The Brain of WerkkreW

Managing your online identity

For a long time I thought a lot about my online identity.  By this I don’t mean “What do people think of me online” or “Could I become a victim of identity theft”, but more “How visible am I on the internet”.  I thought a lot about it mostly because I didn’t want people to be able to google my name and find out a whole lot about me.  I wanted to be invisible and anonymous on the internet.  I have heard so many stories about bosses googling their employees, potential employers googling their candidates, girlfriends googling their boyfriends, etc.  

Search engines make it possible for employers to scour all manner of digital dirt to vet employees. Online profile company Ziggs.com CEO Tim DeMello fired an intern after he discovered that on the intern’s Facebook profile he divulged that while at Ziggs he would “spend most of my days screwing around on IM and talking to my friends and getting paid for it.”

Do you stand out online?

It just so happens that I have a pretty unique name.  If my name was John Smith, I would have never thought twice about it.  However, chances are, if you google “Bryan Chain” every result you see is related to me.  This made me even more paranoid.  The fact that my name isn’t common just lends itself to a google type search.  It gets worse when google isn’t the only name in town when it comes to finding things out about people online.

As such, I avoided social networking sites and avoided ever using my real name anywhere online.  I actually did a pretty good job overall of keeping myself pretty invisible, I flew under the radar.  When I decided to write a blog though, I had to make a decision.  Some people argue having a blog is a good thing for your identity since if you get high search engine rankings, the blog appears before anything else; which gives you control.  Others, argue that it just exposes you even more.

If you love and nurture a blog, it will likely become a great asset in your reputation management arsenal. But the great thing about a blog is that it tends to rank well, even when left un-watered. Blogs are the cactus of online content. Wordpress.com and Blogger.com both provide free blogs and free hosting. Add just a few posts, keep it targeted to your name—that means use it in the blog title, posts etc—add a few links and bake for a few days. It will be on the first page of Google in no time.

It was either maintain my anonymity and write this blog using my most common online alias “WerkkreW”, or pull the covers off and stop caring.  I felt that to write a blog as a fake person would take away from why I am writing this blog.  As you can see, I stopped caring.  I feel that I have nothing to hide.  You won’t find pictures of me smoking a bong or murdering someone online.  At best you’ll learn a little bit about who I am, which is hopefully not enough to get me fired, unlike the author of dooce.

Still though, I hold back.  I have yet to write about anything personal, I have yet to write about anything directly related to my job, I have not released who my employer is.  I think about this a lot, actually.  Much of my inspiration to write comes from my personal experiences and my experiences at work, yet, I am both afraid to make those parts of my life public, and also, am not vain enough to think anyone on the internet cares to hear about the fight I had with my dad.

I think there is an important balance to managing your online identity.  Like it or not, if you use the internet, people can, and will, dig up dirt about you.  I suppose the best balance is to not be afraid to make use of some of the tools which have made the internet so useful, but to not expose so much about yourself that it could come back to hurt you.

Don’t be afraid to make use of sites like MySpace, Facebook, and others to reconnect with old friends.  Keep your profile conservative and tasteful.  Be weary of the types of photos you post.  Chances are your employer does keep tabs on these things.  My employer invited me to join the “MY COMPANY” facebook group, I declined.  To make things a bit easier, most sites have pretty advanced privacy features.  On facebook you can have basically 3 profiles.  Public (which can be set so no one can see it), Restricted (Give certain people access to a limited profile), and Full (people who can see everything).  If you make careful use of these it can become fairly easy to control just how much presence you have online, and who has access to it.

Like it or not, people have lost their jobs, and gone to jail over things they posted on social sites such as facebook, myspace, youtube, and others.  If you take a sick day from work, don’t post photos of yourself in a dress from that day.  It really boils down to one thing: Don’t be stupid.  If you realize that a quick google of your name would reveal these things you have done to anyone, including your friends, family, and employer, would you still have posted it?  If the answer is no, don’t.

Fired.

At this point, I feel very secure in my online world.  If my boss googles my name and finds this blog, I would not be embarrassed or ashamed.  I do not like feeling inhibited though.  Many interesting things happen to me at work, and in my personal life, which I would love to write about, but simply cannot.  So what do I do?

