LAKFAJLALSDJFLDHF FREAKING COMPANIES
I’m not a frequenter of eBay, at least not to the extent I used to be. But I logged on today ’cause I wanted to see if anyone was selling any Alex Colman pants.
But before I could even start my shoppin’, this caught my eye:
What in the hell nonsense is this?! Seriously. The old eBay logo was iconic enough that I remember it as being one of the first “brands” on the internet from way back when I first started using it.
But I guess the 17-year-old company didn’t think of that in its throws of teen rebelliousness. It looks like eBay president Devin Wenig ran off to Fonts.com and snatched up the first sans serif that looked trendy, much like a young hipster runs to a newly-opened Hot Topic store to buy a crappy Twilight shirt.
And the result?
A colorful Bing wannabe that unfortunately loses the iconic trigger of the old, playful, “stop bidding against me, or I will INVADE YOU!” eBay.
It’s a sad day for the internet.
Claudia the Angry Blogger Presents: Yet Another Rant against Pretty Much Everything
Alternate title: I’M ALL FIRED UP, WHAT’RE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?!
I had a frustrating day today for various reasons. This little rant was inspired by a Google search (and Facebook). Haha, it’s a LOT longer than it was originally intended to be, so ignore it if you don’t want to read my incoherent ramblings about stuff that really doesn’t matter at all.
Perhaps the large businesses, website designers, and marketing department heads are familiar with the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If they are, I truly doubt that they actually know what it means, as it is quite obvious by the state of change things are in nowadays that they currently have no intention of heeding its message.
I have a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. It may not sound like much (and it’s not), but there’s one thing in particular that stuck with me throughout my undergraduate education that has, now that I think about it, been backed up by pretty every situation I’ve ever been in: people dislike change. I’m not talking about change that brings about better circumstances, either immediately or in the distant future (though usually we’re more apt to appreciate change that leads to things improving immediately, as we as a species pretty much suck at appreciating delayed rewards). I’m also not talking about change that occurs because something is broken or something isn’t working to the best of its capability. Of course they should change the design of, for example, a hammer, if the way it’s designed now causes people to take two hours to pound a nail into a board. I’m not talking about that kind of change.
I’m talking about change for the sake of change—changing stuff just because it’s felt that a new layout is needed, or “modernization” must occur. There’s no real payoff from it, so there’s really no reason to do it—and yet it’s done anyway. I know everyone knows what I mean because as of late, websites, companies, and everybody else who gets their hands on their own logo all seem to be really desperate to do this. I noticed it a few years ago with brand logos and designs suddenly changing to look more “modern”—in particular, I recall the old M&M’s packages being replaced with the newer, hipper, 90’s versions (more flashy text, a more ‘animated’ package background).
Why? No real reason whatsoever. I know that logos and packages are a somewhat different field than websites (and actual products themselves), but every time I see a newly re-designed package with a sticker that claims something to the effect of “new design, same great product!” I have to wonder, “then why change the packaging?”
As I said, though, packaging and brand logos are in a different league than websites. Web design is something that, when it’s done right, is not noticed at all. Herein lies the problem with sudden unnecessary change, and I will show you why:
Pick a website whose design you admire for its simplicity and ease of use. This whole thing started with Google’s desire to change things up for no reason, but let’s pick another website just for the sake of demonstrating my point with even more strength: Facebook. I was not on Facebook myself until it underwent its first (and possibly second, I can’t remember) layout overhaul2. I wasn’t really interested in what it had to offer, but I do remember that the tabs at the top weren’t yet present, the “mini-feed” still existed, and things ran pretty smoothly and information was easy enough to locate.
Not long after this, however, things began to change for no reason other than to…well, I still don’t know why they thought changing stuff around was a good idea. The tabs arrived, and if I recall correctly they were met with such opposition that I had, at one point, multiple friends inviting me to join multiple groups that either protested the new layout or that claimed they had a way to change your profile back to the “old Facebook.” Then the “news feed” thing came, along with its ability to seemingly randomly switch between the “most popular” and the “most recent” feeds. Same story, same opposition.
