It is obvious that almost all forms of technology that reach the consumer market are geared towards making our lives easier: the dishwasher, the television, the computer, for example.  All of these technologies came from a scientific discovery that made them possible, and the end result of all that research was for someone to not have to wash dishes by hand, or have an easier means of obtaining the news. It should be known however that many sciences and technology that we have so fondly become used to using every day in our home are direct derivatives of military sciences, sciences developed for the sole purpose of “defending” our land, from our own kind. It is only after they have been used, or attempted to be used, in the military realm, that some usefulness for the consumer was discovered.

The first true computer, the ENIAC, was built for one reason, to calculate launch trajectories of projectiles. This led the forefront of a revolution in science which in turn gave rise to home computing. It is still the military and the government which leads the driving force of computer technology. It could still be argued however, that no matter what the use, even military science is used strictly as a means of making someone’s life easier, and thus happier. Weather it is easier to calculate the distance to a target, or easier to do your taxes. It could also be argued that even though being able to blow up a city from half way around the world, makes us happy, it doesn’t make all humans happy. With inventions designed to wage war, I would feel safe saying that human happiness is not the goal.

Another military derived technology is the satellite. The idea of an earth orbiting object is what started the space race, and once it was achieved the first purpose of one of these objects was merely research, but then the idea of military spy satellites was born, then military defense/attack satellites. The space race, in the beginning, had no real purpose; it was simply a pissing contest with Russia. The benefits we have reaped from this research are insurmountable however. Today, we have navigational satellites, communications satellites, weather satellites, and many other types. These allow us to use cell phones, watch television, and know the weather a week early. All of these technologies are clearly devised at making our lives easier. While satellites have proven quite useful as a military technology, and most research on them is driven by the military, aside from more effective reconnaissance and targeting, it is my opinion that there are far more benefits to people all around the world then there are risks.

There are many sciences and technologies that have no roots in the military. Some of the more significant ones include the cotton gin, the plough, or the printing press. These not only made human life much easier, and happy, but they also paved the way for the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution gave way to countless inventions with little military use, but much domestic use. Even the musket gave the people on the frontier a means of survival, through hunting or defense. One of the most prime examples of a non-military rooted science is that of medicine and pharmaceuticals. This industry has lead to the development of more useful science and means for survival than any other since the dawn of time. Medicine is geared strictly toward human happiness. Anti-depressants, pain killers, cures, vaccines, treatments, all of these are created to either make us happy, or to help us stay alive longer.

I feel like I am letting my point wander a bit right now, but I also feel that in doing so I am forming a strong basis for my thesis. DuPont formed the saying “Better Living Through Chemistry”. DuPont is actually the perfect candidate to make my point very strong: The E.I. DuPont Company was formed in 1802 as a gunpowder mill on the Brandywine River in Wilmington Delaware.

DuPont later evolved into one of the world’s largest chemical companies, and in the 20th century led the polymer revolution by developing many highly successful materials such as nylon, Teflon and Kevlar. Today, DuPont is a multi-national chemical, paint, and health care company with 2002 revenues of $24.5 billion. This company encompasses everything. It has roots and current strong interest in military technology. It has been on the forefront of almost any significant development of the 20th century. However, many of its developments have made our lives much easier in the strictest sense. Nylon - has made it possible for us to go out in the rain without getting wet, and is much more comfortable to wear then rubber or plastic. Teflon - has made it possible for us to cook almost anything, and burn it to a crisp, and literally be able to wipe a pan clean with a sponge. Kevlar - one of the strongest pliable materials ever devised can make a lightweight, wearable vest, which even a bullet cannot penetrate. DuPont has made paints that change color in different types of light for us to use on our cars, or paints for the home that are stain proof, all of which make our lives incredibly easier, and thus make us all much happier. However, DuPont also has had its hand in chemical warfare development, nuclear weapons, and many dangerous, unpopular military technologies.

To go in the opposite direction briefly, I also believe that too much technology has put us in a mindset that all things should come easily, and things that were devised to make us happier are actually doing the opposite. Good examples include cell phones, or the internet. Cell phones obviously make our lives easier, and make us happier in many ways, but they are also a heavy burden. In classrooms, people are taking calls, we allow ourselves to become distracted at inopportune times, and we rely on the ability to use the phone rather then to have physical contact with other people. The internet has all but replaced books for most modern students. Barely anyone checks out a book from the library anymore, or does good old fashioned research. We have become lazy. Online chatting has replaced even talking on the phone for many people. We have isolated ourselves from human contact in many ways. While many people think they are happy because of these things, many eventually realize the drawbacks. Many technologies have given way for much of today’s youth to have no idea of the benefits of good old hard labor, or crafting something with your hands. Almost no one today has the goal to work in a factory, or on a construction site, jobs that are required to help build the world around us. To put it bluntly, reliance on science and technology has made us lazy. While we all seem to be happier, we are not, we just haven’t realized it yet.

In conclusion, I feel that, yes, all science is geared toward making our lives easier, and making us happier, one way or another. It is the main reason for doing anything. Anything we do today is in an effort to someday have an easier way of doing it. We even have easier ways to eat food. Even the military sciences are, when you boil it down, made to make life easier. Without the overall goal of an easier more effective way of doing, most science would not exist. There are only a handful of sciences that are purely in the pursuit of knowledge, and even those have bi-products which turn into happiness. Science is happiness, in the modern world; science is the only thing that makes us happy.

Pro - fes - sion - al :

1) adjective - following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain.

2) noun - a person who is expert at his or her work.

The problem with words like this, in the English language, is that they have two radically different definitions which people interchange so that it suits them.  Taking the first definition above, I would be able to call myself a professional web developer/designer, a professional backup and disaster recovery administrator, a professional mechanic, and a professional computer repair man.  I do not, however, declare myself an expert in any of those things.

Where does the line get drawn?  I feel so many people claim they are a professional at something because they have made a job out of it, yet, they use the word professional is such a context that it makes it sound as if they are an expert, for their own gain.  There are many people who take pictures for money at their friends garage band’s shows at the local bar, who claim to be professional photographers.  Many people who have been paid $200 to play at the same bar, who call themselves professional musicians, people who have put together a catchy hip-hop beat on their home pc who call themselves professional producers, and many people who won a few bucks at a local game tournament who call themselves professional gamers.  The only thing these people have in common is, they made a few dollars doing something, so they use the word professional to make it sound as if they are an expert at doing such a thing.

I think a distinction needs to be made, in a few ways.  First of all, being a professional does not automatically mean you an expert, or even good at, what it is you are a professional at.  It simply means you make money doing it.  Also, making money doing something, does not mean you exhibit any professionalism.

Food for thought:

Michael Phelps - Not a professional swimmer, clearly, the best swimmer in the world.

Not a professional.

Stephen Baldwin - Professional Actor, clearly, the worst actor in the world.

Professional.

All things not being created equal, professional does not always mean good, and does not always mean expert.  However, when someone claims to be a professional, they usually convey it sound as if they are.  This article was prompted by a friend of mine who showed me this survey, which asks people to declare what type of photographer they are.