One friend suggested I set up another blog which I would use to simply anonymously vent my personal feelings.  I do not think this is the best approach.  I think the best thing to do, for me, is to just keep certain aspects of my life private.  Everything you post on the internet basically becomes public domain. Remember that if you want to one day become a senator but you just finished posting pictures of yourself on flickr doing something a bit controversial. 

It is pretty simple to protect yourself in the online world, and unless you are involved in something highly illegal, I don’t think most of us have anything to worry about.  The rules are simple, only make the information public if you are ready for anyone to see it, because chances are, they will.  I think being too paranoid about your online identity only takes away from the usefulness of the tools we now have available to us.

Posted in Life | No Comments »

Science is Racist

Today on Howard Stern I heard a news update which is apparently about a week old, but it was new to me. It centers in on the topic of ultra racial sensitivity.  A Dallas Commissioner during a meeting regarding ticket collections said:

It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole.

Obviously this was intended to imply that their ticket collections system was comparable to a black hole where things which enter it, never escape.  I do not know much about the Dallas municipalities and their issues with ticket collections but when seeing this statement, no matter what the context, I do not see any semblance of racism.

Simulated Image of a Black Hole

However, commissioner John Wiley Price felt that this sort of language was unacceptable, and racist. (You can view the original video of the conversation here.)  This is all fine and good, I suppose he is entitled to his stance that a black hole is a racist construct.  However, after watching the follow-up interview, it is clear that he is either just being an asshole, or he is truly ultra-sensitive to race issues.  I will transcribe a portion of the interview below:

Fox:  Tell me again why you took offense to what Mr. Mayfield Said.

JWP:  Well, first of all I probably just took offense to Mr. Mayfield.  That’s number one.  Number Two, its back to the culture, you know.  The culture in terms of blackness is negative.  It doesn’t make a difference if, you know, it becomes a scientific phenomenon, you know because a scientist could have just as easily called it a white hole.  Why didn’t they?  You know, and in this society anything that is black is seen as negative.  So you name one comment “Oh, it’s in the black”, that’s one positive.  But you tell me one thing in this society when you say white and get a negative connotation.

So if its Angel Food Cake, it’s White, Devils Food Cake, it’s Black.

If you’re the black sheep of the family, then you gotta be bad.

You know, white could be ok.

Fox:  So should people be extra careful now, what they say?

JWP:  Well you know I think people should always be careful.  You know, I’m ok if I’m bartering with you, so.  But if I try to Jew you down, oh is that racist?  I thought it meant the same thing.

(continued on this video)

So lets analyze the racial connotations of some of the things he mentioned.

Black Hole vs. White Hole

A black hole is a phenomenon in space where gravity has become so intense focusing on a singularity that nothing, not even light, can escape it.  Black is a color, or the lack of color which can most easily be defined as describing absence of light.  If a black hole was called a white hole it would simply make no sense, at all. A “white hole” might be more likened to a sun, or something extraordinarily bright.  But of course, white people get good things like stars and suns, and black people only get black holes, these terrible destructive things.

Angel Food vs. Devils Food

Angels are something believed to exist in heaven.  Heaven is perceived as a very bright, cloudy, white place. Angel food cake is very light, airy, and white in texture.  It would not describe the cake well to call it devils food.  Devils are something believed to exist in hell.  Hell is a very dark, sinful place.  Devils food cake is a very rich, dark, and sinful food.  To me, these descriptions simply make sense.  In fact, I like devils food cake better, I doubt many people would tell you that dark devils food cake is terrible and that it was designed in order to further oppress black people.

Black Sheep of the Family

The term “Black Sheep” originated back in the 18th century.  In flocks of sheep there is always a chance that the babies will be born with black coats.  When you are raising sheep on a farm for profit, black wool is worth much less than white wool, and as such raising black sheep was undesirable.  This got taken out of context to describe a troublesome or undesirable human child.  There was never a racial implication to the expression.

Bartering vs. Jewing Down

To take Mr. Prices example of a similar expression to the above, but not related to the african-american race, he used Bartering with someone vs Jewing Down.  Since Jewing down would be usage of the perceived stereotype that Jews are cheap, I see using the term Jewing someone down as racist, without any doubt in my mind.  It does not fit with his other examples at all.  He was obviously stretching here.