Deny it all you like, there’s no getting around the fact that there are a lot of people who dislike the changes Facebook has made (and, for reasons seemingly unknown, keeps making). It doesn’t take much to realize why. When I first started using Facebook, I really didn’t pay any attention to the layout, mainly for this reason alone: it worked. It did what it was supposed to do, and it was fairly efficient at doing so. I got all the information I wanted to see on one page with no unnecessary fluff or clicks.
When Facebook suddenly made the tab change, I (as well as everyone else) was forced to “retrain” our methods of navigating the website. Whether the new design was in actuality more efficient than the old one was not the point in question—when the mini-feed vanished on us, we had to expend extra effort to retrain our brains to recognize that it was now under the “wall” tab and not right in front of us when we went to our profile.
The point I’m trying to make now is the fact that unnecessary layout changes are not only, you know, unnecessary, but they draw the attention to any shortcomings that may have, by accident, been included with the new layout upgrade. All of a sudden our ability to rate videos has disappeared on YouTube. Though there are claims that the overall “clutter” of the site has been reduced3, how many people notice anything other than the fact that they can’t rate something as having five stars (or still notice that the layout is still not the greatest)? That’s the point I’m trying to make: when website layouts or designs change for no obvious reason than to just change, we don’t notice the good things. We notice the failures. So what do we do? We do what only comes natural: we bitch about it.
Note, however, that this bitching does absolutely nothing. And now we come to the reason why I went on this long rant in the first place: Google. There are several things that I have always expected to remain constant (or at least, said to remain constant) within my lifetime. Among such things are:
– the speed of light in a vacuum
– Planck’s constant
– the gravitational constant
– Google
So imagine my surprise when I Googled something this afternoon and, upon viewing the search results, found that I was privy to Google’s experimental (and possibly soon-to-be-permanent) sidebar. Immediately annoyed by its intrusion into my search results, I did a search on it itself and within the top few results were—guess what?—people bitching about the experimental sidebar. “I hate this format- I like Google because it was clean and simple and now it’s all cluttered like every other search engine out there4.” There appear to be pro-Google individuals in digital tears over the possibility that a sidebar will be a permanent addition to their search results pages.
And now we come very quickly to the second point I wish to make: bitching does absolutely nothing (most of the time). Again, this has to do with the fact that people are both creatures of habit and lazy, as well as the fact that there are about five websites, in my opinion, that most people use without thinking much about it. I have friends in another country; I log onto Facebook to see if there’s any recent news about them. No real thought, it just happens. It’s like this with all the big and popular sites, and no amount of changes will probably mess with that.
When a member of the Internet Axis of Power (Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, YouTube, those such sites)1 pulls a change on the public, of course there is going to be outrage. There certainly was when YouTube changed its format and not too long ago. Comments of “the new YouTube layout sucks!” were quickly thumbed up and became the most liked comments on quite a few of the videos I’ve watched.
Why does this happen? I reiterate: if something’s working fine, and there is a sudden change that doesn’t really do much to improve aesthetics, functionality, or ease of use, it generally messes with peoples’ minds in a way that makes them upset. They have to expend effort, either getting used to a whole new way of navigating a website in the most extreme cases (Facebook), or just getting their brains used to a new visual cue on their search results page in the milder ones (a la Google’s experimental sidebar). And people don’t like effort.
But these websites are still the strongest ones out there. YouTube could make us have to type a captcha to comment on a video or Facebook could make us do the same to post on our friend’s wall, and we’d probably still use them. Why? Because they’re there. Because they’re the websites we’ve grown to love and depend on and automatically scroll to in our list of bookmarked sites. It’s basically a battle between putting up with pointless, needless site changes, or changing ourselves to not go to those sites. And we all know what side wins every time.
I’m certainly not suggesting that these websites are the bourgeoisie oppression to our proletarian desires to breeze about the internet unheeded. I’m simply saying that we can bitch all we like—if we continue to use their sites, and those in charge see no significant drop in web traffic as a result of the changes they made, then really, what’s been accomplished but a lot of angry video comments, irate Facebook groups, and upset Google users posting “it’s the end of the universe!” on forums?
