Bertram- Peeve of Web Abuse

OK, somebody explain it to me. No, somebody explain it to Bertram. Why do we get Web pages that take 10 minutes to load, require Netscape 12.69 Enhanced Director's Cut Gold Version with the VRML+ plugin and patented Ramm-Hogg(TM) user interface technology, give you a headache, jangle your nerves... and contain no useful information?

This isn't about entertainment, or personal whimsy. I'm talking about people Divinely Inspired to use 256K, million-color imagemaps so you can click on the picture of a fucking software box for chrissake. What's the goddamn point? Do I really need goddamn dancing emus to tell me about that new printer? No, I do not. I need the goddamn technical specs on the goddamn printer. Good luck getting those.

Disable image loading? Ha! Not when these people hit their stride. That's when you find out that what little real information the page has is in the images.

The worst ones are the ones who think the whole world is using Netscape over a T1 line. You can't even read some of those pages without Netscape. And then there are the ones where you're lucky if you're not using Netscape, because then the text just might be a different color from the background, and there won't be any irrelevant words sitting there blinking.

Netscape users, watch that word. Hell, you can't avoid watching that word. There it is, flashing at you, drawing your eye, tearing at your sanity. Does it do you any good? No. Does it slow down your reading speed? Hell yes. No matter what Netscape does from now on, no matter if they cure cancer, no matter if they unlock the secrets of the universe, they can never be forgiven for the <blink> tag. I hope Bill Gates eats 'em.

Now, some of you will say that all this is getting better. "After all", you'll say, "don't most pages have text only modes these days?". Wrong. First of all, have you ever actually tried to read some of those text only pages? Second, all it means is that the state of the art in pain-in-the-ass page design is advancing. Pages that are nothing but giant imagemaps are passé. The new thing is pages that won't display without Netscape. The next new thing is going to be pages that won't display without Netscape plugins that only exist on Windows, the operating system of Satan. Mark my words, boys and girls-- dark days approach.

I work on this fucking net. The last thing I need is a bunch of fake artistes displaying their creativity at the expense of my ability to get information I need to do my job. These people will be first against the wall when the revolution comes......... remember that.