March 18th, 2007 @ 1:20 pm
I haven’t been paying attention. The place changes so fast.
I find it is a healthy and normal internet activity to Google oneself™. While some might characterize this activity as self-indulgent and call it “ego-surfing,” those 21st-century web-savvy digitally-enabled electronically-mobile young semi-professionals amongst us… we know better. We’ve got enough stuff up on The Internet that the FBI doesn’t even have to ask us where we were four nights ago—we’ll tell them. I’d suppose, what with all this stuff lying around right here on this website, that I am counted among the no-privacy generation.
So I should really know (since I’m in charge of it) what about me is going up on the web. That’s half the idea of this glot-thing: to manage digital identity—all my junk in one pile. I was amused yesterday when a friend stumbled on an article about how to dump your travel partner that featured one of my Flickr photos. They’re all Creative Commons licensed, which means anyone can use ‘em so long as they say who took ‘em. Then today, for whatever reason, I decided instead of googling my name I would google my flickr name.
I found a lot.
November 15th, 2005 @ 6:14 am
There are worse things to be addicted to than the internet. But then again, maybe nitrous isn’t so bad.
You ever think about who you are on the internet? I do. I basically paid about $100 out of pocket for… this. All of this. This webspace, this domain. And more than that, I’ve spent hours which are — in a word, uncountable — actually putting the damned thing together. All so that you can read this and enjoy the little colored squares change. Yes I’ve spent a lot of time on the internet. I’m nice to the internet; it’s nice to me.
I’ve been thinkin’ lately, in my very American way, about all the stuff I’ve got. Specifically, the stuff I’ve got online. Stuff like:
Flickr
Consumating
Del.icio.us
Last.fm
MySpace
WordPress
And beleive it or not, now people have coined a new highfalutin term for all this: digital identity. To be distinguished, mind you, from one’s real identity. That is to say exactly what should be obvious: the virtual world still isn’t real.
Think about that for a moment. Many of us spend a lot of our lives—let’s say in my case roughly half—in front of a computer. And how many dreams have you had where you were on the internet? Or even at a computer? Not any at all, for 99.998% of you (one can never be absolutely sure…). So why bother if it can’t be integrated into a wholistic, experience-seeking, fully-lived life? Look at that list up there. Now go make your own. Shouldn’t our time on this earth be spent improving our lives, instead of (very arguably) improving the internet?
Hm.
Well, think I’ll read a book now. Like that’s any better.
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