Sysloggin' one day at a time.
By Jim
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!
By Jim
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:
Click the link above to read the rest of the article at the original author’s site.
By Jim
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.
By Jim
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.
By Jim
In Article 2b4asr$b7r@syzygy.socs.uts.edu.au, mjcherka@socs.uts.EDU.AU
(Mark J Cherkas) wrote:
–
– I am new to this group so bear with this beginners question:
– Why is the answer 42 ?
– Has Douglas Adams ever explained this ?
–
–The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ’42 will do’ I typed it out. End of story.
Best,
Douglas Adams London, UK | dna@dadams.demon.co.uk (dormant) Currently in Santa Fe, NM | adamsd@nic.cerf.net (current)