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Archives for 2004

More writing for the web stuff

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Since I just spent 45 minutes debugging the firewall, smtp server, and dns server on the machine hosting this site I don’t have time to write much about any of these sites. Nonetheless, I’ve read some or all of them and the info looks useful so I’m putting it here to remind myself to go look at it again and maybe mentally digest it too.

Phil Windley — How to Start a Blog
Features: Gar’s Tips on Sucks-Less Writing

Writing the Living Web

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A very poignant article by Mark Bernstein with blogging becoming increasingly popular.

Link: 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web

The brief list
1. Write for a reason
2. Write often
3. Write tight
4. Make good friends
5. Find good enemies
6. Let the story unfold
7. Stand up, speak out
8. Be sexy
9. Use your archives
10. Relax!

Decision Disorder(tm): The real thing?

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For years, I’ve been teasing people I know — particularly my girlfriend — about their occasional inability to make a (simple) decision. Well, this may go a long way towards explaining why those seemingly simple decisions aren’t simple at all to some people. At the same time and more or less to myself, because I never really thought about how to articulate it, I’ve suspected that the “too much choice” issue was a big part of the problems in western (I’ll add capitalist) societies.

Quoted from The tyranny of too much choice:

An article in Scientific American, titled The Tyranny of Choice has sparked a considerable debate on the web about the problems faced by western societies as a result of too much choice. In fact the idea is a very old one, I came cross it years ago but it is not mentioned very often by your every day Happiness literature which tends to talk more about internal changes that people can make to the way they think rather than factors from their external environment.

You can sum up the material prior to this article as follows:

  • The intent of advertising is to make us dissatisfied with what we have
  • If we meet people who have more than we have, or have different spending priorities or saving priorities then we tend to be dissatisfied with what we have

Click the link above to read the rest of the article at the original author’s site.

Security Theater(tm)

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I was flying from Denver to Oakland, CA last June. In the post-takeoff announcement, we were told by the flight attendant:

“For security reasons, passengers must use the lavatories in their section of the aircraft. First class has two lavatories at the front of the cabin; coach has two lavatories in the rear of the plane. Thank you for your cooperation.”

For security reasons!? The lavatory? Like the “bombs” dropped in first class are somehow more secure than those in coach class. We have executive poop now? Chief Pooping Officer? Vice Poopident? Ahem, sorry. The fumes… got to me.

Where’s Bruce Schneier when you need him. Sheesh.