Comments for Sotto Voce.

Comment on The Internet is Fluoridating our Precious Bodily Fluids by sottovoce

sottovoce — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:46:53 +0000

Scientists begin to unravel the "The Kids Today" phenomenon: "Older people enjoy reading negative stories about young." The lede: "Older people like reading negative news stories about their younger counterparts because it boosts their own self-esteem, according to a new study."

Comment on Free Beer Tomorrow, cont’d by sottovoce

sottovoce — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 15:54:35 +0000

Totally OT, but speaking of technical writing, what do you think of the STC’s decision to approve certification for the technical communications field (http://bit.ly/cTwRJr)? I’m not involved much in technical writing anymore, so I’m asking primarily as an interested bystander. I don’t know enough about the issues involved to have much of an opinion at this point…

Comment on Free Beer Tomorrow, cont’d by Cheryl

Cheryl — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 04:20:05 +0000

I do notice as a technical writer that I seem to enjoy a fairer assessment of the dollar value of my writing skill and intellectual contributions than I could expect as a writer whose output has traditionally been tied to print media sold to the public. It shows a total lack of cultural imagination to suggest that creative writers (journalists, novelists, etc.) should give their work away because we can’t wrap our minds around a new business model for changing content formats.

Comment on My Kind of Expert by sottovoce

sottovoce — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:19:37 +0000

Wait, there it is again! This morning, the Hynek photo is again masting another above-the-fold story on CJR, this time for a story called Victory to the Wonks?. I guess the photo is CJR's in-house avatar for Nerdly McNebbish of the Department of We Know What's Best For You. Once again, though, it's miscasting. Dr. Hynek was hardly a wonk. Why not a headshot of Herman Kahn, fer chrissakes? Now *there's* a boogey-man.

Comment on Launch (i)Pad by sottovoce

sottovoce — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:15:13 +0000

Half a year and millions of iPads later, and the weirdness continues. People talk about Steve Jobs’ ability to project a “reality distortion field” that supposedly turns people into irrational cravers of Apple products, but clearly the RDF has an equally powerful negative side; the critics become as irrationally self-deluding as the most ardent fanboi. But whereas fanboi are willing to contort themselves into knots in order to justify buying the latest Apple product, the anti-RDF-allficted critics are equally desperate to find something — *anything* — to explain away an Apple product’s success.

Case in point: the estimable Scott Adams offers a backhanded apologia for liking his iPad in “The Amazingness of Instant” ( http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_amazingness_of_instant/ ), posted today on his blog.

Prior to the iPad’s launch, Adams had predicted that “few people would want a crippled laptop” but now candidly admits that he had been “obviously and totally wrong” about the iPad’s appeal. He then goes on to describe why he likes his iPad, describing the convenience of its instant-on capability as its “most wonderful feature” (apparently he thinks there are several other wonderful features too).

All well and good, but then he ends by saying that all of this is all just the result of Apple’s great marketing. “Perhaps at this point they could sell laminated turds if they put the Apple logo on them,” he chides.

Oh, come on. You’ve just spent four paragraphs telling me that your iPad is a handy, well-designed, easy-to-use device that you now rely on more than your laptop — and that all boils down to a *marketing gimmick?* Bullshit. A product either works or it doesn’t. That’s not marketing, that’s *engineering.*

And as for his final question: “What happens when people become trained to think of information and entertainment as something they receive and not something they create?” My answer: A new golden age for professional writers.

The Future: It’s Wonderful!

Comment on Where the Elite Meat to Beat the Heat by sottovoce

sottovoce — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:31:25 +0000

The phrase that has succeeded in dethroning “elite” from the top spot in the Pantheon Of Things That Will Make Me Kick Your Ass is “Google is your friend.” There is no more concise expression of pure, undiluted passive-aggressive smugness to be had in the entire English vernacular. My rage upon encountering that phrase has been compared to something out of The Exorcist.

Comment on Two Cool New Science Fiction Serials by Announcing “Channel 37!” « Sotto Voce.

Announcing “Channel 37!” « Sotto Voce. — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:56:18 +0000

[...] by my friends, I’ve decided to launch a dedicated blog for my serial SF fiction. Henceforth, The Terror [...]

Comment on Lagasse’s Axioms of Systems by sottovoce

sottovoce — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:01:34 +0000

An interesting piece by the ever-thoughtful Scott Adams where he proposes the concept of a complexity threshold, which I find to be a compelling approach to the issue of failure risk in complex systems:

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/adams_complexity_threshold/

Comment on The Casio F-28W Corner by dave

dave — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:52:21 +0000

i was just saying today to a friend how good this little watch has been and that i have never changed the battery i reckon i have had this watch going on 13 to 14 years but have had 4 new straps that now cost more than i paid for the watch itself ! what a great watch!

Comment on Thank You for Being Part of the System by Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:04:24 +0000

You could invoke the old time is money axiom, take the second fridge, and sell it. Or keep it, because, hey, spare fridge. Not that I would do that. I would be afraid of the fridge police showing up.

This reminds of the time my dad bought a grill from a home improvement store that rhymes with Blows and ended up with three brand new broken grills on his back porch.