One or two user casualties will ultimately do nothing, and I’m nearly stating fact when I say this: is there really anything that Google, YouTube, or Facebook could (in their right minds) do to their sites to render a huge drop in web traffic? Will a sidebar on Google’s results pages actually cause us to go elsewhere if we want to search for something? And for those of us Facebook addicts (or Facebook addicts in training), will a more-difficult-to-navigate interface really deter us much from checking the news feed every five minutes?
I started this rant with the intention of complaining about the problems of superfluous changes in web design—specifically, I wanted to point out that websites that change their layout for no other apparent reason than to simply change things up a bit get negative feedback and may lose some of their credibility (though that’s not the word I’m looking for, but I can’t think of a better one at the moment). However, the point I seem to have made in the end is that we’re pretty much tied to the major websites—and to any website we use with consistency, really—to the point where these little changes, as frustrating as they may be, will do little to deter us from partaking in the
services said websites offer. So I guess the best we can do is hold our little bitch-fests and hope the web designers happen to read video comments.
Edit: I also just came across this tidbit of information while researching for this little rant.
“‘There is nothing wrong with the logo,’ said Google product manager Nundu Janakiram. ‘We wanted to brighten it up and make some tweaks to it.'”
“There is nothing wrong with the logo.”
“There is nothing wrong with the logo.”
“There is nothing wrong with the logo.”
Sigh.
1 By traffic: http://mostpopularwebsites.net/
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
3http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/21/new-youtube/
4 http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?tid=67f6459e09a827ee&hl=en
Today’s song: Pompeii by E.S. Posthumus
Are you ready for another emo Valentine’s Day blog? GOD KNOWS I AM
So I’d save this blog for tomorrow, but we’re going down to check out Olympic stuff and I’ll probably have something to say about that. Plus, I’m feeling extra super cynical this afternoon and there’s no better time to blog about Valentine’s Day than when you’re feeling so down.
Ready?
Go!
Every Valentine’s Day (except for the last one) it’s the same thing: why the hell am I single? I am not a bad person. At least, I’m pretty sure I’m not. There aren’t any people I hate, and when I dislike someone, I try to at least be nice to them, if not rationalize my way into liking them for some facet of their personality. I’m open-minded. I really am. Whatever your approach to life is, I won’t judge it, even if I don’t agree with it (unless you’re antagonistic about it/start attacking MY way of life…THEN you get an argument). I think I’m nice. I’m socially aware. When I’m in a group, I look around to see if everybody’s happy or if everybody’s having a good time. If they’re not, I try to figure out what I can do to change things. I certainly have drive and direction in my life. I can be super serious when necessary, but I can also be fun. You all know this. I can make enough puns to induce vomiting if I’m allowed to. I don’t know if I’m smart, but I’m very good at thinking (if that makes any sense at all) and can talk about a wide range of things for quite some time, if people like.
Maybe it’s because I’m shy. But I’m not that shy, especially if someone else strikes up a conversation first. Am I too school/career-oriented? Does that scare people off? Is it because I look weird? Do colors scare people? I know I’m not the most attractive person in the world, but I certainly try to NOT look like crap.
I don’t know. All I know is that I’m not a bad person.
So why am I all alone?
Whatever. Now I’m really depressed. I’m going to watch Apollo 13 and draw.
Today’s song: Reasons by To Have Heroes
Sigh…
Today I present you with yet another one of my mobility-related rants, entitled:
“Walking Courteously: It’s Not Fucking Rocket Science”
Point the First
Explain something to me, please. Why is it that the slower you walk, the more apt you are to walk in the middle of the freaking sidewalk, thus inhibiting anybody passing you on either side? I have NEVER seen a fast-walking person barreling down the center of the sidewalk, most likely due to the fact that the center of the sidewalk is usually occupied by someone going about 0.00002 miles per hour. While weaving.
Point the Second
Walking while talking on a cellphone automatically lowers your IQ by about 30 points. This is a fact of life. Walking in a group consisting of more than two people lowers your IQ by 25 points for each person in your group. This is another fact of life.
