Ken Stadden\'s MacroBlog

“PEOPLE LOVE LISTS,” the gruff, cigar-chewing editor-in-chief was shouting into the spittle-flecked mouthpiece. “GIVE ‘EM LISTS.”  Ever since that ear-opener from my stinky old boss many years ago, I’ve done my best to write coherent, compelling prose without gratuitously embedding bullet points just because folks love to read ‘em.

It’s been a losing battle. After WWW started meaning something more important than Wichita Water Works, reader attention spans dwindled to near absolute zero and those with acute attention deficit disorder became the common denominator every writer was aiming down at. (”At” is such a good preposition to end a sentence with. Don’t you think?)

So today I’ll cave and provide to you a list, albeit a short one. Short but powerful. These tweeting rules have allowed me to build up an immense following on Twitter, now numbering in the double digits and not too darn far away from triple digits.

Dumb Suburban Tweeting Guy Rule number one:

Remember, they’re not that into you.

Suppress the banal stuff that causes the world to ridicule Twitter users. While reporting trivia such as the contents of your latest meal to create an “ambient awareness” among a circle of friends may work for some folks, the damage done reaches well beyond their peer group. You know how “Green Acres” episodes are already 44 light-years away from earth and there’s nothing earthlings can do to get them back? Like that.

Further, the ambient awareness thing just flat doesn’t work for dumb suburban guys who don’t have many friends. (Never mind how I know this.)

No, best put something interesting out there instead, or at least a link to something interesting. Tip: Think like a writer. Ask yourself: does this tweet pass the crusty editor’s “so what” test? Hint: Don’t tweet about the sunrise from your hotel room unless you are going to include a link to a Twitpic. AND NOT A GRAINY, DARK, FUZZY ONE FROM THAT PATHETIC 1-MEGAPIXEL CAMERA PHONE, EITHER.

DSTGR number two:

Please, oh please oh please, put up a better picture.

Here’s a negative example: Jonathan Vaughters, former pro cyclist and current directeur sportif of the Garmin-Slipstream pro cycling team, was forced to retire from the 2001 Tour de France due to a bee sting that caused his eye to swell shut. I guess he thought his swollen face would make a cute Twitter picture. Maybe as a JOKE, Jonathan, at first. But not forever.

And don’t get me started on dark, fuzzy, out-of-focus pictures, which are legion. Or pictures of cute animals, pictures of you upside down, or pictures of your car (I tried that and rejected it after about two tweets). Why, people? If you are tweeting as a human and not a faceless corporate representative, have a good picture of you.

Tip: Let us see your face clearly, or your face plus some interesting special effects, like a pair of Homestar Runner legs grafted onto your head. Hint: If you make my Tweetdeck a nicer place to visit in the morning, I’ll follow you forever.

DSTGR number three:

Capitalize. Spell. Use punctuation. Write complete sentences.

The rules are there for a reason. When you follow the rules of grammar, educated grownups will have one less reason to unfollow you in a moment of irritation over a lousy tweet.

Tip: I don’t care if you hated your sixth-grade English teacher. We all did. Write well anyway. Hint: You’re not doing this for her.

I just posted the following as a comment to a great article entitled Is Cash for Clunkers Stimulating the Economy?

The wastefulness of destroying perfectly serviceable cars is unconscionable. For every Explorer engine that’s intentionally ruined by being run to destruction under government-mandated procedures, there’s another Explorer with engine problems whose financially struggling owner would benefit from the availability of a good used engine, or maybe just one or two key parts from that engine.

With a used head from eBay and a fresh valve job, this '88 Dodge Raider runs like new, but still qualifies for taxpayer-subsidized euthanasia.

Destroying an old car and replacing it with a new one takes a lot of energy and resources. So depicting Cash for Clunkers as “green” is misleading at best.  Further, cash for clunkers benefits only a narrow slice of the public– it does nothing for those of us who buy only used cars, or those of us who drive an older car that gets over 18 mpg. The nail in the coffin is the huge bill for taxpayers.

As a user and do-it-yourself maintainer of older cars, I lose thrice: I don’t qualify, good recycled parts are destroyed, which drives up prices… and I’m taxed to support the measure. Bad, bad program.

P.S.  It’s sick. They pour sodium slicate into engines and run them to destruction. How is this different from, say, hiring vandals to break windows so that glassmakers and handymen have more work? Valuable property is being destroyed.

P.P.S. Is Cash for Clunkers really good for the environment? See this article.

I want to start this blog with a post advocating clean, compliant source code. A Web page is just TV to many people. Who cares what the underlying markup looks like?

Well, that’s like hitting the car wash regularly but never looking under the hood as long as the car runs OK. On a Web site as with your SUV, neglecting the parts you can’t see has consequences.

Advantages of avoiding trashy markup:

• Faster loading because the browser gets it in one pass
• Faster loading because there’s less to load
• Faster, easier updating because content and style are separated
• Higher search engine ranking because spiders like clean code.

I developed admiration for clean, elegant code while studying for my CS degree in the Middle Ages. Today, I don’t care how much RAM, disk storage and bandwidth we all have to waste; brevity and elegance matter more than ever. That’ll be true as long as online content and functionality need to be updated.