Reading Time: 2 min I used to believe that “we all have 24 hours in a day” and while it’s technically true, it’s really not. Shailja Patel said it very well in a popular tweet from a few years ago: Use public transport? Your 24 hours are not the same as those of private jet owners.Do your own cooking, […]
Why can’t we just “shut down” child porn?
Reading Time: 2 min Child pornography and human trafficking are major problems across the world, and the web helps to facilitate both to a rather large degree. Whenever some website gets taken down (or blocked on a site like Facebook), you’ll often see memes like this start to float around: At first glance, it seems like a solid question. […]
Yes, it can hurt to “just ask”
Reading Time: 2 min You’ve heard the phrase “it can’t hurt to ask”, and while that’s true in many situations, putting it out as a blanket statement can lead to some bad things. A great example is spam, whether that’s via email, phone calls, or things like LinkedIn connections. In every case, they figure “it can’t hurt to ask”, […]
Don’t face the blank page
Reading Time: 2 min I’ve published a blog post for over 300 days in a row now, but I’ve got to admit something; sitting in front of a blank page is a killer for me. If the page is blank, so is my mind. The solution is pretty easy, though — I don’t sit in front of a blank […]
Reading carefully is the new listening, and writing clearly is the new empathy
Reading Time: 2 min Despite the tremendous growth of Zoom and other video conferencing platforms over the last few years, the vast majority of our communication remains in text form, primarily email. There are big advantages to both types of communication, which Seth Godin broke down right near the beginning of the pandemic. Real-time communication, like Zoom or in-person […]
Trusting authentic recommendations
Reading Time: < 1 min Over at GreenMellen, we don’t host websites. We help people choose hosting, and we take care of all of the technical work, but we want our clients to have ownership of their sites. We do this for their long-term benefit (owning your own stuff is a good thing), but recently I’ve noticed a great side […]
You don’t need to build your own server
Reading Time: 2 min With the continuing fight that many are facing against “big tech”, a growing group of people are building their own servers to host their websites and content. There are really two reasons you might want to do this: Servers for your media consumption at your house, such as music and movies. If you can’t get […]
Meta dialogue
Reading Time: < 1 min Seth Godin gave an interesting challenge in his podcast last week, where he encouraged people to announce what they were going to say before they say it. For example, if you’re getting frustrated on the phone with a customer service rep, you’d say “Next I’m going to get riled up a bit more and threaten […]
Reducing and syncing notifications
Reading Time: 2 min I’ve talked a good bit about smartwatches on here over the years, from my first Google-vs-Apple post back in 2015, to recurring posts about how Pebble stuck around longer than we thought it might. I recently picked up a Galaxy Watch4, and it’s excellent. As I’ve been getting things set up, though, it’s helped me […]
You don’t have to have all of the answers if you’re willing to learn
Reading Time: < 1 min It’s tempting to try to have the answer for every question, and it’s admittedly something I fall into myself. It’s kind of like the idea of “proving versus improving“, and trying to be an expert on everything. You don’t need to try to do that. It can take a degree of humility to know you […]