Map & Produce » Identity

Less is Less

noel — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:04:56 +0000

Smallest blog posts: now on Twitter.

I’ll get around to adding my tweets to the sidebar soon. WP 1.5 broke my layout editor.

Smallest thing done at work that I’m proud of: refactored nasty error page only a programmer could love (Look Ma, a stack trace in 18pt Courier bold!) into a quiet, reassuring css-based error page while keeping IE6 compatibility.

Smallest thing done at the house: removed the stump of an old railing post from the bottom of the stairs. It had been protruding, ugly and defiant as an nonmalignant tumor, since we moved in.

Can’t Stop This [Updated]

noel — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 18:30:33 +0000

For the first eighteen years of my life that I was responsible for my bathing, it was done in the morning, every morning. Forced to awaken before dawn, hours not deigned by God or the sun but certainly by the demands of my strict education, I warmed up to the day with running water. Then came college, and the subsequent experimentation with bohemian habits of cleanliness. The summer I lifeguarded, I would go weeks without a specific scrubbing.

Now, though, a day after my quadcentennial, I must find myself anew amidst the spray. Time, timeliness, timelessness, all aspects of a shower, require a short periodicty. But the phase must be shifted, as befits my new-found cellular maturity. I, Noel Weichbrodt, have resolved to bath once a day, in the evening.

The best song on the new Root’s album is the last one.

[Link fixed] Can’t Stop This.

Westward Ho!

noel — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 06:10:33 +0000

I stop writing computer programs for lawyers tomorrow. I begin writing computer programs for intelligence agencies on Monday. I’ll leave the protective shadow of Lookout Mountain, bulwark against the storms from the West, and mush just that way, back to the flatlands and anvil thunderheads. New places and people beckon, and frankly, having failed to take radical action, I’ve disconnected already from the people and places here in the ‘nooga. Natural, not entirely good, and completely inevitable.

The mountains have been hazy the last week. Today I walked south from downtown to southside, and I could only make out the faintest looming mountain line in the sky two miles away. I picked up my car, clad in new klomppen so freash and so clean clean, and drove away.

My playlist for driving to and fro is as follows:

Johnny Cash in Tennessee

Live at Fulsom Prison
Johnny Cash & Bob Dylan
American Recordings
American III
American IV

My Morning Jacket in Kentucky

It Still Moves
Z

Sufjan Stevens in Illinoise

Illinoise
Avalanche
Seven Swans
Live at the Purple Door 12/20/2005

Nelly in Missouri

various singles of irreputable provenance and nature

Obviously, two questions follow from this. First, does anyone know of high-quality MMJ live sets from the Z tour? Second, can a suitable replacement be found for Nelly repping Missouri?

This move is also messing with my personal metanarrative. But I’ll touch on that later.

Socially-Networked Scot

noel — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:00:46 +0000

Noel,

Welcome to Scots Alumni!

The diverse and special qualities that made you an ideal candidate for acceptance into Covenant College create the atmosphere of Scots Alumni, making it one of the most powerfully connected online communities in the world.

Gee. Thanks.

If you’re in, befriend me, assuming the college lets you in and allows you to do such a thing. Who is the lackey that calls the shots on the content and features allowed for this? My degrees aren’t modifiable, nor listed. My phone number was eerily pre-filled, as was my spouse. Neat, but kind of creepy too.

The Right to Privacy: Not Really a Right, Nor Do We Have Privacy at the Moment Anyways

noel — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 23:34:33 +0000

I’ve previously stated that I’m not sure that we have a constitutional right to privacy. This is not new; Robert Bork, among others, also maintained this view. I have various reasons for this, mostly pragmatic and literalistic.

As an example of the latter reason, I quote from a letter to the editor of chattanoogan.com:

United States citizens have the right to express themselves without being subjected to reprisal. As such, nothing in the U.S. Constitution states that people cannot be monitored. What it does indicate is that the Federal and State governments will not interfere with the lawful communication and protests of the people, and these governments must protect these rights.

Not to say that I approve of the NSA monitoring US citizens without judicial order. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and the NSA runs foul of that, no matter what powers the executive branch thinks it may have. But, pragmatically, this is going to get harder and harder to stop. If I have something to say privately, I’ll say it using the best encryption I can get. Since this is a wonderfully entrepreneurial nation, I expect that the first person to make that encryption as unobtrusive and easy to use as possible will make a fair pile of Hamiltons.

You know how your dad used to spend several hours per week maintaining the lawn, or waxing the car? You’re going to have to spend several hours a week maintaining your privacy and identity.

Identity, and Ego-Surfing

noel — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 23:35:21 +0000

Check me out. Yeah.

