Since 2000, there has been an Internet-wide “Spring Cleaning” on May 1 called, oddly enough, May 1st Reboot. The idea is for “new media” designers to throw out the old and polish up their sites with new designs. I originally came across the reboot in 2001 or so, but in the years since I’ve never changed any part of my site in the spring. I’m more of a start-fresh-in-the-cold-crisp-air-of-autumn kind of a guy.
Last year, Adam Powell at WebJillion started a less-intensive reboot known as the CSS Reboot. Unlike the May 1st Reboot, the CSS Reboot is a semiannual event, in May and November. I came across the CSS reboot again a few days ago. That made me think.
Dwight D. Eisenhower:
Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.
Here’s a great pair of articles on how to tell a story. In these cases, they are from a leadership perspective, but I think it distills the essence of what makes a good blog post.
Simon Heap neatly summarizes the article he found.
In short, the four-part formula to good storytelling is:
- Somebody…(a person, actor, group)
- wanted…(what this person sought, desired, yearned for)
- but…(complication, obstacle, conflict)
- so…(resolution, climax, outcome, learning)
My third-grade son, who learned about writing stories a few weeks ago, could have told me this. Sometimes I can be a little dense ;-)
I have always believed that code is a form of art. It should not only serve the purpose for which it was written, but it should also be pleasing to the eye when read.
Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror has posted part of an interview with Wayne Ratliff, the author of dBase. It sums up how I feel about code.
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We returned last night from a 7-night 8-day trip to Walt Disney World. Boy am I tired. We flew out of Milwaukee which meant barely any sleep for me at either end, since I also got to drive the hour and half between here and Milwaukee.
Here’s a recap of our vacation.
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