a broken mold

This is a productivity tip.

When you want to get something done (even if you don’t actually want to do whatever it is), either do it or schedule a time to do it.

If what you want to get done comes to mind, nail it on the spot.

If you can’t do it then or think another time really would be better, schedule it. I recommend setting a reminder with Google Calendar or some other such reminder mechanism. When it’s time to do it, do it. If something else came up or partway through you find you don’t have enough time to finish, set another time. Stay on it. Don’t let the reminder sit. Do it or trash the reminder. Ignored reminders are useless.

Update: Just wanted to say, these aren’t like the tenets of blogging I live by or something like that, they’re just what I could think of upon sitting down to think about it.

I write because I have things to say. Probably I think these things are not immediately obvious or thought about by everyone. Or perhaps some things are merely simple reminders or a fresh view on something.

I write publicly to share. To share my thoughts, to provoke contemplation and discussion.¹

I write to practice. One can often become discouraged comparing themselves to those they admire (for me, famous bloggers who write well like John Gruber, Anil Dash, etc. Not that I’m particularly a fan of those two, but it’s a culture and medium I like). But of course, one only becomes better at an art by doing it, and so I am here.

I write because I think what I write is worth reading. I don’t write copy. I write content (or try). No content = no post (with minor exceptions). Even if I do just “come up” with posts instead of them coming to me.

Why a blog? It’s linear. It’s a story. It’s a continuous outlet. Unlike some other types of publications, there is one thing it’s not, though: predictably published, something I like. It may have a pace, a predictable rhythm of sorts, but not a schedule per se. It’s a bit more freeflow that way.

I write because I want people to read what I write. I want them to laugh or think or be sad. I want them to be affected. Isn’t that why everybody writes, to affect? Even if it’s a textbook, the idea is to change by adding knowledge and know-how. What are blog comments then? Responses. And (see the footnote), if I disable comments, people who really feel strongly about what I have written might take up the pen themselves. It’s about effect, or at least it should be, more than comments or page views. If it has no effect, what is its worth?

And thus I want some readers, because that means people who keep coming back to hear what I say, and thus can be affected. Therefore, I should be worth it. Like I said before, no content, no post.

I am pleased to announce that Anna Hurley and Caleb Blume have passed the one and a half month mark at abm and are now here (more) officially (in some way or manner). Congrats.

I suppose I should also be announcing this somewhat sheepishly since I forgot about it and realized it today, a few days late. But you didn’t know that. So forget you read this paragraph.

Today I am starting a project. It is simply writing at least one post every two weeks. Forcing myself to write. I plan to keep it up at least until I graduate (June 5th).

As per Merlin Mann’s description of a good blog, I think the posts will mostly be about technology and spiritual/life issues, things which I think about somewhat often. The relevant quote:

Good blogs are the product of “Attention times Interest.” A blog shows me where someone’s attention tends to go. Then, on some level, they encourage me to follow the evolution of their interest through a day or a year. There’s a story here. Ethical “via” links make it easy for me to follow their specific trail of attention, then join them for a walk made out of words.

And there’s just a little bit more. I shall do my very best to write good, thoughtful posts.

Good blog posts are made of paragraphs. Blog posts are written, not defecated. They show some level of craft, thinking, and continuity beyond the word count mandated by the Owner of Your Plantation. If a blog has fixed limits on post minimums and maximums? It’s not a blog: it’s a website that hires writers. Which is fine. But, it’s not really a blog.

I don’t know what they will all specifically be about. I guess I’ll just have to note things along down the way, come up with ideas, and write. Even if it’s garbage at first.

That is all. (Oh yes, and expect a post or few in the next 13 days. If not, send somebody to dispatch me.)

I recently watched the movie “Snatch”; a movie about a diamond heist, illegal boxing and British gypsies. If that sounds confusing, it was. But what was even more confusing was the movie’s rating. Though this movie was violent, it was not so much so as to warrant the R rating it received, it was the language that brought the movie into those ranks. Why is it necessary to have such foul language in an otherwise PG-13 movie? Does it make the movie more gritty or realistic?

Proverbs says “Out of the thoughts of the heart the mouth speaks.” Now, I agree that there are people out there whose hearts resemble a soiled diaper and who carry it with them in their speech. When we watch movies in which every other word is an F bomb, we are voluntarily feeding ourselves with the contents of the character’s soiled diapers. Now tell me, what is wrong with this picture?

