As you can see, posts are coming more frequently these days on Ignorantium. Posts had started to turn into 1000 word slogs for readers. That’s too long for a reader to read and a writer to write with any regularity, not to mention too hard to do and retain some level of quality. The result was large periods of time with no posts. Blogs die when they’re not fed and I didn’t want that to happen to Ignorantium. So instead, I went back to the way I did things a long time ago with quicker posts done more frequently. I may still do a longer piece every once in a while, but for now I’m sticking to the stuff that made me like doing this blog in the first place: product and site reviews, interesting tech bits I run across and opinion pieces aimed at trends in marketing, tech and social media. From the nice responses I’ve gotten, and the nice spike in traffic, apparently people are happier with this format at well. I’ll keep at it.

Expect to see more product reviews next week. The social media world is moving so quickly and spawning all sorts of interesting offerings that allow people to tag, file and connect with friends and strangers alike. As I run across interesting sites and tools I’ll throw up reviews. Also starting sometime next week I’m going to pick a day (probably Wednesdays) where I provide a ton of links to odd things and burgeoning web memes. If you’ve got something you think I might want to include, feel free to send me an email (host atsign ignorantium.com) or through Twitter @jameswester. (Until I get the purpose of @ignorantium figured out, replies and DMs to that account might go unnoticed.)

And finally, my picture today is from Wikipedia’s daily featured article. It’s a randomly chosen picture from my morning surfing, but it kind of fits in with today’s theme of where this blog is going. (The title of today’s post is taken from signs and warnings to riders of the London Underground to “mind the gap” between the platform edge and the train door. In this case, it means mind the gaps between blog posts. I thought that was moderately clever.)

Hope you have a great weekend. See you next week.

photo credit: Wikipedia

Not long ago I was listening to the local news radio station. They interviewed a researcher from some North Texas mental health facility or research group. The topic? Increased mortality rates during economic hard times. His projection? Expect to see deaths, things like stress-related heart attacks and strokes or suicides and homicides, rise due to the recession. What’s more, the worse the recession is, the more dead people we’ll see.

Boy, was he a breath of fresh air.

I’m sure the good doctor is a fine man who is loved by his wife and family, but he could not have been more depressing. I have to blame the radio station for scheduling the topic, but I think the palpable sense of gloominess even surprised the hosts. Of course they didn’t help the situation by asking questions like, “Will lack of affordable healthcare cause people not to take their medications and maybe commit suicide or seek treatment for stress-related illnesses?” My favorite question was: “Is the stress of the economy what causes people to go into an office building and shoot people?” There was almost a glimmer of excitement in the doctor’s voice when he said something like, “Yes, we do see an increase in murder/suicides during times like these.” So we have that to look forward to, I guess.

(If I can find a clip or transcript I’ll try to get exact quotes. I don’t want anyone to think I’m making this up.)

Nice topic, eh?

There’s more to discuss here, I’m sure. For instance, there was also a point made during the interview that being poor and uneducated makes people die earlier. That seems to make intuitive sense, but shouldn’t that be something we tell kids when they want to drop out of school? If the standard “You’re never going to succeed without an education ” message isn’t strong enough, how about “Drop Out and Die Young!” That message may resonate a little more.

I feel as though I should apologize for such a downer of a post, so I’ll mitigate the mood a bit by providing you an uplifting image from that time of happiness and harmony known as the 70′s. Hang in there, baby….

Update: I’ve done everything I can to locate the actual copyright holder for this picture or the story behind it. I can’t find it. I seem to remember there were many versions of this poster, but this is the one that Mrs Scott, my 9th grade English teacher, had hanging in her classroom. If you know the story behind the poster, or can point me to the company that manufactured this and all the other dreadful motivational posters from the 70′s, I’d love to hear from you.

First, we have the Wikipedia entry for Epping. In it we learn that Epping is a nice suburb of London. We also learn this little nugget about the Epping train station (It’s where the Central Line terminates, in case you wanted to know):

“The station has a car park with 508 spaces and is the second largest car park on the London Underground network, a toilet, a ticket machine, a pay phone as well as seats for sitting outside of the station.“ (I’ve left the original links in because you might want to know more about ticket machines and pay phones.)

