Maxims, rules of thumb and other observations on human cognition and sociocultural affectations

This will be added to on an irregular basis...
  • What is said to humans directly is received with skepticism and considered with dubiousness while that which is heard in passing, especially that which most conforms to their mentality or prejudices, is readily believed.
  • Humans have a certain cognitive latency between exposure to new information or experiences and the ability to think dispassionately and intellectually about it.
  • Humans have a certain cognitive spectrum starting with the moment of exposure to new information or experiences and ending with some point at which the thing is effectively "in the past" for them.
  • This cognitive spectrum is linked to the emotional process often referred to as shock, anger, denial and acceptance.
  • The more and faster information or experiences are presented to people and the closer the quarters and the lesser the distance between people, the more their early reactions in the passionate emotional stage are reflected back to them in the manner of responses to those reactions from others in light of those responses.
  • The more outrages which are suffered without sufficient time to allow emotional bleed-off, the farther the bar for subsequent reaction and outrage are pushed, and the more further events must progress before reaction and outrage.
  • It is possible for serious detriments to eventually sit below this threshold for long enough for their damaging effects to build and multiply until their entire society undergoes some reactive convulsion.
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Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Is this a bad sign?

if (salary_sucks) {
goto = dice.com();

The above is the code seen in a dice.com banner, made with Flash no less. If they're actively hiring coders who use goto despite every training course and book on the subject actively discouraging it, what does that say?

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Inactivity Unintentional

     I will be posting something soon, sooner or later, but probably sooner rather than later. I’ve been dealing with a great many things which are stretching my patience very thin and taking a toll on my usual ability to jump past shock, anger, and denial to acceptance between apathy and indifference.

     In the meantime, I strongly recommend www.kingdomofloathing.com to amuse and obsess.

     See you later.

     (Oops, almost forgot completely. This was done in Microsoft Word 2002 thanks to Google’s Word plug-in. I wonder why Google is the darling of the Slashdot geeks when they still haven’t ported Google Earth or this plug-in to any flavor of *nix? Hmmm… Methinks their double and triple standards are showing…)