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An interesting article on the possible existance of roundup ready coca plants in south america. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/columbia. html

The thing I like to pick on is their attempts to patent existing traits that have been used for generations in places like India, ect, but what would be really entertaining is watching them try to drag these "pirates" into court.

Since submitting this article yesterday there have been some new developments. There was a large debate on Nanog about what has been happening and eventually was published to wired. The full description of everything that has happened and how it happened can be found on my site at http://www.exstatica.net/hijacked/ as for irc.vel.net we have been returned our dns, but irc.mzima.net appears to still be hijacked.

Here are some better ones.

MSNBC
Wired

I think it's funny that my story has been on Slashdot twice now, and I haven't gotten credit either time.

However if it is true it's not the first time people poking fun at the Mac have had death threats; Overclockers had them when they pretended to put an Intel/Windows motherboard/system inside a G5 case and Maynor reported death threats after his Wifi debacle.

Maybe you're unaware of this, then:
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/0 5/58790
It's been tried. The monkeys mostly pissed on the keyboard and then typed five pages of the letter S.

How Does the CIPAV Work?

Declan not only ripped this story off from Wired without attribution, he got it wrong. There's no way the police could have emailed the tracking software to the kid as an attachment. Myspace doesn't allow attachments. Want to see the real story with real reporting: try the original story here: http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/07/fbi _spyware

Wired is reporting on some FbI spyware used to catch people. Wonder if any of these companies would spot and report that...

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/07/fbi _spyware

the [xbox 360] console has turned out to be the most poorly designed console in history. Nothing even comes close to the 30 to 40 percent failure rate of the 360.

Did you read the article in Wired about the guy who wore that thing for a year? That's what I was thinking of with the north thing.

Lot of enhancements don't really interest me, but that one did. If they find a way to condense something like that to an implant, I'd be willing to try it out.

This month's wired features several articles about Hyperlocality and geospatial interfacing between the web and the world:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/15-07/ff_ maps

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/15-07/loc al

Bill

This month's wired features several articles about Hyperlocality and geospatial interfacing between the web and the world:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/15-07/ff_ maps

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/15-07/loc al

Bill

Bruce Sterling wrote a similar, but even more imaginative article in Wired, about a concept which he called the hyperlocal web. The dept 'long-way-to-go' on this article is interesting in light of Sterling's piece, because in a sidebar, he basically makes the point that Google is already building all the information necessary for this sort of stuff with Google Earth. Combine that with Google's recent interest in the wireless spectrum and GPS and bam! it sorta hits you: Google's already working on this stuff. How far off are they? I guess only time will tell.

Considering Zuck did work with them, I'd say there's merit. But forget about that. Lets just look at defense for Zuckerberg.. First, even if he stole all the code, Facebook's interface has changed a lot in the past 4 years so yeah, a company that makes millions of dollars per week better probably will not have the same interface as a site created in a dorm room. Second, it's not all about looks. Assuming connectU used a 3-tier archiecture (most likely, I can't say for sure) Zuck could have stolen the database and logic tiers and created his own interface, because people would just look at the interface and say it's not the same, he didn't steal it. Considering that I can steal your interface by going to View -> Source, I'd say the interface isn't worth as much. I personally spend the least time coding web interface and more on the backend. This isn't the only lawsuit concerning stolen code...for a social network. Google's socal network, Orkut has been accused of using stolen code from Affinity Engines http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2004/06/64 046. Google denies it, when your code has he exact same bugs...there's probably merit.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/07/breaking-news- o.html

Just saw this posted on Fark. Sound Exchange, who I'm assuming are the people set to collect all the royalties, vowed in front of Congress not to enforce this against internet radio until new rates are worked out.

>But the "battlefield" by your definition is our entire country.

You replied:

This just isn't true. the battle field is anywhere the terrorists are and where they want to hurt us

Your reply did not contradict my assertion; to the contrary, you agreed with me.

Then you go on to say:

All the calls that were monitored under this program... were initiated either entirely outside the country were both callers were outside or with one party inside the country and another outside.

How do you know that? Did you actually RTFA ... which states that the Americans were communicating with the U.S. office of the org? And ... most to the point ... if there were only foreign calls being tapped, why didn't they get a warrant post facto?

