Thoughts

[unixronin]

Almost everyone knows the aphorism that says "Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should."  Nobody thinks it applies to them.  One of the most prevalent problems of "content" on the Internet is that all the people who technically can but probably shouldn't, DO.

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I had a second thought I intended to put here.  Honest.  But something distracted me and ... well, they say memory is the second thing to go.  Damned if I can remember what the first is supposed to be.

Comments

[polaris93.livejournal.com]

Almost everyone knows the aphorism that says "Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should." Nobody thinks it applies to them. One of the most prevalent problems of "content" on the Internet is that all the people who technically can but probably shouldn't, DO.

All but me. Except when I want to. Which is waaaaayyyy too often. Dammit.

[mrakg.livejournal.com]

First, to clear the air:


I know I've been guilty of the "because you can" sin. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

Anecdote:

It does occur everywhere. I apparently deeply hurt a typography wonk friend by using that phrase when he was gushing over the elaborate stunts Wired Magazine was using when it first started publication*. The context was his having asked me if I'd seen an article in the then-current issue [one that had been set in a continuous line spiral, if memory serves]. I responded with "I don't read Wired. Their avant-garde, style-over-content typography gives me a headache."

After a longish sermon on how amazing their methods were, I said "Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD." In retrospect, it may have been the wrong decision, since the guy wouldn't even talk to me for six months. No - he didn't work for Wired or the printing operation they used at the time.


*It occurs to me that I have no idea whether they still do "artistic" things like that or not. I had begun to refuse to touch their deadtree edition without a bottle of ibuprofen handy.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Truth to tell, Wired always struck me as a bunch of wanna-bes pretending they had their fingertips on the pulse of Silicon Valley. I got their first half-dozen issues for free for some reason and, bluntly, I thought it was a load of pretentious, empty crap. I still strongly suspect that their business model was for the magazine to be bought by those who wanted to be seen as the digerati, in order to be seen as the digerati, but who really weren't.

[mrakg.livejournal.com]

That's a fair summary.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA. Me exactly as well. Issue #1 was great. #2 was ok. #3... I stopped around the time you did. Despite knowing a couple of good reporters there.

I want to "Otto" them. You know, "The Well was not the first BBS or the first 'online community;' the modem was not invented or 'liberated' in Silicon Valley; the first public ISP was not The Well; and it was not the first place to make the Internet available to the public- Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up^W^W^Wlived through it."

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

Mind you, I suspect their design team had cut their teeth on magazines like OZ (the London version, not the original Sydney one) where they seemed to like doing things such as printing in pink over orange artwork. Didn't really affect the quality of their prose much -- it was frequently unreadababble.

re: Point #2

[rain-manpnw.livejournal.com]

And furthermore ... ooo, shiny ...