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Back to where we began
Mirrored from Infotropism. You can comment there or here.
I just realised the other day that it’s been very nearly a whole year since I announced what I called “The Plan”: leaving Google and the tech industry, returning to Australia, and taking up sound engineering as a profession.
I’ve spent a lot of the last year offline, sometimes in an intentional effort to get away from it all, and sometimes through happenstance, when other interests and activities have limited me to the small peephole to the Internet provided by my phone. In many ways it’s been good to disconnect, if only because it saves this happening every night:
On the other hand, I’ve felt pretty disconnected from what’s going on in the world, and it’s definitely been hard on many of the (primarily online) friendships I’ve built over the last two decades. (More on that shortly, I think.)
The other day, as I was sitting around on the sofa clicking refresh on half a dozen browser windows, I found myself thinking (as I so often have over this last year) that I should get up and do something offline, since the Internet was so dull. I’ve been telling myself this a lot over the last year. Then I caught myself and said, “Wait a minute…” See, there was a time when I actually enjoyed being online, talking to people, sharing ideas, being creative, being inspired, connecting with strangers and broadening my horizons. It’s been one of the best things in my adult life. I didn’t always have this feeling of exhausted passivity, of feeling like I ought to keep up, but not really being interested in the stuff that’s being shovelled through the intertubes to my bleary, sandpapery eyeballs.
So, fuck it, it’s time to be active on the Internet again, participate, create, do stuff rather than just consuming. To give myself a bit of focus in my renewed Internet life, I’m relaunching this blog. A new leaf — hopefully a series of new leaves — and with any luck I’ll be able to write something interesting on each one.
The mechanics of it:
- All the old articles on this blog have been moved to The Attic. You can still find them there if you need them for archival purposes or whatever.
- The subject matter? Anything and everything. For a while I tried to keep my personal website “professional” but I’m not even sure what that means any more. So, the gates are wide open. You can expect to see posts on a wide range of topics.
- I’m attempting to optimise the the blog’s setup for comments/conversations/discussions, and I’ll be making an effort to encourage and nurture them; let me know what how it goes and whether you can think of any areas for improvement.
- I’m instituting a comment policy, which I hope won’t be onerous, but which I hope will keep the discussion threads here pleasant for all involved. I’ll post the details shortly.
I think that’s about it. I hope this’ll help me reconnect with at least some of my Internet peeps, and meet a bunch of new ones. Let me know what you think, and in the meantime, feel free to tell me what you’ve been up to in the last year.
self update
Work work work work. Lots of open source community management learning and improvement. Got promoted. Visited Germany for the first time and bonded with my new colleagues. Visited Israel for the first time and got hours and hours of interrogation and search by El Al personnel. Went to Mumbai for the first time and discovered that I like India ok when I have nonfamily and work to occupy myself and when the city's a bit more cosmopolitan than Bangalore/Mysore. Visited New Orleans for the first time and grok beignets now.
Watched Breaking Bad (so transfixing!), saw Brazil for the first time (literally spectacular!), read Persepolis (stranger than I'd predicted), read REAMDE (disappointingly technothriller). Learned a bit of Python & JavaScript & jQuery, more successfully than previous attempts. Took up hiking. Gave up GNOME commitments; took a spot on the Ada Initiative advisory board, but you know that. My relationship with my blood family isn't as good as it was a year ago and I'm figuring out how to feel and act to honor myself and my obligations. And in general I've seen a different, more decisive and less fraught way to be and act, and am trying to behave more in that vein, but that's not borne enough fruit to talk about at length.
BTW, your link to "the attic" 404s for me - you mean http://infotrope.net/category/attic/
Will be glad to be seeing your new leaf series!
Re: self update
I keep hearing good things about Breaking Bad but I can't imagine why I might enjoy it, so I have stayed away so far. Am I missing something?
More decisive and less fraught sounds good!
Re: self update
I personally really like Breaking Bad. Factors I like, in no particular order:
* Sciency fiction! (in that there is real chemistry)
* Pretty cinematography -- example montage vid of the scenes shot from an object's point of view (shovel, floor, Roomba, dryer...)
* Utterly real characterization of smart and dumb people both
* Noir-ish spiral of desperation and wrong moves
* Systems! Crimefighting, criminal organizations, families...
* Realistic, 3-D women & PoC & people with disabilities
* Strange little musical bits
* Violence has consequences
However! Some people don't like the gore/violence (there is some), some people find all the characters unlikeable or can't stand watching people consistently make bad decisions that inexorably lead to bad news, and some SYMBOLISM!! bits might get on one's nerves. From what I know of your taste, I think you might find it too manpainy or pretentious.
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Working on a new 18th century impression as a naturalist/natural philosopher. It gives me a chance to integrate my art and my interest in nature into my 18th century life.
A working naturalist in the early colonies of British North America is one of those rare instances when gender lines were crossed. Women illustrated for male naturalists. Women collected specimens that were shipped to England for museum displays, often requiring rigorous physical activity to get said specimens. There was correspondence with the famous naturalists of the era -- Bartram and Linnaeus -- in a scholarly and constructive fashion.
So! I got together an 18th century artist's kit and an 18th century naturalist's kit complete with vasculum! Sometimes at events I do field collecting and sketch in the field. Sometimes I set up a working display with all the art stuff and all the materials used for collecting, preserving and shipping.
My 18th century life .... *g*
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