Monthly Archives: February 2010

Can you read this? (and other online complaints)

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I’ve been wanting to write this post for awhile now. I just had to wait long enough to get good and peeved about things until I did. Well, today is the day although It may very well turn into a multi-parter as I find other things to complain about. And it’s all to do with my daily romp on the Internet and my problems with it.

(Warning: This is a long, rambling post and a complete rant on my part. Just so you know.)

Can you read this?

This is my top complaint, especially in the light that I don’t remember things really being this bad before.

Can you read this? Is it legible to you? Do you consider this comfortable reading? It certainly isn’t to me:

teenie, tiny, font

No kidding, this is the actual size of the font and this is a main stream news/opinion site—The Huffington Post. The thing that really gets me is that their headlines are HUGE(!) and the article title fonts and image captions are very readable and usually in bold. But the body text? You have a microscope handy?

Not main stream enough for you? How about eWeek? The text is no better believe me. And it’s not my browser settings either in this case as other websites I meander through on a daily basis have proper sized fonts that are easily readable.

Okay, so I could spend extra time zooming in and out of websites that insist on using these teeny, tiny fonts until I can actually read the thing but that blows up the images into a pixelated mess. Zooming just the text also has a problem in that many of these sites don’t scale properly with the increased text size and captions, links and buttons often go missing.

The point is that there is no reason for using these idiotically small fonts—none whatsoever. With display size being what it is these days, these site owners can afford to increase the font size to something more readable so that the reader doesn’t have to resort to using a magnifying glass. Virtual or otherwise.

Not everyone in this world has 20/20 vision, especially older folks like myself. Or am I just so much chopped liver?

Newest comment first?!!?

(Does not apply to social sites. They’re just weird and illogical by their very nature)

Look, I’m a nice guy most of the time and tend not to criticize when I know damn well that my discontent is more subjective than objective but this new thing of having a comments thread start with the newest comment rather than the oldest makes absolutely no sense to me.

A comment thread is supposed to be progressive in nature, not regressive. I don’t know about you folks but my thought processes don’t run in reverse.

So how am I supposed to follow a line of thought in a comments thread if I get the reply to a comment before the originating comment? It’s completely bass-ackwards. Makes no sense to have the most recent comment first unless it’s based on some ego thing, making the latest commentator feel special or something and even then it makes no sense.

Alright, so I can live with this illogical reverse-comment-threading thing as long as there’s an options section at the top of the comments that allow me to arrange the comments in a more logical order, meaning oldest first.

But then there are those other sites that don’t provide these options. They just go ahead and decide to list the newest comment first, like it or leave it, which forces me to navigate to the last comments page and scroll up??!! I’ve actually stopped reading certain sites because of this as the comments on any given article/post are sometimes just as relevant as the article/post itself.

But not when they’re in reverse order they’re not.

So to all you site owners who have opted for this newest comment first thing, please provide the option to rearrange the comment thread to something that makes a bit more sense?

It’s losing not loosing! (or proofreading is everything)

I’ll readily admit that grammar, sentence structure and proper punctuation aren’t exactly my strongest suits but I’m no piker when it comes to putting together a post or comment either. That being said I offer this singular advice:

It’s ‘losing’ not ‘loosing’!

So why do I pick this one out above all the other misuses of words and their meaning? Because this is the one I see all the time, especially in the comments section. And I don’t mean from folks whose native language is not English either, I’ll never berate them for trying to express themselves in one of the most complicated and confusing languages the human race ever invented (especially American English). No, these are people who were born and bred to the English language that I’m speaking of.

It’s not even a hard one to distinguish between one and the other as even the different spellings rather obviously reflect the correct pronunciation and/or meaning (unlike ‘there’, ‘they’re’, and ‘their’).

Here’s an example for you:

“Are the Republicans loosing their minds or what?”

Wrong.

The proper spelling is:

“Are the Republicans losing their minds or what?”

The word “loosing” is a verb:

Verb meaning: “to loose” (third-person singular simple present looses, present participle loosing, simple past and past participle loosed)

   1. (transitive) To let loose, to free from restraints.
   2. (transitive) To unfasten, to loosen.
   3. (transitive) To make less tight, to loosen.
   4. (intransitive) Of a grip or hold, to let go.
   5. (archery) to shoot (loosed an arrow)

Or another way to put it…

“The elf stood at the tree line overlooking the battle loosing his arrows so quickly that the enemy below began to believe that there were a line of archers firing into their ranks.”

Same applies with the word “loose”.

“It sounds like the guy is about to loose his mind.”

Nope.

“It sounds like the guy is about to lose his mind”.

“Loose, loosed and loosing” are pronounced as they appear; with a long “S” sound. While “lose and losing” are pronounced using a “Z” sound as in; ‘looz’ and ‘loozing’.

Okay, everybody got that? Make sure, there’ll be a quiz later.

