Reinventing Me: internet

Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Na. No. Wri. Mo. No. No. No. No! #nanowrimo

240/365 National Novel Writing Month begins

Image by owlbookdreams via Flickr

In about a week from now, an enormous number of otherwise sane adults will take leave of their senses and begin acting like a bunch of six-year-olds.

No, I'm not talking about Hallowe'en. I'm talking about National Novel Writing Month. All of a sudden, these folks will commit November to putting 50,000 words down on some sort of paper, without editing, in order to be able to say straight out that they are a "writer" and have completed a "novel". There's a perverse logic to dedicating a whole, specific month to the cause. There's brotherhood, and solidarity. Everyone is advised to find themselves a writing buddy, and go out and tell their friends and families exactly what they're doing. The idea is, if you now drop the ball, the embarrassment of not being able to follow-through on something you committed to would be so much, it keeps you going through this 1667 words per day marathon. Oh, that's including Thanksgiving. And Election Day. And National Men make Dinner Day. And Cook Something Bold And Pungent Day. No excuses. In effect, for a month they'll force themselves back into doing Composition homework, just like they were back in school. Family, relationships, presumably work and sleep, might have to get put on the backburner. Understandably, people's opinions vary on the effectiveness of #NaNoWriMo, as to whether it is indeed the right way to get a novel out of someone. Let's face it, everybody has a book inside of them, and for some of us, perhaps inside is where it should stay.

Ironically, there's been an account on Twitter that was intended to do some warm-up work for the November crunch which actually convinced me that #NaNoWriMo was something I really didn't need to be trying. @NaNoWordSprints has been offering timed writing sessions of 15, 20, 30, or occasionally more minutes on several evenings. The idea is, against the clock, get down as many words as you can. It's helped me on a couple of evenings to get over writer's block when I've been trying to get a blog post down, and it's taught me that the actual quantity of words needed to get through NaNo is something that I can reasonably achieve. The quality is questionable, of course, but isn't that the point? But, more importantly, what the sprints have shown me is, if I put my mind to it, it really doesn't matter whether it's November or not. If it's something I want to do, I will be able to get the words out, without a problem. Of course, writing a novel is something I have managed to go through four decades of my life without actually doing so far. If I really, truly, wanted to have a go, I am quite competent and have sufficient self-control to make sure I do it, without any exterior force or artificial time limit pushing it out of me.

In a momentary lapse of reason, I signed up for #NaNoWriMo. It happened just like any other Internet fad, to be honest. A friend gave it a shot last year - a successful shot, it turns out - and this year I heard about it and thought, "Why not?" What of course I didn't do before clicking on that tempting sign-up button was think about a more important question. Why? I don't think I have to necessarily put out 50,000 words of my unedited ramblings in order to be called a "writer", any more than I would have to record a win at Talladega to be called a "driver". I write, therefore, I am a writer. (I drive too, and I'm lousy at that). Whether it's good or bad, or fact or fiction, a novel, a blog, or a grocery list, it's still writing. I don't have a Pinocchio complex - it's not like I sit around all day wishing that I could be a "real writer", while at the same time am worried about whether anyone will laugh at my efforts. It wouldn't have to be a novel, either, if I wanted to write. I tried @6minutestory as well, which is completely the opposite proposition. Take a visual or verbal prompt, write as much as you can in six minutes, and then walk away. I've only given this a try once, mainly because I'm a horrific typist, but I wasn't too displeased with the result. There's a lot of good flash fiction out there, and some writers who are exceptionally skilled in the art of getting short stories written quickly. There seem to be plenty of online publications that are after all kinds of short stories; if I wanted to write one of those, again, it's up to me to just go right ahead.

It doesn't matter what kind of writing it is. Novels, short stories, even blog posts. The only thing that is preventing me from achieving any of them, is me; not whether I have signed up to some site or not. So now, right now, I'm actively chickening out. #NaNoWriMo? No, no, no, no.

Fourteen Hints To Keep Your Password Safe

Image via Wikipedia

It happened all very suddenly a couple of days ago. I was working away when my phone vibrated in my pocket; just a couple of buzzes, an incoming e-mail. It could wait until I was no longer in the middle of composing a thought; nothing is that urgent, surely. Then two more. And two more. And two more. By this time, I was distracted enough and continued to count; all in all, a dozen of so e-mails had arrived. No doubt they would all be spam, sent to me by some annoying robot out there; or newsletters, of which I've lost count to how many I've signed up for; or drops from mailing lists, same as the above; or a flurry of recently-approved comments on a blog post I've been following for months and can no longer remember. More than likely, though, it was spam. I've been getting quite a lot of that from my sister's e-mail account recently, and, joking aside from her that her concern for her older brother's health needn't extend to sending me deals on little purple pills, they've been getting annoying. I mention them, she denies all knowledge, and concludes that what I'm saying is, in fact, impossible. She doesn't even get to use her computer that much, she doesn't have a virus on it, so how could anyone be getting mails from her?