If you read down the list, you will see a common trend.  Some of the better photographers who post a response modestly claim to either be an amateur, or worse.  While most of the teenagers, ranging from 13-17 years old, claim to be professional or semi-pro, because they take shots of their friends band, or try to sell their pictures online on some stock photo website.  Clearly, they just love the word “pro”.  In the world of photography, if you have some sort of crazy expensive Nikon digital SLR, you must obviously be pro.  Especially if you don’t even know how to use the majority of the features the camera has.

So, it seems the best definition for professional these days is: Something you make money doing, but aren’t necessarily good at. What about professionalism then?  Do professionals always exhibit professionalism, is the showing of professionalism only limited to people who claim to be professional?

To me, professionalism is very difficult to describe in words, but easy to exhibit through actions.  I feel that there are many people who exhibit the absolute best traits of professionalism and are not even professionals, and that the vast majority of professionals do not exhibit any professionalism whatsoever.  Professionalism is an attitude, it is a certain modesty and open-mindedness which allows you to take the suggestions and input of others, and use that to better do whatever it is you do.  It is the mindset which allows you to constantly strive to be better.

In today’s world, people are so obsessed with titles and powerful words they can use to make themselves appear to be something of importance.  Most self-proclaimed professionals are too obsessed with themselves and the idea that they are some sort of authority on a subject to have the professionalism to actually become better at what it is they do.

Actions speak louder than words, and describing yourself as a professional, but acting like an amateur, makes you an amateur in my eyes.

I should preface this by saying that my ultimate goal is to work for myself, and successfully run a business, preferably some sort of website that people enjoy using.  Short of attaining that lofty dream, however, I feel my conventional career path has been a successful one.  My goals in career development are independent of my overall life dreams and goals, which I work on in parallel, using my free time.

Developing a Career

Know what you are good at, and do it.

Everyone has some sort of dream job.  For me it was a toss up between working for a race team designing and programming engine control units, or running a successful web based business.  However, I also realized that both of the above career choices were long shots.  So, I took something I knew I was good at already, something I knew I wouldn’t hate doing, and went down that path.  For me that thing was computer hardware.  I knew that I could have a successful career working with computers, with relative ease, and I could use that career path as a slingshot to working on my other goals in parallel.

I know this is going to sound awful, but in most cases the best choice is to not follow your dreams.  Obviously some people have followed their dreams and been quite successful.  No one becomes a rock star or a pro athlete by not trying.  Thing is, if you aren’t blessed with natural talent, and you find yourself struggling with your dreams, you need to realize that it’s best to do something else, at some point.  Often times what you are actually good at, is not the same as what you would love to do.

Go to college.

This is just some advice from someone who has “been there, done that”.  Again, there are plenty of people who are highly successful who never went to college, but if you plan to develop a career in any sort of corporate sector, the ceiling for you without a college degree, is low.  I, personally, went to school for computer engineering.  I would not deny for even a moment that I do not, and have not, used a single thing I was taught at college in my career.  However, I had a job paying over $70,000 a year from the moment I graduated college.  It opens a lot of doors.  It is really just an expensive piece of paper at the end of the day, but it is also a very valuable piece of paper.  Graduating college with a serious degree program not only shows potential employers that you are smart, but it also shows that you are dedicated and able to finish things that you start.

Never stop learning.

If your company offers any sort of college tuition programs, make use of them.  I am personally currently pursuing a Masters in Business Administration and my company is picking up the tab.  It is a lot of work, but if you turn down a free graduate degree, then something is seriously wrong with you.

Get training, and certifications.  From my perspective, certifications are almost useless, and stand for nothing.  From a hiring managers perspective though, they are very valuable.  I have several certifications which cost my roughly $100 each to obtain, and I was able to pass the tests with little to no preparation.  If you have knowledge on a subject, back it up with a certification.  It really helps.

Training helps you stay up to date on the latest technologies you are working with.  Most companies will reimburse you for any training you wish to receive.  If you don’t wish to get training on a particular technology then get other types of training such as project management training or corporate development training.  This is all managerial ammunition.

Challenge yourself.
If you have a job which outlines certain responsibilities, and you do them, you will likely never get fired.  But you will also likely never get promoted.  In my own career I have often used my free time to read about other subjects I have had interest in, or gotten trained on technologies I thought it might be useful to have the knowledge of.

As a result, I have been able to expand my horizons quit a bit.  I started my career as a backup and recovery analyst and I have since made moves, and gotten promotions into areas which interest me much more, such as SAN and Storage.  I have greater respect and responsibility around the office now then I had ever had in the past.

Be outspoken, be replaceable.

Always speak your mind, but also be careful with your words, and pick your battles.  It is very important to make yourself heard, especially when you are going to be the one who is ultimately responsible for dealing with the decisions which are made all around you.  Do not bend over to management will every time, challenge them.  Expressing yourself not only exhibits your passion for what you do, but also your knowledge of your area of expertise.

Do not hold information so close to you that you are not replaceable.  Many people hold their responsibilities close to their chests so that they cannot be fired, but, if you can’t be fired then you also probably can’t be promoted.  Document what you do so that it is easy to transition someone else into your role.  It will make things a lot easier when it comes time for that big promotion.  Holding things close not only makes it more difficult for your coworkers, but it also makes it hard for management to ever consider moving you out of your current position.

Managing Change

Embrace Change.
Change happens, always.  There are people who fear it, and try to prevent it, and people who embrace it and use it to their advantage.  You should always be one to embrace it.  If your company is making moves to move to technologies which you don’t understand, learn them, and be one of the people who helps make it happen.  If you get a new manager who tries to shake things up a little bit, accept it and do your best to make a good impression with them.

For me, one of my close co-workers recently left the company, and also left a very big hole with very big shoes to fill.  I stepped up and offered to fill them.  It was the best thing I ever did in my career.  It opened up a whole new set of doors for me.

Change often means more work, especially in the short time.  It also usually means more stress, on you and your family.  More often then not though, the work pays off.

Recognize when to quit.
All change is not good.  Sometimes you have to know when to recognize bad change, and make drastic and scary decisions around that change.  Big company mergers, layoffs, recession.  All very scary.  In my career I was part of one very sloppy takeover, and a huge mess resulted.  I started looking for a new job.

Luckily for me, I found a new job very quickly, which I enjoy much more then the old one.  I turned negative change into positive change.

In conclusion

To wrap it up, the synopsis is:  Do what you know, never stop learning, and don’t fear change.  If you follow those simple guidelines you should have a comfortable and successful career.  I am only 26 years old right now and I feel like I have a very bright future.  My rules don’t apply to everyone but for me, they haven’t let me down yet.

Professional Gamers

Much like becoming a rock star, a movie star, or a pro athlete, there is a very small percentage of people who can actually succeed in this profession, and a very large number of people who spend their lives trying, just to fail.  The current generation of kids idolizes professional gamers more than they idolize astronauts, baseball players, or any other form of previously held types of heroes.  This is all fine and good, but as I mentioned earlier, peoples priorities get out of whack.

