Posts tagged “opinion”
I've been saying for years that there are no fundamentals of web development, and people keep pushing back. My argument is simple: "fundamental" means *necessary*, and no single skill, not HTML, not CSS, not JavaScript, is necessary to get a web page into the world. Gatekeeping helps no one.
Yes, front-end development is absurdly complicated right now. But developers aren't adding complexity for fun - user expectations have exploded while timelines haven't. Today's frameworks are doing what jQuery did: showing browsers what developers need. It'll consolidate eventually. The mess is just evolution, and evolution is worth it.
I'm a gay Caribbean man responding point-by-point to a homophobic newspaper column. The author's claims about homosexuality being abnormal, his grotesque medical misinformation about anal sex causing incontinence, and his dangerous lies about AIDS transmission all deserve correction. I correct each factually, firmly, and with occasional dry humor.
Citizen journalists are self-serving? So are professional journalists. This keeps "surprising" old media types, but everything that happens in real life happens online too. The conflict of interest Carr is clutching his pearls about has always existed. His byline gives him away.
I'm a huge Twitter fan, and watching it go mainstream means watching people completely misunderstand it. It's not replacing email, Google, Facebook, or blogs. It's not a competition or a celebrity toy. It's not even about what you're doing. Twitter captures what people are *thinking*, and that's genuinely new.
Microsoft.com renders poorly in every browser, including their own. After years and hundreds of millions in losses, Microsoft still doesn't get the web. They're a software company, not a web company. That's okay. Stick to operating systems, admit defeat on MSN/Live, and stop pretending otherwise.
I support Obama over Hillary for reasons of character, competence, and vision. He's optimistic where she's divisive, forward-looking where she's dated, and principled where she's expedient. His campaign has been better run, his policies more sophisticated, and his conduct more dignified. He makes me believe American politics can be real again.
The math is undeniable: Hillary needs 84% of remaining delegates to catch up. After Obama's 14-point blowout in NC and her razor-thin Indiana win, it's time for her to concede. I'm hoping her cancelled appearances tomorrow are a sign.
Vote Obama, not Clinton. Four reasons: no dynasty politics, anyone can be president, he unifies instead of polarizes, and he inspires rather than lectures.
I steal music and I know it's wrong. But record companies are technological dinosaurs charging 10x what music is worth, crippling their products with DRM, and offering a terrible experience compared to piracy. I'd pay a fair price for a convenient, unrestricted product. Nobody's offering me one.
I hate bread machines. Making your own bread, soap, and shoes ignores centuries of industrial progress that dramatically improved everyone's lives. Same people buy organic food without realizing modern farming methods literally saved the world from mass starvation.
Brokeback Mountain was well-acted and believable but ultimately boring. I think I just don't care about ordinary people in fiction. Give me science fiction. Real or fake, mundane people and their mundane problems don't interest me, and I make no apologies for that.
Warwick students voted to ban smoking in their union. Selfish? Sure, but so is forcing non-smokers to breathe your fumes. Democracy runs on selfishness. Hurrah for the smoke-free majority. We non-smokers just need to wait for our numbers to grow -- which won't take long.
Giving up broadband to cure information overload is like ditching cars for horses. The answer is to go forward, using RSS and email filters to cut the noise. This guy is an idiot.
Ashcroft's resigned, but not before claiming he's "achieved the objective" of keeping America safe. Mission accomplished? We're in two wars! I'm just glad this lunatic is gone. Maybe he'll finally focus on his singing career.
Bush's reelection proves Americans, not just their renegade president, endorse his agenda. I can no longer pretend America is a friendly nation temporarily hijacked by the wrong leader. The world must stop waiting for Americans to come to their senses and start pushing back.
I support the Iraq war but still oppose Bush for plenty of other reasons: drilling in wildlife preserves, tax cuts for the rich while exploding the deficit, the PATRIOT Act's police-state overreach, blurring church and state on gay rights and abortion. Also, he's just a big dumb clumsy Texan.
Rumsfeld's out. Good riddance.
After four years alternating between sex-first and getting-to-know-you approaches, I'm still single with nothing lasting past three months. Neither method wins. Sexual and emotional compatibility both matter, and whichever way you narrow down candidates, you'll waste time on the incompatible ones.
Arnold won! I'm stoked, though maybe I'll hold off on total cynicism -- the guy has a business degree and was a self-made millionaire at 22. Could be worse.
Thomas Friedman declared the "terrorism bubble" burst because Iraq fell. But hey, the terrorists weren't Iraqi, their money wasn't Iraqi, and bin Laden sure as hell isn't Iraqi. If anything, we just gave the Middle East more reasons to hate us. Friedman is an idiot.
Creme eggs should be sold in six-packs year-round. I'm just sayin'.
On the eve of the Iraq war, I'm laying out my thinking: yes, it's being fought for money and oil, not principles. But removing Saddam is still probably the right call, for the same reason stopping Hitler early would have been. Right thing, wrong reasons. God bless democracy.
Microsoft's monopoly conviction is long overdue. The real crime isn't dominance itself, but using OS control to flood unrelated markets with inferior products. My prescription: restrict their expansion into media and content, open the Windows source code, and impose serious regulatory oversight.
Both science and religion claim to explain the universe but will never agree because they operate in different frameworks. Religion demands perpetual faith; science asks for temporary faith while seeking real answers. That's why I back science with my time and money, and actively discourage religion.
Science fiction is the only fiction worth reading because it's the only genre that truly *enlightens*. Regular fiction just rearranges the same life experiences into new combinations. Sci-fi gives you genuinely new concepts, new ways of thinking about existence. If I wanted real life, I'd go outside and live it.
Reason magazine rocks. Journalistic intelligence in its purest form.
