Scripting News: 1826 smoke-free days ago

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

1826 smoke-free days ago

On this day five years ago I wrote an open letter to people "who send emails to people quitting smoking that explain how hard it is to quit, and how in all likelihood, you'll fail."

I was 42 days into my life as a non-smoker. And I had become a support person in the cause of smoking cessation. I wanted everyone, esp smokers, to know that it's easy to quit smoking. Because smoking, after the physical dependence is gone, is all in your mind. If you believe it's easy to quit, it is.

In fact, as I discovered later, it's easier to not smoke than it is to smoke. You don't have to go to the store, buy cigarettes, find an ashtray (and keep it empty), find a lighter (and maybe buy a new one when you lose it), light the damn thing and breathe through it for a few minutes. And in 10 minutes or so you have to do it again. All those things you have to remember to do. Much easier to just blow it off.

PS: It's now 1868 days since I quit. Not one cigarette in all that time. And it gets easier every day. ";->"

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:17 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

Jun Aug