Enough was enough, I had to check the incoming mails, and discovered they were all bounces from the "Mail Delivery Subsystem", seemingly, mis-addressed mails that were sent from my account. I looked a little closer and discovered a pattern, I even recognized some of the addresses as typos I had entered at the computer several times before; accounts of friends that were no longer active. The body of the mail was, as expected, spam; some ridiculous so-called "deals" on consumer electronics. The embarrassing thing was, these mails had apparently been sent from my e-mail account. I logged on to the computer to check, and, sure enough, a copy of that mail had been sent to everyone in my address book, from my e-mail account, and was in my Sent Items folder. It was as if someone had logged right into Gmail and done it on my behalf. Sure enough, they had. At the bottom of Gmail there's a link that lets you verify details of connections. It confirmed that an address in China had logged onto my account a few minutes earlier - which meant, they knew my password. I quickly changed the password, maintaining a clear head to at least do that much. After that, I began to worry. Had I used that password anywhere else? What of my personal information was compromised? Could the attacker have done more damage during their visit than send out a few annoying e-mails - which I'm sure have impressed the heck out of my family, friends, lawyer, employer, butcher, baker and candlestick maker?

Here's the kicker. I pride myself on not being a fool. I must admit, when studies come out that say a huge percentage of people's passwords out there are vulnerable to simple guesses, I puff my chest out a bit because I'm not one of those. I do a lot of this for a living. I'm perfectly aware of the risks. And, sadly. I'm also extremely imperfectly human, and I cut a few corners here and there. Purely for convenience, you understand. For freedom's sake, for my personal enjoyment - surely, there's no need to be paranoid all the time, is there? If you live every moment in fear, that's hardly living at all! But I had to face it. A password that I thought was safe was compromised. My e-mail password, as well, which, let's face it, is pretty much the keys to the kingdom. Anyone could browse through my inbox and sent items; they could determine other places I had accounts and submit "forgotten password" requests. Perish the thought, they may already be in those places; maybe I used the password somewhere else? Maybe that's where they stole it from? And, embarrassingly, I honestly didn't know how much damage they were capable of. What I did know though is one of the addresses the spam mail was sent to was Posterous, which meant the spam mail was already posted onto my blog, and it would even be announced on Twitter.

I began to simmer down for a little bit. The address in China was probably just one of many that wasn't necessarily after my personal secrets. What they wanted was the ability to push out their spam mails, and perhaps harvest a few more candidates from my address book to continue their routines of password-guessing. They must have guessed my password, which surprised me. Or perhaps they'd seen it somewhere, which worried me. Having an account which they could robotically abuse to send mail through was the gold they were after; however, a human hacker would, most likely, have wanted to be more malicious. I could be comfortable for a moment. I'd stopped the problem, and realized that I really needed to rethink my password strategy. I thought I was secure; but I wasn't. I'm not naive; after all; but what I have been is complacent. Here's a list of hints about passwords we all ought to know, but perhaps a reminder is worth having. And, they're a reminder to myself, because I've been guilty of most of these, which meant I got caught by this latest eye-opener.

