Hi! My name is SO-AND-SO and I've been put on earth to correct you.

freeko is fond of pointing out that people that post unrequested corrections to other people’s posts tend to ignore the point being made by the post. When he points this out I imagine a scene where someone is on fire, about to die, screaming, “help me! Oh shit! Help me I’m fucking on fire! Help me I’m burning to death, won’t you help me! You got a fire extinguisher on you?” and the other person (the one not on fire) replies, “You mean ‘Do I have a fire extinguisher?’. “Got” should be “have” and “on you” isn’t proper grammar, and is redundant if you consider the beginning of the sentence.”

And the person dies.

However, I have a new idea. A new reply to this.

Ever seen a man and woman talking and suddenly the woman says, “Stop looking at my breasts! When you talk with me look at my face!” and the guy is embarrassed because he really hasn’t been paying attention to WHAT the woman has been saying. Women I’ve talked with say that it’s bad enough when a guy does that, but it’s freakin’ annoying when a guy does it to the extreme and isn’t even listening to what the woman is saying.

And that, my friends, is my new analogy for people ignoring what someone has written and instead points out grammatical and spelling mistakes.

I hope to start a new trend. When someone corrects your grammar rather than responding to what you’ve said or written, blurt out ‘OH MY GOD WOULD YOU STOP LOOKING AT MY TITS!!!”

And make it a link to this post. Really. If we all do it, the Googlerank will be awesome.

end-to-end principle of the internet

http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003161.shtml

So everyone is hotly contesting questions about Internet governance. I know lots are conflicted about this. But notice some good news from the Europeans: The European Statement to the United Nations explicitly mentions and defends the “end-to-end” principle.

Erik Fair must be extremely happy.