Is it really only Tuesday?

This week is going sooo sloooooow. Theoretically that's good, since I have a ton of stuff to do, but unfortunately I seem to be moving in slow motion, too. Oh, well.

Here's my tip for the day to anyone publishing stuff on the web: put a freakin' date on it! I was researching some statistics today, and I finally found a reference to them in a press release from a trade organization on their website. Were those the current stats? I have no idea, since the release didn't have a date. It did have some helpful references to things happening "next week" and "on Wednesday," though. Gee whiz, thanks. I wonder if the group has any idea how completely useless relative dates like that are.

If you publish something online, assume that it's going to be accessible forever. And ever. Even if you don't like it. It's likely going to be in Google's cache and local disk caches and in server backups and a thousand other places you don't expect for the rest of human history. If the format and software you use don't automatically add a date, then just put one in yourself. Please! If I can't put your information in a time context, I'm probably just going to ignore it.