Don't get me wrong. The primary goal of the revived IE team has been to achieve standards compliance, and I respect that. The problem is, it's almost 2009. The damage is already done. It's worth taking a minute, however, to stop and reflect on the effect IE has had on the interwebs.

Conventionally, the sole purpose of a browser is to show you content. A browser should never play any part (directly or indirectly) in changing content. This rule is as fundamental as it is simple. Unfortunately, like the UN, the browser police will only go as far as writing down the rules in large bold font, in hopes that someone else will actually enforce them.

Rewind to 1996. Imagine you're in a classroom. The lesson is basic mathematics, and the teacher is writing up simple formulas. All the kids can see the board clearly, except for this one kid in the front, named Imon Ecstasy (for no reason in particular, I will refer to him by his initials, IE). IE has glasses with the magnifying power of the Hubble, and swaps hygiene tips with dead cats. He also happens to be the principal's only son. Furthermore, his father has enrolled him in every single class in the entire school.

IE raises his hand, and points out to the teacher that he cannot see shit. The teacher is left no choice but to make amends for him, and starts writing on the board in a way that IE can see clearly. So, instead of seeing 2's and 4's on the board, all the other kids now see drawings of giant turds. But hey, IE can see the numbers just fine, and that's all that really matters.

Fast forward to 2009. IE has had laser eye surgery, and his vision now matches that of his peers. Unfortunately, every single teacher in the school has forgotten how to write real numbers on the board (let alone complex ones), and all of the school's textbooks have been replaced with collections of turd diagrams.

Now armed with normal vision, IE can't see shit on the board (more accurately, the only thing he can see is giant drawings of shit). He then starts crying to all the teachers, demanding that they change the way they write on the board. Again.

At this point, the other kids have had just about enough, and some of them start shooting spitballs at IE. Recalling how he dealt with the situation before, IE proceeds to give them his lunch money.

All in all, the notion of a fully standards compliant IE is appealing, despite the initial cost of making half the world's websites look like ass. It should be noted, however, that the same promises were made with IE7, which ended up with a net increase of jack shit percent in overall standards compliance.

To make things worse, every time IE's popularity rating drops, the obese bully of the class grins to himself as he convinces one more douchebag to join his pokemon treehouse club.

Clearly, we need to increase spending on education.

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daretorant.com

When Microsoft first introduced what was originally codenamed Longhorn, there was hope that for the first time since Windows 2000 was released, some actual progress would be made on the operating system.

For many years, the Microsoft machine churned away, but made the fatal mistake of being far too ambitious with the proposed new features, ultimately trying to manage too many engineering projects at once. While individual projects may have been developed effectively, the integration process for those components closely resembled the human digestive system (input: a variety of potentially valuable materials, output: always a piece of shit).

Already a year behind schedule, Gates needed a solution fast, and decided to solve the problem the Windows Way™: by pushing the giant Longhorn reset button. This was the ultimate fail (alternatively, this fail is also available in Home Basic Fail, Home Premium Fail, and Business Fail editions).

On the bright side, with a clean slate, engineers could now work more effectively, with a simplified focus. As a result, they managed the remarkable feat of un-implementing hundreds of features from XP. This was the single greatest example of Unnovation in history.

Some people will claim that Vista is more about looks than actual features. This is true, which makes the OS mostly about nothing. The "new" UI engine, Aero, is not innovative in any way, nor is it a major enhancement, and it doesn't do anything you cannot already do in XP. Here are some actual excerpts from the Aero features page:

• Dynamic windows
  In Windows Vista, windows are dynamic. When minimized, a window will subtly animate to a specific location on the taskbar, making it easier to locate when you need it later.

Wow. You can now minimize windows. Revolutionary.

• Windows Flip
  Windows Flip is an update of the feature known as ALT+TAB in previous versions of Windows. With Aero, Windows Flip shows you live thumbnails of your open windows.

This feature has been available via the Powertoys add-on for XP for like 10 years. Still, the Aero team gets some points --- at least they moved up from un-implementing to re-implementing.

For all you Windows-lovers, don't worry, there is hope. Steve Ballmer recently announced the future announcement (wtf?) of the next version of Windows. He did not reveal its name, and instead decided to use the name "Windows Cloud" for now.

"Ballmer confirmed that geo-replication and other features designed for the cloud would be built into the OS."

I have two issues with this. Firstly, geo-replication with Microsoft essentially means that SharePoint will be replicated on every client. In other words, the bowl of cereal you have been eating everyday will now come with razor blades.

Secondly, Ballmer apparently doesn't realize the colossal web-two-ohrgasm impact of Microsoft using the word "cloud" in any public announcement of any kind. As if there aren't enough assclowns out there just waiting to write prophetic proclamations about the forthcoming Care Bear revolution, where everything will be stored in the Magic Rainbow, whose light transcends across the globe and is powered by Heart itself. Before things get out of hand, Microsoft needs to start setting lowered expectations (their engineers may have already accomplished this task).

If all else fails, Microsoft can always keep Project Ship XP With Vista running indefinitely.

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daretorant.com

Ed: Promoted from the Peanut Gallery.

I’m getting really tired of seeing a new article submitted to digg every freaking day by some douchebag who feels obligated to share his newest discoveries about Firefox to the world. In almost all cases, all that happens is some idiot realizes you can modify browser settings by typing “about:config” in the address bar, and gets overwhelmed by a sudden h@x0r rush.

What they don’t realize is that anyone who is technically capable enough to edit those settings probably already knows it exists, and has settled on the fact that the minute potential increases in speed are simply not worth the effort. Unfortunately, these script-kiddie-wannabes will not stop until every last setting has been toyed with and then documented in what they will ambitiously refer to as an “optimization guide”. In reality, these could be more accurately described as manuals for people who wish to reduce their productivity as a human being to that of a freaking lawn ornament.

Actually, I take that back. Lawn ornaments are, for the most part, harmless. They will not set your lawn to flames, or unlock all your doors while you sleep. Misguided assclowns of the internet, however, provide no such protection:

“You can take the last step even further by telling Firefox to ignore user interface events altogether until the current page has been downloaded. Firefox could remain unresponsive for quite some time.”

Yes — that’s right. He is advising you to “optimize” your browser by configuring it to stop responding to anything you do. I speak for myself here, but I think the ability to move my mouse whenever I damn well want is a feature that I’ve kind of gotten used to.

Here’s the deal: we don’t have dialup modems anymore. The bandwidth most people get is sufficient. The browsers don’t really have a say in how long it takes to load a page anymore (unless, of course, you’re Firefox).

Since we’re on the topic, what the hell is up with Firefox’s memory consumption anyway? Every iteration of this browser since it was a little Firebird has added all kinds of neat features but they never seem to improve on the endless prostitution of memory that this browser has become famous for. I have seen articles, presentations, and other forms of propaganda trying to allure me with all the new features Firefox 3 has. Some of the new features are useful and intuitive, but it still eats almost as much memory and CPU as Photoshop (which seems to have placed an infinite loop in its startup). The Mozilla foundation needs to wake up and recognize the gargantuan elephant in the room. New features be damned.

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daretorant.com