Virtual Thought

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I over-intellectualize things.

Or why my smileys are all backward: ( =

In the Spring of 1997 I dropped out of college for a semester to figure myself out. I was having a rough time of it trying to adjust to several new situations (my parents’ divorce, my newly discovered epilepsy, college life)... basically, a lot of stuff was rattling around in my head and my heart that I hadn’t yet taken the time to fully explore and incorporate into myself. I felt at war with who I used to be and who I was to become and was getting torn apart in the process. A semester without the pressures of college was just what I needed to straighten myself out.

Rather than do any of that I spent a lot of time in AOL “Bornagainonline” chat rooms making fun of fundamentalist Christians.

I’m not proud of this anymore. It’s hard to regret formative experiences since that would be, in effect, regretting the person that you have become… which just seems like a bad policy. I wouldn’t do that now, certainly, since a respect of other people’s beliefs has become a rather core part of my own personality… my personal war against zealotry notwithstanding (and I mean you, Pat Robertson), I can’t attack people just because they do not believe as I believe. That is the utmost hypocrisy for one who champions the freedom of ideas.

The part of this chapter that I don’t regret is the people that I met online that I, at first, only knew by the sobriquets that AOL forced upon us: Daemongrrl (or TalaDrake, or KaliDrake or whichever… ( ; ), Newagegeek, Jokolondo, thefatguy, Hakuin69, Arwen33, wnstnsmth… I was caught up in some larger swirl of events… all of us making the circuit, poking fun, causing mayhem, night after night… getting to know each other, becoming friends in this weird late-night habit.

Naturally, one night, when quizzed by a befuddled “Xian” in one of the chat rooms, “are you guys in some sort of cult or something?” one of us (Joko?) quickly replied, “Yes, we are.” I’m pretty sure it was Newagegeek who elaborated: “The Cult of Squishybear.”

Because Harvey (a.k.a Newagegeek) owns this stuffed bear, see… and he’d written a song about it, and it was Awesome, and, well, gosh darn, a bear is a pretty funny thing to build a cult around… and voila! The Cult of the Graphites, the Worshippers of Squishybear, were born.

Graphites because our holy books were written in pencil for easy revamping.

And lo! The sign of the Bear will fly in the face of reason! And it shall be backwards and written in pencil thusly: ( :

And the Masses shall cry, “Wakka chika” and Be Glad. – The Apocrypha of Squishybear

It goes on, and on, and on.

The reason I’m writing this is because I have this funny habit of Googling the people that I know. And, for no particular reason, today seemed like a good day to fire up the ol’ web browser, go to Google, and type in “jokolondo” and “newagegeek” and “daemongrrl” and, eventually, “graphites cult” and “zeligx”... wait, who? Seems that things have grown since this Saint of the Graphites went on sabbatical.

So I’m posting this as a signpost, an open letter. Hey guys, it’s me… it’d be neat to talk to you again sometime… and I’ll try and get that “Wakka Chika” song up in mp3 form real, real soon.

( =

P.S. By the way: Gil, that comment was me saying hello.
P.P.S If there’s any way I can get in contact with Harvey that would be great, too.
P.P.P.S Not to exclude anyone else on the list… these are just the people I successfully found. ( ;

I wish I was at home so I could try macZOT, the uninstaller that Apple forgot. When I get home and buy it I’ll update this post. ( =

So the New York trip was awesome, the coda a slow-roasting hell in which I continue to broil.

In an effort to escape I’m taking a friend’s non-verbal reading advice and re-reading “Pattern Recognition”, by William Gibson. I had forgotten that this book contains so much that is of interest to me: viral marketing campaigns, new media, new media distribution channels, emergent communities… really a solid book written by a novelist who is enjoying the height of his powers. Excellent stuff.

In my head is this project the design for which I have yet to construct: I want to buy a sheet of posterboard, lots of yarn, and some index cards. On the index cards I’ll imprint certain concepts that interest me (the aforementioned, but this time adding reality, one of the things I’m into, artificial intelligence, games, computability, usability, self-realization and maybe some others) and try and mind-map this thing that has been banging around in my head for some time now. Where the hell am I going? What am I doing now that moves me in that direction? Basically, what do I want to do post-programmer?

