“Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.

“The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.”

The pinhead politician says he made this proposal to cut down on online bullying. But, I think its effect would be to stifle discussion on the Internet. Online bullying, for example, would probably just move from websites to eMail.

I, for example, am not an online bully nor a predator or any kind of threat to anyone online. Maybe an occasional annoyance, but that’s about it. But, I do not like giving my real name and address to many sites online, and having to do so would certainly cut down on the number of blogs I comment on. Who knows what some website or blog owners might do with your personal information?

It’s unclear, but perhaps this would be a law that would only be applicable in Kentucky. In that case, it would certainly kill many blogs hosted in Kentucky. I’m reasonably sure many people would be resistant to the idea of registering their real name and address just to leave a comment on a blog. There are other blogs out there, so it would just be easier to go elsewhere, much to the detriment of Kentucky website and blog owners.

Most people that leave comments anonymously, or pseudo-anonymously, are not bullies. I don’t know the solution to online bullying, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve restricting the rights of the innocent.

On top of that, couldn’t this just make bullying worse? Doesn’t this open up the possibility that the bully will obtain the victim’s real name and physical address? Conceivably, a bully could start a blog or website that appeals to the victim. The victim registers, and now the online bully can become a physical bully. Brilliant.

You see, this is why it is best that the powers of government are limited. Too many politicians are idiots.

Joanne is quite an imaginative blogger. She had this interesting post where she was comparing books with babies. However, this post of hers only existing in my dream.

Sunday morning (or Saturday night, depending upon how you look at it), I had this dream that Joanne had posted such an article on her blog. I don’t recall the details, but it was quite a good read. So, I think Joanne should take that as a compliment. Apparently, even my subconscious mind appreciates her writing.

Mind you, it would have been quite freaky if she had actually posted such an article today. But, she didn’t, so I apparently do not have a wireless connection to the Internet in my brain!

Perhaps it is a sign I’ve spent too much time reading blogs! When I used to do some computer programming, I would occasionally have dreams that were in code. I even developed an easy to use programming language, which, unfortunately, existing only in my dream and I was unable to recall any useful details when awake. I’m pretty sure I’ve had dreams that involved HTML as well. Oh, and many years ago, I was playing quite an interesting video game in my dreams, the likes of which I’ve yet to see in reality!

Of course, sometimes I think it would be nice to have a connection from my brain to the computer. Sometimes in bed, I just think of things, and it would be nice for those thoughts to be going directly into the computer, so I could use them later on. Sure, some might regard forgoing the keyboard as some sort of laziness, but, really, if you could just think things directly to your blog (or HTML coding, or Photoshop work, or Microsoft Word, or whatever you do on your computer), wouldn’t you ditch your keyboard and jump at the chance? Mind you, I would want to be sure that such a connection was both safe and secure, but, other than that, wouldn’t you prefer to just think things to the screen?

Is it laziness? Was it laziness that inspired man to create the wheel? Okay, so maybe it was. Maybe laziness is, ironically, the driving force behind all progress. The hard worker just does the work. The lazy worker just sits there thinking, there must be an easier way. Therefore, all progress depends upon the lazy person!

But, I digress…

Anyway, so would you like to have a link between your brain and your computer? Or, feel free to share any crazy dreams you’ve had about blogging, computers, the Internet or brain-computer connections!

Many years ago, back in school, we discussed a book wherein the author presented modern day items as if found by archaeologists far into the future and presented crazy ideas about their uses. Maybe you will recall the author’s name or book title, as I do not.

Anyway, it is amazing how little we know of life before us. Our parents and grandparents tell us stories, but we still often don’t get it. And, our own memories fade over time, and we sometimes cannot imagine life as it was except framed by our current circumstances. We may remember not having cell phones or whatnot, but we don’t often recall the things that have completely slipped our minds, except on occasion when we may spot such a thing.

So, even life as it was a few decades ago can be difficult to picture, despite all our technology and seemingly endless recordkeeping. Even filmmakers, when researching recent historical periods, have to leaf through old catalogs to try to imagine what people realistically kept in their homes or what they wore or what type of pens, tools and other necessary items were used or looked like.

Think about it. While great pieces of art, or monuments, or historical events are often well photographed and recorded, who thinks of maintaining some kind of record of the ordinary things we use everyday? Even though archaeologists are quite excited when they uncover primitive homes of ordinary people which help illustrate the way the average person lived 100, 500, 1000 or more years ago, today we don’t seem to do much about recording the same. We concern ourselves with how the president lives, how the wealthy live, and so on, but not so much about the ordinary person.