Your password shouldn't be a word. Of course not, and there's a simple reason for this. Depending on how you count them, there are only about 175,000 different words in English, and it's not that hard for a computer program (or an organized cracking effort) to try them all. However, even quite recent research has shown not many people take this advice consistently. In fact, there are still accounts out there whose password is, yes you guessed it, "password".
Mixed case, numbers, and "special characters". This has been common advice for a long time now, and most people think throwing a few of these into their password is enough, especially since most websites now either recommend or insist on it. Of course, it's not much of a stretch. If our happy hackers can run through all the English words, there's not much stopping them making the obvious substitutions and trying those, too. "P@55w0rd" really isn't that much more secure, after all.
Why not a pass phrase? If you're partial to verse 11 of Coleridge's The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, why not make that your password? And if the site has a maximum length of password, you may want to ask why - the most secure passwords should be irreversibly 'hashed' into a code that doesn't care how long what you originally typed was. (If your site has a small limit, you may wish to ask them why).
Don't fill out those "security" questions. These are, without a doubt, the biggest sucker trap ever invented. You don't know your password? Well, that's OK, what was the color of your first car, again? Suddenly, all security disappears in favor of something that is ridiculously easy to guess. If you're a celebrity, those security questions may even be answered on Wikipedia. Type something in these fields that has nothing to do with the question, and is just as cryptic as a password; if possible, put complete junk in these fields and look for an alternate means of password recovery.
Never use the same password twice. Seriously, never. It only takes one of the sites to be broken into, and you can be sure any leaked password will be tried in other places too. Perish the thought if the password you were using in that fun game in some Internet backwater is exactly the one you use for your bank account. This is the place where most people wimp out and claim that's "too much effort". It's not, providing you have a suitable "password keeper" program that stores all your passwords, securely. You just need a master password to access them. Done correctly, if you only access sites from one computer, you never even have to see or type the passwords stored. (Of course, mentioning a password keeper program reminds me, it goes without saying - don't ever write your password down anywhere!).
Never "remember your password on this computer". Again, this is rank laziness so you don't have to enter it next time. The problem is, there's often multiple ways of doing this, such as a checkbox on the web page or the password store built into your web browser, and you can't possibly know how secure these methods are. Of course, if anyone gets a hold of your computer, they're not secure at all. I once bought a computer from a pawn shop and was amazed at what was still on it. This one is also particularly important if you have a smart phone that has remembered passwords. What happens if you lose it?
Honor and respect corporate policies. There's a reason why your employer wants you, for instance, to change your password every 30 days, and it can't be the same as the last four you used. Nor should you abuse that and change it four times in a row to reset it back to the same as it was...
Don't do obviously stupid things, particularly with your phone. "Just send a text to your bank and get your balance instantly". Right. That sounds secure... until you lose your phone...
Put a password on your screensaver or phone keyboard lock, as well. It should stop people getting anywhere should you lose physical access to the device, and every little bit helps. Of course, don't rely on only this!
Don't rely on the other guy. It doesn't matter who they are; even the biggest companies have made security foul-face-up-books in the past. And I really don't care what operating system or type of computer you use; that just tells me you are refusing to accept responsibility for your own security as well. I could quite easily have been upset with Google for letting someone several thousand miles away log into my e-mail account at the same time I was already logged in, but that was my fault.
Check out the sites you use for possible security loopholes. For instance, if they can send you an e-mail to retrieve a lost password, then they are storing your password somewhere, which is evidently a security risk. A lot of sites - particularly message boards - got their software from precisely the same place, and any security loopholes have likely already been exploited.
Don't confuse awareness with competence. A site that suggests you use "letters, numbers and special characters" on the login page might not necessarily be more competent, simply because they're iterating common advice.
Password policies shouldn't be a secret. If a company won't tell you exactly what they do with your password, that's about as effective as keeping a magic trick a secret. it's only magic, while you don't know how it's done. Once you know, the illusion is shattered. And remember, the sort of attackers who are after your password are precisely the kind of guys who can get jobs working on the code for these places.
Don't underestimate the bad guys. Password-stealing is big business, and the players in this arena are exceptionally, exceptionally smart. Don't get arrogant and assume you won't fall foul of them... because that's precisely how you will get caught out. Don't contradict any of these points, even if you think "Oh but number X doesn't apply because..." - are you sure?

One extra point I'd like to throw in. The security landscape is always changing. Not so long ago the computing power to try all the words in a dictionary would have been prohibitive. New attacks, new attackers, are coming up all the time. We were watching Catch Me If You Can this weekend, an excellent movie based on a true story of check fraud and confidence tricks. Yes, check technology has changed a lot since the sixties, when the movie took place, and so many of the loopholes are no longer possible - indeed, the perpetrator invented some of the security systems that banks use today. However, human nature hasn't changed at all; social engineering is still the most effective means of getting by security. The last time I needed to get through a door I didn't have access to, I told the secretary that "she looked different. Is that a new hairdo? Wow, it really suits you!" and she let me straight in. Flattery just might get you anywhere.

Zemanta helped me add links & pictures to this email. It can do it for you too.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Online Game Review: Fallen Race

This image is a derivative work of Gamepad.svg...