I don’t know about you, but the fact that someone loves the Epping train station enough to comment on the number of parking spaces, and note it is the second largest car park on the London Underground, is charming. I also note with some real surprise that there is a toilet there. As a denizen of New York for many years, I know working toilets in train stations are very, very rare. (And just to show I’m not mocking the person who wrote that Wiki entry, I say with some pride that my Subway station in Manhattan at 190th on the A line had the deepest station in the entire NYC Subway system. I too am a train geek.)

Second, a link to Rod Stewart. Mr Stewart is a current resident of Epping. There’s a list on the Wikipedia entry of famous Eppingians, but some on the list may have just passed through Epping. Rod Stewart was the most notable on the list who actually lives there. (Just in case, if Mr Stewart is my reader in Epping, thanks for visiting. I have a song of yours on my playlist for my morning run, if you care.)

Here’s a link to the site of Eleanor Laing, the Member of Parliament (MP to we Anglophiles) for Epping Forest. She seems like a fine person, though she does appear to have only one green jacket. (PR tip to Ms Laing: If you’re going to do a series of photo ops on the same day, bring a change of jackets. Alternatively, women can wear something plain like a black jacket and then accessorize with something notable like a chunky necklace that can be switched out between photo ops. That’s all that will catch the eye and no one will notice you’re wearing the same clothes.) That’s all I can really add there. As Anglophilic as I am, I haven’t a clue about the English parliamentary system. Apparently Ms. Laing is also a “Shadow Minister” which sounds cool but slightly evil. I put British governance on the list of English things I just don’t undertand along with cricket and steak and kidney pie.

For my non-Epping readers, if you ever wish to visit Epping, here is the link to a travel and tourism site featuring Epping. If you visit, send me pics.

And to my Epping reader, if you are not Rod Stewart : Please send me a comment or a note. I’d love to know your opinions of the site. Cheers to you, my friend! Thanks for stopping by.

Thanks to non-Eppingians for stopping by as well.

I have also found there are a lot of very smart people that are wishing to put their own blogs together. Many friends and relations have said, “I’d love to have a blog about something,” where “something” is politics, dogs, knitting or fish cookery. My advice to them? Do it. Now. There are some obvious reasons to express yourself in an online forum, such as it’s great for your psyche. Cleans out the brain, so to speak.

It’s also great for your professional development. It’s a hugely marketable skill. I have another post I’m working on about technology skills, the job market, etc., but for now realize that being proficient with designing and running a Web page shows a host of qualities that employers are looking for, even those not Web or tech-related. I’m not saying you should have a site to rival something professionally produced, but thanks to WordPress and other WYSIWYG editors, you can create something worthwhile very easily.

The market is tough. I don’t doubt that. But those willing to market themselves well, spend some time on their “personal brand” (an overused but not worthless term) and put their creativity on display will have an easier time finding their next role.

Here is one more reason: there is a lot of real garbage out there.

I’m not one to judge, but…Well, actually, I am. Somewhere I heard a number like 4 gazillion blogs are rattling around the Interwebs these days. That’s a lot. And the 2 gazillion (?) I’ve looked at were pretty terrible. (No comments about this one!) So find your passion, fill your niche, sharpen your pencil, gird your loins and dive in. The myriad tools now available for the beginner blogger make it so very simple. Get started and maybe you can help drown out some of the noise.

Now get to it.

Here’s an opening sentence that tells you everything you need to know about the piece that will follow it:

“No one can deny the Internet is a life-changer.”

In one sentence it says, “You are about to be treated to the blatherings of a person so confident in her opinion that she will start her piece by speaking for the entire human population.” It is straight out of a high school journalism class. (I wonder if she tossed out the original opening, something along the lines of “Webster’s Dictionary says “change” is….”)

It comes from this fluffy piece of opinion at US News. It is so very, very bad for so many, many reasons. It boils down to the shockingly new argument that (get ready!) the Internet and bloggers are (here it is!) destroying newspapers and respectable journalism! (Grab the smelling salts.)

