The dreaded Netscape blink tag....make it stop, mommy, make it stop! Possibly the worst idea ever created, this tag flashes the text between the opening and closing tags, which results in the readers becoming fixated on the flashing text and prevents them from moving their eyes elsewhere. Used commonly by so-called "1337" web development newbies to impress their friends. Whatever you do, Don't use this tag! It is evil!

Friends don't let friends use Blink.

People know me has a student. A hard worker. A sympathetic ear. People see me as open arms. A warm shoulder. An understanding smile. These are the things I am to them. But what they don't know and don't see is all I see. It's the part of me I take to bed with me at night. The part that's nothing but empty. The part that does nothing but hurt.

It listens every time I am belittled. I blink. It listens every time we don't talk. I blink. I says to me, "See, you're not worthy of that friendship anymore." I blink. But, I still exist. I still have to lie in bed every night and listen to everything it doesn't like about me. I still let it make me cry.

It's the reason I write. I want it out of me. Off of me. Nowhere near me. I don't want it to be the part of me that I know anymore. I want to blink, and have it be gone.

But, it's not that simple. I still have to go to bed at night, and try not to listen to it, to not let it get to me. I have to keep blinking.

Blink

Following on his success of The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell released Blink in January of 2005. The book is about snap decisions and some of the psychology around them. Malcolm writes in his accessible, conversational style. It makes for quick reading. Stripped down, the book makes the following points. (Note that the order of these points does not match the order they are made in the book.)

1. People subconsciously pick up on small details in people, things, and environments around them. People subconsciously aggregate these details when making snap decisions.
2. People are especially good at reading details in other people and ascertaining their mental state, what he calls mind-reading. He notes that autism is a kind of mind-blindness, an inability to understand the intentions and mental states of others.
3. Snap judgments are handled by the subconscious, and often justified by the conscious mind with fabricated—but wholly believed—stories in retrospect.
4. Having to voice an explanation of our snap decisions forces the logical right brain to handle it rather than the emotional left brain, often to our long term dissatisfaction.
5. Our snap judgments can be confounded by several things.
   1. Misleading appearances
   2. Our preconceptions and prejudices
   3. Irrelevant factors
6. People can overcome the effect of appearances and prejudice by exposing themselves to positive examples before the moment of decision. (These examples are called primers, kind of like deliberate subliminal messages.)
7. People can further mitigate the negative effects of the bad snap decision in one of two ways.
   1. Developing a principle and adhering to it regardless of feelings.
   2. Scientifically identifying salient information and hiding everything else from the decision maker.
8. We can improve our snap decisions by slowing complex situations down and studying them bit by bit in a process he terms thin-slicing. Eventually, we can return to real-time observations and snap judge them accurately.

Gladwell is fun reading for the anecdotes, but fails to answer the crucial question that directly results from addressing the topic: When should we trust our snap decisions and when shouldn't we? He seems to imply that experts make better judgments, but never states it directly and never provides any analytical tools or framework for the reader. (He provided one in The Tipping Point, so its absence is quite conspicuous here.)

Perhaps the greatest value of the book is its references to other topics, such as John Gottman's treatise titled The Mathematics of Divorce, Harvard's Implicit Association Test, and the unsung artist Kenna, among others. But ultimately, as a book with some good stories, a few interesting references, and a muddy point, it is unsatisfying.

blink vi.,n.

To use a navigator or off-line message reader to minimize time spent on-line to a commercial network service (a necessity in many places outside the U.S. where the telecoms monopolies charge per-minute for local calls). This term attained wide use in the UK, but is rare or unknown in the US.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, this entry manually entered by rootbeer277.

Blink (?), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Blinked (#); p. pr. & vb. n. Blinking.] [OE. blenken; akin to dan. blinke, Sw. blinka, G. blinken to shine, glance, wink, twinkle, D. blinken to shine; and prob. to D. blikken to glance, twinkle, G. blicken to look, glance, AS. blican to shine, E. bleak. &root;98. See Bleak; cf. 1st Blench.]

1.

To wink; to twinkle with, or as with, the eye.

One eye was blinking, and one leg was lame. Pope

2.

To see with the eyes half shut, or indistinctly and with frequent winking, as a person with weak eyes.

Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne. Shak.

3.

To shine, esp. with intermittent light; to twinkle; to flicker; to glimmer, as a lamp.

The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink. Wordsworth.

The sun blinked fair on pool and stream . Sir W. Scott.

4.

To turn slightly sour, as beer, mild, etc.

© Webster 1913.

Blink, v. t.

1.

To shut out of sight; to avoid, or purposely evade; to shirk; as, to blink the question.

2.

To trick; to deceive.

Jamieson.

© Webster 1913.

Blink, n. [OE. blink. See Blink, v. i. ]

1.

A glimpse or glance.

This is the first blink that ever I had of him. Bp. Hall.

2.

Gleam; glimmer; sparkle.

Sir W. Scott.

Not a blink of light was there. Wordsworth.

3. Naut.

The dazzling whiteness about the horizon caused by the reflection of light from fields of ice at sea; ice blink.

4. pl. [Cf. Blencher.] Sporting

Boughs cast where deer are to pass, to turn or check them.

© Webster 1913.