Blog has Widget Fever

I added some cool new widgets to the blog, like view counts and re-tweet buttons and more pictures.

Then I accessed it. U G H.  S l o w !

These wigjies slow the page download intolerably.  This is what creates "e-waste"... media which uses up lots of central processor unit (CPU) chip space and RAM space without adding significantly to the user experience.  Our readers in Egypt, Ghana, South Africa etc. will be better off if I disable and remove some of these frills.

I didn't mean to create ewaste.  But the blogger widgets serve a lesson about Moore's law - capacity of the chip is just an opportunity, it's how the media uses up that capacity which obsoletes the product.

When I first met Paul Roszel, of Recycle.Net, I introduced myself and complimented him on how his site remained very accessible to people in low-bandwidth countries.   Compared to Alibaba, RecycleInMe, Exporters.com.Sg, and other sites I use, Recycle.Net is not the flashiest, but the lack of javascript is something appreciated by the same folks in Africa who buy working, repairable and "good enough" reuse products.  Craigslist follows the same philosophy, reader-friendly regardless of bandwidth or chip speed.

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