Arun Basil Lal of Million Clues just published my guest-post Starting a Blog the Right Way. You can read the piece at Million Clues.You won’t regret visiting his site if not for my post.
Like the author of this piece, this question has been nagging on me for a long time –at least for the deeper answer. Because in my country, the majority does it for money or influence. The article tries to explain how self-deception or our own narcissism, works to society’s advantage.
In 1984, Quattrone and Tversky did a study for more complex psychological reasons why people vote.
‘It sounds like a twisted kind of logic but Quattrone & Tversky found some evidence for it in a study following on from the one they did about self-deception (see the connection?!). They found that in a simulated voting situation participants behaved as though they believed that their own vote actually caused other people to vote in the same way they did.
‘In other words, people seem to behave as though their own behaviour is diagnostic of other people who think the same way.
‘This is another neat demonstration of our powers of self-deception and one reason self-deception can work to society’s advantage. Democracies generally view voting as a good thing (with some notable exceptions!) and try to encourage it, yet people rationally understand that their individual vote makes practically no difference. But when we see our vote as signalling how others will behave, it becomes much more important’… -Psy Blog
Paid consideration puts ‘the public in the dark and youths are at risk.’:
‘You can tell when you’re watching a commercial, right? Not at all, writes NE Marsden, and that’s a huge problem. A new FTC measure seeks to expose the practice of paid consideration—“stealth advertising” is a better phrase—online by requiring bloggers and marketers to disclose remuneration, but that hasn’t worked too well on TV. You didn’t know producers have to disclose product placement on TV? Exactly.
‘“People have a right to know when someone is trying to sell them something,” Marsden writes in the Washington Post. And notices “buried in the credits”—that’s what “promotional consideration provided by” means—are “too small, too fleeting and too obscure to be effective.” The ease of obfuscation “invites covert marketing, stealth targeting of children and paid propaganda.” As a result, Marsden writes, “the public is in the dark and youths are at risk.”’ -Washington Post
Wallace ‘may face jail time for violating a restraining order issued during the case.’:
‘”Spam king” Sanford Wallace has been slapped with a $711 million judgment for spamming Facebook users. A California judge found that Wallace, who used phishing techniques to access Facebook accounts, violated a law against sending “false and misleading” marketing emails. The judge permanently banned Wallace from accessing Facebook and recommended he be prosecuted for criminal contempt, CNET reports.
‘Wallace, who filed for bankruptcy in June, may face jail time for violating a restraining order issued during the case. “While we don’t expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals,” a Facebook lawyer wrote in a company blog post.’ -CNET
I think this will convince twitterers that Twitter is a malware hotbed:
‘Twitter is the perfect malware delivery system, enabling cybercriminals to lure users with a quick tweet on a hot topic and a shortened URL that hides a shady website’s identity. One in 500 URLs posted on Twitter links to live malware, says Kaspersky international, which make a program that searches through tweets. A quarter of Twitter messages contain a URL, Kaspersky tells Wired, and half of those are generated by spammers and other Internet lowlifes. -Wired
I like to join this cult -it’s practical:
‘Times are tough, and there’s only one sure way to save money in the modern world: Live 2 years in the past. So says Lore Sjoberg, who’s starting his very own Cult of the Somewhat Delayed.
“If you subsist entirely on 2-year-old entertainment, and the corresponding 2-year-old technology used to power it, you’re cutting your fun budget in half, freeing up that money for more exciting expenditures like parking meters and postage,” he writes for Wired.
‘No more hardcover books or new movies. It’s time for paperbacks and Netflix. “And then there are all those people paying $600 for video cards that, six months from now, will cost less than the shiny, full-bleed folding pamphlets currently being used to advertise the hardware.”
‘He envisions his cult in an “online compound, with its own search engine,” and slightly dated reviews of movies and technology. “We just want to be left alone, and we hope you and the upcoming Clinton administration understand that.” -Wired
I wonder what’s Suleman’s motive is for this stunt. It’s entertaining anyway:
‘Even if you’re one of those people that never gets scared, this Halloween costume should do the trick: Octomom Nadya Suleman dressed herself as a pregnant (scary) nun (scarier) and turned her babies into accessories—tiny devils (horrifying).
‘View the truly disturbing photos by Splash in the Daily Mail—no word, though, on why the family was trick-or-treating days before Halloween—or where her other six children were. 
‘The Sun, which professed to be shocked at Suleman’s Octo-nun antics, reports that “neighbours confronted by Nadya and her brood as she went knocking on doors in La Habra, California, were left bewildered by the stunt.”‘ -Daily Mail
‘The seafood restaurant Bruce Buschel is building will have excellent service—or else. Some staff members, he acknowledges, “will no doubt protest some or most of what follows,” but he’s the boss, and he presents 50 rules in his New York Times blog. A tasting menu:
“Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course. Wait, wait, wait.”
-Make sure the table is level and the wineglasses clean before anyone sits down or orders a drink.
-Keep your hands to yourself, not on the rim of a glass or the spout of a wine bottle, and certainly not on a guest: “Never touch a customer. No excuses.”
-”Saying, ‘No problem’ is a problem. It has a tone of insincerity or sarcasm. ‘My pleasure’ or ‘You’re welcome’ will do.”
-”Never remove a plate full of food without asking what went wrong. Obviously, something went wrong.” -see New York Times for complete list
‘Broadband will improve so much that the technical distinctions between radio, TV, and web will disappear.’:(see reference at bottom)
‘The Internet will look completely different in five years, predicts Google CEO Eric Schmidt; after all, he notes, five years is a factor of 10 according to Moore’s law of ever-increasing speed. The Google CEO expounded on the future of the web at length at a recent symposium, but ReadWriteWeb pulled out some of his most interesting predictions and thoughts. Including:
The Internet will be dominated by content in Chinese.
We’ll jump from application to application seamlessly.
Broadband will improve so much that the technical distinctions between radio, TV, and web will disappear.
Users will focus predominantly on social media, rather than traditional sources.
‘In the present, Schmidt revealed that Google is trying to rank real-time search info, that it’s making “significant money” on YouTube, and that a Google Netbook will hit next year. -ReadWriteWeb
Here’s an example of just what is happening to the Broadband World.
The Monticello town of Minnesotta wanted its own fiber optic cable for all its residents and so approached it’s regional telco, TDS Telecommunications, with the request and was rebuffed.
In response, the citizens of Monticello passed a referendum to build their own fiber optic system, which would compete with TDS’s cable service to the town. TDS sued Monticello.
-Maximum PC
Here is an excerpt :
‘When Omar bin Laden was about to be born, his father got so excited that he lost his keys. When he finally found them after a frantic search, he tore to the hospital at reckless speed in his brand new golden Mercedes.
‘It’s hard for Omar to imagine the scene, he writes in Growing Up bin Laden, which is excerpted by Vanity Fair; his father wasn’t always a terrorist, but he was never an emotional man, and despite Omar’s best attempts, he never bestowed affection on his children…’ -Vanity Fair
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