Colin Charles Agenda

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”

Vince Lombardi

(via someone on FriendFeed…)

A new way to teach your child to get potty trained. Comes in both a boy or a girl version. Correct potty usage of course, gives you a sticker as a reward. I don’t recall reading about (and getting rewarded) for using the potty. Is this Parenting 1.5?

I really like The Age’s Blog Central. I wish more papers took on new media (The NYTimes is another shining example, of a good new media citizen, coming from the old media world). The Star Online tries with the Citizen’s Blog, which is crowd-sourced blog entries. The Age explores new boundaries, topics that may not make its way to print, but can definitely be OK for online dissemination. Plus you get comments. Crowd-sourcing blog posts, under the guise that you’ll get more readership (for the author) probably doesn’t make too much sense… everyone will jump on the idea of creating their own blog, and harnessing the many ad networks there are out there…

What’s hit my RSS reader for today? The eight-week rule from All men are liars.

…formalisation of a new dating regulation – the eight-week rule – a time period “at the commencement of a relationship, in which there is no obligation on behalf of either party to offer any form of commitment”.

“On one hand, the eight-week rule offers (dare we say encourages) eight weeks of carefree fun, even when you know full well there is no future in the relationship. On the other hand, it forces you to lay your cards on the table after eight weeks, and discourages you from stringing the other person along or getting too comfortable with a person you’re not that interested in,”

Read it. Laugh at it. Realise it will probably never make a print magazine/paper, unless its the relationship column of some rag. But go on and read the comments. Some are downright witty. They make for excellent Sunday reading. And urban myth or not, this eight-week rule (or Sam’s three-week one) makes a lot of sense

Halim brought up a great topic on how computers are alienating us from the outside world… (c.f. finding information from the library might take an hour, but a Google search will take all of 30 seconds – plus don’t forget they scan books now too).

“”…we got out. We saw other people in the street and in the library: a man in a wheelchair, a helpful librarian, folk reading magazines. Although we didn’t speak to anyone, we interacted with them: a nod, a smile, and people saw us too. We were out there in the community.

It’s a pity that our computers have taken us away from other people.”

Really though, what have computers taken away from us?

Nodding, smiling? These are nice, polite gestures, but there’s no love lost, if you don’t do that (to randoms you find on the road). A really common practice in Australia (especially in the smaller cities, like say, Port Pirie even!), but a not so common one in Malaysia.

We have senses. Is it about the senses?

• Sight – you can see someone via a video-conference. Google has brought this to GMail, so it can now happen in-browser. Skype has had it for ages… 3G video calling means you don’t even need to be chained to your desk
• Hearing – you can already hear a person… most IM clients now have voice components, and we’ve had the telephone for ages.
• Taste – I doubt you taste the humans you meet, but maybe this can be locking lips? OK, this is still a in-person thing, if at all
• Smell – no smells through a computer yet… and smells can evoke emotions… I know the whiff of hair, or even a some perfume can subtly excite someone, so this is still an in-person thing
• Touch – I think this might be the most important of all the things that computers have taken away from us. Why, later

So, if its a friend, or even an acquaintance, the sight and hearing is all you need. If you’re intimate with someone, taste, smell, touch make sense… so its a given, intimacy doesn’t happen through a computer keyboard.

Touch is important. I dislike touching people, unless I’m comfortable with them and they’re in the inner circle. The other day, I hugged a close friend I’d not seen in over a year. It felt good. Closest human contact I’ve had in a long time (to put it in context, I can’t even remember the last time this happened). I can see the importance in touch, and I wish it happened more often, I guess

Why do I dislike touching people, as a generalisation? Shaking hands… rabid passing of germs!

OK, this is getting on to becoming a pointless rant. I don’t think computers alienate folk – sight and sound is all you really need, for 95% of your relationships (ok, that number pulled out of the hairs on my arse :P). ’nuff said

xkcd hits the nail in the wall with the friends strip.

Being afraid to ask, is silly. If there’s ever advice I will impart to those that will listen, it should be that you should ask. Before its too late. The longer you sink into the “friends zone”, the more you’ll feel you have to lose… the more you’ll fear rejection… the more you’ll fear the good thing ending.

The best advice is: “I could ask you out, and move on with my life if you said no”. Listen to xkcd! You cannot lose what you never had (no matter how good it feels in your head – its just your rabid imagination).

Life threw me that lemon before, and I’ve learned from it. That’s why I can safely dole out advice. It always seems clearer in retrospect.

Of course, life however, remains interesting. Because sometimes hard and fast rules like this, just don’t work. There are grey areas. But the fear (“I am going to date this jerk… But he doesn’t respect you”) always remains.

Who knows? In time, I might be doling out more advice, as I take on this roller-coaster ride called life.

life is like cost per click adverts. i can display them, i just can’t convert them to clicks.

its a poignant reminder, that in life, my conversion ratio, sucks donkey balls.

its been ages since “life is like a box of chocolates”, eh? bad parody…