When you combine the two by seeing groups of four or more people with two or three of them on their cell phones, you start to get negative IQ scores, numbers that are only represtented elsewhere in the Republican party and in people who don’t like Leibniz (sorry, one political slash per year is required). Why do people do this? Are most people so unaware of their surroundings that they fail to realize that other people use the sidewalk that they’re clogging up with their social sludge? Ergh.
Point the Third
Anybody who’s been in this city for more than 15 minutes knows it rains incessantly here. As such, people are generally courteous about their umbrellas. But then you get these guys who decide to carry around—and I’m not exaggerating here—umbrellas that are 3’ in diameter. Is it just me, or is this just a little bit excessive? I mean, unless you can’t fit your frame beneath a standard umbrella, I don’t know how much more a ridiculously large umbrella’s going to help you stay dry.
Here’s the bottom line: the reason you don’t see every person carrying around a 3’ diameter umbrella is because there is no practical reason that any human being needs a 3’ diameter umbrella to stay dry. I don’t know what these assholes who carry around umbrellas that are large enough to be accurately-sized replicates of the firmament are compensating for, but they need to find a less obnoxious way of doing it.
/rant.
Damn this infernal 95 character limit! I have witty things to say in my titles! This is crap!
Following the Ag Sci computer lab debacle this afternoon (don’t even ask), I went to the library to do some statistics homework on the computer (I needed SAS). In the end, I ended up using Microsoft Word quite a bit, too. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem; however, the computers here in the library updated over Christmas break to the new Microsoft Office 2007, as you all probably know. Normally I stay clear of this new abomination unto mankind as much as I can, but today it was unavoidable. So two hours later when my struggle with the new Microsoft Word 2007 was over, I decided to blog about my experience with it. So here it is.
If Wiki says it, it must be true.
This is the most counter-intuitive program I’ve ever seen. You know how everyone else always used to complain that Microsoft Word was too difficult to navigate, and that tables were too difficult to construct, and the numbering system was too stubborn to even try to manipulate? Well, if they’d spent any time actually trying to figure things out, they would have realized that the old versions of Microsoft Word were very easily manipulated. I, for one, can manipulate my version of Microsoft Word on my laptop (Microsoft 2003, I refuse to upgrade) to do anything I wish. Tables, numberings, etc.
Now, can you do these things the same way you used to, using the new Microsoft Word 2007?
No. You have to learn a whole new way of manipulating things.
The absolute worst thing about the new Microsoft Office 2007 is the default settings. The old ones worked perfectly fine: Times New Roman font, set at size 12, with single-spacing. Classic, simple. So what do they implement in the new version? An entirely new user interface. The new font is called “Calibri,” and it looks like this:
Such a statement would look so much more elegant in TNR.
Calibri sounds an awful lot like Cabrini to me—Cabrini as in Cabrini Greens, probably one of the worst housing project failures in the history of Chicago. So already, even before, I began typing in it, Calibri brought to mind a disaster. And that’s essentially what it is.
I’m not saying the font as a font is bad, I’m saying the font as a default font is bad. Microsoft, I’m pretty sure you’re aware of the fact that your products (such as, oh I don’t know, MICROSOFT WORD) are used quite often in academia. I don’t know what you know about academia, Bill Gates, so I’m assuming you know a lot—after all, you’re freaking Bill Gates—but here’s something your new product does not demonstrate you know: professors really, really like Times New Roman. They really, really like it to be 12-point size. And they really, really like double-spacing.
So what does Microsoft give us as a default font to replace their previous default font that had been working perfectly fine for years and years?
CALIBRI. In SIZE 11. With MULTIPLE LINE SPACING. I can see the letters just pouring into Microsoft’s mailroom:
I must admit, however, that there are some pretty cool new features to this ’07 version of Microsoft Word. I can’t remember what they are now, though, ’cause the positive has been overshadowed by the freaking horrible default settings.
I don’t care what you say about making it more “user fluent” or whatever term you’re using. This is a disaster, Microsoft. Fix it.
