I told my coworker that I put my life story on the Internet. He asked my "why would you do something like that?". Why not? I figure that I've had enough experiences in my life that I can share with others. Some people spend big bucks to have someone write their biography. I figure I'll write mine as I go... If I don't, I might forget a bunch of it! You can't be serious!
"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
I figure that there might be something here that could help people searching for answers or searching for community within this huge world. I've been inspired by a person 9 years my Junior, whose name is Andrew 'bunnie' Huang Why bunnie? He was born in the year of the rabbit. After reading about his Master's Thesis regarding hacking the XBOX, I was so impressed that checked into it some more. Turns out that bunnie has accomplished much more in his life than hack the xbox, including integrating most of the sensors on MIT's first Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. He's also interfaced foot pedals to his keyboard to speed up the typing process. This guy is my HERO! Anyway, he has most of his interesting history published to his own website. Hopefully you enjoy this site as much as I enjoyed Andrew's.At my 20th class reunion, I spoke with "Colleen Carey Mencer", who has posted all kinds of personal stuff on the (Big I) Internet, including direction to her house! I asked her if she had problems, or was scared. She said absolutely not. So if she can do it, I figured I could as well. Thanks Colleen, you've inspired me!
I also want to give credit to Paul Zieske, who taught me about FTP and Front Page and how to edit HTML with a text editor. Now this is all second nature, but 10 years ago, it was new to all of us!
I also want long-lost friends from college or high school to be able to find me! I've wondered what has happened to a whole bunch of people that I have lost touch with. It is hard in today's highly mobile and transient society to keep in touch. A phone number or an address is usually only good for a couple years. Multiply this times all the people you have known and keeping up to date becomes a full time job. Even e-mail addresses expire. One thing that won't expire is a fully transportable web site of your own. Place it on any server with your history and your long-lost friends can find you as soon as Google does a deep-crawl. Burn it to a CD, and you can take it whereever you go. Bury a copy in a time capsule at the top of a mountain. Ever heard of geocaching?
I know a lot of people in Anchorage, many have left. I can only hope that they or their families someday do a google search on their name and Anchorage, Alaska to see if there is anything out there about their relative. Say for example, Bill Pamer's children live out of state, but while he was here, Bill did a lot of cool stuff. Bill later died of a heart attack when he was 52. I never had the opportunity to say anything to his family about what a great guy he was to work with.
I believe that those people who never listen, nor read, will fail to learn as much as a person who both listens and reads extensively. I've been doing both for at least 30 years now, and it is time to share what I have learned. My can is huge and it is getting pretty full. Which brings up another subject- method of learning. Hear it, read it, write it, speak it, teach it, use it etc. Shoot, one more subject to write about..... Based on both forums and blogs on the Internet, I've come to the conclusion that there are a lot of people in this world that are seeking knowledge and answers for just about everything. Even the best search engines such as Googledon't give them the answers they are looking for. Sites such as "how stuff works" provides answers on many things, but only touches on how they work. After reading one article, I still had a lot of questions. My vision is to have a site that both contains links to other sites, references such as books and magazine articles, photos of the items, drawings where photos won't cut it and extensive descriptions. Wikipedia meets this description. I may eventually make it a wiki. Printed items such as books and magazines are shapshots in time and are somewhat worthless for things that change quickly. Websites on the other hand can be updated continually as technology changes. Wikis take it one step further expanding it for anyone to update.
Another perspective is the value of one's life is measured by the number of people you reach times the value you add to their life. Say a musician or actor will contact millions of people and entertain them for hours. Their worth is quite high and they get compensated accordingly. I feel that I have a lot of ideas that may someday be useful to people. Therefore I shall keep writing.
What if there was one book that you could read that would teach you the basics of living. There is "Everything I ever needed to know I learned in Kindergarten" that speaks about interpersonal relationships and politeness etc., but it doesn't teach you how to change oil in a car or turn the engine off if the oil light comes on. It doesn't teach you about putting a car in low gear on a downhill etc. I'll get right on this. Update 2/5/5- I got right on it!
note to self- scan in paper you wrote when you were 6 or so where you said "I like books that teach you something..."
What is a blog? Why do people blog. This site is essentially my blog.
I've had umpteen ideas that I later saw as patents. Here they are: 1. Active camoflage- use a digital camera and a flat panel display placed on the opposite side of a vehicle. If you know which direction your attacker is, you can am the camera in the opposite direction so they see the terrain they would see if you were not there. I later read about this in NASA Tech Briefs. One devious application is to put a large flat panel display on the rear of your car and display an image of the road in front of you. This would not be too smart as you would soon be rear-ended. 2. Credit to David Hall- use gears to reverse the direction of rowing so that you can face forward. 3. A menu system that had areas on the screen that you could use a joystick and a button to select various programs. (8th grade, 1979 or so) There are many more and I will post them as I think of them.
Yes, just like a**holes, everybody has one. There are many things I feel strongly about, but I don't go around spouting off to everyone I meet. A website is a good place to vent. This is my site, my very own place to express my opinions, ask questions, share my ideas with anyone that has an Internet connection. The audience is much larger than with a face-to-face conversation, and it doesn't wind me. If you don't like what you read, I make no apologies. All I can offer is my "e-mail address"
What if I have a question that I can't find the answer to? I can go to a forum and try there.... Or I can create my own forum. For now, I'll probably just mix in my questions with my monologue.
First question for y'all- why are the links on this page NOT blue?
Throughout my life, many people have come to me for answers. One example was a car dealer who was selling Saabs with 4 valves per cylinder (back in the late 80's). He asked me why 4 valves were "better". I gave him a lecture on diameters of circles and area and volumetric efficiency. I could develop the math and take pictures, then post them etc. What is a "hemi" and why is it such a big deal?
As it turns out, there is a site that lets a person post all of their photos call SMUGMUG. Well, a search on Google doesn't show a person on SMUGMUG. A search on Google will show this site, and I don't have to pay $35 extra each year! Sure SMUGMUG is password protected, but you can also do this with your own FTP server.
I've got so many ideas, 95% of them will never be realized. I may as well post them here so some large corporation based in Japan can steal them. I want to see this stuff get DONE!
And finally, the real reason I'm doing this: I enjoy it. So there.
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