Eubie's notes

From the N.Y. Times: Vaulting to No. 1, a Truism at a Time. “The Automatic Millionaire” by David Bach catches my eye. But the advice is simple — avoid debt, curb impulse buys, invest regularly and early. But these books continue to be hot sellers.

“Mr. Bach and his ilk have tapped into a basic need that seems to run deep in the culture: the need for reassurance.”

Most of the advice can be summed up in something Motley Fool’s 10 Lessons to Teach Kids About Money, which includes (10) Money can’t buy happiness, or love, but it can help you avoid many kinds of misery.

All are good tips, but the tenth is the best.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Tip from Boing Boing.

Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) responds to someone who is considering quitting blogging:

Really the weblog metaphor lets you do some really interesting things.

1) It lets you share. I bet you know OneNote tricks that no one else does. Tell us! We’ll hang on every word. (If you are doing a personal weblog, it lets you share your life with other people, say, your family members).

2) It lets you reveal. You could tell a world-wide audience about the next version of OneNote. Why on a blog? Because of the influence of who reads here. Mary Jo Foley, for instance, tells me she reads all the Microsoft blogs looking for information about Microsoft. (If you’re writing a personal blog, you might reveal something cool about your life. A photo of the sunset out your front door, for instance).

3) It lets you reward others. Do you know the social power of a link? I’ve had people come up to me at conferences all giddy saying “do you realize what happened after you linked to me?” Certainly I’m aware of the GooglePower that I send someone when I link to them. But it’s more than that. I’ve made powerful friends after I’ve linked to them. It’s a social thing. Dave Sifry, the guy who founded Technorati, is right. It’s a social gesture. (Personal bloggers, it’s a far more powerful act of friendship to link to someone on your blog than it is to say “that guy’s my friend” in Google’s Orkut).

4) It lets you have conversations. One thing I’d say to Chris is to put “OneNote” and “Pratley” into Feedster.com and subscribe to those two feeds. Then, when someone says something about OneNote or Pratley, respond. By showing you care about people’s opinions, they are far more likely to give you feedback that’ll make your product better. (Personal bloggers, if you respond to people who talk about you, you’ll find you build real and lasting friendships).

S.U.V.s are not safer than smaller cars, but they give the illusion of safety, according to “Big and Bad: How the S.U.V. ran over automotive safety” written by Malcolm Gladwell and published in The New Yorker in January.

The extra weight, higher center of gravity and frame construction cause them to take longer to stop, swerve more and be less safe in an accident than cars.

So are you safer driving a car or an S.U.V.? Gladwell says cars are safer because you can avoid accidents better in a car thanks to handling and shorter stopping distances. Mini-vans, such as the Ford Winstar, are built more like cars than trucks and are safer than S.U.V.s.

Are you safer in a S.U.V. in a wreck? Fatality statistics show S.U.V.s are no safer in actual wrecks than cars. Market research shows that S.U.V. buyers value stronger their belief they will be safer in the inevitable wreck over being better able to avoid a possible wreck, Gladwell writes.

Parts of Gladwell’s article feel like stretches to make a point. He describes the psychology of S.U.V. drivers as trading their responsibility for being safe drivers for the perception they will be able to survive the actual wreck.

S.U.V.s are the vehicles we like to hate. Their size makes us uncomfortable when around them. It’s more like driving around a group of tractor trailers.

During the snow on Thursday I heard more complaints about S.U.V. drivers sliding and being involved in wrecks. Maybe they were traveling too fast to stop on the icy roads, but maybe we notice them because they are big.

Gladwell cites the book “High and Mighty” by Keith Bradsher for more about S.U.V.s and the perceptions of their buyers.

Last Sunday, N.Y. Times reports How an S.U.V. Stacks Up to a Car on the Test Track, which discussed how automakers are trying to make S.U.V.s safer, but they’re still not as safe as cars and minivans. There’s also www.safercars.gov operated by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Others discussing Gladwell’s article include Tom Mangan, Shelia Lennon, and Scobileizer

Earlier this month, Marcia had an accident when an S.U.V. in front of her backed into the car. No personal injuries and medium body damage to the car. Driver said she ignored an audible warning device that something was behind her. Probably would have happened even if the driver had been in a car.

USA Today analyzed 1.2 million speeding tickets issued in 2002 and found that speeders drive faster than they did in 1996 and 1991. Average ticketed speed is higher than the posted speed and the number of ticketers driving 100 m.p.h. has fallen from 1 in 300 in 1991 to 1 in 100 in 2002.

Forbes writes about The Coming RSS Revolution as RSS readers become easier to use and more media organizations, including Forbes, N.Y. Times and CNN.com, offer RSS feeds.

RSS saves time from Web browsing, but I use my saved time to read more RSS feeds. From publisher’s view, though, the question of offering RSS will be how to make it pay for the cost of producing that content since there’s less advertising with RSS feeds.

Do readers become so content with RSS feeds that they no longer visit the actual sites as often? Or is that offset by more choices and easier access to readers? The importance of front pages, such as www.nytimes.com or www.bizjournals.com, is less important to RSS users who bypass it and go directly to articles.

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=61139

Poynter: Thirty-three top executives gather for two days of discussion of their leadership, their journalism, and their choices.

The 13 or more inches of snow Charlotte received since Thursday morning makes it one of the biggest ever. This morning, there is no proof left that I spent an hour shoveling my drive yesterday evening. I’ll be out with camera and shovel later.

Update: Weather stations say our area of Charlotte received at least 15 inches while it was 13 at the airport.

“Oh by the way, have you ever been in prison for armed robbery?” He says he was never asked; so he didn’t tell. Smith & Wesson chairman resigns after criminal past revealed from Phoenix Business Journal.