Finally you write:

This case isn't about habeas corpus. I[t] was about the government complying with the law that suspended habeas corpus

That is the very type specimen of a contradiction.

P.S.: your ad hominem attacks are further proof you know you are wrong.

Did you actually read Solove's essay? Bruce Schneier, author of the Wired article, similarly challenges the "Got nothing to hide" argument on its implicit assumptions, but, unlike Solove, asserts that "Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect".

While this kind of declaration is fine when its inked on 200 year old vellum, it simply cannot be the basis of a sound argument because it is an assumption in itself and contains the same implicit assumption as the 'Nothing to Hide' argument. Solove exposes the fact that we only think we know what 'Privacy' means.

I saw that before. That's what this is all about? Girls in bikinis? What a waste of everyone's time. You could get a bigger thrill from a department store catalogue. Why don't you picket one of them.

No, my definition of borderline child porn is material produced for pedophiles, by means of deceiving children. If you had actually read my other posts, you would have known that, because I've mentioned this a number of times.

Stuff like http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2001/07/45 346.

I definitely don't oppose stuff like sexual drawings of children, because those hurt nobody.

Their choice to set up a torrent site is what brought this on.

No, their choice to leave up borderline child porn material even when people complain about it is what brought this on.

You're just scoring points against TPB who I can only assume you have a long-standng feud against.

You know what happens when you assume, &c &c. I always found them amusing before this. I liked their irreverent attitude. In this case, though, I think they are definitely in the wrong, and I would like it if they were to realize this and changed their stance on child porn.

And STILL, you have refused to describe these pictures?

You can easily go find out for yourself. Or just read something like http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2001/07/45 346.

Well, it took a few tries to parse this sentence,

Apologies for the style and tone; it's just that people quoting McNealy out of context to try and justify increased levels of government intrusion is a pet peeve of mine. I probably went a bit over the top

you think I'm too lazy to type 3 words into Google.

I'm trying not to make assumptions about you - but you sound like you're too lazy to type three words into Google. It as if you said to yourself "well, I can't remember if this was Scott McNealy, or Jonathan Schwartz, but if I just say I'm sure you all know who I mean then everyone will assume I do know, and I don't have to risk embarrasing myself by getting it wrong".

The trouble is that once people get that impression, it undermines your credibility, since the reader can't help but wonder what else you might be trying to fudge.

Think of it as feedback.

but I really didn't think I needed to cite the source, since the idea is clear.

Then don't provide a citation at all. This is Slashdot, not a paper for an IEEE conference - you don't need to cite anyone. But if you do, don't be half-hearted about it; it reflects badly on you, and weakens your credibility.

Perhaps you labor under the misconception that only "authorities" have anything of value to say?

No, but then neither do I think that Larry Niven understands astrophysics in the same depth as Stephen Hawking. If there's a debate about black holes, Hawking's opinion is going to carry more weight. If you think that Brin's opinion is as good as anyone else's, then have the courage of your convictions and say so up front. "Noted SF author David Brin makes this case far better than I ever could in a wired article from the 90s..." is all you need to write.

Don't have to. Millions of people already have.

Well, anyone who publishes their bank details and social security number on MySpace almost certainly falls into the category of "idiot" and can be safely ignored. I'll make an exception for Hasan Elahi as I will for anyone who is doing so to make a point about privacy - if you'll provide a link to the specific page. In the general case though, I don't think human ignorance and carelessness carries much weight in this debate.

And, you might enjoy the fact that some of them are actually 13!

What interests me is your disinclination to practice what you preach. You post under a pseudonym and include no personal data on your profile - not even a link to a web page. You may not value anyone else's privacy, but you certainly value your own. Oddly enough, that seems to have been Scott McNealy's attitude as well.

A famous quote by a powerful man. I don't think I need to cite source.

Why that's right. I expect everyone here knows that the quote is attributed to Scott McNealy, then CEO of Sun Microsystems. According to a reporter for Wired he was speaking at the launch of Sun's Jini technology in 1999. It's just that by saying so up front, you can avoid sounding like an insecure thirteen year old putting on a pose to try and hide the fact that he's too lazy to type three words into Google.

