In the process of testing Netscape 6.1 before we ship it, I went to a few of the major news sites (cnn.com, msnbc.com, abc.com) and started reading things that looked interesting, or controversial, or whatever.

There is the usual blah blah "X shot Y", "Z mauled by W animal", etc. etc...

Eventually I see an article on cnn.com saying pornography on the web is a "cancer eating away at our society". What the hell?! The pornography itself doesn't mean that society is collapsing! It's the lack of caring parents!

The MSNBC technology page mentions that a memory leak has been found in Windows ME. A memory leak! That is NOT newsworthy! In software even close to the magnitude of Windows, memory leaks are relatively common! If every memory leak in large software was reported, it would even drown out the murders! Repeat after me: THIS IS NOT NEWS. THIS IS NOT NEWS!

Journalism on the web is pathetic. Utterly pathetic.

*minor topic switch* On a somewhat related note, my respect for the US government is diminishing rapidly as well.

I have a feeling that we'll have a minor revolution within the next ten years. Technology is advancing too quickly for American society. Part of the problem is that so few people understand it. Even those that *do* understand how it works don't understand the true meaning of ultimate electronic freedom.

People do what they want. People get what they want. You can't change that. I don't know the answer (never was good at predicting the future...) but the way things are going, we'll have three big companies ruling all of America. And god knows I hope it doesn't turn out that way.

postscript:

What is up with all of this anti-pornography crap in the news? Who cares? I'm sick of religious fundamentalists. YOU DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER. ADMIT IT. I don't either. Let's get that straight. The way to solve any problem is to be completely open-minded (or at least as much as our humanness will let us be) about it and evaluate all possibilities. Yes, it's hard. Yes, it takes time. Yes, you'll probably be wrong (just like all smart people are, admitting that is what makes you smart). But when we finally stumble across the answer, or at least one that works for the moment, we will *know* that it is a good one.

Hmmm, that was a rant if anything was. And Netscape 6.1 sucks when you're typing stuff in text boxes. *shudder*