Here’s a sample:

“[The Internet] is causing the demise of American journalism—as we know it or have known it for centuries. The Internet is single-handedly responsible for the death this year of the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, and the conversion to online publishing of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Christian Science Monitor.”

Get that? The Internet is single-handedly responsible. That’s right: The Internet did it. It walked up behind the Rocky Mountain News while it was straightening a picture and shot it in the back. The Rocky Mountain News never had a chance. Shame on the Internet! (I also love the line about the centuries old history of American journalism. I can picture a young Ben Franklin being taken to task by a hard-driving editor for not have two sources for his story.)

Here’s the best part:

“[Bloggers] are the technology age’s equivalent of reporters and columnists, but without the degree of separation that used to protect readers and consumers from being targeted for commercial or political purposes, that old-fashioned edited newspapers and magazines used to (and to a limited extent, still do) provide.”

and later:

“Consumers need a filter.”

Isn’t that great? Consumers need to be protected! They don’t know when they’re being manipulated. It’s up to the sage warriors of journalistic truth to protect them.

And here’s the punchline: This wonderful insight is being written in a blog! (“Only other bloggers are unreliable. Not me!”)

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to find out it’s a parody.

There are parts to this story in the Wall Street Journal that are truly tragic. No one wants to think about the utterly poor becoming utterly poorer. But the very foreignness of the Mongolian cashmere goat farmers juxtaposed with the same tendency to overextend on credit that is being seen in the American housing market makes for an interesting story. And then you get sentences like this:

“Some herders, betting on continued strong cashmere prices, borrowed more than they should have, and spent the money on the Mongolian equivalent of conspicuous consumption: motorbikes and solar panels to provide electricity for their tents.”

There you have it: Whether it’s trying to flip already overpriced condos in Miami or buying a motorbike to trek from one electricized tent to another, consumers will sometimes behave foolishly. When you get lots of them all behaving badly at once, you get a zud.

Little piece of advice: If you’re willing to make the trek, it sounds like buying depressed cashmere goats (meaning the price is depressed, not the goats themselves) might be a bargain. Hold on to them long enough and you might corner the market. I don’t know if I’m kidding.

The new content begins with a paean to my first technological love: the Mac. 26 years ago this week, Apple introduced the Macintosh. It was on such a machine (well, a Mac SE) that I first got my geek on as a graphic designer and in-house “system expert” (we had two Macs and a laser printer) at a Kinko’s. It was the dawning of desktop publishing and I loved everything about Macs. I had learned BASIC programming on clunky old school-furnished IBMs, but the Mac was everything that people say it was: cool, sleek, smart, etc. And for a time, they just got better and better.

I left Macs behind in the mid-90’s when Apple decided it wanted to suck and Microsoft made us all believe that Windows was just as good. I also didn’t have access to company-provided hardware and couldn’t afford a Mac. Looking at Wikipedia articles for this post I was reminded about how expensive Macs were (and still are). In one of the Wiki articles it says original (or maybe it was the second generation “Fat Mac”) was something like $5000 in today’s money. That seems outrageous to me now, but that was the price you had to pay for a mouse and GUI back then. (Kind of funny considering I now have to throw mice away from time to time to remove the clutter.)

So what’s the point, you ask? All the hype over the introduction of the Apple Tablet, and the subsequent announcements that other manufacturers are (again) looking to release tablet computers, has me wondering if tablets are really what the world is clamoring for. In other words, is this a Mac or a Newton? I’ll have more to say as I cogitate over the question and talk to smarter people (and non-lapsed Apple adherenets). For now, however, I’m still not convinced that a tablet computer is really all that great an idea, and if it is a great idea, that Apple really has the secret formula (design, operating system, dependability, etc.) to make one a success. (

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still excited to get a look at them, and it almost goes without saying that Apple’s designs are brilliant, but for now I’m not so sure I’m all that sold.

More to come, obviously. For now, expect additional posts on this topic, as well as links to be added later today. I’m typing as fast as I can!

Thanks for stopping by.