1. Youtube mash-ups

Just because you can glue pieces of other people’s work together to create something, doesn’t mean you should. That’s how they built the Fiero, and we all know how that turned out.

2. Twitter

It is strangely appropriate that the name of this service is used to describe the meaningless noise created by countless birds. I suppose if enough monkeys bang on their keyboards long enough, one of them is bound to produce a sonnet. Or haiku. Bumper sticker. Something interesting that can be said in 140 characters of less.

Wake me up when they do.

3. Passwords

You know what? I don’t work for the CIA. If someone has a burning desire to log into my facebook account and send people pieces of flair in my name, I might pity them, but I don’t think my life or national security will come crashing down as a result. I certainly don’t think the added piece of mind of not having my flair abused is worth spending an hour trying to invent a username and password that 3 million other users have not already thought of, then re-entering it ten times while the software scolds me for not picking a better password and finally just assigns me one I will never, EVER remember and then spending another ten minutes trying to decipher some stupid little pictogram designed to thwart the efforts of malicious software written by people who clearly have more time on their hands than I do. There was a time when I only had to remember one phone number and the approximate location of my house (I can recognize it if I get close enough). The older I get, the more knee deep in addresses, numbers, passwords and serial numbers I am. Ironically, my memory keeps getting worse. How can I possibly enjoy a game of bingo in my autumn years if I am so sick of numbers by then that even a couple digits will send me into apoplexy?

4. Geek manifestos

Geek blogs that sing the virtues of their author’s favorite web technology while roundly condemning all others as “non-compliant” simply remind us all who is still bitter about not being picked first for dodgeball. Screw you guys. I’ll use whatever works. No one cares if the lunatic fringe of ubernerds can view it on their Linux-powered frank-n-toaster. You geeks have yet to build anything that works reliably or lasts more than five years, anyway, so don’t lecture us about “standards”.

5. File Format of the Week

It is a testimony to human nature that, despite agonizing hours spent researching an expensive automobile purchasing decision, you will will inevitably find youself happily driving your painstakingly-chosen pride and joy behind a beat-up pickup truck with a window sticker of Yosemite Sam pissing all over your car manufacturer’s logo.

We all love to make each other feel better.

This principle holds true in the computer world, as well, where you cannot possibly choose the right Operating System without finding youself in a bitter debate with a total stranger in glasses and a Slashdot t-shirt. Mentioning your preferred OS in public is as safe these days as blowing your nose on a page ripped from your pocket bible.

The irony is, Mac or PC, Linux or Unix, it really doesn’t matter, and neither do the programs you install on them.

That’s right, unless you are hopelessly addicted to video games, your OS doesn’t matter, and your software doesn’t matter, either. Every major OS has a wealth of compatible software available to do all those things we suddenly need computers to do for us…a lot of it available for cheap or free on the internet. Need a word processor? Take your pick. Need to color correct a photo? No problem. Design a web page? The only problem is choosing WHICH editor you want. There is an embarassment of riches on the web when it comes to applications. They’re like…well, you know.

So why does everyone have the obligatory copy of Microsoft Office on their machines? Is it the best in it’s class? The cheapest? A triumph of marketing? Why?

I’ll tell you why: because your stupid boss or your stupid brother-in-law or some other industrious netizen keeps sending you Word files and you need to open them. Simple. And all of those nifty word processors out there that can be had for a song aren’t worth the electrons they are made of because M$ is the only company making a product that can open the latest DOC file properly. (Some enterprising smaller companies will eventually catch up, but not before M$ releases an even newer, shinier format. Oh, sure, you can save your file in an older format and people with of Word Jurassic can still open it…but then you won’t be able to embed the singing smiley face icons in it, and you WANT the singing smiley faces in it, don’t you?) It’s a slick racket, and it’s even slicker than you think: because M$ knows your stupid friend is going to keep sending you the latest versions of the ever-evolving Word format, as he is most likely to save his files in Word’s default format, which you will not be able to open unless, you, too, become one of the legion of faithful upgraders.