Thus, as a favor to future generations, as well as our own children or grandchildren, I am starting this “Mundane Monday” meme.

To participate, just write, illustrate, photograph or in some other way depict everyday life or mundane things. And, link back to me and leave a comment for some link love in return.

For my inaugural Mundane Monday, I humbly present to you the Plastic Bag:

As you know, we use plastic bags for a multitude of uses, primarily for carrying purchased goods home from the store. This particular plastic bag arrived with an eBay purchase. Inside is corrugated cardboard that was used in the shipping packaging. You can also see a bit of the USPS tape that was used to tape the stuff up. At this point, I actually don’t remember what I received in it–I think it may have been glassware of some sort–but that’s not important now.

Actually, I took the photo on Saturday. Most of the snow was melting away on Sunday.

Sorry about the lack of posts the past couple days. An incident Friday morning, along with the disruption in my normal schedule the remainder of Friday and Saturday, kept me a little distracted from blogging. I do have what I hope will be a useful post coming, but I’ve not had much of a chance to sit down and write it. But, soon, I hope!

Apparently, none of my readers have any motivation, since this little drawing was a complete bust. And, I was worried about having less than five entrants. I suppose I should have been worried about having none!

I’ll have to try to be more motivational in the future. Light some fires or something.

Actually a shoe print, but footprint worked better for the title.

Long day…

Translation: “Nope, you cannot have my bone.”

Here’s an interesting article: “How Retailers Trick You Into Buying Cr*p You Don’t Need.”

What I want to know is, how do I put a mirror up on my eCommerce website? Taking a photo doesn’t seem to work…

Fresh content, fresh content… It’s one of those blogging mantras. You have to keep your blog updated. Worst case is monthly. But, better if you can do it weekly, just publish on a consistent basis, such as every Monday or some other day. Best if you can update your blog daily. Even better if you can update your blog multiple times a day.

But, there comes a point where you can have too much new content. People read more than just your blog and, even if you have the most interesting articles in the world, there is still a limit to the number that people can read in any given day. Consider as well that not everyone is going to be browsing or checking their RSS reader multiple times throughout the day; some may only check once or twice per day.

I’m thinking 10 posts per day is perhaps a good maximum. Five or less is best, but anything beyond 10 is just too much. Even ten is a stretch.

Now, if you have different categories, and a separate RSS feed for each!, then you can go more than that overall, just so long as you don’t exceed that maximum in any one category.

You see, there are two blogs I am thinking about removing from my RSS reader. They both have more than 10 posts per day, and it is a rare day that I find more than one post interesting enough to read more than the headline.

You could argue that doing so many articles allows you to reach a larger audience as, as I’ve just shown, you’ll find your mark with at least one article.

The problem is that all those others that I’m not interested in amount to clutter. Something new comes in, my RSS reader lists it, and at least on these two blogs, nine out of ten times it is not something I’m interested in.

So, I will likely remove them from my reader, and those blogs won’t have a reader for that one out of ten. That’s why it’s better to keep content at manageable levels for your readers. Just churning out masses of articles, even if they are all of a good quality, doesn’t guarantee readers.

Too much content can cost you readers just as easily as too little content can do the same.

Many bloggers, at least those trying to make an income online, if not with their blogs then with some other online ventures, look to the big name bloggers for inspiration. Sometimes, too, it can serve as a source of frustration. When your blog earnings are several levels of magnitude below John Chow’s, that can be disheartening. Even setting “realistic” goals can seem daunting. If John Chow can get $25,000 per month, why not go for 10% of that? Some of us struggle to get even 1% or 1/10% of John Chow’s monthly blog income.

And, even though many top bloggers will tell you what they did to achieve success, getting to that point can be a long road trip, even if you have the map in hand!

But, rather than reading the current entries of the top bloggers, try digging back in their archives to see where they came from. Check out this early entry by John Chow, wherein he mentions his blog is getting 100 readers a day! In another early post, he bought some lottery tickets. Here is his first post on John Chow dot Com, and note one of the commentators suggests he go back to his old job! “Moto” has come a long way!

And, here is one of his early posts… about dinner.

Now, check out this post and ask yourself if you could ever imagine that that guy would one day be making $25,000+ per month with his blog!

Anyway, so, anytime you get discouraged by blogging, start digging through the archives of some of the top bloggers and see their posts from their early days when they were where you are at now. It can be a lot more inspiring than reading something more recent, where they are making the big bucks.