Diary of a Network Geek

No, not the idea, but the actual event.

Two stories ran recently about dealing with the parts of us left behind after death.
First a story about a “better” coffin that screws into the ground.  Okay, I’ll grant you, this is less serious than morbidly amusing to me.  Still, I do like the idea of having a low-cost disposal method for what I’ll leave behind once I “shuffle off this mortal coil”.  That it screws into the ground, just tickled me.
And, for anyone keeping track, I’d just as soon be cremated and scattered to the Four Winds where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan just outside the Loop.  Seriously.

The second two were a little more serious.  Two stories about social media applications dealing with the accounts of the dead and, more recently, one from the New York Times Magazine, online, of course.
Back before everyone was on the web all the time, I used to have an envelope that was labeled “Open upon my death or disappearance”.  Seriously!  I used to keep it tucked under my keyboard.  I had one at work, too, for those folks, though that was in a safe.  In each envelope was a series of usernames and passwords for people to use to get access to my accounts should I go missing, or should something happen to me that left me incapacitated or dead.  I’m honestly not sure if anyone knew about the one under my keyboard, but I figured it would have turned up when someone cleaned up after me.  So, basically, I was giving someone who survived me access to my e-mail and other, similar accounts.
I got rid of that sometime shortly before the divorce, for some obvious reasons.

Now, though, there are so many accounts and websites and blogs and such that I’m not sure I could easily list them all.  And, frankly, who would bother to pay for my website?  Who would care enough to maintain an archive of this blog, for instance?  I don’t have a huge readership, though you are a pretty loyal lot, so I don’t expect anyone to really want to preserve what I have here.
How many of you have though about what will happen to your blogs and websites and so on when you die?  What about if you were to die suddenly from, oh, say, cancer?  What then?  If I went missing for a month, would anyone notice here?
Well, for WordPress blogs, there’s a plugin called Next Of Kin that might help, a little.  You can set it to post some message to your blog if you fail to login to your blog for a set amount of time.  And, just to be sure, it will send you a reminder or warning e-mail to check and make sure that you haven’t just forgotten to visit your blog.  It’s far from enough to take care of all of your digital needs after death, but it is a pretty good start!

So, what have you all got setup in case of your untimely death?  Does anyone know your passwords?  Have you given anyone instructions on what to post to Facebook or Twitter after you’ve gone?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

What are you doing today?

If you’re at work, you probably aren’t getting anything done because it’s Friday and, frankly, if you’re reading this blog, you probably aren’t going to get much done no matter where you are, so you might as well check out some of the best damn science-fiction I’ve ever read. And, no, I don’t think that’s exaggerating. At all.
So, go read Ted Chiang’s The Life Cycle of Software Objects at Subterranean Press.
Seriously. Go read it while it’s still up and free!

I have lots of hope for the new year.

No, seriously, I do!
We, as a race, the human race, are capable of amazing things.  We live in the future.  Our lives are filled with science-fiction, which has always been the language of wonder and hope, even when it’s filled with warnings about where we may go wrong.  But, now, right now, we have people who live, albeit in a limited way, in space.  And that, gentle readers, has always inspired hope in me.
Here’s a link to some beautiful photographs which inspire that hope in me, courtesy of NASA and brought to you via Yahoo: Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson looks down at Earth.

I hope you have a new year filled with wonder and hope, people.  Truly I do.  Be good to each other this year, okay?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities; an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties."
   --Reginald B. Mansell

Well, it’s that time again…

It’s that magic time of year when we all make resolutions that most of us will never keep.  I mean, seriously, how many of you have ever kept a resolution?  Ugh, don’t answer that.  My readers are probably just the kind of contrary people who actually do keep their resolutions!
For my part, I keep saying that I’m going to read [amazon_link id=”0142000280″ target=”_blank” ]Getting Things Done[/amazon_link] so that I can streamline my life and, well, get more done.  One day, I swear, I will become more efficient!  At least I actually own this book.  It’s sitting under a huge pile of other books, just waiting for me to finally get around to it.
On the upside, one year, I resolved to teach myself [amazon_link id=”0596520107″ target=”_blank” ]Perl[/amazon_link] and that I actually did!  Of course, I mostly used that to make little webapps that weren’t very useful, even if they were entertaining.

