When you have a project you want to do, there are going to be bits you really need to think about and bits that you really need to debate with people.

But there are also bits you don’t.

So do those.

I’ve been in meetings where because the overall issue was big and needed thought, people spent time on the piddling easy and obvious stuff. I realise it’s a way of churning over the detail and processing it, but you end up with people raising objections that are word for word an issue you’ve already said to them. Where you said there’s thing we’ll need to look at, they come back with yeah, but we can’t do this entire project because of this thing. It’s the same thing but they tell you it like it’s news and they tell you it like that’s the end of the deal instead of an issue to fix.

They might be right but, jaysis, it’s irritating.

You also get objections that are simply embarrassing. Again, they come from this process of churning and thinking, they’re half-formed but again you have to deal with them. I was in a meeting three weeks ago where I said “Tough tum tiddly” about a potential problem someone raised. I got the gig, too, so maybe I should say tough tum tiddly more.

When you’re in the throes of this though, give them the time to think and give them the respect that they may know more than you do. But if it looks like it’s going to take a long time and that time will be spent on the embarrassingly tough tum tiddly details, make the call. Is it good enough to continue despite this, are any of their objections useful, are they ever going to get this thing done?

Too often the answers are all no. In which case, take it away and do it yourself or do it somewhere else.

And, by the way, tough tum tiddly.

We’ve all been there. The half-written to-do list stretching the length of your arm. The incessant notifications calling for our attention. The feeling of drowning in a list of never ending tasks — from a computer waiting to be configured, to an unplayed game, to a terrifyingly busy inbox. The backlog, we fear, is here to stay. But here are 10 tips for clawing your way out of this predicament.

10 Ways To Dig Yourself Out Of Task Backlogs – Rob Nightingale, Make Use Of (26 November 2014)

Read the full piece.

That is all.

Wait. Except that fast-food sketch they mention is better. And here it is.

Google Glass and other wearable devices are now officially off-limits in the cinema.

On Wednesday, the MPAA and the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) announced an update to their joint policy to prevent film theft in theaters, prohibiting recording by users equipped with Google Glass or other wearables in theaters.

The update “was made to fully integrate wearable tech into the rules following a joint meeting of NATO and MPAA theatrical anti-piracy teams,” the lobbying orgs said. The announcement was made at ShowEast 2014, NATO’s annual industry confab in Hollywood, Fla.

Movie Industry Officially Bans Google Glass, Other Wearable Devices – Todd Spangler, Variety (29 October 2014)

Read the full piece.

Here it is:

And now the only answer is no, not deliberately. At least we think we don’t click on banner ads but enough people do that the world keeps moving and has done so for twenty years now. For this is the twentieth anniversary of the web banner ad and if you’re not in the mood to celebrate, read anyway because The Internet History Podcast has a remarkably interesting story.

It begins:

Of course, it’s not *technically* the first banner ad. There was no “one” first banner ad. Instead, there were around 12-14 banners, which all went live 20 years ago today, on October 27th, 1994. That was when the website HotWired.com first launched on the internet.

What follows is the story of the world’s first banner ad (or ads). This topic may not seem like something to celebrate, but think about this:

Basically, the majority of the web and the Internet are subsidized by ads.

The net as we know it today would not exist without ads. There would be no Google search. No Gmail. No Facebook. No Twitter. No Reddit. Nor any website that you can use basically for free…

Without advertising, that is.

Sure, there are huge sections of the Internet that function on a different revenue model (Amazon, eBay, iTunes and other things come to mind) but the vast majority of the online world we love is underpinned by an economic infrastructure of advertising.

This is the story of how that infrastructure was fist built, by the people who conceived and designed the very first banners.

On The 20th Anniversary, An Oral History of the Web’s First Banner Ads – Brian McCulloch, Internet History Podcast (27 October 2014)

Read the full piece where you can also listen to the podcast version.

I didn’t know that it existed at all, let alone that it was today. But today is World Standards Day, except when it isn’t. The Atlantic:

Happy World Standards Day! The International Organization for Standardization has declared today, October 14, to be a celebration of the hundreds of engineering and scientific standards from which we all benefit—everything from the length of a meter to the two-letter country code system.

It is a day, in other words, to commemorate cross-national conformance, connection, and collaboration.

But the U.S. will not be observing World Standards Day today, on World Standards Day. Instead, the U.S. will observe World Standards Day next week, on October 23.

U.S. Observes ‘World Standards Day’ on Non-Standard Day – Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic (14 October 2014)

There is a reason. It does kinda make sense. A bit. But that’s no fun at all. Move along if you’d rather have a little chortle like I did or read the full piece if you want to see what gauzy excuse the US has.