There are many successful celebrities who never graduated from college, or even high school.  Many pro athletes who skipped college to go straight into the big leagues.  Many successful people of all walks of life who made it on no education.  What we really don’t know is, how many people dropped out of school to pursue a career in sports, acting, or music, but never made it.  Where are they now?  What do they do?

While you can’t knock people for trying, following their dreams, yadda, yadda.  You know, “you’ll never make it if you don’t try.”  All that sort of stuff applies here.  What I wonder is, how can people take such huge risks with no contingency plan.  Didn’t the thought “What if it never happens for me?” cross their minds?  Or do people delude themselves so much that they simply do not believe there is even a possibility that they won’t be hugely successful if they just try hard enough?  The contestants on American Idol come to mind.  Not the ones who make it, the ones who don’t.  They are some of the most delusional people I have ever seen and they have a whole suite of other people (family and friends) who reinforce their believe that they will be the next huge star.

Fast forward to now, the new big thing, professional gaming.  To touch on some of what I talked about above, there is now a whole generation of people, a whole sub-section of society who is obsessed with making money playing games.  Just like being a rock star, this is now entirely possible.  Problem is, the prioritization issue comes up again.  I recently found this article about a 16 year old kid whose parents withdrew him from high school so that he could pursue a career playing Guitar Hero professionally.

This is not a competitive environment, so the score hardly matters. But his attitude about it underscores some Peebles family truisms: Blake is so dedicated to gaming that his parents let him quit school so he can better concentrate on it.

They pay for home tutors instead. Mom and Dad do this, even though there are very few people in this country who make their living playing competitive video games.

Now I know for a fact that playing guitar hero professionally is actually a viable way to make money, now, as are many other games.  But that game won’t be around forever.  So lets just assume that Blake can actually be successful in this.  What happens when he gets older, loses his skill, or the game simply goes out of style?  With no education to back him up, and some obvious parenting issues, he is destined to failure.

Professional gaming is just like anything else.  It can be very lucrative if you are good, while you are good.  But the games change and evolve so quickly, that it can’t really last that long for anyone, can it?  You don’t get contracts, you don’t get a retirement plan.  You go to tournaments with a chance to win a ton of cash, if you win.  As long as you keep winning, the money flows, as soon as you stop winning, what then?  I doubt you’ll see Blakes face on the cover of wheaties any time soon.

Winning Big

While I could easily see myself watching a WoW raid or arena tournament, a street fighter tournament, or a guitar hero match on television, much like I would watch a football game, I am not so sure professional gamers will ever have the same type of celebrity status that real athletes do.  At least not for a couple of more decades.

I could name the top 10 guitar hero players in the world off the top of my head using their Scorehero username, but I have no idea about their real name or what they look like, much less do I care.

I think gaming should be fun, it should be an entertaining hobby, and if you find yourself exceeding good at a particular game, polish your skills, and go to a tournament.  Who knows, maybe you can make a couple bucks while you’re at it.  But please, at least graduate high school first.  The last thing this country needs is more reason to be labelled as one of the fattest, lasiest, stupiest countries on the earth.

Obvious Uniqueness

Conformity is much more than most people think it is.  It’s not just emo kids who all wear dark clothes.  It’s not just polo shirt wearing middle managers who go home to their comfortable house in their cookie cutter housing developments.  It’s not just how everyone on digg has the same political views.  No, it’s about not having the ability to formulate your own opinions, lacking the ability to think freely, and being too inhibited to express those thoughts and opinions.

Everyone likes to believe they are unique.  No one will ever tell you that they are a conformist, after all, conforming is always a bad thing, right?  Or is it?

Society is cruel.  It forces you to conform.  We must all obey the same laws, shop at the same stores, live in the same cookie cutter houses, and drive the same types of cars everyone else does.  We must work at a job, we must do what society allows us to do, to survive.  There are exceptions to this rule of course, many people have found unique ways to provide for their families, and unique ways to live, but for those of us who have already made choices in life which have left us feeling very much “the same”, as everyone else around us, what can we do?

I think the answer is simple:  Re-think what conformity actually is, and redefine it to yourself.  I myself, believe I am unique, of course.  Thing is, I live in a townhouse community, and I work at a 9 to 5 job in Information Technology.  I wear khakis to work every day, and I shop at Old Navy.  How much more “normal” could I be?

Being normal, or conforming, is not a bad thing.  If you want to be totally unique then cover your entire body with tattoos and run naked through a shopping mall.  If you want to be unique, paint your house bright pink.  Hell, you could drive to work in a bright lime green 1948 Oldsmobile.  I bet no one else in the parking lot has one of those.  Would you want that kind of attention though?

My point is, uniqueness is more of a state of mind.  Most people feel uniqueness is simply the ability to draw attention to yourself by looking or acting different.  When I watch the news, I accept the information being told to me, and formulate an opinion based on the facts I have.  When I choose who to vote for, I go with my gut.  When I design a website, I design what I like, not someone else.  I am opinionated.  I am outspoken.  I think, freely and I speak, freely.  This is the key to being truly unique.

So many people strive so hard to appear unique, when they aren’t.  If you are goth, emo, preppy, or a skater.  You look just like your friends.  If you are truly unique, on the outside, then you probably have some sort of birth defect, in which case the looks you are drawing from the people around you, aren’t the types of looks you want.  Pardon my insensitivity here, but it is the truth.  Have you ever taken someone out to eat sushi and had them say (looking they are about to puke):  “It tastes very…unique.”  Being unique, isn’t always good.

Uniqueness is inside all of us.  It is a matter of expressing it.  In day to day life, it is easiest and often best to just blend in and go unnoticed.  Wear jeans and a t-shirt, lay off the eye shadow.  When it comes time to truly express yourself, in the form of art, music, public speaking, web design, or whatever other subject it might be, be yourself.  These are your opportunities.  If you feel strongly about something, speak up about it.  When you have a class presentation to do, don’t just stand at the front of the room and read from a sheet of paper, use these opportunities to express who you are.  Sitting in the back row wearing all black, won’t help you later in life.

Be who you are, and let people know who that person is.  Take opportunities to constructively express yourself, don’t waste time and energy drawing attention to yourself when you don’t need to.

An example from my real life is, firstly, as I stated above: I am about as normal as they come.  On the outside.  I do not waste effort and energy in my life toward trying to look unique.  I wear what I want to wear, I drive what I want to drive, and I live in a house which is economical for me.

I am an IT professional, and a good analogy for me is - look at this server rack below.  They all look the same don’t they?  Nothing stands out about any of them in particular, just like me.

Hidden Uniqueness

What you don’t know about these servers, though, is that they all do something different.  Equally important.  Each one of them has a job, a function.  From the outside looking in, I look like your regular run of the mill IT guy.  If you ask around the office about me, most people will tell you something very different though.  I go against the grain.  I speak my mind.  I come up with ideas.  I embrace change, and I cause change.  This has helped me in my career greatly, and it is all thanks to my ability to think freely, and speak my mind.  My ability to be unique.