If anyone gets the idea that I’m just picking on them, I’m not. When writing a post or an article or even just leaving a comment you’re probably trying to make some point or get some idea across to those who read the post, article or comment, right? So you can believe me when I say that this kind of mistake can lower the credibility of what you write by a not insignificant amount.

Alright, this post is getting a bit long here so I’ll stop now. But I’ll probably start up again with another post later down the road as more of these pet peeves come my way. Don’t misunderstand me though, as I know very well that I’m far and away from perfect when it comes to my own writing ability. If you don’t believe me (heh-heh, right…) then check out some of my other posts and you’ll have no doubt.

But at least my fonts are of proper size, my comments are in logical order and I know the difference between “loose” and “lose”.  :P

I’ve given it a lot of thought

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I’ve given it a lot of thought. I’ve taken plenty of time, considered all sides of the situation and the consequences thereof.

I’ve balanced the losses to the gains, the assets of having and the liabilities of doing without and finally, after days of agonizing over all the possible options, I’ve come to one single conclusion…

……

……

Unfortunately, what with all the thinking I was doing, it seems I’ve forgotten what it was I was agonizing over in the first place.

Oh well, carry on then.

Thank you for your patience

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Obviously I haven’t posted for the last several days. There’s a simple reason for this.

I haven’t felt all that well.

In fact, I’ve felt absolutely lousy and yes, it has to do with those blasted disabilities of mine (may they rot in whatever area of hell is reserved for disabilities that hinder the lives of man). And I do so hate writing posts about these disabilities since it makes me sound like I’m bloody whining all the time. Be that as it may, that was the reason for not posting–again.

Not one to let these problems remain unchecked, I traveled down to my so called “local” VA medical center yesterday, “so called” since it’s around 120 miles away from my humble abode, and whined and complained to my doctor instead. Once I finished whining and complaining she then gave me the third degree for waiting so long to see her. I accepted this dressing down as she can be rather dangerous when she’s miffed.

To make a long story short as possible since my beloved is coming to pick me up for a journey to our local supermarket shortly, I am now scheduled for an appointment with the neurologist in hopes that he or she can find new ways to keep my body from exploding without warning. And then another with the gastroe gastroentero gastroenterol gut doctor to see if they can check the condition of my fundoplication surgery for any damage (due to the above explosion) without resorting to having me travel all the way down to Boston, MA to get this done.

One can always hope.

Suffice it to say that all this increased bodily aggravation has led to several mostly sleepless nights so as a possible temporary solution to the problem I’ve dropped a tiny bit of ginger root into my afternoon tea in hopes that it might wake me the hell up long enough to get back to writing on a daily basis.

Thank you for your patience and have a fine day.

Weather Lucky

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I woke up this morning, fired up the ‘puter, checked the big weather map and saw this:

Looks like my new improved weather shield is working just fine (I never admited to owning the original shield by the way, I just passed it off as magic). I recently upgraded my equipment to handle most of the northeast portion of the US as I figure the mid-Atlantic and southern states need more snow handling experience. I have seen the Day After Tomorrow after all. Not all the time mind you as the northeast needs the occasional snow storm just to make sure the wells are nice and full in Spring.

Unfortunately, since my upgraded weather shield requires significantly more amperage, my direct power tap into the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant seems to have weakened the reactor cooling piping a bit and ground water tritium levels are on the rise again. My own fault for tying into a nuclear plant that was built in 1975 I suppose.

I guess I’m going to have to poll the folks down in Vernon, VT to get an idea what they would rather prefer–more snow or the possibility of hooking a 3 headed trout next summer?

Blogging belongs to those over 30?

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I was bouncing around the triple W (triple W?) today not paying too much attention about where I was going or how I was getting there when I came across a cnet article titled; Blogging declines among teens, young adults. The title alone was enough to make me head to the article and give it a read. And one thing stood out for me above all the rest. Here’s the excerpt (I’ll even bold it for ya’):

In 2006, 28 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 and young adults ages 18 to 29 were bloggers, according to survey results released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. By the fall of 2009, however, these numbers dropped to 14 percent of teens and 15 percent of young adults. During the same period, the percentage of online adults over 30 who are blogging rose from 7 percent in 2006 to 11 percent in 2009.

See? Us old(er) folks are gaining while the younger crowd head elsewhere. According to the article, that “elsewhere” is Facebook and MySpace but they don’t seem to care for Twitter. I have to give them some credit for that anyway.

You see, somewhere back in my distant blogging past I remember a plethora of complaints opinions from the older blogging crowd about the quality of the content written by the (much) younger crowd. Like the entire lack of it. I even remember some wishing they’d just go away.

Of course some of the older crowd has always been wishing they’d just go away since the very first child on this planet hit 13.

Now I’m not saying I was one of those who thought that bloggers who were in their teens and early twenties should just go away. I’m more of an equal blogging opportunity type of guy when it comes to things like that so I really didn’t have a problem with the (much) younger blogging crowd. As long as they stayed on Blogger it was fine with me.