Again according to Wired, McNealy was commenting in response to Intel's recent U-turn regarding placing unique identifiers in each of their chips. So it more likely that McNealy's comment was self-serving, rather than indicative of his being a fount of Ethical Truth. Although in fairness, his comments do have a measure of truth in a networking context - you can't do much without leaving your IP behind you. But then again, this was also before the use of NAT gateways and dynamic IPs became quite so widespread, so even then, he doesn't have too much credibility.

Incidentally the correct quote would seem to be "you have zero privacy anyway, get over it". This at least is to McNealy's credit, since "privacy is dead" is a profoundly stupid thing to say. Privacy cannot be dead, because it was never alive. Privacy is some fragile, endangered creature that can be slain by a terrorist bomb, or by an uncaring government. Privacy is a courtesy we offer to one another. And if groups, be they government departments or struggling computer companies, should choose to withdraw this courtesy it is by their choice that they do so.

Nearly 10 years ago, an insightful author at then-amazing Wired answered this question

That would be David Brin, well known writer of science fiction. I suppose that when you say that, he loses some of the gravitas that might otherwise attach to "an insightful author". Perhaps that's why you shied away from citing Mr.McNealy as well.

That said, I have to admit that have some sympathy for Brin's views on this matter, at least as he went on to develop them in Earth. He seems to think that the problem with lack of privacy is not the lack itself, but the asymmetry of the arrangement. Various groups are allowed to know all they like about me, but I am not allowed to know anything about them. The trouble I have there is that I didn't find the picture of society in Earth particularly appealing, and I'm not at all convinced that it would work as advertised. It did make for an interesting novel, though.

I, for one, find it far more effective to deal with what is than what I'd prefer there was to work on, and the reality is that privacy is dead.

Well, I still don't think it's especially useful to anthropomorphise abstract concepts, especially ones founded in courtesy and dignity. On the other hand, if you really believe that, perhaps you'd like to show us the way forward. You could start by posting your real name, email address, age, racial background, social security number, marital status, any major illnesses, any history of family illness. Just for a start. I'm sure once we see well you fare in a post privacy world, we'll all be eager to join you.

Privacy is dead. Get over it.

A famous quote by a powerful man. I don't think I need to cite source.

But it's true, and pretending otherwise is just more head-in-the-sand thinking. What's important is what we actually DO about it. How can we prevent the bad stuff with lack of privacy from happening? Nearly 10 years ago, an insightful author at then-amazing Wired answered this question in a way I've not seen matched or beaten anywhere else.

It's not the fact of being private or not, it's what's done about it and why. If we keep pretending we have something we don't, we'll be hurt by things we didn't know were there. We couldn't deal with slavery until we acknowledged that it existed and was a problem. A smoker in denial will remain a smoker until he/she can acknowledge his/her status as a smoker.

I, for one, find it far more effective to deal with what is than what I'd prefer there was to work on, and the reality is that privacy is dead.

• If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me.
• Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition.
• Because you might do something wrong with my information.
• Who watches the watchers?
• Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

But that isn't taking into account that humans have a symbiotic relationship with some bacteria.
"The microbes that live in the human body are quite ancient," says NYU Medical Center microbiologist Dr. Martin Blaser, a pioneer in gut microbe research. "They've been selected (through evolution) because they help us."

The FDA has already approved bacteriophages to be used in a variety of settings, so there's probably a pretty good safety record.
But FDA approval can also be done in error

And if you zoom in even closer, you can just make out Kevin Bankston taking a smoke break on the coning tower.

I'd be afraid to hum since "THEY" will be able to bill you directly for it soon:

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/commentar y/listeningpost/2006/11/72105

"One of the coolest applications is the ability to identify a song over a cell phone. We're also starting to identify music used in old TV shows, so that the rights holders/artists can be paid back royalties, as well as monitoring live radio/TV broadcasts."

According to Wired (thought I'd never say that), it's even less information than that: they get the IP address, not the domain name.

So, all they may know is that subject X visited one of the 4,000 websites hosted by a particular hosting company.

Surveillance techniques that enable the government to determine not only the IP addresses that a person accesses but also the uniform resource locators (URL) of the pages visited might be more constitutionally problematic. A URL, unlike an IP address, identifies the particular document within a website that a person views and thus reveals much more information about the persons Internet activity. For instance, a surveillance technique that captures IP addresses would show only that a person visited the New York Times' website at http://www.nytimes.com/ whereas a technique that captures URLs would also divulge the particular articles the person viewed.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday in United States vs. Forester that IP addresses and the To/From fields in emails are the legal equivalent of dialed phone numbers and the government can get a court order to obtain them without showing probable cause as would be needed in a search one's house.

