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Skins

“Sometimes you just need to shed the old skin to see what kind of butterfly you will become.”

- Ike Pigott

Occam’s Hors D’ Oeuvres

SirenMeme alert!
Meme alert!
Meme alert!

Push and shove your way to the nearest exits!

I’ve been tagged.

Some really smart guy named Jeremiah Owyang has classified a bunch of internet users as “media snackers.”

  • not in it for the “long haul”
  • you want quick, easily digestible bits
  • you want to consume it where you want, when you want, and how you want
  • you raid it with impunity, and get fat and lazy.

Okay, I added that last one.

Anyway, Jeremiah started this whole concept, which has now been passed from blog to blog until Lauren Vargas ran out of other people to link. Failing to find any others, she tagged me to answer the question: what do *I* do to cater to “media snackers?”

Let’s go left-to-right, starting in the sidebar.

It is certainly noteworthy that most all of this content was already syndicated in one way or another. I appear to have been way before my time as a one-man Media Snacking Catering Company. But that’s only my dark side! (Get it?) Let’s get to the content:

  • Your Moment of Venn
    This classic three-ring circus is an important tool in understanding logical relationships and deconstructing Aristotelean syllogisms. And they are great visual representations. And they are easy to understand. And cool.The Moment of Venn was my first conscious effort to explore a more visual medium and condense a lot of thought and information into a digestible morsel – and then it become the icon for Occam’s RazR. I am particularly proud of PR and the Gray Zone which almost-but-didn’t-quite get noticed, and the Sweet Spot of Influence, which got no notice at all.
  • My Quotes
    (As a helpful hint, I have taken to employing visual cues to ensure that Snackers recognize the wrapping)

“More than a snack, but not quite a meal, the ‘My Quotes’ category is an attempt to capture some of the originally phrased pithy wisdom that somehow accidentally germinates in that great rotating metaphor mixer that is my brain.”

- Ike Pigott

See how easy that is? And My Quotes even have their own feed. How nice!

  • Demotivational Devotional
    Okay, I admit it. I was just looking for a way to make fun of people. I learned a long time ago that if you make someone laugh hard enough, they’ll forget everyone else is laughing at them too. At least long enough for you to run away. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

That’s an awful lot of stuff that is designed for quick consumption. If I were a convenience store, nutri-Nazis would picket me. If I were a school lunchroom, hippies would protest me. Yet I am manna, concealed in a junk-food wrapper.

So, who gets “tagged” next? Good question. Let’s shoot for some folks that I suspect may occasionally peruse this space: Eric Eggertson, Lee Hopkins, Nicki Faulk, Katya Andresen, Rob LaGesse, and Jason Falls.

Let’s see who can stack up against the Snack Daddy.

Paradigms


A good paradigm is like a pane of stained glass.  It looks elegant and pretty, but becomes dangerous when it breaks.

Occam on TV!

“Occam’s Razor” (the philosophical stance that the simpler of two competing explanations is probably correct) inserted itself into consecutive nights of my prime time viewing.

First, Ned from “Pushing Daisies” invoked Occam’s Razor, just a mere tens days after I wrote a critique of the series.  (Coincidence?  I think… well… according to Occam’s Razor, it probably is.)

Then Thursday night, Occam’s Razor was quoted in “Grey’s Anatomy” during the diagnosis of a patient.

Seriously – what are the odds that two shows on the same network would quote the philosophical leanings of a 14th-century Franciscan monk?  On back-to-back nights?

[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, Occam’s Razor, Grey’s Anatomy, Pushing Daisies, ABC, philosophy[/tags]

Karma

“Sometimes when Karma bites you on the butt, it is to keep you from sitting on a landmine.”

- Ike Pigott