Even as I write this, I am downloading software I didn’t want. Yes, I don’t want it. I didn’t want it when I woke up, and until five minutes ago I didn’t need it or even know it existed. But that was before I learned about OGG. Yes, OGG, the latest in an endless march of file formats that are newer, better, faster, more sensational and suddenly impossible to live without. It’s an audio format, and I’m very happy that someone was thoughtful enough to take the time to create an alternative to the MP3, a file format that I had mistakenly believed was the Alpha and Omega of file formats last week. That was, until some anonymous know-it-all decided to encode all of the audio files I desperately needed into OGG instead, thereby forcing me to spend several hours of my time trying to find out just what the heck an OGG was and how I am expected to open one. Fortunately, many altruistic souls out there have thoughtfully provided me with free beta copies of their software which I can use to crash my computer repeatedly and distract myself from the pain and suffering of OGG ownership. To insure that my blood pressure doesn’t sink to an unhealthy low, they have also taken the trouble to compress it into yet another file format I’ve never heard of (which I am sure is far superior to the zip file), requiring me to troll the web for even more obscure garage-brewed software. This fascinating cycle may well repeat itself for hours until I break something expensive. Programmers love recursiveness.

It is a matter of time before one of them invents Son of OGG.

This is the crux of the problem, and is responsible for more wasted dollars, time and effort than any other feature of the information age (with the possible exception of World of Warcraft or internet porn). There are simply far too many incompatible and poorly understood file formats out there, and the files, good people, are what the game is all about. The FILES are the content, the fruits of our labors, the very reason for existence of all of the overpriced bells and whistles in your latest applications. FILES are what the internet was made to transport to and fro, and what monitors were built to view. They are what we all get paid to make. Files are the language of the machines that describe the work we do, and the way in which they preserve our hard work. And nobody can just pick one and stick with it.

We are all speaking different languages, and no one interpreter can interpret them all. More are born every day, many more are forgotten overnight, and a handful of corporations would like to own the ones we use the most. It’s insane, and it’s the primary reason why computers rival cheap toaster ovens for longevity and efficiency. It’s probably why ubernerds insist on standards, too, but who listens to them? (see number four)

6. Nigeria

I’m sorry your country sucks and you have no money. I know that you can raise badly needed bucks by cramming everyone’s inboxes with spam because you only need to find that one sucker out of a million who is so desperate to make his penis larger that he will wire you some cash. By an interesting coincidence, a USAF B-52 uses the same philosophy to hunt down social nuisances in other countries: If we drop enough bombs over a wide enough area, we may actual hit the jerk who is bothering us. Don’t make us.

7. Domain Name Squatters

You people are the reason why there are so many modern companies and products with goofy names like Google, Yahoo and Joomla, and unfortunate website names like Penisland.com (Pen Island) and Gotahoe.com (Go Tahoe, a vacation site). You are making the entire information age sound silly. Stop it.

8. Abusive advertising

I have lost hours of my time attempting to remove pernicious adware from my kid’s PC. Who is evil enough to write this stuff, and who bankrolls the efforts of the little misanthropes? I can’t imagine anyone wanting to buy a product from a company that has just crashed their computer 10 times in a row and forced them to close 97 pop-up windows with little more success than a Greek hero fending of the Hydra with a letter opener. The pond scum that writes this stuff must either make their money from advertisers who prefer to remain nameless or the Russian mob. I hope it’s the mob, because they would make a better nuclear target.

9. Perverts

I think it’s great that the whole wired world has finally come out of the closet and revealed just what freaks we all are, but a few of you are a whole lot freakier than the rest of us. I think you know who you are. (Hint: sales clerks look at you funny, women cross the street when they see you coming and almost everyone wore a trenchcoat to your last national convention.) If you want to pee on a sheep, fine, but please don’t post pictures of it on the internet. My kids visit here, and I really don’t want to explain to them why some people want to pee on sheep. They’ll never wear a yellow sweater again.

Besides, it makes me uncomfortable to think that there are enough of you out there to have conventions.

10. Chain Letters

We all know at least one of those people who likes to clog our inboxes with email stuffed full of bandwidth-hogging photos, movies, powerpoint shows and mysterious file attachments that we never really know what they are but suspect they probably just installed more adware. They do so in the spirit of sharing with us the latest virus warning, political rant or inspirational poem we could’ve lived without and ended up costing us an hour of our day while we went to snopes.com to find out if Jane Fonda really does molest baby seals. (She doesn’t. At least, none of them have ever come forward. Maybe they’re afraid she will pee on them.) The next time you feel tempted to forward one of these great wastes of time on to everyone on your mailing list…PLEASE DON’T. (Notice the caps, which I used only for emphasis, since all caps LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING, YOU ILLITERATE MORON!)

Remember, only YOU can prevent information pollution.