In high school, I made some of the most memorable class presentations of all time, but every other day of the week I was just that quiet normal kid that no one paid attention to.

Work toward drawing positive attention to yourself, highlight your abilities, your uniqueness.  Make it known to the world what it is that you are good at, what ideas you have which should be known about.  Make an impact.

Don’t waste time with the eye shadow anymore, please.

Prior to deciding that I wanted to write, I thought that blogs were one of the stupidest things ever.  Who wants to read some assholes opinion on things?  After getting bored enough one day, I decided that I wanted to write about some things, and I decided that a blog was the right avenue for it.  It was at this point that I began to read other blogs.  

It wasn’t so much that after having my own blog, my opinion had changed.  It was more that I wanted to see other peoples sites, their designs, the topics they wrote on.  I wanted to see what other successful bloggers were doing, and how they had become successful.  I wanted to comment on other blogs, to promote my own, and read other blogs, to get ideas for my own.

This, I think, might be the case for many bloggers, and blogs.  Bloggers read other peoples blogs, write about the topics they find on other peoples blogs, and comment on other peoples blogs.  I honestly do not know anyone, who does not have a blog of their own, who makes a habit or reading any particular blog on a regular basis.  For me, I know for sure that is the case.

Using an RSS reader for me was almost impossible before I started blogging.  There were simply no other blogs out there that interested me enough to make me want to subscribe.  Now, I subscribe to over 30 blogs, and read them on a very regular basis.  Prior to this, the only blogs I read were simply by consequence of something interesting on digg being a link to a blog post.

I think this is interesting, since the number of people who blog is always growing, thus, the reader base for existing blogs is always growing.  Is blogging some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy?

http://www.modelrockettier.com/posters/posters.php

Currently, I do not play any online games.  I suppose this fact alone has helped give me perspective on this matter.  Another thing which gives me perspective is the fact that many of my friends do still play these games, all different games, and I can see their opinions of each other, and each others games, very clearly and unbiased.

Rationalization 1, I play an MMO because…

If I didn’t, I would just be doing <insert other waste of time activity> instead.  This is the best way MMO players can make themselves feel better about it.  The truth is though, when is the last time you stayed up until 4 am watching re-runs of Seinfeld, or decided to not go out with your friends on a saturday night so you could read a book?  Chances are, you didn’t.  If you are a hardcore gamer though, you might have.  Maybe you blew off going out with some friends so you could attend that raid, or maybe you stayed up until 4am chatting and you were late for work the next day.  I know I did, on many occasions.

Every MMO player has their own excuse about why its okay to spend more hours per week playing a game, then they do at work.  In reality, is it bad to play an MMO?  No, I don’t think so, but I do think it can be bad, if you are able to rationalize your playtime to a point where it gets out of control.

Rationalization 2, Social aspects

Let’s face it, MMO’s are built around being social, and as such you make “friends” in the games.  The problem is, people come and go.  People join and quit.  The people you make friends with in the game are only your friends because of the game, with a few exceptions.  

If you play an MMO, and you are a part of a group who plays together, for years and years, and one day you suddenly quit, expect to be written off.  It is much the same for heroin addicts.  Surround yourself with those who make you feel better about your addiction, not worse.  Do not expect to keep any sort of meaningful contact with people who you meet inside an MMO, unless they also quit.  

The problem is that, most people are unwilling to form any sorts of real relationships with others inside the game, because we all know in the back of our minds that one of us will quit, eventually.  The servers will be turned off, eventually, and at that point, more often then not, the relationship ceases to exist.

When you invest time into a game, you feel like you are building something.  A reputation, a base of friends, camaraderie.  The truth of the matter is, the people in the game only care about you in so much as you are beneficial to them in the game, beyond this, there is nothing.  It is shallow.

I played World of Warcraft for almost 3 years.  I built and hosted (and still host) my guilds Website, I manage and deal with the billing for their Ventrilo server, but I no longer play the game.  Occasionally I will log in to say hello.  What I find is that, no one, not the players I spent so much time playing with, nor the players who have joined the guild since I quit, could give a shit less about me anymore.  It doesn’t bother me, but I find it interesting.

I suppose the heroin analogy applies again, if you quit heroin, would your old heroin addict buddies want to hang around you?  The answer is no.  As I have experienced a similar result in my real life (not related to heroin), where I quit participating in an “activity” all of my friends still wanted to participate in, and they no longer wanted my company, after I quit.

Why is this?  Rationalization would suggest that, people do not want to be made to feel that they are less good then someone else.  People do not like to feel like they are doing the wrong thing.  It is easiest for our emotional immune system to simply surround ourselves by people who agree with us, and approve of our behavior, then it is to surround ourselves with people who disapprove, and by consequence, make us feel like we are less good then they are.

Rationalization 3, All other MMOs suck, except mine

This is a great one.  Amongst the population of any MMO game you play, the entire population will agree to hate every other game that comes about.  Especially if a really good game is expected to come out and “kill” your game of choice.  Moreover, the people who decide to play the games you don’t play, are stupid, noob, assholes.

I believe this is a similar rationalization amongst gamers.  We want to believe we are playing the best game, which carries the most recognition.  We want to believe our time which is being spent so carefully, is being spent in the best possible way.  We don’t want to think that there is a better game out there, that we could be playing instead.  So it is best to just write all other games off, and ignore them.

The majority of people play WoW, and it has over 10 million players.  No other fantasy MMO out there can even touch that sort of player base, and as such, every player, who plays any other MMO which is not WoW, hates WoW.  Not only do they hate wow, but they hate the “noobs” who play WoW.

Rationalization in general

Aside from MMO games, people rationalize everything, in every aspect of their lives.  We may not even realize it.  Most people think a rationalization is something like, “I can do <this thing which I know I shouldn’t do> because <some stupid reason here>”, but it is not all that cut and dry. 

Rationalization impacts every aspect of who we are.  We choose our friends based on how much they agree with us.  When we buy an expensive item, we avoid the negative reviews of it in favor of the positive ones.  If we do poorly on an IQ test, we find reasons to prove the test was invalid.

It is part of our emotional immune system.  Much like our physical immune system, our brain tries to protect us from unhappiness, and it acts in much the same was as the physical does.  Our physical immune system kills bad things, but it knows enough to recognize not to kill our own cells.  An under-active immune system leads to disease, and an overactive one leads to auto-immune disorders.  The brain works in much the same way.  It allows us to feel the pain of events which we can learn from, and become stronger from, but prevents us from feeling unhappiness in our every day lives.  An under-active system leads to depression, where an overactive one leads to an attitude of eliteness: “I am right and everyone else is wrong”.  

I think its a pretty interesting concept, and the more you are aware of it, the more you notice it.

I am quite proud of this design for some reason, I feel it is one of the most unique layouts out there, and is done fully in html/css, there are some additional features built in thanks to Javascript / jQuery, but those are not required to have the page render with full functionality. I feel the goals mentioned above were met with overwhelming success.

