Can you digg it?

I imagine y’all have heard of digg.com. But in case there are a few of you out there who haven’t (hey, it’s possible; I just starting frequenting it recently), or those of you that have don’t use it very often, I encourage you to give it a try. That is, if you tend to spend time on the internet “wasting time” or “finding entertainment” (and no – that is not a porn reference). There’s almost always something informative, funny, entertaining and/or down right thought provoking that other folks have dug up for my brain to digest. Here are a few nuggets of gold unearthed recently:

• An amusing take on the all too annoying error 404 page.

• A list of movies (many that I’ve never heard of) that sound fantastic.

• One of the best political editorials I’ve ever read. It eloquently states many of the reasons I’m frustrated with infuriated by our current political “regime” and am so excited for the upcoming elections.

What do you digg? Where do y’all go for your internet brain food?

Stories overrun statistics (and reason).

Best editorial I’ve read in a while.  It reveals why we overreact to memorable incidents like the Virginia Tech shootings and 9/11.

The quote “we generally give stories more weight than statistics” just about sums up the point of the article.  One of the most compelling business speakers I’ve heard made the exact same point.  The application was different (being better at communicating rather than being a more reasonable person), but the message was the same.  He brought up the example of Subway.  Which is more compelling, “6 subs with less than 7 grams of fat” (or is it 7 under 6?) or Jared – the fat man who held up his old, huge pants and said: “I’m skinny because of subway”?  Jared wins.  We remember stories much better than statistics.  We relate to them and they move us.

As Mr. Schiener points out, this is a double edged sword.  The same story that can be used for effective communication can be combined with emotions (primarily fear, but others would work) to provide motivation for unreasonable activity.  It’s something to keep in mind as we make our way through the world.  When we have a decision, be it where we eat for lunch, or who we vote into office, we would be wise to trick ourselves into looking beyond the impressionable story and evaluate how much effect the story-motivated activity will actually have.

Virginia Tech Fallout

Okay, so a high school kid gets arrested for writing this essay. Sounds like the beginning to a bad joke, no?

Sure, the kid showed some very, very poor judgment by handing that in. Definite lack of common sense. But that was the whole point. He’s a bright enough guy (straight A’s), obviously fed up with high school, about to graduate and join the military, and probably thought the assignment was stupid. So, since he obviously didn’t need to worry about getting good grades, he reacted with a devil may care, “screw this” attitude. And gets arrested. Unbelievable. Maybe I’ve always had a strong independent streak, but I just don’t understand this response in particular, and blanket “disturbing the peace” laws in general. Whenever fear enters the picture, the response resembles the sheep video below. “Gaaa! It’s scary! Run away!” Or, in human terms – “Gaaa! It’s scary. Lock it up! (or kill it!)” Where does it end? Things like this (and a “drinking in public” fiasco a couple summers ago) really make me a firm believer in sticking up for our rights. When the powers that be are frightened, they obviously are incapable of sound thought, so blanket authority to throw people in jail scares the bejeezus out of me. It makes me want to become a lawyer.

That said, anybody have good ideas how to fix stuff like this? Any positive ways to change it? (Other than bad publicity…)