Is SEO Mass Internet Destruction?
Originally, Google developed algorithms that were meant to reflect the relevance of a HTML page to a user seeking information. In times when people were not SEO-aware yet, a page that ranked high in search results did so because it’s content deserved it. Hence, page rank really meant that: A rank for that page’s content.
Things have changed since… Read more >>
Professional vs Amateur UI Design
The other day I started a System Recovery1 on my Vista. Surprisingly (or actually not so surprisingly), I’ve been prompted with the following initial message (translation from German, underlining mine):
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- In case you don’t know, since Windows XP the operating system creates recovery points before every installation. If something goes wrong during the installation or an application, so you can’t uninstall it the usual way (or you are unsure if uninstallation really removed everything), you can roll-back relevant OS state (ex. registry) to a saved recovery point. It’s a sort of undo at system level. [↩]
On Presidential Pedestals And Crazy Controversies
Once upon a time, I wrote an article called “Obama’s SEO Counterstrike“. It was written out of a twofold motivation: Mr. Obama’s (then-current) high-quality speeches, his rhetorical skills, and his extraordinary expressive power, which stood in strong contrast to the average, highly uninspired language frequently found on the Internet – a phenomenon I dislike, and which I see worsened by the seemingly omnipresent SEO madness.
The article remained unnoticed for a long time (Sigh! Why oh why nobody seems to share, or care about, my personal opinions? ;-)), or at least without any feedback. Until recently. Read more >>
Obama’s SEO Counterstrike
I usually stay out of politics, not because I’m indifferent, but because there never seemed to be a big difference between this or that party, this or that candidate, this or that government. It always appeared to me as if behind different faces it was all the same old bullshit.
Until Obama came… Read more >>
Welcome To The Machine (Or 8 Easy Steps To Nowhere)
Have you noticed the increasing uniformity of how blog posts are being named these days? At every turn, there seems to be the same simple, supremely uncreative title pattern. You know, titles like
69 Hot Tips For A Perfect Love Life
or
How To Make A Billion Dollar In 3 Easy Steps
This “style” has spread like a malicious nasty little virus all over the Internet, and managed to Read more >>
Of Boiling Frogs And Chinese Whispers
When I wrote “Psychology Of IT Language“, I brought up the aspect of communication of principles, the implicit communication of values, and its possible psychological impact on an organization.
As I’m further contemplating about it, patterns begin to disclose themselves. Two such patterns are Chinese Whisper and Boiling Frog. But before I go into them, an example:
Evolution And Project Management
In “The Costs Of Not Doing Something Else“, I made the aside conclusion that John’s trek only needed to meet some minimum criteria in order to be considered a success. That is an inherent property of what can be called an uncompetitive system.1
Coming back from treks to projects, I state:
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- An uncompetitive system is a system lacking comparison to other systems of a kind. [↩]
The Truth About Simplicity
I’ve already used a smaller variant of this picture in my previous post, but it fits just so nicely into the whole simplicity topic, it simply must be shown in big again.
With no further words – here it is: 🙂
Be Careful What You Optimize For
In two recent posts, I wrote about the notions of clever and dumb code, and the possible implications of their usage in their every-day language. There’s a particular point of interest related to these posts:
A common – and very understandable – motivation for requiring code to be “dumb” is the reasoning that if the code was dumb, then less skilled – and less paid – programmers could take on software development.
This is anther example how doing (or thinking) the “obvious” is a clear sign of shortsightedness.
Aside from evidence that mediocrity costs more, there is one more interesting long-term effect:
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Psychology Of IT Language
In a recent post, inspired by an interview with Kirk Pepperdine, I’ve presented my view about the notions of “dumb” and “clever” code. Kirk’s reaction to it prompted me to think about the topic once more.
While I’m perfectly aware that in it’s origin, the notion of “dumb code” has been meant as synonym for “simple code”, and “clever code” as a synonym for “unnecessarily complex code”, I still see issues with the adopted terminology.
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