I haven’t done a design so unconventional ever before, and it was also my first Wordpress template. Looking at the mock up over 3 weeks ago, I thought it would be a cinch, but it turned out to be quite the opposite. I am afraid that going with such a bold layout will lead to a “love/hate” relationship amongst my viewers. It is so unconventional that people are either going to think it is amazing and fun to use, or simple hate it since it doesn’t follow the standard blog layout.

HTML / CSS

The html is defined as XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and fully validates. There are over 1000 lines of valid css which make up the core functionality. There is a custom CSS file for Print, and Mobile as well. One css file takes care of all browsers, in which the page renders nearly identically.

The original design was done using my Mac, and Safari, in which my font of choice was Lucida Sans, that didn’t seem to look right on Windows based machines so I had to change it to Verdana. I think it looks alright, but I still enjoy viewing the site most from my Mac.

Several small issues arose within the design early on. Since I was concerned with making it so cross-browser/cross-os compliant, I had to overcome a few obstacles.

Fonts: As mentioned above, I wont up going with Verdana as my font choice as it was designed for the screen. This font seems to work well on most browsers and OS’s, unlike my original choice of Lucida Sans.

CSS: Max-width and Position: Fixed elements do not work across the board. Most of this was fixed using Javascript which I will detail below, but when JS is turned off, the page still works fine, it just looks a bit different. The footer should push to the bottom of the content, and the main content area will fill out to the right side of the screen.

Other then those small issues, the css is valid, and I did not need to make use of specific browser stylesheets. There is a lot of style applied to the page since there are so many elements which look different, aiding the effect of randomness I was going for.

If the stylesheet is disabled, the style-less page looks as it should. I used primarily core html elements to compose the page for SEO purposes as well as compatibility reasons.

Javascript / jQuery

I employed the use of two Javascript files. One is strictly for IE < 7, the other is for everyone. Essentially the features laid out in these files will become totally invisible if Javascript is turned off, and the page will still function perfectly. This was crucial to me since the idea of having my page totally unusable in any situation was unacceptable.

For IE the Javascript basically does 2 things: Positions and adjusts the position of the footer, to emulate a position: fixed format, and makes the width of the content area set to be equal to that of the current “max-width” setting, unless the window is smaller. This means that if I go into my stylesheet and alter the max-width setting for the content div, the javascript for IE adjusts accordingly, since it pulls the value for the width directly from the CSS. If you have Javascript off in IE, the footer will simply not be fixed the page width will become fluid. It is not my intended viewing scheme, but it works. The last thing fixed in the Javascript for IE is that it sets the background style to something which does not use a translucent PNG image.

In general, the Javascript does several things. Firstly, it handles the footer, this being the opening and closing of it, and the tabbed effect inside it. If the user has Javascript disabled, the button to toggle the footer open disappears and it is as if it was never there. Second, it handles switching the view from comments to trackbacks at the end of a post. If the user has Javascript disabled here, the trackbacks will be listed after the comments. Lastly, it handles some page reformatting based on window size.

If the browser window is very narrow, it will get rid of the twitter column, and change the logo to something smaller such that it will not appear above the content. In this state, if you open and close the footer, the image does not switch back to something too large.

If the browser window is very short, it will make the logo image change to the secondary image, so that it will not appear above the widget area. Again, when you open and close the footer, it will not interfere with the image.

If the browser window is sufficiently large, more posts will show up on the front page, to fill it out.

If you have javascript disabled, the page still looks ok In 1024×768, but you will not get any of the dynamic features to change the types of content shown, so the page might look very squished.

Wordpress Template

For the template, I basically designed it as if I was going to sell it. I could have built it around on the features I needed, or intended to use, but I built it to be more expandable, taking into account basically anything a blogger would use.

The top area, the two left columns, and the 3 sections inside the footer are fully “Widgetized”. This means I, or anyone, could put whatever content into those regions they wanted to, without altering the template. In the absence of any defined widgets, default content appears.

The navigation is based on published pages, and there is an area which will accommodate listing child pages in their existence. Much like how you found this page.

Post listings, archive listings, search results, etc, are all based on excerpt view. In the absence of a defined excerpt, the first 55 words of the post is taken. The width of the excerpt boxes and post meta boxes is randomized within the template by php, to create a more random feel.

Almost all elements of a post have been styled, even the ones I do not use.

The background image is a translucent PNG going from a grey color to transparent. Within the theme options page I created you can choose this color to be anything. At this time it is orange. If you do not define a color, it defaults to this shade of orange. You can also change the primary link color, defaults to red, in a similar manner.

Also on the theme options page, you can set your feedburner email feed url, to set where the “Subscribe Via Email” link points to.

Lastly, you can set your twitter ID. The twitter functionality is built into the template so no plugin is required.

Basically, anyone could use this template, and it would offer full wordpress functionality. While I did not need to go this far with it, I will likely release this template into the wild after I have used it myself for a good enough period of time.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy using this design, it was quite a lot of work!

(I also created a page out of this post)

He must be doing design work.

Most people who design sites, who are not professionals, design it to look nice in whatever browser they are using at the time, with whatever settings they have turned on or off, at the time (see MySpace).  This is a perfect example of the old saying ignorance is bliss.  If I could develop websites all day to work on a Mac running Safari, design would be so much fun.  This is the case for many professionals, at least those designing applications for in-house use, who only need their designs to work in whatever browser their company has deemed the standard.  Most of us, though, are not so lucky.  Us being the people, professional and amateur, who develop public facing websites where there is no remote way to predict what your audience will be using to view your website with.  Us being those who are anal enough to care about how our website looks in almost every possible scenario.

What are these scenarios one must consider, well, here is how I usually think about it:

Will my site still look/work okay if…

• The user is using a non-mainstream browser (there are dozens)
  • I try my best to consider all the ones I can.
• The user is using Internet Explorer older than version 7.0
  • Usually relatively easy to contend with, avoid translucent png’s, deal with odd css bugs.
• The user has images turned off
  • Use CSS text replacement techniques, this can degrade easily.
• The user has style sheets turned off
  • Make use of conventional html tags as much as possible.
• The user has Javascript turned off
  • Do not rely on Javascript to do anything your page cannot live without having.
• The user has a very large/small screen resolution.
  • Optimize your site for the lowest popular resolution, screw everyone else.
• The user is browsing from a cell phone or mobile device
  • Use a mobile stylesheet.
• The user wants to print something on my site
  • Use a print stylesheet.
• The user is on an operating system with different base fonts
  • Carefully choose your fonts and do your best to optimize their precedence.
• The user has their screen color settings low
  • You can try to use web-safe color codes, I don’t.
• The user has their font size increased/decreased in their browser
  • Try using EM based layouts instead of Pixel based, I don’t.
• The user is on a slow connection
  • Try to keep your images, css, and javascript files as small as you can.
• The user does not have something installed
  • Such as Flash, Java, Shockwave, etc.
• A billion people hit it all at once because I’m just that popular.
  • Minimize database hits, cache, have a good server.