Image via Wikipedia

There's quite a number of "browser-based" multiplayer games out there on the Web, with varying levels of complexity. At one extreme, there are the massively multiplayer online games that require software installation or download; at the other extreme, there are text games that require nothing more than your browser, clicking on selections in order to complete your "turn". Several years ago, I gave some of these a try. There are many varieties, some based on the old "Kingdom" strategy games, where you assign food, workers, and resources in order to grow your citadel from year to year, with a natural extension to multiple players. Other games take a science-fiction plot, or Dungeons and Dragons, or other such similar themes. In most cases, the game action is essentially the same. A turn count recharges in real time; for instance, you may be allowed a certain number of clicks every 24 hours. You may use those clicks each time when you log on, and other incentives (such as referring other users or in some cases pay-to-play) may increase the number of clicks you have available and thus give you an advantage in the game. What keeps you coming back to visit the site is the thought that, if you don't use those clicks your character collects while you're gone, your character will fall astray from its possible maximum potential. To many, this might not sound particularly absorbing, but there is something notoriously addictive about attempting to work out how best to plot and play your moves with considerable patience. Add a social element, and things can get dangerously absorbing.

Fallen Race is a browser-based multiplayer game that grabbed my attention on Twitter this weekend; with a mention that it can be played on any browser or mobile device anywhere. That is a significant advantage of text-based or click-based games; they are playable on browsers on devices such as phones, and checking in to enter the moves can be done at any convenient time such as when queueing or waiting for a bus. Fallen Race is set in the late 21st century, after an alien invasion has forced the human race underground. It is up to you to arm your character and take part in a rebellion to fight back the aliens, or to fight any other factions of humans competing for resources and money in the world. That's the plot description; to see how this translates into game dynamics, a sysop gifted me with some in-game money and a "donator pack", an item that signifies a player has made a contribution to the upkeep of the game and unlocks access to some donator-only features, including accelerated recharging of energy and studying skills, and the ability to maintain lists of friends and enemies within the game itself. I am quite pleased to say that, unlike many games of its type, the game does not feature advertising, not even a single banner ad; or reward clicks to links to external sites, a common promotional gimmick for this kind of game.

In the game, you buy equipment to arm your player and defend yourself from attacks, while training your character's statistics of accuracy, strength, defense, and agility. Your character has values of mood, energy, courage, and focus, which change up and down constantly as you play your turns. The stats and attributes interact, which is where the strategy comes in; for example, it costs energy to train up your statistics, and how successful your training is depends on your mood. Focus enables you to study, while courage enables you to perform missions which let you level up. Of course, you have a number of life points, which, should you get attacked either by the in-game enemies or by other players online, will put you in the hospital to heal. The statistics regenerate over time; for example, you regain a courage point every five minutes which means you can re-attempt a mission that costs one courage point. As well as the missions, you may also choose to search the environment around you, and you are awarded a certain number of searches every day. The outcome or searches and missions may be increased experience or discovering new objects; but there may be negative outcomes, such as a wound that puts you in the hospital or time in jail. By logging back into the game regularly and spending the available points wisely, your character can increase in strength and levels and open up more and more possibilities. If you're obsessive compulsive, you can check every five minutes for something to click, but this is a game for the extremely patient! Fortunately, there seems to be sufficient protection against automation - getting computer bots to enter the moves for you - and hopefully the human element is more important to players than the game's internal number-crunching.

Evolving your character by periodically logging onto the web site and clicking available options is, of course, only the non-social part of the game. Building your character is there to enable access to the community options, backed by an in-game message board where you can interact with currently around 7000 other players. By getting to know other players, you can join teams known as "squadrons" who fight for reputation points. Fighting other players in this way is part of the game - the game runs the fight whether or not both players are online, so it is quite possible to log on to the game to discover you have been put into the hospital. In addition, there's a Battle League where organized, competitive fights are held between characters to move up through the ranks and win prizes. By meeting other people within the game, you can send them objects, attempt to rescue them from the jail, and thus build on the social elements of the game. It is the social aspects where there is considerable development currently ongoing; recent additions for example include a lottery and the "Fallen Theatre" where players can submit and share videos. You can buy and sell objects on the black market to other players, buy a bigger "facility" to live in, and even find an in-game spouse. The social aspects of the game work very well. Within a matter of minutes you will meet other players by breaking them out of jail, being gifted with supplies, weapons, armor, and the grapes - handy to throw at prisoners.

There were a few issues I did run into while exploring the site. While the Twitter account promoting the game describes it as playable on mobile devices, the site is in no way optimal for use on a smartphone - there is not an "optimised for mobile" version of the pages. The pages load very slowly on a phone and are cumbersome to scroll around, This seems a shame - the game seems ideal to be played on the move, and most games of this btype really should address this in this day and age. There are some situations as well where the page display is not precisely in-sync with game events. For example, if you have one courage point left and undertake a mission, the display of the mission results still shows that one remaining courage point on the left panel, and only updates on the next screen. The game is under active development, though, and changes big and small are in the works. In fact, while writing this review, I came across a bug of little consequence, which the sysop immediately looked into, even though it was 5.30am his local time. The community seems thriving and there is definitely a sentiment among the players that they are in no small way helping to shape the future of the game. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you enjoy click-based browser games, Fallen Race might be worth checking out.

