is pretty noteworthy, but isn’t too relevant to most people on Earth (not to say it isn’t important, just that it’s not something I can really use or do something with, except avoid traveling to southern Sudan).

ABC, CBS and NBC decided not to offer live coverage of President Bush’s speech about Iraq Monday, although the cable news networks planned to pre-empt their regular programming for the address. (full story)

I’m not quite sure where I stand with this one… on one hand, you have the networks’ right to choose their programming, and on the other hand, you have different fingers. Oh, wait, I do know where I stand on this one. Memo to President Bush’s aides and such: You’re not as special as you think you are. You get to make requests for time just like everyone else. Unless there’s some impending doom or immediate peril (asteroid, nuclear missile, Yanni concert), the networks should have soverign control over their programming… and in the event of an emergency, they should choose to cover what’s relevant anyway.

But all cynicism aside, I figure it’s a good thing when there’s so little happening that smoking laws in Malibu end up on the national news.

[Yahoo] already started limiting the amount of time that advertisers’ so-called rich-media ads could cover up important parts of a website, like the search and navigation links. (full story)

Well, duh… Why is it that advertisers think anyone is interested in looking at their garish ads? Why would I visit a website festooned with them? I’ve already stopped using a number of sites (cnet and zdnet most notably) because of the profusion of advertising. Wired has a bunch too, but at least they have the sensibility to have relatively targeted advertising that looks halfway decent. Though I’m still not entirely sure why these website ads need to induce epilepsy to sell their product. I blame it all on Macromedia. For they begat Flash, and for a time it was good. Then once upon a dark day, inept advertisers with a jonesing to make bad movies put it all together and started making annoying ugly flash ads. And then these people realized they could combine the flash with layers, and make people click on stuff before viewing the webpage that they were browsing for on the (hitherto commercial-free public use) world wide web. I find it interesting to note that typically the quality of content is inversely proportional to the amount of advertising on a page. (commented on at SatireWire.com)

I propose a union of web designers to end the exploitation of flash and other rich media in internet advertising. I call it the Organization to End the Blinky Web. It would be a voluntary program with certain conditions and standards (yet to be defined, but I think it’s pretty obvious). When I get a chance, I’ll make a tasteful link banner for it. And a webpage.

It seems that people who play Dance Dance Revolution have found a way to be nerds that lose weight. DDR was always kind of an enigma to me for many reasons: