I had hoped people would have learned from the Gawker disaster that requiring javascript to be able to see any content at all is a bad idea. I use the NoScript plugin in firefox and all I got was a blank screen at first.
My inbox has been flooded over the years with effusive messages about how much people like the way this works. The only people I've ever seen complain about usability are on hacker news.
Skimmer makes extensive use of standard javascript, css3, and HTML5 technologies. So I'm not sure what standards I've broken.
I think the meaning of the Gawker debacle might be open to interpretation without further data. For one thing, you should know that users with JS disabled make up a vanishingly small part of nytimes.com's readership.
And since Skimmer has enjoyed a largely enthusiastic response from readers, it stands to reason that most users are just fine with a js-heavy app. Most of our readers, anyway.
That said, if you hate this way of doing things, the entirety of nytimes.com is there for your classic web design enjoyment, and I certainly have no problem with your continuing to use it.
I would say maybe try the app for a while before you decide. Try the different layouts. Use the arrow keys. Try it on an iPad.
However, this unprofessional response from you does make me wary of it. A personal attack like this I feel was entirely uncalled for.
Second, I think this boat may be larger than you believe it to be. According to Mozilla[1], there's nearly 2 million potential browsers out there with some form of JavaScript filtering on by default. This is calculated from the number of browsers checking for updates, not from the download statistics (88 million at current writing). While other browsers[2][3] do not boast this large of a user base they are continuing to grow (3000 a week for chrome).
[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=noscript&... [2]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/odjhifogjcknibkahl... [3]: https://addons.opera.com/addons/extensions/details/notscript...