broening.writes

nifty ideas. lofty thoughts. silly comments

I'm sure there's many good reasons why the picture of a slice of pizza will generate more “likes” than a witty comment about the state of the nation.

The psychology behind this behavior might be complex, the math is not: The significance of a message is always inversely proportional to its reach.

social media in a nutshell

Case in point: A 10 year old who post videos about lip gloss on YouTube has more followers than the 100 leading philosophers put together.

So, you travel to another country, find your way into a local eatery and have a look at the menu.

You could of course play it safe and simply order a plate of unsuspicious food. Some fish. A steak. Or maybe a pizza.

You could also live on the edge and go for one of the specialties. Depending on the country you are in, these specialties will most likely range somewhere between disgusting and horrendous.

Here's the deal with local specialties: They are ALWAYS EVER1 born out of some horrible calamity:

Hmm, I'm starving. Do I simply wait to die of hunger or do I eat this rotten fish that I just found in a puddle of mud, and die of food poisoning while simultaneously starving to death?

Oh no, the milk that the king ordered has turned into a pile of smelly, running goo. Do we beg for his mercy or do we sell it to him telling it's a fancy delicacy?

To cut a long story short, if someone asks you if you're interested in tasting a local specialty then get up and run for your life. (Thinking of it, you could also kindly decline which seems to be the better option with you being a guest in a foreign country and all...)

Caveat: Should you ever come to Norway do not try the rakfisk. Try the smalahove instead.


1. I do realize that this phrasing is grammatically questionable. Consider it poetic license.

Everyone has heard about Troy vs. Greece, or the US vs. the USSR, or Wile E. Coyote vs. the roadrunner.

But you don't have to be a world leader in order to be part of the fun that is feuding.

Here's some down to earth, non-lethal flame-wars that everybody can join:

  • Nike vs. Adidas
  • PlayStation vs. Xbox
  • BMW vs. Mercedes
  • vi vs. emacs
  • PC vs. Mac
  • Tea vs. coffee
  • Google vs. Bing (just kidding)
  • Pelikan vs. Geha1

As you can see, feuding is no longer a rich man's pastime. Join the fun!


1. This one is mostly for people who grew up in Germany in the 80s

And this is why yo do not play football with the kids once you have passed forty...

ouch

There's nothing wrong with Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King. It's a lovely piece of music.

There's nothing wrong with Sinclair's ZX Spectrum. It's a lovely piece of hardware.

There's very little wrong with Matthew Smith's Manic Miner. It's a lovely game.

Unfortunately, the game tries to combine music and gameplay on the humble Spectrum. It's an experience that makes me want to glue my ears shut with expanding foam. But listen for yourself...

From time to time, life can be challenging. Repairing a broken down washing machine or tiling the roof after an autumn storm isn't everybody's cup of tea.

Fortunately, the Internet is rife with “amazing” life hacks that help you finish the most tedious chores in next to no time.

The logic behind these hacks seems to be that the most basic tasks of daily life are easier to achieve if you engage in some overly complicated 10 minute crafts.

super hack

One quick search in YouTube shows such fascinating hacks as:

  • Slicing a banana with a deck of cards (Part II: Clean a deck of cards using Lego bricks and a Chihuahua)
  • Build a makeshift vacuum cleaner using nothing more than a PC fan, 7 empty water bottles, 50 meters of aluminum foil and a diesel generator
  • Multiply two numbers using an ancient Chinese method than requires a 2 m2 piece of paper, a ruler, and 5 pencils
  • Turn a mars bar into a Q-tip

Is the touchscreen the most over-hyped GUI invention of all time?

Operating a mobile phone by dragging your fingers over the screen is like changing a TV channel by licking the remote control. It simply doesn't make sense.

BTW, neither does making a phone call by holding a 6 inch screen to your ear...

I received a special invitation in my inbox today. It was sent by my dear friends at AliExpress and explained that I should backup my important data (a very good idea), preferably with a storage devices by one of their vendors (not quite such a good idea).

Given the somewhat suspect quality of the genuine Samsung gazillobyte SD cards you can buy from the Chinese website, I very much doubt that I should move years of holiday pictures to a $26.99 KingDian SSD drive.

Bad bad SSD

What I am doing, on the other hand, is to backup my important data to sync.com, a zero-knowledge cloud storage platform. Hopefully, they do not get their hardware from AliExpress...

I'm on the move. The only “computers” that are accessible are my phone and a tablet. Neither of them features a physical keyboard.

So, how do I write? Poke one letter at a time on a tiny screen? Try to swype my way through some complex thoughts? Maybe even try vice definition voice recognition?

The point is, when it comes to creating text nothing beats a physical keyboard.

On a related note: Some time ago, I saw the Lenovo Yoga Tab at the airport and fell in love with it's Halo keyboard.

I needed one of those!

I also need to learn to think before I buy stuff.

Long story short, while the tablet itself is super cool looking, the typing experience is mediocre at best. It's like typing on the table in front of you. Only with a lag and the need to constantly check where your fingers are.

The ancients knew a thing or two. Especially, if we look at Alcuin, an English scholar, who was Charlemagne's advisor/teacher about 1200 years ago.

Even though the following bon mot doesn't exactly roll of the tongue, it has more than a grain of truth to it:

Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.

In case your Latin is a little rusty let me freely translate this phrase for you:

Don't listen to the people who insist that the public opinion equals godly wisdom. The plebs are always crazy about starting a big fuss.

It almost sounds as if Alcuin knew about public Internet forums and Average Joe's Facebook comments...

Or is the simple truth that mankind has changed very little over the course of the last millennium?

As a rule of thumb: If you hear something being demanded by the “man on the street” it's probably worth thinking about doing the exact opposite.