CMS links for September 19th, 2009

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I don’t agree entirely with the first first link from Sunlight Labs – blanket statements like ‘x is dead – use y’ – are poor generalizations – however it raises strong points about frameworks and CMSes.

I just wish organizations and individuals would realize that there is not an either/or choice here – as projects such as Alfresco-Django and Alfresco-Drupal show.

Sunlight Labs: Content Management Systems just don’t work.

fiercecontentmanagement: Rolling your own CMS just doesn’t make sense

CMS Myth: Is interest in content management declining?

Stop looking for golden hammers.

You can influence a 1,000 people to make a better world – Yes You!

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Don’t think you have any influence in this world? You have far more impact than you may realize.

Read this weekend’s NYTimes’s piece by Clive Thompson: Is Happiness Catching?.

As Rebecca Blood notes, your behavior has ripple effects that trigger changes in weight, smoking, and happiness in friends, family, coworkers and people associated with them.

What dogs see, smell, and know

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NYTimes: Book Review: “Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know”, By Alexandra Horowitz: Grrr, Sniff, Arf:

The idea that a dog owner must become the dominant member by using jerks or harsh words or other kinds of punishment, she writes, “is farther from what we know of the reality of wolf packs and closer to the timeworn fiction of the animal kingdom with humans at the pinnacle, exerting dominion over the rest. Wolves seem to learn from each other not by punishing each other but by observing each other. Dogs, too, are keen observers — of our reactions.”

In one enormously important variation from wolf behavior, dogs will look into our eyes. “Though they have inherited some aversion to staring too long at eyes, dogs seem to be predisposed to inspect our faces for information, for reassurance, for guidance.”

I’m going to have to buy this book.