January 2008
61 posts
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Kids learn to flatter around 4 →
boingboing.net
A joint Canadian-Chinese study indicates that children learn to tell social lies around age four.
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"Who are these people?" →
sethgodin.typepad.com
Paraphrased: “If you look at the numbers, you soon realize that a huge portion of the population apparently have only read two books in the last year; Harry Potter and The DaVinci Code. They only use two websites; Google and Facebook. They only eat at McDonalds.”
“Godzilla Witch Project. Nothing more, nothing less.”
—Seven-word review of Cloverfield
“The Sullivan nod is a sales technique used to create a subconscious suggestion to a customer to purchase one particular item out of a list. It is used frequently by bartenders and waiters when reciting lists of items (such as alcohol or wine) in the hopes of getting the customer to select a particular brand. Studies have concluded that 60–70% of the time, a Sullivan nod will result in the customer choosing the ‘recommended’ item.”
—Wikipedia
Typographic Contrast and Flow →
webdesignerwall.com
Not earth-shattering, but sometimes it pays to have common sense written down.
State of the Union →
marco.org
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the United States of America. Our union is in its weakest state in history.”
Instapaper →
instapaper.com
You’re surfing around and you come across something you know you’ll want to read later. Click the bookmark from Instapaper, and it adds the link to your “to read” list with a cute “SAVED!” blurb. Done.
Maybe not too useful for people who actually turn their computer off or only surf a few times a week. But for chronic surfers (and those who have more than one computer) it’s a great way to eat through window upon window of never-ending tabs.
I’ve been using it for a few hours and my list is already over 100 200 items long. It’s the proverbial inbox of would-be bookmarks.
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“In his mind, dance music is a weirdly prescriptive thing — it has a specific sound, purpose, and context. It is a thing that is governed by rules, and those rules are primarily dictated by random people in Germany.”
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Fluxblog critiquing an article on “real” dance music.
Much of it is common sense (“My taste isn’t your taste, dance to what you like,” to paraphrase) but sometimes completely sane and self-evident things like this essay need to be said since some people can’t think or accept tastes outside of their own proverbial box.
