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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Monday, October 26, 2009

Disqus Borked Again

Over at SayAnything Rob Port switched to Disqus for his commenting system and for what reason I cannot fathom unless I go low rent and assume superficial blog number building as the primary reason and I like to think better of Rob than that, but...

Anyhow, yet again for the millionth time this year, Disqus is giving out 503 errors, not taking comments, and just sitting there doing nothing.

Let this be a lesson to you would-be professional bloggers. The move towards coalescent social networking and blogging is not necessarily where the future is at and if your comments don't work, then no one will stick around your site because they cannot take part and taking part is what they go there for when it comes to professional blogging. That interaction IS their social networking. Bringing in Facebook and MySpace and all that crap in an attempt to coopt those and get a piece of their impressions for a few more cents and doing it with an outfit like Disqus which clearly has not gotten their shit together is not a good way to keep your traffic.

Me, I'm not a pro here. I just have this place to sound off in my own way whenever it suits me.