August 27, 2010

Dave Winer's whiny bitchery

So, of course, because it's part of the great stupid circle of New Media Douchebaggery, and being he's the silverback New Media Douchebag, Winer's all about commenting again.

Did you know that Dave Winer invented blog comments? Why yes he did! Did you know his inventing comments created the first wave of blogs? Why yes they did!

I'm almost 100 percent sure that scripting.com was the first blog to have comments. And I'm equally sure that it was the first to have its comments flame out. The flameout was a good thing, although it didn't feel like it at the time, because it created the first wave of blogs. And when their comments flamed out, there were subsequent waves of new blogs.

What's my source for this? Why, Dave Winer of course! The most unimpeachable source IN TEH WORRRRRRLD!!!

Of course, he has to propose a "new" kind of commenting system, that ensures no one can see anyone else's comments, until Dave wants them too, at which point, you can't comment any more. Of course, the only comments he releases is the ones he likes. Let's be clear, Dave doesn't want discussion or reasoned disagreement. He's very clear about that:

But rebuttal, esp principled rebuttal, really doesn't add anything to a comment thread. Obviously there's room for disagreement. And of course it helps people feel heard. But that's for them, not for me, and not for future or current readers. Being very blunt and direct, it just doesn't interest me. I don't post here to get into debates. If someone wants to start a debating site, one that really works and doesn't just rehash childish points of view, I might show up there from time to time, when I feel like debating. But then it's going to be as an equal. Here, on my blog, I'm a host, which in some ways makes me more than equal and less. It's not a good context for debate. Maybe other people's blogs work that way, more power to them and vive la difference.

Why does he even bother to allow comments?

Why I have comments: I hope I might learn something new from the people who read the blog. It's mostly selfish. I like that there's a side-benefit that it creates a record for other people to learn from in the future. I get a lot out of that on other forums on the net. Esp when it comes to technical problems, these discussion threads can be invaluable.

Translation: "You all exist to make my life easier."

Of course, in Dave's world, the only way to learn is via vapid agreement with him. There's no chance he can ever learn anything from anyone disagreeing with him, because if you disagree with him, you're "uninteresting".

Even better is this bit:

And by the way, my post was a proposal. My hope was that it would spawn other proposals, other new ideas for systems of discourse. Where is the creativity? Where are the people who would like to try new ideas, no matter where they came from? I'm sure they're out there. But there's no place for them to comment because the debaters crowd them out. I wonder if some of the people who vehemently defend the current form of commenting realize that there are lots of people who won't participate in a system dominated by mostly mindless and repetetive prattle?

He can't even see the problem. He wants his idea to spawn other proposals and ideas. Yet, how can they, when he has no interest in you if you disagree with him. He mindlessly dismisses those who don't have a problem with the current systems, (contrary to what crazy unca dave thinks, there's no one "system"), yet if you disagree with him, you're just a "debater" supporting a system dominated by the mindless.

So, what he only wants are mindless sycophants, because if you agree with Dave, you're not mindless. How can you tell you're not Mindless? Why, you agree with Dave.

If you fucked Dave Winer in the ass with a 22" tire that had "circular logic" spray-panted on it, he STILL wouldn't get it.

But this is why Dave Winer's a fucking hypocritical idiot. He talks a bunch of shit about problem solving, but never mentions that he wants you to solve his problems for him using his solution, and he gets all the credit.

Oh, and if you want a really great site to follow, here's one created by my brother from another mother, The Angry Drunk: Dave Winer's Crazy Train

August 25, 2010

How it should work

Just to show I don't only hate on Adobe, here:

Adobe Creative Suite Updates

Explanation is here:

Tracking CS Updates Just Got Easier

See? Do you see, John Dowdell and all the rest of the Flash 'evangelists'? This is how you respond to criticism, even harsh criticism. Not by crying about it, pouting, denying, or all the other gerundic stupidity you engage in. But by engaging, by talking to your harshest critics, getting to the points of their criticism, and then DELIVERING ON A SOLUTION. Even if it's not perfect, it's still a great first step, and improving on something real is infinitely easier than improving on a bunch of crybaby bullshit.

This is why I like the installer team and their associated teams at Adobe. Not because they're perfect. Not because I have some Svengali-ish control over them. But because when faced with criticism, they try really hard to respond with "how can we make this better", and then they don't stop trying to improve on their first efforts.

If the Flash (and Acrobat) teams were more like the Installer team, they'd have a much happier relationship with all their customers.

(No, I don't see it happening. To make something better, you have to admit there's a problem. Dowdell et al won't do that, they're in denial about the Sehlat in their house, and wondering why their bed keeps getting so crowded. Yet they'll happily lash out at bed makers and those who suggest contacting animal control.)

Why does he represent Flash?