Your Google Identity

noel — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 23:38:45 +0000

Funny coincidence that the day after I dig back into the archives for my Peter Brinkerhoff Identity post, the Old Gray Lady runs a long piece about your Google identity, complete with embarrassing photo. Coming from a fashion & style writer, the piece comes off naive and superficial. Still, the writer finally clues in on how to get the google juice going.

I’ve been quite happy with the effect this blog (along with my personal domain, weichbrodt.org) has had on my Google identity. Even my image search is amusing.

Another note is that my wife, five months into marriage, already has quite a hit collection for her new name.

Digital Identity

noel — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 14:27:39 +0000

Man, I can still remember the frustration in Metaphysics as we discussed identity. For every good theory on what constitutes identity put forth by a philosopher, there is a whole slew of critics arrayed on the firing line, shooting down the skeet with glee and Gettier-style counterexamples.

So, if things were tough in the philosophical sphere, where we have the luxuries of semantic vagueness and dialectical truths, not to mention freedom from worries in the implementation details, imagine what a state those who are attempting to craft a specification document for digital identity are in! “What is a digital identity?” they ask, and darn it if figuring that one out ain’t chewing tough rubber.

[Bonus: You can ask me sometime as to what my favorite Chinese Room-style thought experiment is. It starts out with two twin sisters who grew up together all their lives, and then were unfortunately chosen by an evil genius for his diabolical experiment in identity in which select memories were shifted from their own perspective to the others...puts chills up my spine and most people to sleep.]

Coming Out

noel — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 23:35:56 +0000

So, the old barelylegalprogrammer personna is starting to feel a bit constrictive; words stick in my craw and the suit itches when I hit too close to home. This blog was never supposed to be anonymous, merely pseudonymous, while I experiment and learn how to write a blog. I thought it best to do so without much impact on my real life.

However, the rewards of linking this blog with my real life keep growing, and I feel like I understand the risks in doing so.

The final question for me, then, is methodological. How do I inform my boss(es)? Near I can figure, the options are:

Link the blog to my name and let them figure things out on there own.
Inform them that I’ve been experimenting with blogging and am now going public; ask for guidance etc
Say “hey, check out my blog” on my way out the door tonight.
Create a post that hijacks the name of the managing partner in a twisted rumor that involves a hibiscus seed, an old steel bumper from an ’88 F150, and SpongeBob. Wait for the pink slip to slide into the inbox.

For the record, I have chosen the second option. Note the new copyright attribution & disclaimer on the far bottom left, and the link back to my personal site. Hey, well on my way to full compliance with Dennis Kennedy’s advice to new bloggers.

“Peter Brinkerhoff Is a Sexy Beast”: Tall Tales of Digital Reputation

noel — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 16:42:25 +0000

Scoble’s comments about defending your name in the online world reminded me of a recent experience my friend had over the summer.

An honorable, savvy fellow, he was interviewing at several organizations to run regional micro-economic development programs. Great resume, great business mind, &c. The organization that he is now working for began their interview with the question, “Why is Peter Brinkerhoff a sexy beast?” He was flabbergasted, and muffed a response along the lines of how they came about to ask that.

A few months ago, a satirical newsletter from his alma matter had run a chop piece on him that fancifully imagined him, the student government treasurer, as a new-money playboy about campus. That newsletter later went online as a blog, and uploaded its archives. Since blogs tend to receive high Google rankings, this article appeared on the first page of results. A simple Google search for “Peter Brinkerhoff” returns a result entitled “The Drone: November 2003 Archives” with the body of “… Peter Brinkerhoff Is A Sexy Beast. … For now, Peter Brinkerhoff remains notoriously
single, but don�t be surprised to hear engagement rumors start flying. …” as the third hit on the first page.

The interviewer had passed his name around the organization’s office, and one of the department heads had executed the above search, grabbed the link, and passed it around the office. Fortunately the interviewers in question caught the humor and were having a laugh at my friend’s expense, but Peter (not the film actor, nor the business consultant, nor the sailor) was deeply concerned.

A couple of days later at a party he asks me, “What can I do? They can’t publish that! How do I get my name back?” Well, yes they can, and there’s not much you can do to alter a Google results page. However, there is a way to regain your name, and that is by blogging yourself (or receiving a favorable blog post). Become a valuable contributor in the conversation about your name, and you control the conversation. That shouldn’t be too hard if your name doesn’t have a *sucks.com domain running around. Thus, this post is my contribution to the conversation about Peter Brinkerhoff, affectionately known around his office as Sexy Beast, or SB. Whaddya think, Pete? Want to start a blog?