Monday, August 9, 2010

An Unpaid Forfeit

This is a post whose beginnings had been sitting in my draft folder for 11 months. I'm publishing it now, and bringing it up-to-date a little.

My optometrist, back before I moved, was a tiny woman of a very slight build and a quietly-spoken voice. There was no way she could make me do anything against my will. No way at all. Every time I went, though, we would have exactly the same conversation.

"I prefer to dilate your pupils as part of the examination. Lets me get a better look inside your eyes, and it wears off after an hour or so. Shall we do that?"

"No. Last time I did that, it lasted all day. Makes me nauseous. I think you can skip that bit Doc."

"I really would prefer it if you'd let me dilate you."

"I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna."

"Please, I promise you, it'll be fine."

"Oh, all right then, I suppose."

The upshot of this conversation is I would spend the rest of the day wearing Roy Orbison shades, staggering around like a drunk, and tripping over my shoes which would look like they're in clown sizes. I'd complain about it for the rest of the day, to which everybody helpfully reminded me, "Well, you could have refused, couldn't you". No. That's the problem. I couldn't. OK, I admit it, I'm a bit of a pushover, especially when it comes to ladies. One thing I should have learned by now, though, is to never underestimate the willpower of a strong-minded woman, and its obvious corollary. Never enter a bet with one. But of course, that's precisely what I did.

An upbeat and funny friend of mine on Twitter was expecting her first child, handling the trials and tribulations of the whole business with a more than liberal dose of humor. Strange thing how stream-of-consciousness discussions begin, but it started with an exchange of blog comments about her shoe collection and her desire not to let her "condition" change a thing. "Awww, bless her", I start thinking, overcome with pathos. The idea of anyone insistent on sticking to their skinny jeans and heels as long as possible through pregnancy - definitely a first time mom. For many moms-to-be, that final trimester consists of swollen ankles and constant walks up and down the house, while helicopters hover overhead and radio back to Sea World that Free Willy has escaped. Heels? Yup. Sure. Whatever. And one thing I can be trusted on is to open my mouth. "If you make it to 28 weeks, I'll be in awe of your superhuman powers," I tweeted. Somehow, between there and now, that escalated from a mere observation to a bet. The game's afoot, and, of course, I lost. And, since a bet's not a bet unless you've got something to lose, what would my forfeit be? Surely, the punishment should fit the crime. There's only one logical suggestion. I should put on a pair of heels.

This does, of course, raise a few issues - perhaps, surprisingly, not the issues that immediately spring to most people's minds. I refuse to take myself too seriously. I'll go out of my way to do things just to raise a smile, or in this case, hopefully, a laugh. And, no, I'm certainly not insecure - a joke like this is in no way a challenge to my sexuality, two-year-old boys have been marching up and down the hallway in their mom's slingbacks since the dawn of time - so, what the heck? Why not? It's not like I'll be wearing them all day at work. Could be fun, and, who knows, I might even learn a bit of empathy for some women I see who are obviously in discomfort from these things. Besides, I've supposedly got a decent pair of legs. Most friends of mine my age have things that I can only equate with hairy milk bottles. Anyway, Wikipedia tells me that high heels being just for women isn't necessarily the case. They were practical for Mongolian horsemen and Egyptian butchers. (Seriously, I'm not making this up). Dance shoes such as Cuban heels aren't considered effeminate, are they? Of course, that would be cheating on the bet, wouldn't it?