So, if you are unfortunate enough to follow John Dowdell's blog you start to notice something. I could just tell you, but then you lose the fun of discovering it for yourself. Let's take a look, shall we? You all recall how in the run-up to Flash 10.1, in particular, Flash 10.1 on mobile devices, he, and Adobe were all about the magic, and all about how wonderful the world would be? Let's look at some of the more choice bits from that, and other posts:

The Open Screen Project seemed a near-impossible challenge two years ago… to not only engineer a consistent display engine across workstation, pocket screen and home screen, but also to garner the industry support to implement this at a deep level, integrated with the hardware. I have never seen a software initiative with such ambitious goals, such deep and widespread support from partners, all implementing new things in concert with each other, floating target synch’d to floating target. Player Engineering has done a gargantuan job — no other group understands the new class of devices as well as they. The business coordination has also been amazing. Someday someone will write a book….

To finally see the results on realworld devices is very gratifying… low-cost tools available to nearly anyone in the world, communicating as they wish with the rest of the world. It’s like the first woodblock printing of books, or the first radio signals… after this achievement, the world will simply be a much different place.

Wow, that's pretty magical. Or is it?

There are challenges ahead… we need to not only adapt our existing work for this new class of universal pocket device, but also to develop the new types of applications which will be most useful, once anyone’s screen can call up any information anywhere, can convey voice and video from friends anywhere, where the local environment itself can be augmented by your networked pocket device.

(Can someone at Adobe teach Dowdell about run-on sentences and why they suck?) Hm...that doesn't appear to be magical, that appears to require some actual work. But isn't Flash 10.1 supposed to just work everywhere?

According to this bit from his post on the Adobe Q1FY10 Call, yes:

With general availability expected beginning in Q2, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is the first runtime release of the Open Screen Project enabling uncompromised web browsing of expressive content, high definition video and rich applications across multiple screens including desktops, smart phones, net books, internet connected DVD, new tablet devices and other consumer electronics.

Let's reiterate that bit again, only with a bit of emphasis added:

With general availability expected beginning in Q2, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is the first runtime release of the Open Screen Project enabling uncompromised web browsing of expressive content, high definition video and rich applications across multiple screens including desktops, smart phones, net books, internet connected DVD, new tablet devices and other consumer electronics.

That seems clear. You won't pay a price for Flash on mobiles. You won't have a lesser experience with Flash 10.1. It will be uncompromising. Flash 10.1 will enable this. (Yes, I know, CEO hyperbole, but when Dowdell is demanding people talk the way he wants them to, well, he can just suck it up when others expect the same.) That was pretty much the party line from Adobe. "Uncompromising". "One format, any screen". 10.1 was going to be nothing but magical unicorns. Of course, that was bullshit. There's no way any team can, in a single release, fix all of Flash's problems. Shit, they haven't fixed much of anything on the Mac or any platform other than Windows, yet, we're supposed to believe that 10.1 will give us "uncompromised" experiences wit this consistent display engine across all levels of screen. What neither he, nor anyone at Adobe talked about, of course, was that there'd be not just a little, but rather a shit-ton of work to do this.

However, Ol' Dowdell has created, or helped create this "magical future of Flash 10.1", even though I will guarantee no engineer ever promised him that. So he's backed into a corner, and he's not good at dealing with that.

When confronted with the inevitable disconnect between fantasy and reality, when faced with actual problems with Flash on mobiles, what does Dowdell do? Blame it all on everyone and everything but Flash. Specifically, blame the negative reaction on Apple, and "Apple fanboys", which are his Oceania:

But the furor… that was something else. After a weekend of great reports on mobile Flash in the wild, some of the Monday morning headlines on Techmeme were horrid: “Flash Kills Browsing”, “Flash Bogs Down Android”, “It Is Terrible” and more. This cluster was started by the usual set of Apple-oriented sites crosslinking to push something into Techmeme, and then once this cluster was established, Monday morning commercial blogwriters linked into it for the hits.

Of course. It's all the fault of Apple "mactards". (His words. Here, from his twitter stream: Congratulations @dportela ! You are the first person to convince me to start blocking off the mactards who wizz dumb rejoinders into stream. I'd link, but I don't trust the fucker to not have deleted it.) He plays up this theme:

I don’t hold Brandon responsible for this — he’s enthusiastic and just said what he saw, which is legit. I can understand the need for Apple sites to link to it with negative headlines — they’ve seen the central part of their business knocked out by superior performance and need to compensate somehow (even if foully). And I can also understand the clickbloggers making dramatic headlines — “if it bleeds it leads” still fits. They’ve brought about needless and useless perception damage to Flash, but I can understand the motives that drove it.

