bookmarklets on iphone/ipad safari

will not require 9-step installation workarounds that end in gentle seething. when i am king, this is how it will be.

hot water for tea

should never be served in a container that has been used for coffee or any other hot drink. the most carefully grown teas in the world are no match for the ghost of stale coffee grounds. expensive restaurants and their catering staff should know better. on pain of pain, etc.

slides

should be replicated for sequencing, so that presenters need not page backwards and forth through an enormous deck, muttering "i know the slide is in here somewhere...ah! here it is...no, i guess that's not it. well, i'll just talk through it," all the livelong day.

back/forth navigation buttons on sequential web content

should be locked in the same absolute location within the window, so that different-sized content doesn't make the user have to refocus on the navigation to proceed with the sequence. and while i'm here, to the power-washers stripping the paint off the building next door who are starting up the compressor now, at 5.45am EST: who do you think will be first against the wall when i am king, etc?

jars containing fluids or suspensions

of any viscosity will be required to have wide mouths and no shoulders, such that never again will anyone be late for an early meeting because the last droplets of honey were trapped in the rounded shoulder of the honey jar, beyond the reach of even the bendiest spoon.

sick people

will be banned from public spaces, classrooms, and places of work.
when i am king, etc.

after-dinner caffeinated beverages

for prohibitively expensive meals will be gratis and well-made. and if not well-made, omitted. needless to say, if neither gratis nor well-made, the proprietor of the establishment should know that he is unwelcome in the kingdom, on pain of pain. when i am king, etc.

blog feeds

will feature truncated posts only if the truncation takes the form of a summary abstract or if the post consists mostly of bandwidth-intensive content (like autoplay videos, yet another no-no), such that never again will readers have to "click here" to read the article, thus disrupting their laboriously-streamlined feed reader strategy. when i am king, etc.

URLs

should be linked to rather than merely described, so that never again will i visit a webpage (page A) only to be told to visit another webpage (page B) to click on a link (to page C) that could have been linked to directly from page A. especially when the link to page C on page B has been moved to a different section of page B entirely. are you confused yet? i can't even describe it with my usual crispness and concision, is how ridiculous this is. this is a more general form of the last tirade, about attribution hyperlinks. when i am king, etc. 

attribution hyperlinks

will link to resources about the referent that are either appropriately canonical or intended to be so (yes, wikipedia sort of counts), such that quality data is always as few clicks away as possible. indeed this is an obscure edict but, when i am king, this is how it shall be. 

downloadable documents

will have filenames that provide decent, human-readable clues to what the documents actually are, instead of automatically-generated and meaningless jumbles of letters and numbers.

autoplay

will be disabled by default on all rich media, without exception.

type

office computers used by minor functionaries will have only a few typefaces installed, all of which will be good ones. comic sans and paintbrush will be banned, on pain of pain, and text will be either underlined or emboldened for emphasis, never both. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

attachments

will be stored as blobs with persistent and unique IDs within a service and linked to rather than attached, to prevent the constant replication of identical files. when i am king, etc.

price stickers

will be coated with adhesives that adhere firmly but detach easily with force applied in a 45-degree angle, and without leaving behind a layer of gummy crud that somehow always turns black and can never be removed except with mineral spirits or a product such as goo-gone. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

misuse of words

will be punishable by extreme pain and public shaming. no longer will words like "hoard" and "horde," or "discreet" and "discrete," be interchanged with impunity, especially in academic journals that should know better. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

journals

will be required to publish digital versions that are suitable for online reading. this means no double (or triple) column layouts, no 2-inch wide columns, a text-layer that contains wrapping text, and type optimized for pixelation (so none of this garamond bullshit). when i am king, this is how it shall be.

garbage can lids

will be built so that they do not detach from the rest of the can at the slightest provocation, to be left for the next conscientious individual to reaffix with much gnashing of teeth. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

PDFs

will have text layers that only break at paragraphs, such that copying and pasting from them will no longer be an enormous pain. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

e-book readers

will be light, compact, thin, and will not have keyboards. they will permit annotation layers and accept PDFs of all types from all sources. they will also be inexpensive and have a long battery life. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

bottles with dripless pourtops

will not drip when liquids are poured from them. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

teflon

will be banned from kitchens by royal decree and all subjects trained to properly season and maintain cast iron pans, skillets, griddles, and the like. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

pots and pans

will be of sturdy construction, not this flimsy aluminum junk, without plastic knobs or handles, such that stews started on the stove and finished in the oven will no longer occasion muttered cusswords and mid-course changes of cookware. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

ground meat

will be frozen in 1/2 pound blocks separated by wax paper immediately after it returns from the grocery store, such that those returning home after a day of looking forward to really fantastic burgers with homemade curry paste only to discover that they'd accidentally put the beef cubes in the refrigerator to defrost the night before need never again microwave defrost four pounds of ground sirloin. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

plastic tumblers

shall be replaced with ones made of glass or ceramic. no one will
drink out of cracked and hazy plastic to which grease and slime sticks
persistently when other options are available at just a small price
premium. special dispensation will be granted to parents of small
children on condition that their cups be made of BPA-free
polycarbonate resin, polypropylene, or the like.

disposable cutting boards

shall be outlawed, their flimsy, multicoloured plastic never again to
sully any kitchen. their purchasers too will be tortured in
interesting ways and made to use cutting blocks of decent size and
honest construction. when i am king, this is how it shall be.

soup bowls

shall be small in diameter, yet deep, such that never again will
oatmeal overflow in the microwave while unattended. when i am king,
this is how it shall be.

sinks

when i am king, manufacturers of sinks will make the little drain channel for the built-in soapdish lower than the lowest point in the soapdish, such that the stagnant, scum-filled pools of today will be a distant memory. when i am king, this is how it will be.

isolated coatrooms

when i am king, restaurants will have coatrooms with filtered air sources and positive air pressure such that i will never again have to smell all day the tandoori chicken that was so good at lunch.

whole grain noodles

when i am king, manufacturers of whole grain udon noodles will be compelled to make them flavourful. when i am king, this is how it shall be.