Dwell On It » Maundering

Knowing when to quit

Tateru Nino — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 18:26:22 +0000

As a species, we place an especial emphasis on plans and strategies. Moreover, we feel that it is vitally important to choose the right ones.

That could be because, as a species, we seem to be a bit rubbish at that. Knowing when to quit, however, is actually a good deal harder.

Dad wisdom – the makings of peace

Tateru Nino — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 06:24:41 +0000

My father observed once that – in order to make a lasting peace with your enemies – you have to be willing to die for them, and them for you.

Alice and Bob seek for the truth

Tateru Nino — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:20:02 +0000

The truth is an annoyingly slippery thing. It’s hard, perhaps even impossible to achieve, because facts first must pass through human perception.

Poll-results: The best way of communicating with Linden Lab

Tateru Nino — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:00:15 +0000

As customers or service users, our past experiences and our beliefs about a company, its support, products and services are frequently more important than the present actualities. Why? Because it’s what we believe to be true that drives our decisions, rather than what is actually true.


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Self-awareness

Tateru Nino — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:29:00 +0000

One of the largest barriers to our own understanding of ourselves is that we don’t actually understand what we are. The human brain is – at once – a ferociously complex, and an extremely simple thing. We understand how all the parts function individually, but that helps us understand the brain about as much as understanding a transistor helps you build a colour television.

Could Second Life Fail?

Tateru Nino — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:14:30 +0000

I put it to you that it cannot. Not that it will not, but that it is actually unable to do so.

Community conventions

Tateru Nino — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 07:51:23 +0000

Whatever happened to community conventions?

Adoption mythology

Tateru Nino — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 05:51:39 +0000

There are definitely people who are early-adopters of a product, idea, technology or service and there are people who are not. What there isn’t, is a clear division between the two, and being an early-adopter doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means.

Second Life versus First Life

Tateru Nino — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 05:28:03 +0000

Okay, let’s take a look and compare Second Life to First Life. Firstly, everyone’s sex-obsessed. Every single user has sex just about as often as possible. A few just about several times per day, every day.


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Why so many words?

Tateru Nino — Tue, 18 May 2010 13:01:04 +0000

It’s said that the Inuit have an unusually large number of words for snow. This is actually not true, and we’ll file it under the things that Everybody Knows but that aren’t correct. The implication is that the Inuit have been so heavily involved with snow that they’ve developed a whole bunch of specialist terms that do not exist in other languages.

Actually, English has about the same number of terms for snow as the Inuit do, because various English-speakers are just as heavily involved in snow.

So, why are there so many specialized words and terms? Not just for snow, but for pretty much everything?

The thing about rules…

Tateru Nino — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:04:05 +0000

The thing about rules is that rules don’t sort out bad behaviour. Not even remotely.

If they did, hardly anyone would break a speed limit or park illegally.

Thinking in zots

Tateru Nino — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:01:43 +0000

While known under a variety of different names in different businesses and industries over the last decade, the ‘zot’ is an increasingly popular business and workpower metric, particularly in software development.

While the zot is a highly variable sort of unit, its relationship to overall development costs and resources is actually quite specific.

Words and numbers

Tateru Nino — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:58:21 +0000

Illiteracy and innumeracy are widespread in our societies. Statistical and anecdotal information suggests it is becoming yet more widespread. It’s tempting to blame the Internet or educators, but really you need look no further than traditional media and business if you’re looking for the cause.


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What’s mainstream?

Tateru Nino — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:57:59 +0000

If you ask someone if something can or can’t be considered ‘mainstream’, the usual response involves numbers. User numbers, audience numbers, profits. Stuff like that.

The thing is that the idea that large audiences = mainstream is essentially fallacious. You tend to get much larger audiences for mainstream things, but not always. Something that is mainstream can have very small numbers indeed. Then we say it has ‘niche appeal’. Quite a lot of things we think of as mainstream fall into that category.


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Yesterday’s news

Tateru Nino — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:37:38 +0000

News-writing is kind of funny in all sorts of ways. I’ve talked about some of those ways before.

One of the problems involves delays.


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Conversationally speaking

Tateru Nino — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:34:26 +0000

Somehow, businesses have gotten the notion that ‘having a conversation with your market’ is about using media to talk more.

Last I looked, that was called PR.

Hey, who turned out the life?

Tateru Nino — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 09:11:13 +0000

Here’s the thing I don’t get. People talk as if they expect life to just cease or suspend itself while certain activities are performed.

What the heck is up with that?


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Social richness

Tateru Nino — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:33:07 +0000

Isn’t the point of social media to be able to connect and listen to people who are beyond or outside the group that is defined by your existing relationships, blood ties, marriages, workplace, and whatever assorted dark pacts?


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Dark Fantasy

Tateru Nino — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:19:38 +0000

“Dark Fantasy” is often used to indicate an alternative to fantasy genres and settings that are Tolkien-esque.


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Troublemakers

Tateru Nino — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:08:26 +0000

Some people are just trouble. Everything seems to be going along smoothly, and then one of them comes along and the applecart is left weeping in a corner of the market, so to speak. We’re talking social and organizational friction rather than direct acts.

Actually, very few people are actually really trouble. It’s more of a circumstantial thing, and circumstances can be changed.