Confession of a Pixel Mechanicby Alan HerrellI know that the web is the greatest intellectual achievement in the history of the human race. This knowledge goes beyond my rational brain, into that area of human experience called profound faith. I am not a religious person. I am a semi-rational individual who doesn't take much on faith. I have some problems. Confession I spent 25 years of my life as a drunk and a dope fiend. I have been clean and sober for a bit over 13 years now. It took two voluntary tries and shutting down 4 square blocks of a major metropolitan downtown area around lunchtime in the middle of the week, a closed door commitment hearing, an involuntary stay at a psychiatric mental hospital, a 1800 mile move and a marriage to get me pointed in the right direction. The final answer to the abuse lunacy came from a fellow inmate who said, "Listen, out of everything you can imagine yourself doing, out of every possibility there is in the world, these are the only two things you can not do." It still took me two years to understand what he actually said and begin to live. I am a bit of an absolutist. I have to be. I still have problems. The clink of ice in an old fashioned glass, the sensual sound of whisky gently splashing over the ice, the smokey gold color of fine scotch and the resulting descent into insanity I remember far too well. What is this web thing? "I spend a lot of time on the web. It's my day job, and I'm happy to do it. Besides building websites, I think about the web and where it's going." I said that. It is on my opinion page. Am I still happy about it? I don't know. I watch and read and write about the web. I watched with horror the rise of the so called commercial web and it's recent collapse. Yes I laughed when these dot.coms crashed and burned. Making money the old fashioned way by working for it works much better than hoping that the kindness of clueless strangers with more money than sense will dig some company built on vaporware out of the dirt. Don't worry, it's still about the money. The rise of litigation surrounding the current laws regarding copyright, trademarks and our very own domain hijacking, will insure that the lawyers will continue to feed their families. The marketeers are waiting in the wings for the next big thing to build brand identity, build desire, and make you ashamed that you do not use their products. The web is the perfect vehicle to separate you from your money, in your home, in your chair, on your computer. I read with anguish the stories of folks who bought into a dream and then were sold out. That I can share your pain at all, is a pretty amazing thing. But this is not about you, this is about us. We are psychic vampires We are birds of a feather, you and I. I enter your sites, devour your pixels, view your source and steal away. If you look closely you can see my tracks in your log files; if you care. That is a risk you take when you expose your soft underbelly to my trackball. Oh no, I am not alone here, your are a vampire too. You chose to come here. My pixels on your screen are creating chemical reactions in your brain as you read this. You are not immune to my siren song as long as you are connected. We are not passive participants in this space. Our new shiny toy with it's colors, tags and places for our lunatic ravings, (at least in my case) is giving us a soapbox of unprecedented proportion to extol our virtues, expose our faults and share what we have learned in the quiet singular universe of pixel mechanics. But is this a good thing? I am concerned about the future. The web allows us to become different. The ease with which we can become something else is an awesome and frightening thing. We are merrily dividing the world into the connected, and those that are not. We hang out with folks who think alike, feel the way we do, and like us. This is not a bad thing, we did it before the web and if the web crashes and burns tomorrow, we will still do it. We are creating our own little pixel clubs that exclude by platform, browser, and connection speed. That is a bad thing. I see the dangers of fragmentation, litigation, and the complete rewriting of laws to deal with the ideas and abilities of the citizens of cyberspace. I see the population of the web increasing until it is as common as the telephone, yet far richer. I see the web bringing greater understanding, knowledge and goodwill for everyone. I am a self-taught, self-employed pixel mechanic. I build websites for a living. I work the web. I get up in the morning and surf, read email, write email, visit my morning sites to find out what is happening. I am on the web because I can. Today I am a better person than I was yesterday. What I know about the web now, I learned from you — All of You. I see my Life. Yeah, I'm still happy about it.
|