And, that, gentle readers, brings me to my Friday Fun Link; Diary of a Network Geek’s New Year’s Resolution Generator!
It’s fun!  It’s FREE!  And, I have to admit, it tends to lean toward resolutions that involve hard liquor and inappropriate behavior, especially with strangers.
Trust me, you’ll love it.  Be sure to share it with all your drunk friends tonight at your parties!
See you next year!

No, I did not make gingerbread houses for Christmas.

In fact, I hardly decorate at all for Christmas.  For me, the holiday is about the feeling.  It’s about the rebirth of light into the world, both figuratively and in reality.  I mean, really, based on historical events described in the Gospels, [amazon_link id=”0380813815″ target=”_blank” ]Joshua be Joshua[/amazon_link], or Jesus of Nazareth, as most folks know him, would have been born in the Spring.  The reason we celebrate Christmas in Winter was to bring in the Pagans who were already celebrating the rebirth of light in the world via the Winter Solstice.  The early church fathers figured that if we synced up our holidays, they’d get more converts.
And, hey, I’m not knocking the marketing strategy!  But, I also don’t feel so compelled to put up a Pagan-inspired “Christmas Tree” or wreath or, really, any other materialistic decorations.

But, for those of you who do decorate, go check out the amazing gingerbread houses at Mental Floss and then, for God’s sake, step up your game!

And, most of all, have a very Merry Christmas!  Cherish all the gifts you’ve received all year long and celebrate the rebirth of light and hope into the world tonight.

My first tattoo is officially old enough to drink today.

I got my first tattoo on my twenty-first birthday, twenty-one years ago, today.  It was Finals Week and I had a final exam the next morning, so I couldn’t do the traditional round of drinking myself unconscious.  Besides, that really wasn’t my style even then.  So, instead, I marked the day my own way.  I’d wanted a tattoo for a long time, longer, in fact, than I could remember.  And, somehow, I’d gotten it in my head that having a tattoo would make me tough, or at least, make me seem tougher.  I’m not sure that it did, especially considering that I hid it from my family for another six months.  Not very manly behavior, is it, being too scared to show off my big, tough, tattoo?

But, that’s who I was, twenty-one years ago.
I was a kid who was getting close to graduation, but didn’t know who he was.  That feeling of not being enough, not knowing enough, not having enough direction, would send me rushing headlong through life at break-neck speed, never slowing down enough to appreciate what I was seeing, or hearing or doing.  It led me to do many things that, in retrospect, I’m not particularly proud of having done.  Choices I would sometimes rahter I had not made.  I don’t regret the tattoo, though, only the original motivation that led me to get it.
I’m not really that man today.

Twenty-one years is a lifetime.
Time enough to change.  Since getting that tattoo, I’ve cheated death, more than once, and I don’t just mean the cancer three years ago.  I’ve faced a number of reversals of fortune, both in my favor and not.  But, I think, more importantly, is that I’ve learned I’m not my circumstances.  Who I am and how I am are both defined by the choices I make.
Today, though, I make much better choices than I did twenty-one years ago.  Not always, but, mostly.

And, of course, my birthday wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention all the other famous people who had the good luck to be born on this particular day. Famous people like Frank “Chairman of the Board” Sinatra, Jennifer Connelly, Bob Barker, Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary, Edvard Munch, and Wells Fargo founder, Henry Wells. Not to mention, Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues, Tim Hauser of Manhattan Transfer, Dickey Betts of the Allman Bros, jazz musician Grover Washington Jr, and former mayor of New York City, Ed Koch.
All heady company to be sure, but for whatever reason, it tickles me the most that I share a birthday with Frank Sinatra. I guess it’s because he was such a unique and original character who really fought against and beat some long odds to become an amazingly famous, generally well thought of character. I can only hope to do the same, one day.

So, I don’t know what the coming year will bring, but I know I’ll be in a different place than I am today.
Which is, of course, what I said last year!  But, this year, right now, it feels like things are changing and about to change far more than I thought possible last year.  I don’t know where the coming year will take me, but I’m sure it will be to places, inside and out, that I never would have suspected possible a year ago.
And, for that, I’m very thankful!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

I love Christmas, and I love LEGOs.

I love them for two not so very different reasons.
LEGOs remind me of a simpler time.  They remind me of childhood dreams and imagination.  They still spark all sorts of wonderful memories, as old as I am.  In fact, I’ve been meaning to get myself some LEGOs to play with again.  Maybe for Christmas.

