I think that was a classic post by Nielsen. Very insightful. And good linkbait too. I wonder whether he did that on purpose. |
Yes, this applies fully to Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress" which I just have read. |
<< I wonder whether he did that on purpose. >>
Did he write something that people would find interesting and want to link to on purpose? I expect so. Otherwise, what's the point in ever writing anything at all? :-) |
I actually had to program something that put up a large-type "Access Denied" and then "Access Granted" for a B- or C-grade movie producer that was a friend-of-a-friend and seized upon me as the "resident geek". I got paid some minuscule amount, my name appears in the closing credits, and I think there's actually an entry for me in IMDB as a result.
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I wonder how useful the whole "linkbait" concept really is, not the least as a concept of categorizing articles. I think the main reason for someone writing something is always because that thing is on their mind, they think it's an important reflection on the world (something that may advance culture and society, even if just a tiny, tiny bit), or a beautiful tale to be told, or something that must exit the system to prevent the author from blowing up of too much input, or because the author enjoys craftful writing so much. Everything else becomes the meaningless dirty building brick web agencies mean when they speak of "content" or "design". I think a Renaissance painter painting a vanitas* still life today would put a backlink on the table (don't ask!), muttering "links are short, art is long."
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanitas |
Another thing they get wrong is that the control software for giant secret experimental projects is fast, fancy, and skinned to look pretty. Real user interfaces for experiments are more likely to be a big dialog page with 12 buttons, four listboxes, and eight behind-the-scenes hand-edited config files. Or maybe just a hand-edited script. Plus a log file.
The glitz doesn't usually come until you convert it into a product.
What I really want to know, though, is where can I get one of those computer monitors that also projects the screen contents onto my face as a recognizable image? That would be cool!
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There was a nice blog post recently which talked about this too... the post was about the differences of code in the movies and in real life...
http://www.drivl.com/posts/view/494 |