Choices, choices

Jason Kottke seeks advice from a number of recent books -- Blink, Freakonomics, Everything Bad Is Good for You -- and applies their principles to ordering a meal at a restaurant. Funny stuff.

{found via Dave Weinberger, of Cluetrain Manifesto and Small Pieces, Loosely Joined.}

Meme for a change of pace

Normally not my thing, but note who got picked out of the random friends list, and why.

( Thoughtfully placed behind a cut. )

HAC it up

Some of you may well have heard of the concept of FUD -- Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It's a term that's come out of computer business culture -- your competition announces a product, so you announce a vaporware product that matches it (with tint control!); you disparage the general quality of their code; you hint at deep dark secrets about who their venture capital is really coming from; etc.

Well, I've decided there needs to be a term for something like FUD, but with a positive spin. Something like Dr. Pangloss. Where you invent an imaginary superiority for your point-of-view (computer-ish or not), and then keep repeating that superiority as if it's, well... real.

So, my friends, I introduce you to: HAC. Hype, Arrogance, and Certainty.

Dick Cheney promoting the idea the Iraqis would welcome us with celebrations in the streets -- that was HAC.

Any sentence that ends, "...or, you could just install X," -- regardless of what X might be -- is HAC.

In a sense, you could say the Internet bubble was a macro example of HAC that got its eventual comeuppance.

And, yes, one could say the word "hubris" applies just as easily... But that ain't a TLA, now, is it?