Death. It is a fascinating subject, is it not? And funny, if you like Russian literature. I love Russian literature. Speaking of funny, did you hear about the son of a snack company owner who killed himself? He had tried to make it look like a murder. My guess is he mixed up the natural order of things because he was an idiot. “Hey, chubby, you’re suppose to commit a murder, then make it look like suicide! Not the other way around!” The question is, why is this funny? Why do people naturally laugh at this kind of thing? The fat man is dead! That’s not meant to be funny! But it is.

Here is the point. Human beings have a natural, though morbid, fascination with death. Why does the government want euthanasia? They want to kill, but they want to do it with a murder label across there face. Stalin had no problem with this label, and sported it in gold lettering on every occasion. That should tell us something. Being fascinated with death is a pass time for people like Stalin and our government, meaning, not for rational, Christian, thinking people. Now, now, I know that every Christian looks forward to that day when we die and are “present with the Lord,” and that’s all well and good, but having a love affair with black, rotting, corpses is wrong. All this to say I hate Tim Burton. Yes, hate.

Now you see where I’m going! I know your first thought was, “I’m not all that into death. What is his problem?” The truth is, you are that into death. Yes you are.

Question 1: Do you think the story in the first paragraph is funny, sick, or sad?

Correct answer: funny and sad… Your answer: sick.

Question 2: Are you angry that I speak of death in such a blunt manner?

Correct answer: You’re weird… Your answer: I don’t like to talk about death.

That’s enough; point made. If you are the one who feels “icky” when talking about the natural process of life called “death,” then you have a morbid fear of death. Not a fear of dieing, a fear of death. The correct view of death is the escape of being fascinated by it, either in fear or admiration. Think of it as what it is, the end of one life and the beginning of another. It’s really just another part of living. Equate a funeral to a wedding. They really are the same thing, except with different ways of expressing emotion.

In conclusion, Don’t worry about death, and don’t look at it with puppy dog eyes. Look at it as a cool thing everybody gets to do once, like getting married, hitting puberty, and loosing your teeth! By far, loosing your teeth seems to be the most unpleasant. And if some weirdo dies in a weird way, don’t hesitate to laugh at the irony. It’s a sign that your cultured.

I love Adblock Plus. Nearly everywhere I go on the web is stripped of mildly distracting to suicidally obnoxious advertisements because of this fabulous Firefox add-on.

The downside? Ars Technica hit on it in a recent article¹: you (all those adblocking types out there) and I are harming the sites we love.

There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won’t hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis. If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue. Because we are a technology site, we have a very large base of ad blockers. Imagine running a restaurant where 40% of the people who came and ate didn’t pay. In a way, that’s what ad blocking is doing to us. Just like a restaurant, we have to pay to staff, we have to pay for resources, and we have to pay when people consume those resources. The difference, of course, is that our visitors don’t pay us directly but indirectly by viewing advertising.

Perhaps you feel guilty now. Fear not; you may easily make redress to these sites, read on. Ken Fisher of Ars continues:

My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We’ve all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads.

If you read a site and care about its well being, then you should not block ads (or you subscribe to sites like Ars that offer ads-free versions of the site). If a site has advertising you don’t agree with, don’t go there. I think it is far better to vote with page views than to show up and consume resources without giving anything in return. I think in some ways the Internet and its vast anonymity feeds into a culture where many people do not think about the people, the families, the careers that go into producing a website. People talk about how annoying advertisments are, but I’ll tell you what: it’s a lot more annoying and frustrating to have to cut staff and cut benefits because a huge portion of readers block ads. Yet I’ve seen that happen at dozens of great sites over the last few years, Ars included.

I agree heartily. This is not something I’ve thought about but it clicked and persuaded me right off the bat. I very much love certain websites, so now Adblock Plus is turned off when visiting these sites. A few ads is a small price to pay for what these sites give freely. Ars also presented this in a very gracious manner, which I think is key. They alerted readers about the issue, politely asked them to consider  unblocking their site and then left it at civilized discussion. They also made clear in the comments their policy with their advertisers not to run any ads with non user-initiated sound, flashing ads, or ones that fly out over the text.

In this issue, I believe reason can easily be shown on the side of both the site and its viewers resulting in mutual benefit. This is the sort of company-viewer relationship I like to see on the internet and it goes to show that big publishers don’t have to be faceless and brazen—the same goes for its customers and consumers.

That being said and done, the rest of the web remains clear and clean for me. The sites I stumble over in my daily browsing do not have my loyalty and so shall not have my ad views.

To wrap it up, Ars Technica posted an article soon after the first on just how to allow adverts for certain sites. Read it, add exceptions for your favorite sites, and continue (or begin) to enjoy a better-looking web while supporting sites you love.