Month: September 2004

It’s an incredibly busy day today, but here’s some reading material that I recommend:

• Malcolm “The Tipping Point” Gladwell: The Ketchup Conundrum

  Mustard now comes in dozens of varieties. Why has ketchup stayed the same?

• Chewbacca goes to Japan

  Because there’s no tentacle hentai, schoolgirl uniforms or good sushi or Kashyyyk (the wookie homeworld).

• PlanetDan’s Collection of High School Senior Gradulation Photos

  Back in high school, I’d have gone for the keyboard girl.

• McSweeney’s: This Bible You Sold Me is Clearly Defective and I’d Like to Return It, Please
  

  
  

• How Not to Buy Happiness
  “…In effect, I wish to propose two different answers to the question ‘Does money buy happiness?’ Considerable evidence suggests that if we

  use an increase in our incomes, as many of us do, simply to buy bigger

  houses and more expensive cars, then we do not end up any happier than

  before. But if we use an increase in our incomes to buy more of certain

  inconspicuous goods — such as freedom from a long commute or a stressful job — then the evidence paints a very different picture.”

• The Getting Things Done Workflow Diagram

  A nice chart [1 MB PDF] for those of you who are following the productivity program outlined in David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done.

A wiki, in case you haven’t heard of such a thing, is a piece of

software (usually web-based, but not necessarily) designed to 

allow people to collaboratively add, edit and delete content. Some

notable features that separate a wiki from a plain old content

management system are:

• Automatic linking.

  If an entry titled “Accordion” is in the wiki, any occurence of the

  word “accordion” in any entry in the wiki will be automatically linked

  to the “Accordion” entry.

• Complete histories of every change.

  Wikis keep track of every change made to them and make it possible to

  “undo” changes. Coupled with a community, this feature helps to ensure

  the integrity of the wiki and protects it from malicious acts while

  still maintaining openness.

The best-known wiki at the moment is Wikipedia,

an incredibly useful encyclopedia which boasts over 350,000 articles.

If you’re looking for information, say a quick overview of the Treaty of Westphalia or Maimonides, it’s a good wiki to consult.

But what if you want to know how to win a kinfe fight? Or in a less lethal vein, how to fight and not get your ass kicked? Or even less lethally, how to win a hot dog eating contest? You know, useful stuff? Then you want to consult Everything2.

It’s not quite a wiki — where wikis present articles as a whole, you

append your own two cents to Everything2’s articles rather than edit

them.

Oh yes, you’ll find boooooring articles like a rather detailed summary of the Count of Flanders and a discussion of MP3 sound quality, but you’ll also find:

• A guide to clubbing (nightclubbing, not seal clubbing)
• What not to be caught saying when the room suddenly goes quiet
• What it feels like to be dissed by a five year-old
• What to do should you find yourself lost in Boston (me, I’d probably call Wendy or perhaps Skadz for help)
• “Nobody likes me / Everybody hates me / Think I’ll go eat worms…”
• How to summon Mothra!

You know, useful stuff.

Tucows’ Starkville office

(formerly Boardtown, Inc., and purchased

by us earlier this year) is in the middle of

hurricane-a-palooza and have been rain, wind and power loss. On behalf

of the Toronto and Flint offices, our

thoughts are with you guys.

To anyone in the track of Hurricanes Ivan,

Jeanne

and Karl, hang in there!