What have we come to in society?  I realize that racism is still a huge problem in this world, and that there is a need to be aware of it.  I realize that some people are more sensitive to it then others.  Does this sort of extreme sensitivity really exist though?

I tend to think not.  I believe that he simply was unaware of the scientific construct of a black hole during the meeting and as a knee-jerk reaction took offense to it.  After he learned what it was, to save looking like a moron during the second interview, tried to maintain his stance and make off the cuff supporting examples which just make him look like more of a dick.

If there are more people like this guy out there, then I truly feel sorry for them.  They must not be able to go even a few minutes without becoming offended by something or someone and probably live an angry and miserable life.

I really don’t understand people who are so sensitive to these issues, just let it roll off your back, the less it bothers you, the less people will use it against you.

Posted in Entertainment, Thought Provoking | 6 Comments »

Is there a God?

Such a lofty question for me to even attempt to answer.  I guess no blog related to Philosophy would be complete without a post like this.  In truth, though, I never planned to write on this subject, and in this instance I doubt I will even draw many conclusions.  The idea was brought to me by being posted as the question of the month on Philosophy Now, an online magazine I recently found.

Creation of Man, Sistine Chapel

So to start, I suppose in order to discuss if there is a God, we need to define exactly what a God is, and discuss the implications of each definition.

Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. (John 4:8)

We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. (John 4:16)

Okay, well this seems really arbitrary, especially coming from the bible.  It is a very nice concept though.  If you believe that God is Love, and you assert that love exists then, God must exist.  This is not a terrible concept as, if taken out of the context of Christianity, it can set a nice utopian set of guidelines for us to all live by.  The problem lies in the inherent imperfections that lie within our very nature.  We do not love everyone, and if we do not love everyone then we do not love God.  Are humans even capable of Love in its truest sense?  Love being another impossible to define word, I am not sure we are.  Within everyone who loves someone else is there an utter lack of selfish desire and carnal instinct at play?

Next, lets take the most commonly perceived ideals of what God is.  I am going to totally ignore the above quotes from the bible because most people do not think of God as being love.  He is an all powerful being. An overlord who demands you live within a set of rules or be doomed to eternal damnation.  This pretty much takes care of the three major religions.  Christianity (Catholicism), Judaism, Islamic (Muslim).  These all believe in, and worship, the same almighty God (Abrahamic Religions).  They just disagree on who the voice of God, his prophet, is.

So to not discriminate on the small details about each of the three major religions, they all essentially worship God as an almighty being.  I think this is what most people think of when asked “Is there a God?” and if that was indeed the question, my answer would simply be No.

So how else can we define God?  I like how Richard Dawkins put it in his book The God Delusion.  Some good quotes from the book can be found here.  Basically he outlines 4 types of God:

One is a loving God – the Gentle Jesus of the hymns on Sunday; the second a personal God who answers our prayers and intervenes in our lives; the third an all-knowing, all-powerful God capable of great miracles; and finally the God of the deists – one who detonated the “hot big bang, retired, and was never heard from again.”
(Peter Bowden)

In all of these cases I must again admit that I do not believe in this type of God.  Being a man of science I tend to not believe in an all powerful designer or creator, period.  I can definitely admit that there are many wonders in our universe that cannot be explained, yet.  I also admit that many mysterious things happen in our world that are not easy to grasp.  I am a moral person, and I might even be slightly spiritual.  I believe in the Golden Rule, and I consider myself loving.  When I say spiritual however, I am more recognizing that there are ways of life one can follow to lead a better life, which are not affiliated to a religion and do not recognize the existence of one omnipotent God.

So is there any other way we can define God?

Maybe, in fact, you could probably get a thousand different answers from a thousand different people about what God is, and if he exists.

My personal view is that there is not one.  I am not basing this belief on lack of proof, or being some sort of emo self-loathing bastard.  I simply do not feel in my heart, or my mind, that a supreme being exists.  If someone offered me more insight as to why there is a God, or isn’t, I am open-minded enough to take all things into consideration.

As of today though, things like the big-bang sounds pretty good.  What was before the big-bang?  Nothing I guess.

To ask what is before time is to ask what is three miles north of the north pole. There is no north of the north pole, and there is no before the Big Bang. A prerequisite to being a creator is existing before something.
(Stephen Hawking) 

Posted in Life, Thought Provoking | 4 Comments »