Andy Rankin

It’s becoming clear to me that the main reason I blog is to give myself a platform for complaining about things.  So, here I go…

I won’t bother complaining about Twitter going down all the time.  Maybe it doesn’t even go down that often anymore.  Anyway, it never bothered me that much - I figure you get what you pay for.  However, when Twitter’s down and they throw up the now famous Fail Whale what gets me in the little message that says that they’re having a problem but that they should be back up within an hour.  An hour from when?  Each time you load the page the hour starts again?  An hour from an unknown point in time when Fail Whale popped up?  I understand that they don’t actually know when the problem will be fixed but does the “we’ll be back within an hour” really fool anyone?  Just leave it out.

Here’s another thing that bugs me: undated web content.  The web is cool.  I really love it.  People put stuff up on the web all the time.  There’s a ton of stuff out there (seriously - try “surfing” around for a while and see if you can ever get to the end of the internet).  Anyway, here’s my bit of advice: when you write something and put it up on the internet please put a date on it.  It’s going to be up there forever.  Future generations (or a guy 3 years later) will read your crap and wonder when it was written.  Give that guy (me) a hint by putting a date on your crap.