The Court extended to the internet a 1979 case known as Smith vs. Maryland, where the Supreme Court found that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the phone numbers they dial because they transmitted them to the phone company in order to complete the call. However, under Smith, the contents of the calls could not be listened in on without proving probable cause to a judge.

The Ninth Circuit, ruling in an appeal of an Ecstasy-drug ring conviction found that emails' To/From fields and visited IP addresses were the internet's equivalent of phone numbers. For example, the government could get a log that said a person visited to http://66.230.200.100/ (Wikipedia's address). However, the court suggested that knowing full urls are very close to content (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy) and would likely require a higher burden of proof to obtain than mere IP addresses.

From a footnote in the decision:

Professor Orin Kerr questions whether the decision is about getting this information from an ISP or whether it was from a device installed on a computer surreptitiously. He suggests the latter should require a higher standard, but I'm not sure why? Perhaps it's because that might require law enforcement to enter a person's house?

Hmm. Turns out the SF gate article is misleading. Disregard the above. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/appeals-c ourt-r.html

I think the legal standing ruling is part of a chess game as someone said. The court might have been saying "this is not a strong enough case for us to rule on, make sure you can prove you were affected and then we can rule". Of course, part of the problem with that is you would also have to show that you were wiretapped, and not the person you were conversing with. If John is talking to Terror Suspect A, and the only reason John's conversations are recorded is because TSA was tapped, John would also have no standing to sue. There is another case brewing: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007 /03/72811?currentPage=all posted on the main page as well. If W. Belew had conversations with this Al-Buthi, and the co-counsel Ghafoor had conversations with Al-Buthi, than how do they know it wasn't Al-Buthi who was wiretapped? If Al-Buthi is out of the united states, then the tapping could be covered by CIA/NSA.

And why do we still use this term "wiretapped"? Its from days when there was no wireless communication between regular people. Now, with cell phones, many (most?) calls take place over the electromagnetic spectrum. This is Public! Licensed through the FCC for commercial use. But why would anyone have any expectation of privacy when transmitting information over the "airwaves"? Anybody can listen in, as piggybackers should know.

So it's not like 10^6 is all you'll get.

Yes, it probably is all that you would get. The United States Government has a long history of seizing patents which they claim are vital to the national security interests of the United States. They usually pay the inventor some pittance sum, swear him to secrecy, and politely suggest that he get lost...perhaps not so politely if he doesn't take the hint the first time. Of course, this eliminates any chance that the inventor and his backers might have had at a market rate return on the idea or invention, but those are the breaks. If you don't believe that this can happen, then have a look at Secrecy Power Sinks Patent Case to receive your edification.

That's a whole lot of words.

Turns out that while you were writing that, The Pirate Bay removed all those torrents. Gee, I wonder why?

And here, have some more words: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2001/07/45 346

Yes, as in reading http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,45346,00.htm l. Later, I have run sites that let people on the internet upload images. I quickly learned that if you don't crack down on these people, they will quickly start overrunning your site.

Yes. From an article posted on Wired yesterday:

Wendell Belew, a lawyer who represented a now banned Ashland, Oregon Muslim charity, says the government accidentally provided him with proof his conversations were eavesdropped on without a warrant. His case has a hearing in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in August. The government wants his, and all the other cases, thrown out, arguing they endanger national security.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/appeals-c ourt-t.html

Fortunately, there's still this lawsuit, where the government accidentally sent the defendant a transcript of his own phone records obtained without a warrant.

One of the plaintiffs (seperate suit) does have proof that he was under surveillance. The Justice Department accidentally included a transcript of one of his tapped calls in some discovery materials they sent him regarding a case he was trying (he is a lawyer). Of course the justice department has moved to suppress the document as classified. Downright Helleresque.

I agree it's a fascinating question, I don't know of any other cases, and don't have time to do all the research right now. There's an interesting Wired article about a case where standing won't be an issue (because the government accidentally gave the plaintiff a transcript of one of his own phone calls!). So I suppose it's possible that that case could be used to decide the constitutionality of the program without needing to resolve the standing issue.