Christmas I love, not for the toys or the gift giving or even the food.  No, Christmas I love because it celebrates the rebirth of light and joy into the world.  Very much like LEGOs do for me.
Now, you can combine those two celebrations of joy with a LEGO Christmas tree.

Enjoy!

It’s not quite the “birthday” of the mouse, but…

Today is the 42nd anniversary of the first time a mouse made its commercial debut, though the patent was actually granted just a few weeks earlier on November 17th. That’s right, the mouse, that marvel of modern technology that most of us use daily is just a little older than I am. Invented by Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, the original mouse was little more than a square, wooden box, but the little device would change the world. Engelbart showed how the mouse could let a user jump from text on one part of the screen randomly to another section without having to scroll through the text inbetween. Doesn’t sound too revolutionary to us today, does it? But, think about how you navigated to this page to read this little blurb, then try to imagine doing it without a mouse. Or, imagine trying to use Photoshop or any other graphic design program for that matter without the point-click-and-drag of a computer mouse. Yeah, pretty much everything cool you can do on a computer these days involves a mouse or similar pointer. Now, of course, to me, that’s the real genius of an invention like the mouse; it seems so obvious that we wonder why we didn’t think of it sooner!

So, happy demo day, little guy. Thanks for giving me a job and us a way to waste time at work.

Been spending big on the holidays?

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally known as “Black Friday” because it’s when retailers get out of the “red” and start really turning profits for the year, is when a lot of people do their Christmas shopping.  But, today, I’m going to share something else with you, instead of the traditional Black Friday sales.
Gentle readers, I, too, have worshiped at the altar of plastic and run up huge debt.  Granted, my ex-wife helped me with that and so did my medical debt, but, still, the bulk of the responsibility is with me.  Today, I plan on not buying anything, but, rather, enjoying the things I have.  My Christmas shopping can wait another couple days, what I haven’t done already, that is.  And, yes, I’m trying to spend less and, more importantly, debt less, though, I admit I find it difficult to stop entirely.  It’s a bad habit, to be sure.   Of course, I do pretty well, so I’m impacted only a little by my huge debt.  And, it’s just me that’s effected these days.  I don’t have a family I’m weighing down with my remaining debt.

But, it’s not that way for everyone.  Some people have really big problems with debt.  Bigger than my problems.  For them, though, there is hop.  There are solutions.  And, today, as most of America wallows in the excess, that’s what I’m bringing to you.  It’s only one alternative, but, I hope it becomes a growing trend.
It’s a website called Creditable and it’s a site designed to help you get out of that crushing debt, anonymously and free.

And, either way, whether you need this or not, enjoy today and be thankful for what you have.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

Though this is funny, to me, it’s not quite a joke.

Once upon a time, back in the Old Days, before there was an internet and people kept their blogs in analog format on paper, by hand, there was a nasty, old occultist by the name of Aleister Crowly.  His own mother nick-named him the Beast because he was so contrary and irreverent and hard to control as a child.  In fact, in certain circles he’s quite infamous for being, among other things, quite an outspoken hedonist.
Apparently, in addition to the many other things he was and was famous for doing, he was also a bit of a chef and was famous for a spicy, Indian rice recipe.

No, seriously!  And, now, thanks to the relentless digging of somewhat unusual researcher, you, too, can make the near-legendary Rice of the Beast! (Page 2 is here…)
And for those of you who have all started praying for my immortal soul, which is surely now in danger, don’t worry.  I never cared much for Crowley and I don’t plan to make his rice, but, since it is about to be Halloween, I thought I’d share this, even though I don’t really celebrate Halloween since I don’t have kids any more.
I mean, I really only had one and she was on the “lease to own” program, but it turns out the lender wasn’t willing to let me pay the balloon payment at the end, so I had to turn her in, so to speak.
Also, I really hate how people bus their kids into my neighborhood because they think they’re going to get better candy.  Seriously, I’ve seen this.  People who I have never, ever seen anywhere near my street before, ever, following along in trucks with their kids on the sidewalk.  And, you know, I would have been okay with that except for the year I saw the guy, apparently drunk out of his mind, driving along with a smug look on his face like he was sticking it to all of us.  That pretty much tore it for me.

In any case, all that aside, enjoy the rice if that’s your bent.  Mostly, I just shared it because, well, it was too good to pass up.
Happy Halloween everybody!