This doesn't even make sense, but, once again, it's Dowdell. He has his perpetual enemy, and it's Apple. Anything negative about Flash? Apple. Of course, he completely ignores the problem that PocketNow was talking about, because it doesn't matter. He, in his head at least, has shown that there is no problem, it's just Apple's "shadow column" stirring up shit. (No, really. He's point-blank accused Apple of encouraging this. No one outside of his cerebellum knows why.) Of course, just to cover his ass, he blames...the websites:

There are some other implications of these quick tests. Most desktop-style webpages are too piggy. Much of today’s web will likely cause needless strain to new pocket-sized devices. PocketNow.com’s own front page has over 250 HTTP requests, notifying over a dozen different web-beacon domains when you arrive. Even abnormal Flash use will only be just one more challenge in porting today’s web to smaller devices.

Flash is perfect, it's everyone else's fault. Apple is the enemy, Apple has always been the enemy. Without Apple, we would all have a perfect Flash future. It's your code's fault. It's your browser's fault. It is never Flash's fault.

(Actually, for a good chunk of June of 2009, it was all my fault. I was forcing him to close off comments. Seriously, read the last bits in some of his posts: here, and here.)

But that's Dowdell. He cannot admit that Flash has even a single fucking flaw. Security holes? Your fault for not updating more. Browser crashing? Your fault, you should use a Flash Blocker.

Here, another example of "Flash Uber Alles". If you read the actual post Dowdell is defending against, it's got a hyperbolic title, but, it's pretty well-written. The guy is pointing out actual problems he's seen with the full, official, release version of Flash 10.1 on Froyo. What's Dowdell's first thought?

For what it’s worth, biggest Android problem I’ve been running into online is when people had installed some type of hack into the system in hopes of getting Flash earlier than their manufacturer deemed prudent. If you’re having problems where you shouldn’t, then please get the device back to a known state first.

Then, in the comments, when someone points out that Dowdell didn't bother to read the fucking article, he blames the author for having too much text. No, really:

Sorry if I missed one critical phrase within those screenfuls of text, prefaced by all the Jobs stuff and op/ed. Wonder why he didn’t reply at the attempt to help. (Not sure why you’re blaming with the “blame the messenger” line.)

Look you fucking buttmonkey, if you're going to bag on someone's article, you should fucking read it. When you get busted, admit you were wrong. Don't start with the non-apology bullshit. Then of course, when he starts getting actual criticism, he kills off comments and...blames Apple:

I’m closing off comments on this one… was fine while it was on Techmeme, but was later linked by fansites of a company competing with Android…

Then, he follows that up with this thing. Go ahead, read it. Derive your own conclusions, but I'm reading it as "Sure, today's devices suck. They're just the precursor for the magic of the future. Buy one now, and use it so you know what you'll want in the future."

What the fuck? What happened to "10.1 will give us all uncompromised experiences"? Now we have to wait for some future device? We have to check not only Adobe's approved hardware site, (is it just me, or is it funny that there are only 4 devices shipping now that can use Flash and only one actually ships with it preinstalled, and they're all Androids), and then we're supposed to check the partner list for the Open Screen Project, and what? Hope that someone else releases a device with Flash? This is not ease of use, this is not anything good, this is a fucking mess to be fixed by TEH FUTURRRRRRE.

Even better is this bit:

Bottom line: Try lots. Not just one form factor either. The devices you’ll use daily eighteen months from now likely don’t even exist yet. Experiment. Figure out how applications should work in daily life, how these devices should bend to your will. Watch young kids, to see how they naturally want to use it. Even if you can’t purchase one soon, then you’re still free to think, to imagine, to figure out what would be really useful, in a world where any screen communicate with any other. Now’s the time. Go for it.

TRY LOTS????

Hey dipshit, some of us can't just go buy 4/6/10/elebenty phones and "try them all" until we find one that gives us a hint of what the future will bring! Jesus. Note that part. Don't try a lot of devices to find one that will work for you now. Try lots to find one that will give you a hint of what you might get in the future. That's like saying "Fuck a bunch of people when you're ten, so you'll know what you'll get when you're twenty."

This is why just saying this fucker's name makes my hackles rise. Because he's so full of shit. Because he's such a passive-agressive douche, who will not tolerate any criticism of his baby, and refuses to even face that criticism in person. (That's fact by the way. I had a really nice meeting with the Flash team in Feb. of this year. Engineers, one or two 'evangleists. No hyperbole, not too much aggression, just people talking about actual problems in a grown-up manner, and trying to see the other person's POV. Guess who wasn't there. Coward.) When you do criticize, he blames you, (and Apple), and then tries this mealymouthed backpedaling bullshit wherein he's now talking about how it's not about the devices you have now, it's about the fuuuuuuture. Yes, the bright shiny future.

