Basket Case

I have mixed feelings for the Facebook "Like" button. In the Facebook universe, "like" is the uniform mechanism for interacting with various pieces of content flowing around. You can Like status updates, photos, comments on updates and photos, Pages and even ads! One interaction to rule them all. The reasoning behind it is that it reduces friction and leads to more people clicking on the like button. This is what Facebook would want the users to do. But what does it mean for us? How do you feel about coloring the whole world in the 2 colors of "like" and .. well, "no comments"? From the perspective of somebody who likes the human languages a lot, it is distressing. One feature of human languages is that they are wonderfully precise. The variety of expressions and words available to describe very similar but distinct actions, feelings, things is not only useful but also charming. And this precision is very selective. Different cultures develop...

In another 10 days, 2010 will be past. A past, we can never visit again. But we are humans, a inherently optimistic lot. We don't worry about past, we look forward to future. Well atleast sometimes :) One of the most popular and perhaps the most way of looking forward to coming year is to take resolutions. While they hardly last for more than few weeks in most cases, everyone keeps taking them every year. Which is fine - they make you exercise for at least for those few weeks. Anything is better than nothing! Now one way to make your resolutions last longer would be give them some momentum before hand. Why not start working on that reading list right away? Or start getting up a little early everyday starting today. By the time new year rolls in, you would already have started the journey, perhaps even stopped and started again. That should prove to be more effective then suddenly getting up on 1st of January and telling yourself that you are a changed person now. Try it. I am t...