The only issues that come into play are purely logistical. How do I get a pair that fit? My daughters don't wear them, and even if they did, my plates of meat are far too big. I'm a ten and a half (US) wide fitting in a tennis shoe. It's not that they don't make heels in that size - far from it - but it would be nice if they were fashionable. And, despite the fact that this is something that will be over and done with in a few seconds, it would be nice if they actually fit. I have no idea what would happen if I was to were into Wal-Mart and start trying on shoes. I think I'll draw the line there. Other plots ensued. I could order them online, perhaps. (There's a surprisingly large amount of size 11's up there. I'm figuring add half a size for comfort to even stand a chance of getting my lithe and lissom feet in them). Perhaps I could head out on the razz and see if I can find myself a lady with feet that size, explain my predicament, and that I'm interested in borrowing her shoes. Or maybe not. I honestly don't look at feet all that much when I'm out. After a visit to the Goodwill store confirmed my suspicions - women's shoes are definitely not made to fit on men's feet - there was a radical suggestion that I should try a "specialty" store to find what I was looking for. Success! I had precisely what was needed, but at this point, I was accused of stalling. The very thought! About a month had passed as I tried to think my way out of this acquisition problem (or, perhaps, hoping that people would forget?). Of course, nobody would forget something like this - and I'm definitely not going to be accused of welching on a bet. By hook or by crook, I was going to have to get me a pair, get this photo taken, and be done with it. And, to make up for that extra month or so, I needed to finesse the deal. Just take the whole thing a little bit further. Produce a picture that's recognizable, iconic even. So here's the result... OK, I'm just kidding. This one is Betty Grable, being iconic in heels. I never got to pay my forfeit.

The month that it took to find an appropriate pair of shoes saw plenty of other life-changing events for me, which have only come completely into focus recently. Acquiring a pair of shoes for a fun bet became secondary very rapidly. There are a lot of metaphorical attics to clean out; things from back then, things that are best forgotten about, and things that need to be brought forward to now. A lot of those events were hurtful and painful; but the jesting and joking that surrounded that bet was one of several happy moments that were interspersed among the difficulties. It's all too easy for us, when we decide that it's time to move on, to attempt to make too clean a break, too radical a disconnect. Sometimes, we don't have the choice; sometimes the choice is made for us. As part of the disconnect, we lose a lot that is good along with everything else that we try to purge from our existence. I lost touch with a lot of people over that interval, during a very dark time indeed. Trying to regain, to reconnect with those people, to show them the new light that I am in, is an important part of this process. I know that there'll be a few I won't get back; a few that won't recognize me; a few that won't want to recognize me. Some have every right to be cautious. Some may not like how the different light reflects on me, and will be gone. Those heels that it took so long to find are gone, too; to go through with this silly forfeit again might seem a bit ridiculous, but for some reason I feel compelled to do so. They're symbolic of an important part of me, that part that actively refuses to be taken too seriously. Despite anything else that may have happened in the interim, that part of me never went away. I don't know if @lolas_mum is bothered one way or the other, but this somehow seems an important thing for me to do. Perhaps once I have the confidence again to do something as ridiculous as this, then I might have the confidence to write here about those details that will, one day, have to be written about. I recently got reminded (in re-runs) that the literal meaning of nostalgia is "the pain from an old wound". I've still got plenty to be nostalgic about.

Dryer Lint

C shot me an email last night, effervescent with more than even her usual sense of enthusiasm. Her desk at work had reached that critical point where, like it or not, cleanup was absolutely necessary. "I'm getting somewhat organized!" she bubbled excitedly. "It almost looks like someone diligent works here!" We laughed and discussed our common clutterbutt philosophies, how we wait for things to get to critical mass, and I joked I had a list to share with her - the contents of my "inbox" folder on the computer. "Hang on a minute!" I responded, while I copied the directory listing to a file so I could see what I had, work out what each file was, and send her the list demonstrating just what a packrat I am. I admit, I try. I do my best to cut down on the clutter, keep an eye out for articles that help me manage my mess, but I think it's something of a lost cause. I accumulate more and more digital dryer lint as each day passes.

I'm not a tidy person, not in any sense of the word. I thoroughly believe that an empty desk is evidence of an empty mind, but I really don't get to work with paper very much. Any documents I deal with are digital; any words I might write are electronic; whether it's work or play. I am not entirely sure why I ever learned to write in cursive; about the only thing I ever use it for is to sign a check. My handwriting is illegible. My clutter, therefore, really isn't "on" my desk; although, curiously, right now, I can't even see the surface of my desk. Nowadays I work from home. So the table is completely covered with documents of all types; work, home, old bills, new bills. This clutter is minimal, compared to what I know exists deep within the bowels of this computer. That seems a particularly unusual analogy, but "bowels" is probably about right when I consider what's inside there. There's a broad generalization out there that ninety-nine percent of everything is "rubbish", or words to that effect. That's surely all the more true when it comes to Internet downloads. I can't even count the number of "free" e-books I have in that folder. At one point, it seemed I was religiously reading Boing Boing and downloading something daily, proclaiming my support for Creative Commons by downloading every piece of CC media I could get my hands on - and then, well, not doing what you're supposed to do with them.