This is why I cannot imagine why this fucker gets paid to talk to the public. He posts this bullshit about how Apple should talk, but if he gets a handful of anything but fawning comments, he closes them. He gets all fucking weepy and whiny about the "platform wars", but then he pumps that shit up as much as he possibly can. He talks about Flash as being the best thing ever to happen to the Web, but then tells you to use a Flash blocker if you have browser problems.

He lives in a delusional world where nothing Flash does is anything but perfect, everyone who disagrees with him is attacking him, and he is the only voice speaking against the forces of darkness. Letting him talk to anyone hurts Flash as much as any technical issue.

I have no problem with someone defending their work, but Dowdell is nothing but a delusional Adobe-paid troll.

August 23, 2010

New Physics!

Arachnivistic Velocity

The speed at which an arachnophobe retreats from a spider. Can be expressed as:

A_v=1/D_a

Where A_v is the speed of the Arachnophobe in Km/sec and D_a is the distance of the Arachnophobe from the spider in question. Note that for extremely small values of D_a, A_v approaches ∞

August 16, 2010

Stop being a pack of raving idiots

Seriously?

This is still even an issue?

We have to even explain why this is wrong?

Apparently, we do. (note for achampag's douchey Twitter profile: you fail at empathic thinking)

tl;dr Adrianne Curry goes to con dressed as Slave Leia, (w00t!). Drunken jackass decides to say "hi" via "grabbing her like a bowling ball", gets his ass beat, far too large a chunk of the web tells Ms. Curry that she was "asking for it" because of how she was dressed.

It's 20-fucking-10, and we still have people thinking this way. Sigh.

I'm not going to explain why this is wrong. If you're old enough to leave the fucking house by yourself, and you still don't get this, then do us all a favor: find a soylent green factory, go to vat #1 and dive in. Be of some use to society.

See idiots and morons of the world? This is why we can't have scantily clad hot women at cons. Because there's always one of you around to fuck it all up.

Now knock it the fuck off before I get my taser charged, my cheese grater sharpened, and a fresh bag of iodine-dipped rock salt, and have a talk with you about the proper way to respond to an assault on such a nice young woman.

August 5, 2010

tl;dr version of the anti-gay marriage case

"But if they have the same rights as we do, then how can we feel superior to them?"

July 25, 2010

Context Fail

Good morning all, today, we have a bit of a thinking exercise. I'm sure you'll all do well.

Read this post, and the linked article therein. Now, explain why Adobe, and the person who filed the bug's implications are somewhat dumb.

July 22, 2010

New Exciting Feature of Flash 10.1: Scroll Protection

Are you frustrated by people who just read your site? Who do nothing but consume written content, and never once pause over your funny YouTube links, or awesome Flash ads? Well, your friends at Adobe are here to help, with their exciting new ScrollProtect™! With Flash 10.1, when one of those rude, Flash-Haters is scrolling down your site, all willy-nilly, as soon as their cursor is over some flash content, BAM! That scrolling stops! They're forced to read that content! New Adobe Flash 10.1 with ScrollProtect™. Helping you make your readers see what you want them to see.

Seriously, it's not enough that Flash 10.1 has not done one fucking thing to fix the content load stalls in my browser. Now, that fucking plugin screws up scrolling down a page unless I'm using the window scroll controls. So two-finger drag scroll on a trackpad? Fucked. Using the scroll wheel on my trackball? Fucked.

Yet Dowdellhead et al wonder why people hate Flash...here's a clue for you, ya nimrod: WE HATE FLASH BECAUSE YOU MAKE IT SO FUCKING HARD TO NOT HATE IT.

July 20, 2010

Don't post when you're tripping

Anil Dash, we're talking to you. Seriously, read this. Yes, it's fucking stupid, and it will make you stupider for having read it.

The Angry Drunk does a great takedown of it. I may later, but luckily, I no longer have to.

I will however point out Anil's oh so fucking twee footer:

WHY, HELLO!
I'm Anil Dash, and I've blogged half a million words here since 1999, writing about how culture is made. Contact me at anil@dashes.com, phone +1 646 833 8659, follow anildash on Twitter or IM, or subscribe. Still curious? Find out more about Anil »

Aren't you just fucking precious.

July 11, 2010

Wait, wait, wait

I thought those darned illegals were taking away jobs that "Good Americans need and want", that they were denying us paying jobs in hard times.

It would seem, like much of the anti-immigration handwaving, that this line of crap is just that.

Come on you screaming mimi unemployed tea-party fucks! There's a set of bootstraps, go yank your fucking self up by them! The fact they're in a field, paying minimum wage, with no workman's comp shouldn't matter, IT'S A FUCKING JOB, RIGHT?

Once again, the far-right bullshit withers and dies under inconvenient facts.