Just read this article discussing companies and their blogs:

“It’s become an expectation that if you have a business, you have a blog,” said John Jantsch, a Kansas City marketing coach and active blogger for several years. “Consumers are looking to find a community around your service. They’re looking to have conversations with companies about the products they’re using.”

Here we go: No. A blog is not just another PR channel such as television, radio, or print… a blog is a form of interactive media to allow conversation and encourage community. For big companies to have company-sanctioned blogs that have posts that are first reviewed by the company’s legal department, then by the public relations department, then by the Don’t Offend Anybody department… wake up! You are not writing a blog! It may have the CEO’s face next to the post, it may be open for comments, but unless the CEO wrote it his- or herself and is responding to those comments, unless the blog represents an open and honest line of communication between the author and the readers, then it is not “real” blogging (yeah, as if I know!).

Designate someone in the company to be the blogger, be the forum moderator, whatever, but then leave them alone. My favorite example of this kind of person is Walter, the mod for the Northwoods GoDiagram forums. This dude answers every technical question well in a friendly manner and has saved the bacon of many, many GoDiagram developers. He is an invaluable resource and, best of all, he’s a person, he’s out there, he takes risks, and, yes, he represents the company in these one-on-one conversations with the company’s customers. That informal support relationship shouldn’t be capitalized by the company in any formal pricing structure (“3 conversations with Walter for $9.95 per month!”) it should be left the hell alone.

I think service-oriented doesn’t just mean having WSDLs and REST architectures… it means creating and sustaining a community where the total is greater than the sum of the parts.

So I was reading Slashdot and I found a neato article about designer mice. What was even more interesting was this discussion about the designer mice.

That comment thread covers, I believe, the gamut of opinions about animal testing and the relative worth of animals to humans:

• The musopologists who believe they understand what mice are thinking and can make judgements for them (it doesn’t hurt them, they don’t have social structure, etc.)
• The skeptical thinker who stays on the fence about the whole thing
• The person who is enlightened enough to be able to weigh the lives of many mice versus the lives of many humans and come up with the right answer (humans)
• The person who thinks its horrible that we test on animals

I don’t know how I feel about animal testing. The best I can do is this: I think it’s terrible that I live in a world where we have to make decisions such as, “A mouse’s life is worth less than our own so we may torture it.” Yes, yes, I know… the natural world is built on this sort of predator/prey pyramid and little defenseless creatures get consumed all the time so that those near the pointy end (notice I didn’t say top!) can survive… but, I don’t know, I like the fact that our big ol’ honkin brains can make us struggle against what we think of as the “natural order.”

Because, truthfully… I think our genes are biasing our arguments here. In one sense we, as living beings, are incredibly sophisticated machines whose main purpose is to propogate. I would bet that at levels that exist underneath our conciousness our very biology is biasing these arguments. Our biology is saying that it’s okay for us to tear mice apart in our searches for longevity and health. We still bear the responsibility for those actions (again, those darn big brains)... but how much time are we spending figuring out how to get those poor, living creatures out of the equation?

So, back to the mice… our brains have to save us from the inexorable push of our biologies to survive. Our biology is not free of our morality. So why are we still torturing mice again? Why are we not straining with every neuron we collectively have to solve the problem of the necessity to make other creatures suffer that we might live?

...and I don’t think Apple is ever going to put it in.

I read an article on Wired that discusses where Apple’s entertainment division is going next now that there are no more features to be added to the iPod. Basically, the author says that since Apple hasn’t added a new feature to the iPod this year that is a sign that they’re slowing down, that they’re feature complete.

Nope. The killer feature that Apple could add to iPods is wireless connectability. I believe it is the killer feature. Imagine being able to put two iPods side-by-side and have the little beasties communicate and give their users the ability to swap songs. Easy as pie. “Select the songs you want to transfer.” “Click here to transfer.” “Transferring…” “Done!”

I understand the author isn’t saying that he thinks iPods don’t need features anymore… that it’s Apple that is saying it. Still… imagine how cool it would be to transfer songs with your friends! C’mon, Apple!

Of course the RIAA might have something to say about that… ( =