In a snappy paper called ‘Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly’ by Daniel Oppenheimer, he discovered that big words slipped into reports to make the writer sound more intelligent just doesn’t work. In a series of 5 studies, Oppenheimer created samples of vocabulary used in various passages including cv’s and essays, and then asked people to rate the intelligence of the person who wrote them. The simpler language resulted in much higher ratings of intelligence.. In other words using complex language isn’t smart.
Oppenheimer also found that writing in a hard to read font lowered peoples evaluation of your intelligence.
So simplify and use nice fonts !
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_M._Oppenheimer#cite_note-1
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/opplab/papers/Opp%20Consequences%20of%20Erudite%20Vernacular.pdf
In Jan 2008 we were choosing a web framework, and went with Django. At the time, to help decide, I surveyed ODesk for the number of freelancers offering expertise, and Jobserve, for the number of jobs for that skill.
Now, three years on, it’s time to look again and see if we made a good choice.
* Thats the number of jobs listed in the last 7 days, as of 3rd Feb 2011.
From our point of view, as a mainly python house, Django looks like a good choice, seems like pylons, turbo gears and zope are niche at best (in fact I think Pylon changed name).
.Net is of course monster (but it gets used for lots of non web tasks also), and I was surprised to see django usage seeming to be growing quicker than ROR.
What frameworks have I missed?
For anyone interested in such things, http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html provide a nice list of language popularity over time.
tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?
looking at a toy soldier through the bars of my cot
Manybooks.net offer loads of kindle friendly ebooks for free. You can actually download straight from your kindle.
Make sure you’ve got network access (wifi or 3g), then press menu, then experimental, then launch the web browser. From here you have access to thousands of books.
Useful excerpts from a Smith & Williamson ‘managing your exit’ workshop I was at last week, targeted at owners looking to sell their business. We talked a lot about a clear vision, and a storyboard, and giving the buyer permission to buy.
Never tell anyone the value of your business - Stating a value puts a ceiling on the price. The owner can walk in and announce “I’m not taking less that £10M” just as the buyer is poised to offer £30M!
I’ve been super happy with my Kindle since I took delivery a month ago. My best find so far has been that using longform and Instapaper gets me a free weekly magazine with content from magazines like Rolling Stone, Wired and the New York Times.
Here’s the very short list of apps I’m using most days:
Got any good tips to share? My only gripe these days is that not all the books I want to read are available on kindle yet..
Awesome.
I’ve been using the kindle for a few weeks, and with free 3g internet access in 100 countries, it could be the cruising yachtsmans dream. Here’s why:
- The battery - It lasts for a month, you won’t even need a charger for most trips
- 3g wireless web access - You won’t go surfing the net, or shopping with this, but it’s perfect for checking the shipping forecast, or a quick look at email.
- Free internet in 100 countries - no huge roaming charges when you get into port.
- It works in a waterpoof bag! So you can keep it in the cockpit, and flick it on when you need a weather update.
- It works outside - If there is sun, which is not always a given in the UK, you can still easily see the screen.
Now obviously this isn’t much use if you’re out of cell coverage, but for most of us doing 3-4 day cruises around the coast, the kindle could be a great investment. If only they’d publish an e-almanac..
Have you used your Kindle at sea? Any recommended web sites?
Kindle friendly links
MetOffice shipping forecast - text only
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/shipping_printable.html
Google mobile - http://m.google.com
Bramble bank weather! http://www.bramblemet.co.uk/
Kindle - bagged up and in action with the shipping forecast!
Great job Boris! The london bike scheme looks fantastic, check out Old Street station #design.
UK Companies - useful reference for shareholders rights.
want to know the sunniest parts of the UK? UK average sunshine hours map -
Since we moved to Deal, we couldn’t believe how sunny it is, and nobody else believed it either. So I found this map, hah!
We’re upgrading our helpdesk system, we currently use ‘kayako’ which is incredibly full featured, but sadly also incredibly complicated to manage.
The current main options that meet our needs (simple, fast, easy and fully integrated with email) are tender and zendesk.
My initial findings posted below.
is as happy as Larry doing page designs for the new safedrop.com site. nice to be creating stuff.
European EC2 monthly pricing in US$ and British £. We’ve been looking at hosting options recently and this is looking more attractive than the £50k/annum we’ve been quoted for a small vmware cluster.