As you can see, if you want your site to work well, across the board, it is no easy feat.  In fact, it is very difficult.  What you usually wind up with at the end, feels like some sort of hack.  In the case of the new design I am working on, I made a couple of fundamental choices which have made the design incredibly more difficult to implement.  Although, they shouldn’t be, as they were quite simple choices.  Nothing too fancy:  A fixed position footer, and the use of one translucent png image.  Neither of these features are supported by any means in Internet Explorer 6 or below, without hacks.

Javascript in itself, is very nice.  I can write snippets of code to do very nice things with it, if the user has Javascript turned off, it appears as if those features never existed.  This is perfect.  The problem arises, for me, when your page relies on Javascript to even work at all.  This is the case of my new site when being viewed in Internet Explorer 6.  Javascript needs to constantly put the footer in the correct place, and it needs to make IE display translucent PNG’s correctly.  I don’t like this.  I had two conversations earlier with two different web design professionals on this exact topic, and I got two very different answers.  To paraphrase:

Designer 1: Javascript is there as a tool for you to use to accomplish what you need to accomplish.  Why should it be considered a hack?  If your site works, it works.

Designer 2: I find it is best to not fight the web.  If you find yourself coming up with all sorts of tricks to make your site behave the way you want, it is usually best to just change it around a bit to make it work the way the web wants it to work.

I agree with both of these points.  I have not yet decided which of the two I will listen to though, when it comes to my own design.  I realize that the amount of people who will come to my site in IE6 with a screen resolution of 1024×768, and Javascript turned off, is a very, very, small number.  For some reason though, I still feel compelled to support it.  Perhaps I should just let go and stop supporting IE6.  That decision would be much easier if the last 3 corporations I worked at did not use Windows 2000 with IE6 as their default setups, thus making me realize that the user base of this highly outdated browser might still be much larger then it should be.

So what am I left with?  A design which mostly works due to a system of hacks which I am quite uncomfortable with.  It is as if the internets does not want you to be creative, because if you try to be, you will be punished by having to spend countless hours working on one tiny detail of your site.  Which you can only hope will pay off when that one person who stumbles across your site on a 15 year old computer can actually enjoy reading it.  The best part is, you are so good at what you do, that person wont even appreciate the hard work you did, because they have no concept of just how much work it took to make your site simply work as they expected it to under their very specific set of circumstances.

Users do not appreciate the amount of work it takes to make something work, the simply love to bitch about it when it doesn’t.  I should just develop for the web on a highly standardized, proprietary, platform like Flash or Java.  At least you know what your end result will look like, every time.

Why must it be like this?  It is as if one, perhaps legitimate, reason you had to dislike someone, becomes that small rip in your jeans.  You know, the kind of rip that every once in a while gets a little bit bigger;  One thing is definite, it never gets smaller.  It might start out with something really small, as most rips do: a pet peeve you have, that your roommates constantly violate.  In my case that is probably something like doing the dishes.  If my roommates leave a sink full of dishes sitting there for days on end, it drives me crazy.  Then, after we both get sick of waiting each other out, I wind up doing them myself, and then I am spiteful toward them for having let me.

The question is though, who’s fault is this?  Are they simply less tidy people then I, and therefore they are in no rush to do the dishes?  Are they leaving them there because they expect me to do them, and the reason they sat there for four days is my own fault for not doing them?  But how can it be my job to do their dishes?  Did they cook a meal for me?  Did I ask them cook for me?  If not, does that still make it my responsibility?

This is the thought process, for me at least.

So then, regardless of the outcome of the thought process, you wind up spiteful toward your roommate about their lack of tidiness.  You can also be sure that they have some similar issue with something you do.  You both decide to hide it from the other, as to not be a “pain in the ass” roommate.

This is when the fabrication occurs.  That one small issue becomes five small issues.  After that, you start nit picking them about everything they do.  This all happens in your head, of course, as you still haven’t decided to talk to them about it, nor have they to you.  At this point every little tiny thing gets under your skin, and you start to hate people who are your friends.

If you have a girlfriend or wife living with you, chances are, she agrees with you.  Maybe you have other friends who are in agreement with some of your opinions.  This is when things get even more tricky.  You find yourself shit-talking your friends and coming up with even more stuff that bothers you, the more you talk about it.

When its all said and done, you and your spouse are no different than the KKK, except instead of hating an entire race, you hate your roommates, for no good reason.  You feed off each others pet peeves, you find more things that annoy you, even the smallest things.  You can be sure that your roommates are doing the same thing in reference to you.

What causes this downward spiral of hateful behavior?  Stubbornness is probably the easiest thing to blame, especially in the case of roommates.  What about in the case of extreme racists though?  I would think it is the same.  Blinded by their own unwillingness to see beyond the reasons they have fabricated inside their own heads to become hateful toward someone else.  Feeding off of each other.

So what to do?  What is the recourse?  I suppose the correct answer is, approach them.  If you have issues with your roommates, approach them.  If you hate everyone of a certain race, try to actually get to know a member of that race.  I think when confronted face to face, and given a chance to let your fabricated misgivings go for a short while, you can find that most of them were petty, and that given the chance to air them, you realize that, and don’t even wind up talking about it.  The most serious issues come up as topics, the more minor ones just fade away as if they weren’t even there.

I have a feeling that my approach is wrong, I simply do my best to ignore it.  I convince myself that things do not bother me as much as they clearly do, and I do not choose to talk about it.  I ignore that little rip in my jeans, but I know in the back of mind that it still continues to grow.

One day, I will be a bigger person, and decide to talk to my roommates, as I hope anyone else in a similar situation would do the same.

The initial re-design of the blog, which I spent about 30 man-hours on, came out looking very generic: Header, content, widget column.  I really wanted something unique, and bold.  Something not too overbearing but still very easy to use.  I was unable to come up with anything myself.  The first redesign was basically centered around using this header graphic I drew in Photoshop (below), and basing it off a design I really love.  I really didn’t like how it came out, so I scrapped it.

Original Header Graphic

This is one thing I need to stress to anyone out there designing a website:  If you become unhappy with a design, even if you have spent a lot of time working on it, don’t be afraid to scrap it and start over.  I did, and I couldn’t be happier.  The new design, thanks to my friend, is just what I wanted.  It is minimal, yet interesting.  Unique, yet usable.  And most importantly, it fits me, and my style.

This is another thing I need to stress to anyone out there designing a website for yourself:  The design must be a reflection of you.  If you are generic, then use a generic template.  If not, you should make your site, especially if it is a blog type of site, be a reflection of you and your personality.  This is the hardest part by far, especially for someone like me.  Luckily, I have friends who are professional designers with just enough spare time on their hands to help me out a little bit.

If you don’t have professional web designer friends, I still feel it is very doable, if you have the fundamental knowledge that is.  Even with my total lack of creative vision, I have cranked out a few decent looking sites in my day.  Just don’t get frustrated, don’t give up, and don’t rush.  Patience is key when designing, as bad as I try to, you simply cannot force progress.  Rushing things will only make the design suffer.

