Getting a voicemail like this: Hello, this is XXXXX, I have some questions about YYYYY please get back to me.

Or getting an email like this: Hello Stephanie, I have some questions about YYYYY please let me know when would be a good time to discuss. Sincerely, XXXXX

Do you see the problem with both of those scenarios? Incase anyone reading this is one of the people who do this, let me tell you the problem.

If you have questions, ask them! Don’t just tell me that you have a question, tell me what the question is!

In either of the scenarios I described above, the person has just wasted some of both of our time. Now I have to write them back or look up their number and call them back, just to I can ask what the hell they wanted to ask me in the first place. Why do people do this? Is it a control thing?

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So I’ve been waffling on this “Share This” thing. I’m not really up on this stuff myself, I’ve never used it, but my friend Lezley told me it was good and important so I put it on my site. The thing is, it runs entirely on the Share This server, so every time someone is viewing one of my pages, they’re also partially redirected to download stuff from the Share This site. And not just two words and a little logo either – it’s a lot of stuff.  Scripts, style sheets, a bunch of logos, who knows what else. Honestly, I don’t really like it – it seems strange and mysterious and opaque to me.

Most WordPress plugins are pretty open and upfront. I mean, if you can read PHP (which isn’t that hard if you just take your time and don’t let it scare you), you can look at the plugin and get at least a bit of an idea what it does. You can do that with the Share This plugin, but what the Share This plugin does is basically just tell your guests to load a bunch of stuff from elsewhere – and you can’t change that stuff. It’s some digging just to get to see that stuff, what with all the javascript voodoo and all that.

Aside from the opacity of its function and my lack of understanding of its purpose, there is the bottom line fact that it slows things down. I’m on a fast connection – but when I can see a noticable change in speed between Share This and don’t Share This, that gives me misgivings. In fact, if there is a problem and for whatever reason the Share This stuff isn’t working, it makes it look like my site is having problems.

So I’ve turned it off, turned it back on, off and on again. I don’t know what’s best. So I’ve made a poll, and I’m asking you. And, please feel free to comment as well.

Cheers!

The poll has been closed, with the votes in at 8 votes against Share This and 1 vote for it.

A while back I posted a Stupid Math Question which was designed to test people’s cognative abilities, comprehension, attention to detail, and above-all, the ability to see beyond the obvious. 

The post contained a lengthy set-up paragraph which was phrased in a format remeniscent of the detailed questions we used to get in math class at school; a scenario was presented, some facts provided, numbers thrown at you, then finally the actual question or equation which you were instructed to “solve”.

In my own Stupid Math Question, the actual question was was placed separate to the “informative” paragraph, the question was bold and underlined. The question was: 

Can you tell how many sidings both trains will pass before one of them must pull over so they can cross?

Read on, to discover the answer!

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