Mimicking inflection: a study in imitation and how to manipulate people who “talk like this?”
I’m pissy today. List form as always.
Things that are entirely too overrated
The damn applications on Facebook
I thought the concept of Facebook was to provide college students with a more sophisticated tool than MySpace to communicate with peers. Apparently, college students can’t handle simplicity and ease of use, because 97% of pages I visit now have dozens of those stupid Facebook “applications” clogging up the screen and utterly destroying the beauty that was the simplicity of the site. Listen, I don’t care what kind of eyes you have. I don’t care that you have so little of a life that you must participate in online movie quizzes. I don’t care which Greek God you are. I don’t care what emoticon best fits your current mood. And here’s something that may be shocking: you aren’t important enough to have a second wall dubbed the “Super Wall.” Get a MySpace and be obnoxious there. Please leave your juvenile endeavors off of Facebook. And please, for the love of god—stop sending me invitations to add applications. I’m not going to. I only have one application, and it fits in with the rest of the site’s format.
Squirrels
Squirrels suck.
Ninjas
Yes, we know you think they’re cool. But let me tell you something—you aren’t a ninja, you never will be a ninja, and the odds of you encountering a ninja, shouting something to the effect of, “OMG A NINJA LOL!!!!1” and coming out of the situation with anything less than a bashed in skull are very, very minimal.
Pirates
Same as ninjas. Yeah, yeah, we all love them. Now shut the hell up.
Copying others
Come up with your own freaking crap. Failing your ability to do so, at least give the person you’re copying some credit. This pisses me off more than you can ever know.
Using grossly incorrect grammar to sound “cute”
Phrases like “I’s a squirrel!” and “I has a Oreo!” make my blood curdle. It’s not cute, it’s not funny, and it’s not doing much to make you look like an intelligent human being. Either use correct grammar or shut the hell up.
Brandishing your so-called “mental disorders” for all the world to see
Self-explanatory. If you’re one of those people who has on your MySpace (or what have you) a list of your “mental disorders,” you are, in fact, a moron. There is no practical need for anyone who really has a mental disorder to go brandishing the fact to the general public. In fact, most people who do this really don’t have any mental disorders to speak of, they’re simply attention whores who feel the need to exploit the fact that they arrange their socks in a particular order (because we all know that “normal” people don’t like their clothing in any specific order—thus they must be obsessive-compuslive!) or that they are, on occasion, moody (because god forbid we should attribute any fluctuation in mood to anything other than bipolar disorder) in order to illicit some sort of response from the readers, be it sympathy, intrigue, or just attention in general.
Sex
It’s shoving a shaft of flesh up a hole, people, big deal.
The University of Idaho Honors Program
Bunch of snobby, self-righteous, “holier-than-thou” elitists who think that just because they have the minimum GPA (it’s just a 3.5, people, seriously) to be inducted into the society they are somehow “smarter” than those of us who, by choice, aren’t involved. The classes they require you to take to remain in the program would be pointless digressions in my academic career, thus my refusal to have anything to do with them. They’re offering this semester, two—count them, two—upper division classes. One is a geography class. The other is a history class. Yes, let’s pick the two least popular majors and offer upper division classes in those! Ooh, better yet, let’s offer all the lower, 100-level classes as either a) introductory classes that nearly everybody’s taken, b) chemistry, or c) another freaking history class! Because delaying the graduation of our members is more important than giving them classes that pertain to their future careers.
Make it a parade, MAKE IT A PARADE!
You know what I realized walking around in the mall a few days ago? The “popular” fashions today suck. I know, I know, “duh,” you say. But I must, for the sake of my sanity, point out to others the ones that bother me the most:
Chandelier earrings
Particularly those of the variety where crappy, poorly-spraypainted to look like high-end gold wire holds up strings of crappy beads (see picture). The majority of chandelier earrings are pieces of crap that are all basically identical no matter how often manufacturers label them as “unique.” Sure, there are a few exceptions (I’ll show you one when we get back to school, for example) but most suck. End of story.
