I’ve found that when reading how-to guides, philosophy, hundreds of blog articles in one sitting, etc., the following rule of thumb is useful:
Lists of important points rarely come in groups of round numbers like 5, 10, 100, 101, 50, etc. Usually, important points come in groups of unusual size such as 6, 17, 14, 231, etc. If there is a round number of items in the list, the author is likely just trying to write something people will read rather than about something that he/she cares about and ordinarily hasn’t investigated the subject thoroughly nor put only important items on the list.
I’m not really sure who came up with this razor (it wasn’t me), but it is useful for reading everything from eHow articles to The Art of War (of which approximately 3/4 is worthless babble and propaganda, the exception being the part on the various types of terrain).
Well, I hope that someone finds this heuristic useful. Until next time…
-The Tech Inquisitor
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