The 35th Precinct

Damn, but Microsoft sucks. I haven't used MSN Messenger in years, but Roomie has Windows Live on his machine, and it's a devious conglomerate of poorly conceived, bug-infested code that rolls out the red carpet for every skulduggerous, maleficent, life-robbing and computer-killing virus and trojan on the Internet. It works fine until Microsoft rolls out a new version, and then it rips down its pants, whips out its suppurating, vector-ridden dong that oozes trouble like pus, and skullfucks your OS into submission while crooning, "I love you, baby. Now buy me the bling, whore, or I'll make you bleed."

Hey, Microsoft should hook up with Livejournal, Inc. Those two could have Klingon sex that would make Gor enthusiasts whimper in broken horror, because there are no greater masters of the unlubed ass fucking than Microsoft and LJ Inc./SUP.

In the past week, Windows Live has caused the taskbar to disappear/rearrange taskbars, frozen the OS, and attempted to install programs through the MS-DOS prompt. Roomie went through all files/programs created in the past month and nuked anything suspicious. In doing so, he found and removed 2 ad-targeting and data-mining programs that had miraculously installed themselves.

We had a hunch Windows Live might be the culprit because disaster only strikes when that program runs, so Roomie decided to use Meebo.com instead to see what happened.

The computer ran like Jesse Owens, smooth and fast. No hangups, no magically disappearing taskbar, no stealth dialog boxes attempting to forcibly install Adobe Flash or Ad Zapper or ID Theft Made EZ by Haxx0rz Inc. Just a purring computer.

Oh, Microsoft, why must you suck so hard and so sloppily? Hijacking and crashing your users' OS until they upgrade to the latest version of your buggy messenger is scummy and counterproductive. Rather than convince me to upgrade today without delay, such nefarious tactics make me want to go Mac and never look back.

Assholes.

Speaking of assholes, the sneaky lot at LJ/SUP have banned/removed the following terms from their list of searchable interests:

Porn
Sex
Fanfiction and various permutations thereof
yaoi
hentai

Rumor has it that "girls" and "boys" have also been removed, but I haven't tested any of these for myself. I ganked the information from stewardess' LJ.

Since they cannot prise us from their ranks without causing immediate uproar, the SUP braintrusts have opted to make us invisible by the blanket exclusion of these terms. That way, they can pander to ad executives without fear of the skittish pencil pushers being exposed to the more bizarre or extreme products of fandom, like say, Whomping Willow/Ford Anglia tailpipe sex. They've stuffed us into the basement to appeal to the vapid "family values" crowd who don't like to be confronted with any perspective not their own.

On a distantly-related note, I'm dourly amused by the hue and cry over the recent decision to eliminate Basic accounts without notice and force all new users to submit to the presence of ads on their journals. It's horrible and underhanded, but it was inevitable the minute ads were introduced. Ads are everywhere, and I've no doubt that within a year, Paid and Permanent accounts will have them as well. The days of the Internet as a free, egalitarian utopia are drawing to an end, and I've no doubt that within five years, most of the Internet will be pay-to-view, with subscriptions and tiered fees.

Sadly, the Internet Eden was doomed the nanosecond some pimple-faced nerd made his first million from it. After that, it was every greedy businessman for himself to see who could plunder it faster and deeper. The Internet Golden Age is fading, and soon, even the porn will be buried beneath an avalanche of ads for Viagra and Ford and FreeCreditReport.com(which is only free if you pay for it, by the way; figure that one out).

Ads are ubiquitous. There is no escape. I remember when the only thing preceding the movies in theaters was the preview reel, and when the perk of a DVD was the lack of ads. When I went to 10,000 B.C., I was subjected to fifteen minutes of advertising, not including the thirty-minute pre-show of "hot, new music" by artists of whom I'd never heard and never wanted to hear again when I did. Nor did that include the fifteen minutes of previews. Add that all up, and it's sixty minutes of commercial barrage before I got the product I paid for.

An hour of being bombarded with the constant exhortation to buy, buy, buy. It's mind-breaking, and eventually, you buy something just to shut off the constant sales pitch. As if that works. Five minutes later, they're touting the next geegaw. And the next. And the next.

One day soon, those awful, ever-whispering seashells from Fahrenheit 451 will be a terrible reality, and when that day comes, I'll succumb to the lure of the gun barrel.

But until then, I'll be here on LJ, watching its sad decline from vibrant if wanktastic social network to tacky, eye-scalding vehicle for ads and the bland, unquestioning glop of the puritanical American hive mind mentality of more violence and intolerance and fewer facts of life.

But hey, at least the children will be protected from the filthy evils of sex and won't be at all confused when they pop a chubby while blowing out a stranger's brains in a Best Buy parking lot.

Ain't America grand?

Here is my Insanejournal. It won't be my permanent home until LJ completes its spectacular collapse, but my entries are mirrored there.