Serene Falcon

How Small, Of All That Human Hearts Endure, That Part Which Laws Or Kings Can Cause Or Cure !

Wednesday, 6 August 2008 at 7:00 pm (Computing, Manners not Morals, Self)

Recently, a terrifying and heart-rending plea manifested from some poor girl in the toils of the pop-up curse:

 
Please help me im crying my eys out plz i beg u ???

i went on to msn website and al these pop ups came up and started downloading stuff rght now and it donloaded smething called **** and *** his porn thing and my back ground ent red with this bull on it and i dont no wat to doit wont let me anything andit comes up windows virus thing is not up 2 date help me i am only 12 and my dad will kill me if he found out help me !! pz =::::::::(

 
This is actually quite sad, and it would be entirely inappropriate to feel a lack of appropriate emotion; particularly the presumed reaction of the noncomprehending pater familias — which really… I mean, you’d think by now… I mean, she’s just a girl; and also thus can scarcely be suspected of seeking sex sites. Which is actually serendipity on the modern day web, In Soviet Russia, Sex Sites Seek You ! Also, it’s difficult to recall, how to a child things which are both minor, and always voided by time, assume gut-wrenching importance. However, hearts may cease their frantic struggle like little birds caught in the hideous traps of our forefathers, for this Yahoo Question [cache] is actually marked as resolved. And yet, and yet…. Surely there must be some solution to the repulsion of these — strictly reeking of yesteryear, and in the time of the Clinton Administration — weakling pop-ups and associated virii…

 
If only there were some clue.

 
If only we could guess what it might be.

 
Some powerful sword ‘gainst which Pop-Up Hell itself shall not prevail.

 
Just one…

 
No matter how faint and delicately hued.

[ I do wish people would adhere as near as damnit to spelling conventions... ]

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Cost Of Non-Vertical Integration

Sunday, 16 September 2007 at 2:41 am (Computing, Correctitude, Generalia, Self)

I was brought up on the comforting assumption that web-site lives were around for an average of 100 days. Time’s arrow has shortened the average life to 44 ( at least upon these assumptions = it could be less ); this emphasises the necessity for pruning of lost links — cutting dead-wood is always to be undertaken with enthusiasm — and that to ensure one’s own pages continue to offer what they are meant, that hot-linking even if agreed with a host site should be severely discouraged. All media: pictures, music and video should be stored on the same server; storage is cheap enough and will probably not get more expensive for non-critical applications. Obviously one’s server will go down now and again/eventually, but if that means one’s media is unobtainable, the main website is equally so.

The rapid loss is not to be regretted too much, except for people’s personal works and studies of historical fact. Probably it doesn’t matter if 95% of commercial and intellectual webpages are lost forever tomorrow: the amount of dross, and severely outdated information, clogs the internet; just as that it would not matter, except to the persons concerned, if 95% of people snuffed it. I am not advocating this, nor minimising tragedy; merely conflating Keynes’ quote, ‘In the long run, we are all dead‘ with the point that nobody except God truly cares even in the short run, and He is fully capable of dealing with all eventualities. [ I doubt that He Cares about the future of the Internet however. ]

< Arthur Hughes — The Property Room

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