Those huge sunglasses with the white frames
What the hell?! Are these supposed to make you look attractive? Sure, I guess if you’re trying to attract, say, flies, as the fact that these sunglasses make your eyes look to the same proportion in relation to your body as flies’ eyes do to theirs, I guess if that’s what you’re going for…
Otherwise, stop wearing these pieces of pop-princess-created crap goggles.
Those ghastly “babydoll” tops
Oh my god. I HATE these. Whoever designed this particular style of shirt should be shot. Since when is it attractive to drape yards of fabric around your upper body, completely destroying any shape of a figure you may have, so that you look like a freaking blob of torso? I think the only people these shirts look good on are those who have absolutely no boobs. And these shirts do not show off one’s boobs at all. Really.
The tank tops that go down to your crotch in length
I dub this “the shirt they created to quash protests about really overweight people showing off too much stomach/butt crack when wearing their low-rise jeans” shirt. It appears they had to compensate their making jeans too low by making shirts extra long now. That’s just great, except for the rest of us who are decent enough to wear pants that actually fit and really dislike having tank tops that fit like short dresses. Plus, now all people do is constantly pull these long tank tops down over their butt cracks anyway, a motion which, if repeated every single time a person gets out of their seat, gets really annoying.
The “let’s ruin a perfectly good t-shirt by putting some crappy design or text on it such as Tweety or “Princess” or “I’m a hoe and I felt the need to express it on my t-shirt” style (otherwise known as the “graphic tee”)
Wal-Mart carries a lot of these. They take perfectly good t-shirts that are manufactured in perfectly good colors and tack on a crappy graphic—a skull or a fairy or whatnot—and make it a worthless conformist piece of crap that I for one will not be caught dead in. What’s worse is when they put so-called “witty” phrases on them, such as “Bitch Princess” or “MILF” or “Ron Paul is my homeboy” or “Fuck me” (in Japanese characters, of course). This annoys me to no end. Seriously.
Capri pants
Aside from the fact that they’ll make you look frumpy if you have any body type other than the body of a 5’9, 115 pound model, Capri pants have no real function. Really. If you’re that hot in pants, wear shorts. Or a dress, even. It’s not like you’re going to go wading in water in the city streets, smart one. Capris suck.
Wedge heel shoes
Not only do these make you look like an idiot, they basically prove you’re an idiot, especially when you try to walk on cobblestones, snow, snowy cobblestones, and, hell, every type of terrain save a completely flat basketball court. Come on, people. You live in Moscow. Odds are, you know that it snows here and that campus is not a flat, bump-free terrain. Why, oh why do you women wear these completely idiotic shoes around? I must admit, though, it is a laugh, watching you try to look graceful after nearly snapping your ankle in half because your stupid wedge heel got caught in a crack in the sidewalk.
Fair warning, though—if you’re lying on the side of the sidewalk, crying and whining that you’ve twisted your ankle and I see that you’re wearing these shoes, I’m not going to help you.
The “sneakers that fail to cover 90% of the top of your foot, thus qualifying them as sandals but yet they’re still sold at the full sneaker price (but look on the bright side; the bonus you get is that you look like an idiot!)” sneakers
These are ballerina slippers gone mainstream, and they make your feet look really, really deformed. Plus, they’re freaking expensive, especially for the fact that you’re getting gypped on the product because they carve out an unnecessarily large amount of the top of the shoe to make it “cool.” Just wear sandals if you want to show off your feet so much, okay?
/rant
BAH
So I had this really long blog today, all about how I’ve been feeling slighted by people lately, mostly in subtle yet noticeable ways. But I deleted it a) because I don’t feel I should subject you people to constant bitching like a large majority of bloggers do (despite this being my blog, allowing me to write whatever the heck I want), b) because it was basically this “acknowledge my hurt and feel sorry for me, oh ignorant masses” crap that, looking back on it when reading my blogs later on in the year, I probably wouldn’t be very proud of, and c) a lot of it really shouldn’t be said to spare some peoples’ feelings, despite the fact that I still need to get some things off my chest.
So perhaps there will be a private blog sometime in the future, when I get around to feeling as crappy as I did today. But perhaps not.
So there.