Why Dilbert, why?

The Dilbert site was recently overhauled. This Slashdot post covers the general reaction: Dilbert Goes Flash, Readers Revolt.

Gone is the old, rather clunky but perfectly functional, website, replaced by a Flash-heavy website that only Mordac the Preventer of Information Services could love. Users have been pretty unanimous in condemning the changes. Among the politer comments: 'Congrats. Vista is no more lonely at the top in the Competition For The Worst Upgrade In Computing Industry, this web site upgrade being a serious contender.'

More here and in the comments on the site itself like:

You have got to be kidding me. It takes 4 clicks to read a sunday strip? How did this ever seem like a good idea? You should have professionals design your website. This looks like a "look-what-I-can-do" theme site created by a novice intern who just learned how to use Flash.

Personally I agree that the site's usability is worse, if only for the slow loading flash. For me, the big new feature where readers can rewrite the strips is useless. I couldn't care less what the random public thinks is funny. Like many people I want to go to read the strip easily every morning and catch up easily on missed strips, like the weekends on Monday morning.

Thankfully, the design does seem to have one huge positive, an RSS feed. For some reason it's not promoted on the site itself so I had to learn about it from some blog post I found while searching for people trashing the new design. I'll always take a feed over a daily site visit and now I can completely avoid Dilbert.com. So only because of the feed I REALLY LIKE THE NEW DESIGN - assuming the feed remains as is - which, as with most good things, it almost certainly won't.

Blue Jeans vs. the Monster

Blue Jeans Cable Strikes Back - Response to Monster Cable

Not long ago we reported that Monster Cable had issued a cease and desist letter to Blue Jeans Cable about their Tartan cables. Little did the lawyer drones over at Monster know that Kurt Denke, the president of Blue Jeans was, in a former life, a lawyer by trade. Oops!

I really like Blue Jeans Cable and have purchased a lot of cable from them. They believe in science, engineering, and being honest about manufacturing source. Monster is the more typical cable company that uses hyperbole and mystery to sell the same hardware at far higher prices. There's nothing wrong with Monster cables functionally, just that they'll sell you a $180 HDMI cable when you would get the same result from a $5 cable.

So big Monster (the bad guy) sends a threatening letter to little Blue Jeans (the good guy). The little good guy is fighting back.

Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law

And the season 4 winner of the R&D Poker League is

Me