Dumbing Down the Web

If the Web is going to replace print, get ready for some real dumbing down. Apprently some publishers who put reviews on the Web (among them a former print mag or two) figure that Web surfers are functionally illiterate, and in terms of text require nothing more than strings of characters next to images and ads. It's kind of an insult to those of us who grew up on real magazines and books.

I was browsing hardware reviews earlier today, and much of what I encountered made about as much sense as this:

"So, I got this thing, I'm cool, and you plug this gadget into your computer, and set your phone next unto it, plug in your refrigerator, initiate windowed XMODEM protocol and wait for the furnace to switch on your printer's FAX unit. So then the USB chukka boots plan nose hair down to the CCITT RS232C diagram."

Really.