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How THINK is useful both as acronym and habit

Some months ago, I shared a meme to Facebook. It was a photo of a poster that said: "Before you use Facebook, send a text, tweet, or blog, THINK: T - is it true ? H - is it helpful ? I - is it inspiring ? N - is it necessary ? K - is it kind ?" "Think" also happens to be my employer's slogan since the 1920s (the Japanese translation is the imperative form rather than the infinitive, 考えよ). And as an INTJ, I both value and enjoy thinking (and perhaps over-thinking). Years ago I'd read about an abridged version of the acronym "THINK" - that is, it had omitted the "is it inspiring" criterion. Oftentimes since then, I'd found that my observations or insights meet only half to three quarters of the remainder of these criteria. As a result, perhaps I've become even more taciturn than in my youth - although even back then, I believed in the concept of "live and let live", which also meant I wouldn't try to med

Year-end thoughts, 2011 edition

Over the lifetime I've spent living in various Western countries, I've noticed the predilection for media and individuals alike to focus on retrospection around this time of year: that is, reminiscing about the various events and experiences that one associates with the prior year. In direct contrast to this, it's my understanding that  in Japan, it is customary to have 忘年会  which, paired with  the 新年会 (which occurs after the  正月三が日 - first three days in January - timeperiod), encourages the forgetting of the prior year through much carousing and imbibing. This year was particularly unforgettable to those with ties to Japan, however, and I've seen social media statuses speaking to the importance of remembering the disasters that have befallen my cultural homeland. The fallout - both metaphorical and literal (environmental, economic, political, and emotional) - will be palpable for decades, if not centuries, regardless of any desire the world may have to forget. P

Where is Dennis Ritchie's day?

It's now a week since the creator of the C programming language, and co-creator of the UNIX operating system, Dennis Ritchie , died after a long illness. I still have the distinct impression that Steve Jobs' charisma and Apple's links to pop culture have generated far more hype than the former's profound contributions to technology. A few days ago I'd shared the New York Times obituary on Ritchie, which garnered comments from my loyal readers (thank you, Klaus and Mick!) Since then, I'd been looking at various media sources to see what more would be said about him. However, I see announcements instead like this (Californian governor declares October 16 Steve Jobs Day), and threads like this (Google has neither created a doodle nor provided a hyperlink to Ritchie, despite doing the latter for Jobs). It seems there must be many more people who share my disappointment and outrage that Ritchie's passing has been eclipsed so effectively by the timing of J

Bing tests mixes of paid and organic results on SERPs

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I was distressed to read in Searchengineland that Bing is testing something similar to Google's SERP structure, where organic result lists are interrupted by paid entries, or compilations of "emphasized" content, often at the "fold" position (4th or 5th place, roughly halfway down the page). Distressed, yes, but not surprised - time will tell whether their trial run reveals that users pay attention to the faint labeling that indicates that a listing is an advertisement, but it seems well established already that the Google practice of placing sponsored links at the very top and to the right hand column in SERPs has led to its users learning to largely ignore the right hand area of the page , along with spending less viewing time on the very top of the main body as well. The presence of "search engine provider-preferred" content at the fold position, also means that listings that fall beneath this visual area are only likely to be noticed by visitor