Can you link to this UO thing you mention?

I can -- now that I got the author's name correct. It was actually written by Elizabeth Kolbert and titled "Pimps and Dragons." No longer on the New Yorker's site, but found a copy here:

Pimps and Dragons

This article from Wired is also interesting:

The Unreal Estate Boom

As far as post-scarcity economies, isn't that Cory Doctorow's speciality? (Haven't read the novel in question -- nor remember it's name off-hand.) Another perspective, from the Sweepers Calendar:

As soon as the artificial problem of scarcity is finally eradicated, economics will immediately turn to the dangerous problem of superabundance. States will fall into turmoil as people riot for want of absolutely nothing. And the leisure class will be distinguished not by its conspicuous exhibition of affluence, but by a fashionable hint of the mildest deprivation.

If you look at Joshua Davis' past articles on Hans (here and here, you'll see that he has been quite sympathetic to Hans' plight. Yet this particular article is much more ambivalent. I suspect the explanation for why this most recent story seems a bit confusing, and the author some what ambivalent, is that his sympathies and opinions about Hans' guilt or innocent have shifted over time.

I was contacted by the author in late March to give background information on the technical facts in the article, and he has never claimed that he was a technical person or in possession of a geek badge. My input into the story was solely on things like "what is a b-tree", and to eliminate the really embarrassing technical errors and misconceptions that the author might have had. At one point I believe the Joshua Davies wanted to put a spin on the "geek tragedy" that Reiser4 was this ground-breaking filesystem with great ideas that was languishing because its author/architect was languishing in fail. So I was given entire paragraphs of technical detail where I had to say, "no that's wrong," and "no, not quite", etc., etc. As far as whether or not Reiser4 was great, ground-breaking filesystem, I tried very hard to give both sides of the story --- that some people would say it was great, and other people would say that Hans had a tendency to fudge benchmarks ---- and I made it very clear that some people might consider that my views were biased, due to my past and continuing work on the ext2/3/4 filesystem, and that the author should definitely contact other people and get their opinions. So I disclosed all, which in my opinion was the only responsible thing to do, and I tried to be very, very careful about labelling what was fact and what was opinion.

(I'm of the opinion that if you want better technical understanding by journalists, if someone approaches you requesting background information and promises that you won't be quoted, you should spend time educating them about technical details, since that's the only way we can improve technical accuracy in reporting. Another interesting thing which I learned is that while Wired rights about subjects at are of interests to geeks, they do not assume that their articles will be written by geeks and they pitch their articles to be understandable by the general public; also, that most of their writers are not geeks themselves. All not surprising if you think about it a little, and especially if you reflect that the intersection of strong technical clue and strong writing skills is pretty rare.)

In the end, the story was about as good as you might expect. The facts of the story are confusing, as there were and there are no clear heroes and several suspicions and deeply flawed human beings that could possibly be villains but for which we can't really say for sure. There are no obvious technical errors in the story, except for one that I noticed, where the word registry is misused and should have been replaced with "data structure" instead: "It contains a single registry -- known as a balanced tree -- to organize every piece of data in the operating system". A lot of the details about reiserfs and reiser4 was ultimately cut out, as being not very relevant to the storyline that Joshua ultimately chose to tell.

I have to say that having spent several hours talking to Joshua Davies, and talking to his editor who spent a lot of time doing fact checking on the technical details and background, that both he and his editor have my respect seekers of truth. He went into this with point of view that I believe was very, very sympathetic to Hans, and it would have been very easy to turn this into a stock storybook story with the police cast as the cardboard, clueless villians, and Hans the hero languishing in jail, the victim of said clueless Keystone Kops. But he didn't do that. He

If you look at Joshua Davis' past articles on Hans (here and here, you'll see that he has been quite sympathetic to Hans' plight. Yet this particular article is much more ambivalent. I suspect the explanation for why this most recent story seems a bit confusing, and the author some what ambivalent, is that his sympathies and opinions about Hans' guilt or innocent have shifted over time.