"Hang on for what?" C asked, before my list had even got past the text of Coleridge's "Rime of The Ancient Mariner", which I vaguely remember downloading when I had the idea that performing it to the theme tune of "Gilligan's Island" might actually be quite fun. (Go on, admit it, you're humming it and thinking "Water, water everywhere/And not a drop to drink" right now). I realized I'd barely started inventorying the junk that would be found in the "inbox" folder. When even listing what's in the folder becomes a monumental task that I'm almost tempted simply to leave a note to myself - must find out what all this crap is - and drop it in the folder itself, you know critical mass has been passed. I was so pleased with myself when I first got this computer. The inbox folder was the first thing I created. A deeply symbolic and powerful action; the place where all that incoming material would arrive and simply touch - no, brush - the ground, before it it would be dealt with, filed appropriately, or moved on. It currently measures 110 gigabytes. Let's put that in perspective; it's nearly 200 CD's worth. Thanks heavens we're not using those little blue plastic diskettes any more. It would take a pile of those a quarter of a mile high.

"I got so focused on cleaning out and organizing, I tackled my purse!" followed up C, as I begin to move into the more mysterious, virtual infinity of the inbox. Ah, I remember this section well. This is the section filled with Great Ideas. The product of an over-fertile imagination - over-fertile, some might say, because it's filled with... well, you get the idea. Every Idea in this area has an uppercase I. Every idea here spawns two, child Ideas, each as capable as the last, stretching out and out and on and on. An application form to write technical books for a publisher who lives in my hometown and whose name seems curiously familiar; I'm sure I went to school with him; spawning its two child Ideas; listing all the people I remember from school in an effort to get back in touch with them, then writing the aforementioned technical book. Some ideas for a technical book including writing a program that plays checkers on the web; followed by a bit of research that discovers that checkers is, in fact, 'solved' after what must have been an incredible amount of number-crunching. More Ideas with uppercase I's, spawning in all kinds of different directions, mathematical, computational, recreational, geeky, nerdy, cheeky, but after a while beginning to peter out, become more dilute. Ideas that merely got as far as creating an empty file or folder, little more than just a name; perhaps a name that I'd come back to later, a name that within it had the essence of securing that doctorate degree or the independent wealth which, some day soon, perhaps I'd be focused enough to sit down and actually work for. It's ironic. In there is a copy of a TED talk by Adam Savage where he talks about his "obsessive" personality. I'm not that bad, am I?

"Found a letter you wrote to me on April 1st." Coincidentally, the inbox gets to a poignant collection of notes and downloads. Drafts of emails I was writing, the lyrics to a song I sung. Several pictures of C. Several. More than I could ever print out; more than I even knew I had. The ones I saved just because; the ones of her letting me know she had made it safe to work. These are treasures. One night we'll sit and go through them; through our email archives. We'll remember how we got here, we'll try to remember the particular days and dates involved. But right now all these treasures are being devalued; surrounded by so much other junk; junk I'll never revisit, junk I never really wanted in the first place, never even knew I had until I went through this inventory process. Things that I should have cleaned up as part of this move - if I moved physically, then I should have moved mentally as well. If all these files, these documents, had been written in dead-tree notebooks, I could never have brought them here. There's only one thing for it. I drag all the precious files somewhere else, somewhere safe; they're surely irreplaceable, and just get rid of the rest of everything, select them all, and hit the Delete key.

Are you sure you want to remove the folder 'inbox' and move all its contents to the Recycle Bin? I giggle a little. The Recycle Bin. It's not actually throwing it away, at all, is it? Just putting it somewhere else for a little while; at some undefined time in the future, well, that's when it'll actually disappear. I'll be emotionally detached from my junk by then. I won't even know when it actually got thrown out. It reminds me of the plastic bag we have in the laundry room. It's where all the dryer lint goes; and, when the dryer lint bag is full, well, that's when we'll put it out in the trash - unless we decide to get all Boy Scout and use it to make firestarters. I click on "No" - I'm not certain I can make that commitment, not yet. I might throw away something I'll need one day; but at least the precious things have been put away safely now. I just won't look in the original folder - until I need to. Strangely, this tangled mess of junk in my inbox folder is somehow very self-defining. The geeky, nerdy, cheeky, disorganized, random, and yes, thoroughly under-utilized collection of stuff - well, that suits me down to the ground.

Online Relationships Leave A Lot To Be Desired

A good friend - online, of course - sent me a link to an article about shallow online relationships today, and how they can possibly be - dangerous? Relationships without strong connections, all too common on the Internet, can leave us feel lonely and lacking, even depressed. Indeed, surely the most we can expect from hundreds or even thousands of online followers is superficiality. Likewise, in our extremely busy lives, instant relationships that require no investment of time seem thoroughly appealing.