The last thing I want to stress to aspiring designers is the thing I struggle the most with, criticism.  I am really excited about this new design, and nearly everyone I have shown it to criticizes first, and compliments second.  This is a natural part of the process.  Keep one thing in mind, it is for you.  While you want it to be appealing to the masses, you also do not want it to become a cookie cutter site of what you think other people like the most.

I expect to release my new design some time next week, and I really look forward to it.  Once I do, expect a full write up on my creative process, and the problems you can expect to run into when designing a site for yourself.

I really don’t know, to be honest.  If i did, I would probably be a much happier person.  Sometimes it is easier to just stomp off in a 5-year-old huff then it is to just accept a situation for what it is.  I have always been semi anti-social, not really in a bad way, more that I just do not want to deal with people and situations when I am not in the mood to deal with them.  I especially hate forced interactions.

Grudges

Grudges are shitty.  We have all held them.  I am a particular master of grudges, in fact, I have held some grudges for so long that I forgot why I was even holding the grudge.  I feel that sucking up and apologizing to someone when you feel they are wrong is like admitting they are right.  Is that bad though?  Is letting someone think they are right about something better then not having any interactions with said person?  When is it better to just forgive someone for something and put your pride aside then it is to hold out hoping that some day they will admit they are wrong?

What if you were wrong?  What if you realized you were wrong so far after the fact that you feel like an ass admitting that all the arguing you did was for naut?  Is it easier to just hold up your end of the argument forever rather then to admit defeat?

I think grudges are the result of hubris.  I am certainly not innocent in this aspect but as I grow older I recognize my faults more often than not, and admit I am wrong, on occasion.  Accepting someone’s apology can almost be as hard as being the one to apologize.  I think it is best to simply put your pride on the shelf sometimes, and if you feel the friendship or relationship is worth keeping, just apologize yourself even if you are wrong, and let things heal.

This is of course, much easier said than done, but it is something I work on in my personal life on an ongoing basis.

Body Language

Body language can say a lot, and it can often make more problems then you ever intended.  I feel that most body language is completely purposeful in most cases, and generally used to convey the feelings you do not wish to express in words.  I believe this is most commonly used between couples in a relationship, but also pretty often in a professional atmosphere as well.

Some body language is blatant, rolling of the eyes, loud sighs, hand gestures, but the most harmful body language is very subtle.  Pissed off at your girlfriend and you just sit on the couch with your arms folded and don’t utter a single word for a few hours?  Not helpful.  Get up from the couch to go sit in your bedroom by yourself without saying anything as you leave?  Not helpful.

In many cases it is just as easy to get a point across using these types of movements, but I find it is often less helpful then good.  When you air a grievance using words in the format of civil adult conversation you usually make a lot more progress then you would by walking away and conveying your anger through gestures.

I am especially vulnerable to this tactic, I will get much more angry then I normally would have been if during any sort of disagreement I am treated to the silent treatment, the arm folding, or the eye roll.  I think much like any other situation this is best talked out.

I am not really one to use much body language but having been a victim of it so many times, it often amplifies my frustration and makes things much worse then they needed to be.  Again, changing how you handle situations is much easier said than done, but the least we can do is recognize what we do, and try to deal with it differently.

Isolation

This is a particularly tricky situation to handle, one which I tend to perform much more often then I should.  A good situation to use as an example is if your roommates are having a party for some reason, but you are not in the mood to party, so instead of leaving, or just going down to have fun, you sit in your room or wherever, and isolate yourself.  Everyone knows you are there, and wonders what is wrong, and you get labelled as some sort of emo bastard.  I do this all the time.  I hate doing stuff when I don’t feel like doing it.

The thing is though, it’s not that I am upset or angry, or sad, I simply do not feel like partying.  I am not trying to sulk or make it obvious that I am upset about what is going on, I am just relaxing in my own space.  Problem is, it is never seen that way from the outside.  If you don’t want to participate in a party something must be wrong with you, right?

I tend to think not.  I think isolating yourself can be a totally innocent act, or, it can also definitely be a major passive-aggressive motion.  For me it has likely been both.  Lets say you are away visiting some friends in a far away from home location for a week, and at some point a fight occurs, so for the rest of the week you just sit in your hotel room…No one wants to be on vacation to sit in their room, but you simply do it to prove some sort of point about how upset you are.  Thing is, no one gives a shit.  And, if they do, and they knock on your door to try to lure you out, you sit there and sulk, glad that they recognized you were upset, but still do not budge.

I have found that if you just join, or re-join the party, in 99% of cases, you have a great time and you are glad you did.  Sucking up your pride and just going with the flow is the hard part.

I guess basically my point is, even though I do not by any means exemplify what I am saying, that its usually better to just swallow your pride for the sake of a happier environment around you.  None of the things outlined above ever help anything, they never make you feel better, and they never resolve a conflict.  So why do them?  I wish I had the key, because I am more guilty of these behaviors then most people are, but at least I recognize them and make a diligent effort toward being a better person.

A child named Violence roams the streets.

• Princess Tiaamii (Jordan / Peter Andre)
• Audio Science (Shannyn Sossamon)
• Camera (Arthur Ashe)
• Fifi Trixibell (Bob Geldof and Paula Yates)
• Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily (Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence)
• Kal-El Coppola (Nicholas Cage - Kal-El is Supermans birth name)
• Lark Song (Mia Farrow)
• Moon Unit (Frank Zappa)
• Dweezil (Frank Zappa)
• Ahmet Emuukah Rodan (Frank Zappa)
• Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen (Frank Zappa)
• Sage Moonblood (Sylvester Stallone)

So apparently this trend amongst celebrities has begun to trickle down into average homes.  This is the reason for my writing this as I found a recent news report where New Zealand had made certain names illegal.  Some of the names which were made illegal are:

• Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii
• 4Real
• Fish and Chips
• Sex Fruit
• Yeah Detroit

It should be noted that these names were made illegal after they were used, which means that people actually tried to name their kids this shit.  What is even better is that some names are not illegal, and are apparently in use:

• Number 16 Bus Shelter
• Violence

I honestly wish my name was Violence.  I would love to name my kids something funny for the sake of humor. Hell I named my dog “Dirk”.  But they need to realize that the child needs to live a, hopefully, very long life with the name you have given them and that naming your child Sex Fruit is simply not cool. Should it be illegal though?  I tend to think not.

If some crazy ass parents want to name their kids stuff like that, let them.  I know the kids shouldn’t suffer but the courts didn’t have a say in my name so why should they have a say in anyone else’s.  If my legal name was Sex Fruit Eugene Chain, I would tell all my friends my name was Bob or Joe, and when I was old enough, I’d get it changed.  No need for the courts to intervene.  I’m not a law expert but doesn’t this violate free speech?  I understand they don’t have a Bill of Rights in New Zealand so they aren’t held to those rules, but I would hate to see anything like that ever happen in america.

I thought of some cool names for kids while writing this, and I only hope I am legally allowed to use them:

• Chest
• Miller Light
• Rothschild
• Enhance
• Picard

Feel free to name your kids any of the above, I won’t get mad.

