An interesting little look at the most hated advertising techniques on your computer can be seen here. I always wonder about the people that use techniques like these. Do they really think, for example, that I won't notice the fact that there is no close button on a pop up? How am I supposed to be open and respectful of them and their message when they are trying to stick their foot in the cyber door or trying to pretend they are a part of windows itself? I know enough to not click on the darn thing at all (right click on the windows taskbar and select 'close') but these creeps make it really difficult to teach computer phobic people - like my folks - and in effect drive them away from the computer altogether.
It's an example of a kind of market failure. The seller is only thinking of the one transaction and not the larger issue of web functionality. If web functionality is driven too low, however, everyone suffers. I do consider myself a free market sort of person but I'm well aware that markets need minimal rules in order to function. Like stable currency, like the rule of law, the right to private property, etc.
For now the only point I want to make is that there is a world of difference in how you handle an event that you perceive to be a 'one of,' and how you handle an event that you are likely to face again and again. The first sort is quick, brusque and short and the second sober, mature and balanced.
Ecce Homo I haven't done a quote from Pope Ratzinger's Introduction to Chistianty in a while and even though I have finished the book there are still one or two passages I want to share, including - perhaps even especially - this one. When I first began to look over what Christianity teaches, to look at the gospel story and to try penetrate why it has been so compelling to so many for so long, this was one of the things that leapt out at me. I was happy to see our Pope confirm it. Expanding on the Apostles Creed where it says "... suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried," Ratzinger writes: The fact that when the perfectly just man appeared he was crucified, delivered up by justice to death, tells us pitilessly who man is: Thou art such, man, that thou canst not bear the just man - that he who simply loves becomes a fool, a scourged criminal, an outcast. Thou art such because, unjust thyself, thou dost always need the injustice of the n...
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