Link Round-Up: October 25, 2017
6 years ago
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Rant
Sometimes, the first step to forgiveness is understanding the other person is a complete idiot... or at least, that's what my girlfriend keeps telling me.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Rant
Outrage is far and away the best SEO. You can slowly kindle a readership by spending hours each day lovingly crafting, then editing, meticulously-researched, carefully considered articles while waging social media warfare across multiple fronts to draw readers' attention. Or, you can spend a few seconds being a complete jackass and people will flock to your site, even if just to tell you why you're wrong. Sometimes, I think it's the jackasses who've got things figured out.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Rant
Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. And yet, those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it. I'm not really sure which is worse.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Rant
I was lucky enough to have known both my great grandmother (who died at 93) and my grandmother (still alive at age 89) very well. I only just missed knowing my great great grandmother, a full-blooded American Indian who was so old as to have no official documentation of her own birth, by a few years. Here's some perspective I've gained from observing the generations of my family interacting:
My great, great grand mother grew up in a home without electricity, and eschewed modern technology until her dying day. Her idea of a "night in" was a rocker in front of a fire. My great grandmother loved listening to church sermons and gospel on the radio. She thought "record music" was the devil's instrument.
My grandmother grew up listening to Elvis, in defiance of her conservative upbringing, but to this day, she bemoans the horrors of television. She thinks that television is what's wrong with the world. My mother and aunt roll their eyes at this, having heard the same tired rant since the days when Howdy Doody and Zorro were the only programming on television. However, both my mother and my aunt have always held a hard-line censorship policy towards violent video games, and every time a mass shooting makes national news, the topic of video games is raised at the dinner table not long after.
My brother and I, of course, find this utterly ridiculous, but to my everlasting horror, during a conversation with my brother this past Christmas, I found myself vowing that I will never be the kind of father who lets his kids run loose on social networks. We both went quiet when it slipped out, struck by the implications of what I'd said. After an awkward laugh, though, we both agreed that social networks are what's wrong with the world today.
The moral here is that people consider new technologies to be a threat to their way of life. Video games and the internet and just the latest in a long line of inventions dating back to the Luddite's socking frames that have been considered a moral outrage. And they won't be the last in that line. Expect new technologies to raise controversy.
My great, great grand mother grew up in a home without electricity, and eschewed modern technology until her dying day. Her idea of a "night in" was a rocker in front of a fire. My great grandmother loved listening to church sermons and gospel on the radio. She thought "record music" was the devil's instrument.
My grandmother grew up listening to Elvis, in defiance of her conservative upbringing, but to this day, she bemoans the horrors of television. She thinks that television is what's wrong with the world. My mother and aunt roll their eyes at this, having heard the same tired rant since the days when Howdy Doody and Zorro were the only programming on television. However, both my mother and my aunt have always held a hard-line censorship policy towards violent video games, and every time a mass shooting makes national news, the topic of video games is raised at the dinner table not long after.
My brother and I, of course, find this utterly ridiculous, but to my everlasting horror, during a conversation with my brother this past Christmas, I found myself vowing that I will never be the kind of father who lets his kids run loose on social networks. We both went quiet when it slipped out, struck by the implications of what I'd said. After an awkward laugh, though, we both agreed that social networks are what's wrong with the world today.
The moral here is that people consider new technologies to be a threat to their way of life. Video games and the internet and just the latest in a long line of inventions dating back to the Luddite's socking frames that have been considered a moral outrage. And they won't be the last in that line. Expect new technologies to raise controversy.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Rant
Things every person should know: How to make something beautiful. How to cook a dessert that brings people running. How to study. How to pass a long wait quietly. How to tell three jokes you wouldn't be embarrassed to have your mother overhear. How to make a woman feel beautiful. How to sincerely express gratitude.
Friday, August 1, 2014
News
Google Translate's Lead Scientist Is Going to Help Conquer Death. The only question now is, would you choose to be immortal if it required you to register as a Google+ user?
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