This site is an open rant on the vagueries of modern web desing. Specifically, it was prompted by my roommate's engineering class, which requires the creation of a web page. Now, while I believe that nay fairly intelligent and resourceful person can learn html in an afternoon (or perhaps a weekend, if you want to learn the fancy stuff), I certainly did not think there was anything wrong with the assignment. That is, i didn't until I heard some more about it. In additon to being required to use frivolous framesets and tables, my roommate has told me that they are encouraged to use as many graphics as possible, and to include sound files. Not only this, but they have been told on numerous occasions that, shoudl they fill their disk quota, the should feel free to ask for more. He not only tolerates, but encourages the meaningless use of valuable resources. Remember, he is advocating that they fill their disk quota with one web site (which is, you will note from the homework description, essentially content-free). WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?
Those are not only his resources he's so flippantly wasting, they are mine, and they are yours. even if you do not go to our university (and if you do, remember that every disk quota filled is that less space for everyone else), they are eating up precious precious bandwisth. It used to be that the internet was a place used only by those with a real purpose. you logged on, you had some research to do. You put up a web site, you had some real content to convey. No longer. Since the summer of 1995, the quality of the internet has steadily declined. However, besides the fac that the signal:noise ratio of the web as a whole(already infintesiaml) is decreased by the requirement of these content-free pages, they use a staggering maount of bandwidth. Everytime someone looks at a page with an animation, or an unecessary (and generally anoyoing) sound clip, they make my pages load slower. It might not seem that the change is relevant, but it adds up. Every menaingless page with movies of someones dog detracts that much form the speed and efficacy of the internet as a whole.
Perhaps this man does not understand the damage he does. Perhaps he thinks it is amusing to litter the information superhighway with hundreds of students involuntary litter. Perhaps he likes the fac that he can, with impunity, waste resources the whoel worlkd depends on. Or, maybe he's just stupid. I don't know. But, hopefully, he will come across this page, and learn a thing or two. Because his poorly thought out actions have consequences. Whether he knows it or not