Besides, I figured that if a youngster could manage to setup his/her own DYI WordPress blog then they deserved to be there quality content or no.

There were always exceptions to the rule of course but they were pretty much few and far between.

So there it is folks. The elders, who are often left behind in every other way shape and form these days (and the other days as well), are actually gaining on the younger set in the art of blogging. At this rate I figure we’ll have the house majority by 2012, yes?

Banned by USA Today. Thanks, Sarah.

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I left a comment on a USA Today news article titled; Palin attacks Rahm Emanuel for using the word ‘retarded’. It was flagged as inappropriate.

Now just to be clear on things, I have watched this woman’s antics ever since it was first announced that she had been picked as John McCain’s running mate (Sarah who?). Being a reasonable man I decided to give this lady the benefit of the doubt until she removed all doubt, etc, etc.

Well, she did–remove all doubt that is. I’m sorry but the woman is clueless. Not only is she clueless but she’s dangerous as well in that she’s causing all sorts of things to happen–all the wrong things. But this time it’s personal.

Because of her I had a comment banned from USA Today on that very same article. Why? Because I dared use the word ‘retarded’ in my comment even though earlier comments had also included the word ‘retarded’. Sometime during the first comment that used the word and my comment, USA Today decided to flag the word ‘retarded’ as inappropriate as per their comment policy.

This was one of the first comments on the article:

Retarded is a word that has absolutely nothing to do with those challenged mentally or physically. Do Republicans ever take a break from being upset by anything a Democrat say??

Now this was my second comment that was much later in the stack:

I had to substitute an ‘*’ for the ‘r’ in ‘*etarded’ in my previous comment (as the word refers to the timing of an engine) due to it being flagged as inappropriate by USA Today’s comment policy.

Uh-huh. Better tell all mechanics at my local auto garage not to use that word anymore (despite the fact that there isn’t any other word for it, mind you). Otherwise they might be sued?

My first comment, the one concerning engine timing, seems to have gone missing.

This means, and I’ll say it again, that somewhere between the first comment above and my first comment, USA Today changed their comment policy to include the word ‘retarded’ as inappropriate.

The real problem I see here is that Rahm Emanuel’s use of the word had nothing to do with folks who are mentally or physically impaired (or is it challenged now, I forget). He used it in reference to an idea that came up in some sort of weekly strategy session he had walked into. And he didn’t say the idea was retarded, he said it was F****ing retarded (just to keep things in perspective). To wit:

The friction was laid bare in August when Mr. Emanuel showed up at a weekly strategy session featuring liberal groups and White House aides. Some attendees said they were planning to air ads attacking conservative Democrats who were balking at Mr. Obama’s health-care overhaul.

“F—ing retarded,” Mr. Emanuel scolded the group, according to several participants. He warned them not to alienate lawmakers whose votes would be needed on health care and other top legislative items.

WSJ article

And what makes the whole ridiculous issue even more of a farce is that the Chief of Staff had said this behind closed doors, not in public–and back in August! This means that one or more of the attendees of the weekly strategy session had finally managed to complain to the press about how the Chief of Staff had called their idea “F***ing retarded”.

Nice to know our government employs adults, isn’t it?

Okay, maybe old Rahm could have been a bit more “politic” about his choice of descriptive adjectives but hey, maybe he’d had a bad day or something. Who knows? It happens.

The point is that ol’ Palin just had to jump up on that soapbox she carries around with her (which she stores alongside the chip she keeps on her shoulder) and yell and holler about how it demeans the mentally impaired and blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc, when she was the one who made the comparison in the first place.

Well, fine then.

You would think that all her bellyaching wouldn’t have an affect on my personal browsing/commenting experience now would you? I mean, from the very first moment I went online so many years ago through to present I’ve never had a comment flagged as ‘inappropriate’–ever.

I have now though. Thanks, Sarah.

I’m not posting today

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I’m not posting today.

That’s all there is to it.

I’m not posting today. I didn’t post yesterday and I may not post tomorrow.

You see, the day before yesterday I began working on an old Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop. An underpowered laptop that was known to be plagued with problems once old age set in (about 3 years by what I read). And the morning of the day I was going to start work on it my brain simply refused to get out of bed.

And it’s still there.

Apparently it wanted nothing whatsoever to to with that “old piece of sh…” Well, let’s just say it wanted nothing to do with it.

Now I have to admit that I’m finding it rather difficult to write up a post on any subject at all these days even when my brain is ensconced within my head where it belongs but attempting to write while my recalcitrant brain still remains stubbornly in bed is downright impossible.

So I’m not going to post today.

I just wanted to let you know.

Edit: I was not going to post about an hour or so ago but then I found out my server had gone into cardiac arrest. I notified my host who notified the technicians who notified the advanced technicians who finally notified the Admin who brought in a portable defibrillator and (Clear!) solved the problem.

So now it’s taken me a lot longer than I planned to not post.

I’m going to bed now. This not posting is wearing on a body.