No, the confession won't shock you, our programmers just aren't that bad at least as far as I know. I'll let you know when that changes. Still, the headline is piquing our curiosity and may lead to a most annoying phenomenon.
Possibly everyone uses free, ad-based services on the Internet. Whether it's email, sports results or current news, nearly every free offer relies on ads for financing. This shouldn't be a problem, it's simple give-and-take and no-one would offer a service out of charity alone. But that's just pure theory as long as an essential element is missing: common sense. In this case that means a reasonable dose of advertising.
Do you consider yourself vain? I don't. We're supposed to age gracefully, live in harmony with ourselves and not be vain as that would be foolish we're taught from early on.
But looking at profile pictures in social networks I can't help but wonder how all of these people can look so pretty darn perfect. How can my neighbor that rather resembles Martin Luther suddenly ooze the glamor of Sharon Stone? What happened to the impressing double chin of my former work mate? And where did the wrinkles of my former training supervisor go? Looking at my own pictures I get the distinct feeling that something has changed.
I recently saw a woman get interviewed on TV about her son-in-law. What kind of a person he was, if they were getting along and whether she approved of her daughter's choice. After an agonizingly long pause she remarked:"Well, he knows his way around computers. That can come in handy." That's the good thing about knowing your way around computers. At least you can make yourself useful every once in a while, forget about character. Computer specialists are the unsung heroes even if all they do is reboot a machine, terminate a process or perform a Flash update. Savor these moments because there's a (incredibly annoying) downside to all of this!
Do you like humans? Every human? Kudos to anyone who can answer yes to both questions! A friend of mine postulated that 50% of humanity is made up of disgruntled individuals, an extreme view, admittedly. But it's feasible, especially when you take a closer look at social networks. What was originally a meeting place for nerds has become a representative cross-section of our society, pros and cons notwithstanding. Still, it's quite easy to figure out what type of person you're dealing with....