OE

What is OE?

OE is, simply put, an attempt to be critical of things.

What things? Everything. Anything. I will probably begin with web sites, because currently I’m in a web site sort of mood. I’ll also discuss books, magazine publications, movies, music, food dishes from particular restaurants, and generally things that I like. I will try to make my reviews as comprehensive as I can. At the same time, I will aim to make them continuously interesting.

Why? Part of it is because I’m very talkative. I think about things a lot, and I talk about it to people quite a bit. I feel like writing about it might make me slightly less of a pest in real life.

Part of it is because I’m really fascinated with various aspects of design. I like the way a site works as much as I like the way it looks. I like looking at the smaller details of sites. I feel like not enough attention is placed on the little details.

Part of it is because I’m trying to learn how to focus my writing a bit more. I’m awful at writing nonfiction. I ramble, unfocused, for pages. I hate revising my nonfiction, because I hate reading it. I think that’s a problem worth fixing.

Back around February, I wrote an article that tried to discuss the way art works on the Internet. I feel like I did a poor job of it: I digressed from my discussion to criticize two web sites for their design flaws. This site is to criticize those sites as a standalone bit, so that I can refine my various other articles and cut those bits out.

How? In looking at things, the first thing I do is to decide whether or not what I’m examining is worthwhile or not. This is, I will admit, entirely arbitrary. Is a site really worth somebody’s checking out? Is a book not even worth picking up? If something is worthwhile, then it gets either an A or a B rating. If it’s not, it gets a C or a D rating. (I will not review things that would warrant an F. Most F ratings are poems written by high schoolers, anyway.)

A and B items will get their exact rating based on just how much they do wrong. C and D items, conversely, will get their exact rating based on what, if anything, they do right.

A more exact scale is as follows:

An A+ indicates that whatever I’m reviewing is flawless. Yes, everything can always be better. An A+ means that it succeeds at whatever it attempts. If an item doesn’t have an essential feature, it is not an A+ product. If it adds on a nonessential feature but that feature doesn’t work, it is not an A+ product.

A products are usually just a notch below A+ products.

A- indicates excellence, but it also indicates that either there is something wrong with the product or that the product is not an absolute essential.

B+ means that the product is failing at something important, despite its being extremely good nonetheless.

B products are definitely worth checking out, though they are most likely not essential.

B- products are lacking in multiple areas. They’re most likely the sort that will appeal to a limited audience.

C+ means that something may not be bad, but that it’s not good, either. If something does anything particularly well, it will most likely be given at least a C+.

C products are fairly generic and most likely not worth it.

C- means that things are unacceptably poor.

D products are the sorts that do noting new and fail even at that. They are reviewed either to relieve stress or to amuse the reader.

F products either use animated rainbow gradients for backgrounds, or contain grammatical errors.

Who? My name is Rory Marinich. Links to various blogs of mine can be found at the bottom of each post. At the time of this writing, I am about to graduate high school. My goal in life is to do everything better than everybody else has done it before, so I figured I’d start early. I registered the domain omegaseye.com when I thought the word “Omega” made a site cool. Omegaseye.com was an F site.