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

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!

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.

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

Test here

My results. It’s odd, my g/f and I were just having a discussion earlier today and she referred to some group of people as hippies; what she didn’t know was, I rather identified with that group.
20 questions.

Wackiness: 34/100
Rationality: 50/100
Constructiveness: 60/100
Leadership: 50/100

You are a SECF–Sober Emotional Constructive Follower. This makes you a Hippie.

You are passionate about your causes and steadfast in your commitments. Once you’ve made up your mind, no one can convince you otherwise. Your politics are left-leaning, and your lifestyle choices decidedly temperate and chaste.

You do tremendous work when focused, but usually you operate somewhat distracted. You blow hot and cold, and while you normally endeavor on the side of goodness and truth, you have a massive mean streak which is not to be taken lightly. You don’t get mad, you get even.

Please don’t get even with this web site.