There is, surely, a danger if people grow to expect that sites like Facebook and Twitter are indeed all that personal relationships have to offer, or that quantity is more important than quality. When returning to Twitter this week, I've found that a previous follower count in the thousands has meant very little at all. Perhaps only a dozen or so of those are worth being called friends. Only that number put in the legitimate effort that a genuine friendship required. There are many out there; the genuinely socially-inadequate, the predatory, the awkward, for which the element of disconnection which networking offers is appetizing. That cannot possibly be a good thing.

There are, of course, exceptions. One, in particular, springs very readily to mind. An online acquaintance who, most certainly, connected with me most strongly; invested the largest possible amount of time and energy in our relationship; and through meeting online, something which would otherwise have been impossible, turned out to be thoroughly life-changing. None of that could possibly have happened if we hadn't have met online. Perhaps there's something to be said for this social media stuff, after all. It left us each with a lot to be desired.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending the social networking trends in any way. Your mileage may vary. But the addicted perhaps should take note. If we meet face to face, and you reach out to respond to that delicate chime your 'phone makes for an incoming tweet, I'm apt to hit the thing with a hammer.

The Other Side Of Disconnected

Several months ago, for reasons that perhaps will unfold as you read this blog, my online presence quite literally disappeared overnight. Several acquaintances, worried at the abruptness of my vanishing, began something of a manhunt, and, what with Google being the behemoth that it is, I didn't take much finding by those select few internet acquaintances that I can happily count as real friends.

What I didn't expect, and somewhat took for granted, was that once I'd returned, everyone else would be there, precisely as I'd left them. I was expecting to have to explain myself a bit, maybe even reintroduce myself to those who would remember me only vaguely, but at the very least, I would find everyone. There would be some obvious changes, of course. The moms-to-be who entertained with their nervous guest posts would be moms, now. Those who I'd met, first dangling their toes in the blogging waters, would by now be powerful writers. Everyone would have changed - but only a little.

But, sadly, it seems some people are missing; disappeared. In some cases, their presence is gone, deleted, just as mine had been, before. Those losses don't seem too worrying; people move on, people no longer continue their hobbies - although it's an insight to how my own departure had seemed. More disturbing are those who have left, almost in mid-conversation. Their timelines, their works-in-progress are still there. An infectiously enthusiastic young lady planning a trip to Europe - I hope she's alright.

My partner and I both experienced losses last year, which we have only barely come to terms with in the slow, progressive way that humans do. Our friends have gone; but they have left behind digital legacies, shed an electronic coil as well as a mortal one. They're still on Facebook. We get reminders of their birthdays. They're still in our address books. They can still be heard in saved voice mails. I'm not sure whether these mementos make things easier or harder for us. All I know is, a digital disappearance impacts us just as much as a physical one. My vanishing act was thoughtless. Now I know how it feels.

The Insanely Connected World

It takes a lot to be insanely connected in the blogging world. Not just to experience it, to be entertained by it, but to interact with it, to be absorbed by it, and, yes, to be fully immersed in it. It's more of a complex addiction cycle than anything else - intermittent positive reinforcement is what we seek. Something as simple as a comment, or a page view count, takes on enormous significance. We go to extraordinary lengths to secure that exposure; striving for retweets, building up a follower count, striking up "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" deals with fellow bloggers... Sometimes, a comment we'll receive will feel golden. That's why we blog. That's why we tweet. We build our networks, we look forward to those comments, those once-in-a-while elements of feedback that astonish us, that we treasure as validation that someone out there is taking notice of what we do.

Scheduling, remoting, control by email, from mobile devices... so many components out there, to build into some Rube Goldberg publishing contraption, attempting to get those posts out there, to be read. It's a thoroughly daunting proposition. There seems an infinity of tools to do so. With all the technology, all the features, all the capabilities that the Internet gives us; with all the stress placed on measures of our success; with all our own, psychological prejudices when it comes to measuring our own worth, it's easy to forget what our efforts should be all about. Surrounded by tools, it's all too easy to forget that we're here to write. It doesn't matter what we write about; what genre, what style. We're putting ourselves into it, and to simply reduce this to a mechanical publishing exercise is doing ourselves a grave injustice. It's about still being human. Let's not forget that. To be here for any other reason, that's insane.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Friday, October 22, 2010

Monday, September 27, 2010

Monday, August 9, 2010