This is the first posting with Movable Type’s Trackback incorporated.
Ah, I love the smell of new technology in the morning.
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Author: Shelley Powers
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The lost art of courtesy
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
Along with our respect for freedom and our sense of humor and perspective, seems we’ve lost something else in this modern age of connectivity – our courtesy. And in its void, we’ve replaced it with various guises of non-courtesy masquerading as courtesy.
For instance, there’s the lost courtesy of the client who filled up so much of my time just before I moved that I had to hire help to finish.
Or the phantom courtesy of those who request help or information and who chat away, chat away, only to fall silent when their needs are met.
One of my favorites is the A-list courtesy demonstrated by the person who doesn’t respond to a personal email, not because they don’t have time, but because they don’t deem the email to be important enough.
Token courtesy is asking someone how they are and not really wanting to hear the answer; or expressing sympathy or compassion or caring, not because they’re genuine emotions but because there’s little cost to saying the words over the Internet.
How about the anonymous courtesy of the anonymous commenter. Weblog graffiti. At least the street artists have skill.
Artificial courtesy: the weblog posting, comment, or little note that gleefully points out flaw after flaw, ignoring the possibility that amidst the mud and the dirt and the garbage is a tiny perfect gem – a lovely phrase, a clean sentence, and genuine sincerity.
Finally, in this list of non-courtesies, there’s the null space courtesy:
I’m one of the luckier webloggers who has decent readers who usually stop, and take a moment to drop a comment or two. And I love them to pieces when they do. However, I go to weblog after weblog, and see the infamous zip, zero, nada comment count because those who read, appreciate, and run don’t have the courtesy to take a moment and drop a line. And yes, that’s me in this bunch because I’m just as discourteous as the rest.
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Nebraska’s On My List
Driving across Nebraska was a series of slows and gos due to the road construction. Unfortunately, it was also the location of my first car scratches.
After leaving a construction zone at one point, a work truck next to me that was hauling away dirt and rocks and mud hit a rut and a pile of mud with rocks splashed across my windshield and the front of the car. Considering that the day was sunny and clear I was more than a bit surprised by the mud appearing from nowhere, especially when traveling at around 70MPH. Luckily I have nerves of steel.
(Well, in honesty, luckily no one was around me when I swerved from surprise and hit the brake.)
Today I had the car thoroughly cleaned and sure enough, the little Nebraska legacy left scratches in the door and across the hood.
Golden Girl’s no longer a pristine scratch-free virgin. Sigh.
I knew I should have gone back to the location and beat the crap out of the crew.
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Threadneedle test RDF
I’ve posted examples of the RDF used for ThreadNeedle to the ThreadNeedle Discussion Group. One file represents the type of RDF embedded within a posting for a threading disucssion start, one file represents the type of RDF embedded for a reply.
I’ve also registered the domain threadneedle.org, and will move my work there as soon as the DNS change propagates through the system.
I won’t be moving ThreadNeedle source code to Source Forge until I have minimum functionality – Source Forge projects proceed more effectively if given a code base. Regardless, the Source Forge project will point back to ThreadNeedle as home base.
Still working through whether to implement the first draft of the tool in Perl or Java. Most likely I’ll implement both to start (and possibly Python – hmmm). And the data store will be MySQL.
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More on the Pledge
Dan Lyke pointed out that Illiad of User Friendly fame has weighed in on the Pledge of Allegiance ruling. I laughed until I shuddered and cried.
The Pledge legal decision and the User Friendly cartoon touched on two critical issues facing the US – our hypocrisy in regards to religion (mixing of religion and state in Saudi Arabia is evil, but it’s okay in the US), and our increasing willingness to sell our freedom for spurious safety.
On the issue of separation of church and state – if we demand that others drop their unique religious practices and conform to the greater good of all humanity, then we must ask the same of ourselves. As for the issue of trading security for safety – we’re willing to die for our country, but not for the freedoms on which the country is based. If this is true, then what good is the country?
I may seem as if I’m mixing the message – separation of church and state and giving up freedoms for security – but as Illiad has noted so well using his own style, it’s all about freedom. It’s all about freedom.
I was also caught by one of the discussion threads associated with the cartoon. In it, Geek Princess stated:
And as we continue down the slippery slope of moral decay, I’m wondering when the attacks on morality will stop? Will we have to become totally lawless and amoral before they will stop? How much filth and destruction do they need? 🙁 It just figures that such a ruling would come from judges who live in “The Sodom of America”. What are they thinking we will gain by further separating ourselves? We will either stand/work together, under one power, or our nation will crumble. I have to wonder whose side those judges are on?
Whoa, boys and girls – last time I looked, freedom of religion meant that all people are equal regardless of their religious beliefs. Assuming that the “godless” are amoral and lawless is, well, childish, simplistic, and scary as hell. And, Babes, I just moved from The Sodom of America. There weren’t no orgies in the street. If there was, no one told me where to go and when.
On a related note: once I finish with ThreadNeedle, I’m going to spend time coding a new application – a web bot that goes out to weblogs looking for two phrases “slippery slope” and “moral equivalency”. And every time the bot finds one, a warning email will be sent to the offending weblogger:
Note: You have used one of the following badly overused cliches:
Slippery Slope
Moral Equivalency
Continued use of cliches such as these has been shown to be detrimental to your mental health and growth. In addition, increased exposure over time leads to frothing at the mouth, a fixed stare, and a tendency to only wear red, white, and blue.
We suggest, for your own good, that you consider restricting your use of said terms in favor of something new and fresh. A thesaurus will be provided on request.
Thank you