I was contacted by the author in late March to give background information on the technical facts in the article, and he has never claimed that he was a technical person or in possession of a geek badge. My input into the story was solely on things like "what is a b-tree", and to eliminate the really embarrassing technical errors and misconceptions that the author might have had. At one point I believe the Joshua Davies wanted to put a spin on the "geek tragedy" that Reiser4 was this ground-breaking filesystem with great ideas that was languishing because its author/architect was languishing in fail. So I was given entire paragraphs of technical detail where I had to say, "no that's wrong," and "no, not quite", etc., etc. As far as whether or not Reiser4 was great, ground-breaking filesystem, I tried very hard to give both sides of the story --- that some people would say it was great, and other people would say that Hans had a tendency to fudge benchmarks ---- and I made it very clear that some people might consider that my views were biased, due to my past and continuing work on the ext2/3/4 filesystem, and that the author should definitely contact other people and get their opinions. So I disclosed all, which in my opinion was the only responsible thing to do, and I tried to be very, very careful about labelling what was fact and what was opinion.

(I'm of the opinion that if you want better technical understanding by journalists, if someone approaches you requesting background information and promises that you won't be quoted, you should spend time educating them about technical details, since that's the only way we can improve technical accuracy in reporting. Another interesting thing which I learned is that while Wired rights about subjects at are of interests to geeks, they do not assume that their articles will be written by geeks and they pitch their articles to be understandable by the general public; also, that most of their writers are not geeks themselves. All not surprising if you think about it a little, and especially if you reflect that the intersection of strong technical clue and strong writing skills is pretty rare.)

In the end, the story was about as good as you might expect. The facts of the story are confusing, as there were and there are no clear heroes and several suspicions and deeply flawed human beings that could possibly be villains but for which we can't really say for sure. There are no obvious technical errors in the story, except for one that I noticed, where the word registry is misused and should have been replaced with "data structure" instead: "It contains a single registry -- known as a balanced tree -- to organize every piece of data in the operating system". A lot of the details about reiserfs and reiser4 was ultimately cut out, as being not very relevant to the storyline that Joshua ultimately chose to tell.

I have to say that having spent several hours talking to Joshua Davies, and talking to his editor who spent a lot of time doing fact checking on the technical details and background, that both he and his editor have my respect seekers of truth. He went into this with point of view that I believe was very, very sympathetic to Hans, and it would have been very easy to turn this into a stock storybook story with the police cast as the cardboard, clueless villians, and Hans the hero languishing in jail, the victim of said clueless Keystone Kops. But he didn't do that. He

For the record, I've seen it once or twice; usually it was flaky DNS and a client that didn't cache properly. If you can't resolve images.slashdot.org, for instance, you have to wait a second or two until you can resolve it. Telling the browser to cache CSS pages "for a long time" doesn't often help, because in the event of failure, all that got cached after the delay is "503 - there ain't no images.slashdot.org", and if the DNS failure was transient, that's worse, because, the browser isn't necessarily gonna retry!

But to answer the meta-question, yes, it was brought up as a pathological example to illustrate the principle that requiring dozens of TCP/IP connections to multiple hosts (www.foo.com, images.foo.com, css.foo.com, a dozen "providers" of ads, assuming those aren't already pre-emptively blocked) equals more ways for things to fail.

> Because a) you were fine with the font size that was trendy with designers a decade ago and b) you aren't fine with the font size that is trendy with designers today.

That'd be fine! Tongue-in-cheek, I'd just make it "one <font size> smaller" or "one <font size> bigger". It seems that what's trendy with designers today is either (a) fonts that render as 4x6 pixel globs, or (b) font choices that show up as 8x12-pixel hugeness (1920x1600, 96dpi), with no middle ground. What's trendy with designers seems to be "whatever's either too big or too small, use anything but the default!", which makes no sense to me.

> No, the problem is incompetence. There's no make-this-unreadable: extra-web-2.0 !important CSS property, the defaults are sensible and CSS is explicitly designed for end-user control. The problem is that designers are choosing to make their designs this way. Sure, with one hand tied behind their back they aren't able to fuck things up in precisely the same way as they can today, but that's not the point is it?

No argument there. Georgia's a great font, but I'd rather see things fall back to Times Roman, where at least it looks half-decent at all sizes on all platforms. This guy's rant from 7 years ago puts it better than I did.

Here's another article with some screenshots that illustrate the problem. Those screenshots don't look too bad... but the differences would be greatly magnified at even one "font size" smaller. Augh.