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"Why do these headlines suck so much? Fear. Fear of saying too much. Fear of saying something clever that someone might think is stupid. Fear of saying something revealing that might turn someone off. The headlines try desperately not to exclude anyone. In doing so, they succeed at boring everyone."

Reminds me of Kathy Sierra.

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Very true, she's had some effective illustrations of why you never want to be in the bland middle. For one thing, that's where all the big companies are, by necessity.

Hey, death threats aren't funny, and being afraid of a death threat is something very different from being afraid that taking a stance might hurt your bottom line.

Sorry, I was referring to posts like this from Kathy: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/10/dilbert_and_the.html

Oops -- sorry that I misunderstood so completely what you were saying! Thanks for the explanation :-)

YC News participants are so civil -- very refreshing. Benja's apology is a great example of that.

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