Search engines make it possible for employers to scour all manner of digital dirt to vet employees. Online profile company Ziggs.com CEO Tim DeMello fired an intern after he discovered that on the intern’s Facebook profile he divulged that while at Ziggs he would “spend most of my days screwing around on IM and talking to my friends and getting paid for it.”

Do you stand out online?

It just so happens that I have a pretty unique name.  If my name was John Smith, I would have never thought twice about it.  However, chances are, if you google “Bryan Chain” every result you see is related to me.  This made me even more paranoid.  The fact that my name isn’t common just lends itself to a google type search.  It gets worse when google isn’t the only name in town when it comes to finding things out about people online.

As such, I avoided social networking sites and avoided ever using my real name anywhere online.  I actually did a pretty good job overall of keeping myself pretty invisible, I flew under the radar.  When I decided to write a blog though, I had to make a decision.  Some people argue having a blog is a good thing for your identity since if you get high search engine rankings, the blog appears before anything else; which gives you control.  Others, argue that it just exposes you even more.

If you love and nurture a blog, it will likely become a great asset in your reputation management arsenal. But the great thing about a blog is that it tends to rank well, even when left un-watered. Blogs are the cactus of online content. Wordpress.com and Blogger.com both provide free blogs and free hosting. Add just a few posts, keep it targeted to your name—that means use it in the blog title, posts etc—add a few links and bake for a few days. It will be on the first page of Google in no time.

It was either maintain my anonymity and write this blog using my most common online alias “WerkkreW”, or pull the covers off and stop caring.  I felt that to write a blog as a fake person would take away from why I am writing this blog.  As you can see, I stopped caring.  I feel that I have nothing to hide.  You won’t find pictures of me smoking a bong or murdering someone online.  At best you’ll learn a little bit about who I am, which is hopefully not enough to get me fired, unlike the author of dooce.

Still though, I hold back.  I have yet to write about anything personal, I have yet to write about anything directly related to my job, I have not released who my employer is.  I think about this a lot, actually.  Much of my inspiration to write comes from my personal experiences and my experiences at work, yet, I am both afraid to make those parts of my life public, and also, am not vain enough to think anyone on the internet cares to hear about the fight I had with my dad.

I think there is an important balance to managing your online identity.  Like it or not, if you use the internet, people can, and will, dig up dirt about you.  I suppose the best balance is to not be afraid to make use of some of the tools which have made the internet so useful, but to not expose so much about yourself that it could come back to hurt you.

Don’t be afraid to make use of sites like MySpace, Facebook, and others to reconnect with old friends.  Keep your profile conservative and tasteful.  Be weary of the types of photos you post.  Chances are your employer does keep tabs on these things.  My employer invited me to join the “MY COMPANY” facebook group, I declined.  To make things a bit easier, most sites have pretty advanced privacy features.  On facebook you can have basically 3 profiles.  Public (which can be set so no one can see it), Restricted (Give certain people access to a limited profile), and Full (people who can see everything).  If you make careful use of these it can become fairly easy to control just how much presence you have online, and who has access to it.

Like it or not, people have lost their jobs, and gone to jail over things they posted on social sites such as facebook, myspace, youtube, and others.  If you take a sick day from work, don’t post photos of yourself in a dress from that day.  It really boils down to one thing: Don’t be stupid.  If you realize that a quick google of your name would reveal these things you have done to anyone, including your friends, family, and employer, would you still have posted it?  If the answer is no, don’t.

Fired.

At this point, I feel very secure in my online world.  If my boss googles my name and finds this blog, I would not be embarrassed or ashamed.  I do not like feeling inhibited though.  Many interesting things happen to me at work, and in my personal life, which I would love to write about, but simply cannot.  So what do I do?

One friend suggested I set up another blog which I would use to simply anonymously vent my personal feelings.  I do not think this is the best approach.  I think the best thing to do, for me, is to just keep certain aspects of my life private.  Everything you post on the internet basically becomes public domain. Remember that if you want to one day become a senator but you just finished posting pictures of yourself on flickr doing something a bit controversial. 

It is pretty simple to protect yourself in the online world, and unless you are involved in something highly illegal, I don’t think most of us have anything to worry about.  The rules are simple, only make the information public if you are ready for anyone to see it, because chances are, they will.  I think being too paranoid about your online identity only takes away from the usefulness of the tools we now have available to us.

It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole.

Obviously this was intended to imply that their ticket collections system was comparable to a black hole where things which enter it, never escape.  I do not know much about the Dallas municipalities and their issues with ticket collections but when seeing this statement, no matter what the context, I do not see any semblance of racism.

Simulated Image of a Black Hole

However, commissioner John Wiley Price felt that this sort of language was unacceptable, and racist. (You can view the original video of the conversation here.)  This is all fine and good, I suppose he is entitled to his stance that a black hole is a racist construct.  However, after watching the follow-up interview, it is clear that he is either just being an asshole, or he is truly ultra-sensitive to race issues.  I will transcribe a portion of the interview below:

Fox:  Tell me again why you took offense to what Mr. Mayfield Said.

JWP:  Well, first of all I probably just took offense to Mr. Mayfield.  That’s number one.  Number Two, its back to the culture, you know.  The culture in terms of blackness is negative.  It doesn’t make a difference if, you know, it becomes a scientific phenomenon, you know because a scientist could have just as easily called it a white hole.  Why didn’t they?  You know, and in this society anything that is black is seen as negative.  So you name one comment “Oh, it’s in the black”, that’s one positive.  But you tell me one thing in this society when you say white and get a negative connotation.

So if its Angel Food Cake, it’s White, Devils Food Cake, it’s Black.

If you’re the black sheep of the family, then you gotta be bad.

You know, white could be ok.

Fox:  So should people be extra careful now, what they say?

JWP:  Well you know I think people should always be careful.  You know, I’m ok if I’m bartering with you, so.  But if I try to Jew you down, oh is that racist?  I thought it meant the same thing.

(continued on this video)

So lets analyze the racial connotations of some of the things he mentioned.

Black Hole vs. White Hole

A black hole is a phenomenon in space where gravity has become so intense focusing on a singularity that nothing, not even light, can escape it.  Black is a color, or the lack of color which can most easily be defined as describing absence of light.  If a black hole was called a white hole it would simply make no sense, at all. A “white hole” might be more likened to a sun, or something extraordinarily bright.  But of course, white people get good things like stars and suns, and black people only get black holes, these terrible destructive things.

Angel Food vs. Devils Food

Angels are something believed to exist in heaven.  Heaven is perceived as a very bright, cloudy, white place. Angel food cake is very light, airy, and white in texture.  It would not describe the cake well to call it devils food.  Devils are something believed to exist in hell.  Hell is a very dark, sinful place.  Devils food cake is a very rich, dark, and sinful food.  To me, these descriptions simply make sense.  In fact, I like devils food cake better, I doubt many people would tell you that dark devils food cake is terrible and that it was designed in order to further oppress black people.

Black Sheep of the Family

The