I was reading The Talent Myth, an article by the current business philosophy guru Malcom Gladwell when I noticed a link on the bottom of his site to the web design firm Cavil.com. Apparently, Cavil’s croanies saw computer movies like Hackers and actually decided the artsy and useless sites that always show up in said movies are the way to go. It has been a long time since I have seen an artsy web design company that propogates mystery meat navigation. Most died off before or shortly after the dot com boom. Cavil, though, takes itself very seriously. The title of the page is “Cavil, an internet concern.” What kind of arrogant, pretensious title is that? If I didn’t know the site was about web design before I went to it, I’m not sure I would have figured out what they do.

I managed to find my way to Cavil’s site portfolio. On all of their sites, you are forced to poke-and-hope, relying on the little hand that your cursor turns into so you know where to click. That’s such crap. And if I were to question Cavil about their design practices, I would probably be told that I “Just don’t get it.” That’s the same mentality that caused Apple Computer to nearly tank in the late 80s/early 90s.

Why am I so upset over one little site like Cavil? I guess it’s because the same pompous asses who run places like Cavil seem to be able to get on TV and spread loads of crap about what freedom really is. They gladly sit around and protest animal cruelty and the evils of wearing brand-name tennis shoes. And at the end of all the whining, they’ll throw in something about how they create websites to “express themselves.” It irks me that people like that get to shape what a computer geek is all about, yet as long as sites like Cavil appear on a high-profile site like Gladwell’s such garbage won’t die because it will continue to generate hits. Generation of hits fuels these freaks into believing that what they create is quality. It never ends. Anyway…

On a very positive note, if I survive tomorrow, I will have offically completed my first year of teaching! It’s been a wild rollercoaster ride. I’m glad I went into teaching, though. I think I have actually helped a few students learn to think, even though they hated my guts while I was guiding them to that point. I must have gotten much more strict this semester. I failed 17% of my students (compared to only 7% last semester), not because I’m mean, but because they wouldn’t show up and/or do any work. I really don’t like failing people, but the expectations were clear from day one. I wish the students wouldn’t force me to drop the hammer, but I’m not losing any sleep over it.