Lasse writes about voting and consensus:

At first, it may seem like a good idea to follow the democratic vote -- after all, democracy is a Good Thing™, right? However, thinking about it further, going with the majority vote might not be the best way to go. Next time when you're voting on something among your team, spare a moment to think about whether a majority vote decision is your best option.

I agree. It's vital not to confuse democracy with voting. Voting is often hugely divisive - a close vote can destroy any sense of community or shared goals, splitting teams into cliques, replacing harmony with a "them and us" culture.

From Webster's Dictionary:

Democracy

1. Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by the people.
2. Government by popular representation; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but is indirectly exercised through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed; a constitutional representative government; a republic.
3. Collectively, the people, regarded as the source of government.

No mention of voting there. Admittedly, (and for balance) there are some definitions that include mention of majority rule (e.g. meaning 4 in the American Heritage Dictionary), but they are usually relatively minor and idiomatic.

Democracy as government retained by the people is a fine thing. Government by popular representation is probably a workable compromise, but open to abuse. Note, however, that these definitions imply that democracy is about who has a say in decisions, not about how decisions are made. A democracy can work using simple majority voting on issues. It can work using threshold voting (e.g. at leat 75% must be in favor). It can work using limited veto (e.g. each participant can say "no" to at most three propositions, but must agree or abstain on others). It can work using 100% consensus (discussion continues until all participants agree). There are undoubtedly many more possibilities. All of them are clearly still democracy.

So the bottom line is to think hard before you call a simple majority vote on a strongly-held issue. Often the main reason there are such differing opinions is that the problems and solutions have not been fully explored and communicated. Share and understand before you vote.

I've been readinlg a lot of articles about "rich web applications" recently. (for example, here ). I can't help worrying that knee-jerk adoption of such things could greatly reduce the usability of the web, though.

I think it's fair to say that a great majority of computer users know how to use a web browser. It's certainly the most used piece of software on my computers, and those at the college where I work. Following on from that, it seems reasonable to assume that the conventions of the web browser user interface are the most familiar conventions in software usability. It's easy to spot the impact of web idioms on other software if you look - Microsoft added a "back button" to their desktop file management tools "Windows Explorer" and "My Computer", for example.

There are many other aspects of the web user experience that are less obvious, though. The little "throbber" in the corner of the window that shows when slow activity is taking place, a big button to stop things that you no longer want to continue or that are just taking too long. User control of whether to open a new window or reuse an existing one. The ability to resize windows to personal taste. The ability to save a whole page or any part of it to local storage for viewing offline later, print any page ... I'm sure you can think of more.

These are the kind of things that I miss when I use a "desktop" application these days. At least nine times out of ten I just want to read a Word document, so why does Microsoft Word always open it for edit? And what changes has it made, that it needs to ask me whether to save changes when I exit. Why do so many "desktop" applications lock up (with no "stop" button) if a resource such as a removable disk is unavailable? Why can't I just stretch a window to see more at once?

So, back to my worries. All around the web you can now find demonstrations of so-called "rich" web applications written using plug-ins such as Flash or Java, browser scripting such as JavaScript or DHTML, or browser extensions like XUL. What a great many of these seem to have in common is that they start from the assumption that they can ignore or disable all the things I find most usable about the web. Flash applications with no "back" or "undo". Applets that lock up if a resource is unavailable. JavaScript software that pops up sub windows without my control. Long operations with no indication of movement or ability to stop them. No control of window size, fonts, colours, or images. Forms you can't print. No way to copy text or save to disk, text that can't be found by search engines ...

I know I'm just one quiet voice in a storm, but if you are thinking of developing any kind of "rich" web application, please, please, embrace all the aspects of the web experience we all love so much rather than rejecting them for your own preferences and assumptions. Don't make your application an irritating, restricted and unfamiliar alternative to the web browser experience, make it a comfortable extension to the web browser experience. If you don't allow your customers the control they are used to on the web, you will alienate your users and risk being out-evolved by a more compatible product.

While I was at GenCon UK a few weeks ago I met an old friend from a games club I used to attend, and we spent some time reminiscing about games we'd played. For some reason today, I suddenly remembered one of the many single-session off-the-cuff games I'd run which made a large impact at the time, but has since been almost forgotten.

It's wierd how the mind works, but in an attempt to capture the feel of the game without getting in to tedious details, here's a short poem:

However finely you slice the moments,
between each instant waits eternity,
where shadows glide. We are the denizens, 
changeless voices in a scene of stillness.

This one's for you, Mark - I wonder if you'll ever read it?