Chipping the web – interval misnamed by an oft mispronounced astronomer

[...] Interval misnamed by an oft mispronounced astronomer: Edmund Halley, whose last name is often mispronounced HAY-lee, named the Saros (an interval between similar eclipses that is approximately 18 years) after an ancient Babylonian term. While the Babylonians knew about the Saros cycle, they used the word “Saros” to refer to a slightly less frequent interval of 3600 years. Halley was tripped up by a Byzantine lexicon from the 10th century that suffered from the same confusion. [...]

You’re better off doubting everything (well, nearly everything–if you doubt your own sanity, you may doubt it away forever and never regain it), since there are more lies in this world than truths.

Most people lie, albeit unconsciously, all the time.

How ya dewin? Great. Super. Fine. (oh yeah?)

Or: “what’s up?” “not much man” (not much? there are tons of things going on)

“weapons of mass destruction”, “I did NOT have sex with that woman”, etc.

P.S. I absolutely hate PDF files and PowerPoint. The backlash against these brain dead files and formats is escalating lately. PDFs are hard to search, and so many times they are big fat sentences, two per page, when you print em out.

PowerPoint prevents people from paying attention to the speaker, they sit and stare like dumb sheep at the bullet points floating ingraciously upon the whatever screen thingamajig.

If you’re really smart and passionate and interesting a presenter, you don’t need prepared notes, sermons, PowerPoint, IBM foils, or transparencies. In most cases.

I agree, Vaspers, that visuals should not duplicate (or replace) your content. I don’t care for outline visuals, either. The only visuals that are worthwhile IMHO are demos and illustrations.

Thanks for understanding me, Sterling. I always express ideas in extreme, combative, aggressive manner. Which is what “grate” means. It is not “great” mis-spelled in a cutesy avant manner.

I feel very comfortable here at this blog. I’m not very geeky, compared to you and apotheon and such, but I try really hard, because I am in awe of web developers, programmers, sysadmins, etc.

I timidly poke around with HTML, and I buy any programming books I find in thrift stores, “Oh Pascal!”, COBOL, “Learning Netware”, etc.

But I am more a technical writer, web usability analyst, direct marketing professional, recently joined a web design firm a few blocks from my house, and helping them sell web sites to local businesses, stuff like that there.

I understand as much of you as I do Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida, but hey, I love complicated stuff that forces my semi-senile brain shreds to expand.

Just belatedly added this blog to my Vaspers blogroll, under Friends or Fun or Future category.

Hey Vaspers, no problem — I like your straightforward manner and willingness to risk saying whatever in order to cut to the heart of the matter. Feel free to say it here! I’m glad to have you as a reader and commenter.

As to being compared to Lacan and Derrida, I’m flattered — unless it just means that I’m overly obscure.

I’ll probably never understand much of Lacan, outside of “desire is desire of the other”, I guess meaning we tend to want what other people want, and not necessarily because we need it or spontaneously crave it without advertising, etc.

But Derrida is another story. At first he seemed insane, obtuse, and dry. Yet, it was “fun” to explore his thinking, and he got my interest in his analysis of Freud, Rousseau, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, and other guy’s contradictory belief systems.

“The seeds of self-destruction are inherent in every structure” type thinking, combined with microscopically close reading and profound, obsessive attention to details that other commentaries overlook.

I tried to email Derrida as he was dying, but failed to find a current, valid email address. I usually contact all my mentors and heros, including Mark E. Smith of The Fall, Jakob Nielsen, Seth Godin, Christopher Locke, Evan Williams, Roblimo Miller, Doc Searls, Jim Estill, Les Orchard, Nick Usborne, John C. Dvorak, etc. and usually succeed in striking up mild or intense friendships with them.

So, no, you’re not overly obscure, if there is such a thing, you just are very technically advanced compared to me, but I’m told that I’m technically advanced compared to most business and marketing bloggers, who generally can’t even tweak their Blogger design templates, heh.

can’t even tweak their Blogger design templates

made me laugh, but in a few years nobody will know why that’s supposed to be funny. Being “technically advanced” is a state that’s either transitory or rapidly progressing. Today’s skills will have little meaning tomorrow, unless we continue to grow them. But thanks for the compliment.

Winning Through Self-Loathing and Overachieving Laziness, that’s my new book idea and it’s my motto.

Get rich by doing next to nothing, like Paris Hilton and Post Secret.

But heck yeah dang shoot right: being tech-advanced is more difficult every minute, as Joel Spolsky says “it takes more and more expertise and experience, just to remain a non-mediocre adequate programmer.” (paraphrase from one of his books)

Can you recommend any other Spolksy type books that would help me understand programmer culture, programming, working with web developers, etc.?

No mean-spirited offense to my peers, but crap, it’s not only that they cannot tweak the HTML, they don’t even give a flying fig about it. So their smart marketing blogs look like manure on a mole hill.

Winning Through Self-Loathing and Overachieving Laziness, that’s my new book idea and it’s my motto.

LOL, write it and I’ll buy it.

I would recommend the writings of Paul Graham, but to be honest he’s way beyond most programmers. Jeff Atwood is very good, and practical. Assaf Arkin is one of my favorite geek bloggers. Shelley Powers, besides having a thoughtful personal blog, also blogs web dev with authority.

Great. I have to trudge through the snow on foot and get some supplies, deliver Christmas (Christ Mass) cookies to friends, and buy some beer and white socks, so I’ll be excommunicado or whatever for a while. Will check out those sites.

Let me know also if you’d like to usability test APIs and site features at some future date, and what you might want to charge for it. More details later.

I’ll give it a quick look and commentary gratis. But if you want something more time-intensive, let’s talk terms off-line. My email is sterling@camdensoftware.com.

[...] Thanks for adding me to your blogroll, Vaspers the Grate! You’re in mine, too. OK, I understand “the Grate“, but what does “Vaspers” mean? Tags:Chip’s Quips: armchairanarchist, backgammon, blogroll, chrispirillo, circuit, death, dna, escher, fatboynews, hardware, illusion, insurance, johnkoetsier, laconic, logic, mercola, pip, ponzi, shelleypowers, shockwave, twitter, vaspersthegrate, vista, wedding Technorati: armchairanarchist, backgammon, blogroll, chrispirillo, circuit, death, dna, escher, fatboynews, hardware, illusion, insurance, johnkoetsier, laconic, logic, mercola, pip, ponzi, shelleypowers, shockwave, twitter, vaspersthegrate, vista, wedding [...]