Goats

On the way home from work, I saw about a million goats grazing in this field right next to the office.  I like seeing juxtapositions of the "high-tech" and the "natural."  But I do wonder why they were there.  Where was their shepherd?

[Edit: It has been brought to my attention that goats have a goatherd, not a shepherd]

I now work in a building closer to the center of campus, which is neat.  But, more importantly, I'm in the building with the absolute best breakfast on campus!  (All the more reason I need to start running again).  I've transferred to the Enterprise Support team.  There's a lot for me to learn.

I leave for Japan for a week on Wednesday, so I may post sparingly.  Not that I've been that prolific recently anyway.

Thoughts on Privacy

I read this article today and was pretty excited about the idea of work that fuses international relations and development with technology consulting.  Maybe I finally have a small idea of a future career path.  We'll see - don't quote me on that.  I also plan on being the jolly owner of a small but delicious restaurant with a lot of regulars whose lives I'm very familiar with since they come to my restaurant all the time and I just go around listening to their stories and telling my own stories and laughing a lot.

I've been having a conversation with several people over the last few days about privacy, which I think is a really interesting topic right now.  Some folks argue that throughout human history, privacy was not an expectation in the way it is today.  Think back to small village structures, or even small towns where everyone knows everyone else's business.  However, with the industrial revolution and the resulting exponential growth in the human population, we scaled past these models of intimacy into the modern city's mass anonymity.  But, with the recent explosion of technological innovation, and social networking in particular, people see a decline in that anonymity.  Our technology has returned us to that small village intimacy, even within 20 million person cities.  It's really a proliferation of information, or access to information.

Obviously this makes people uncomfortable who are used to the former anonymity and information siloing.  I think this is definitely a case of a new technology or social change causing some to be uncomfortable before widespread adoption and satisfaction (e.g. the Facebook news feed, which was hated by most people at first and is now one of their most popular features).  The more interesting question is whether this is good or bad?  Is all this information enabling stalkers and terrorists and criminals?  Is it exposing people's intimate private details to public ridicule in an unfair way?

I like to think that most of the hate and maliciousness in the world, at least on an organized level, is based on disinformation and ignorance.  So I see these modern developments in a very positive light.  I honestly think that the way to "world peace" is through information proliferation.  Of course, my notion of "world peace" is not universal harmony and happiness - humans inherently have conflicts with other humans.  However, I think that information proliferation will shift these conflicts from the many-to-many model of national or group-level conflict to a one-to-one model of interpersonal conflict.  This is because humans individually have traits that are incompatible with other humans.  However, nations don't necessarily have these same traits.  Nations or groups only succeed in fomenting conflict and hate through disinformation and ignorance - if you know nothing about a group of people, then you can view them en masse and project whatever characteristics you want onto them.

The tricky part is making sure that individual humans have control over their own information.  My notion of information proliferation hinges on the idea that someone else doesn't control your access to information in an organized way.  For example, a government shouldn't be able to prevent you from gaining access to information that another individual wants to share.  But that individual should be able to prevent you from gaining access to their own information if they want to.

We live in a crazy time.  It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out; and despite my optimistic arguments, we'll have to be extremely vigilant to ensure things end up the way we want them to.

Lions drink this tea

You might think this image is just marketing.  But you would be wrong.  According to the box, "When the king of the animal kingdom has tea, he sips Madagascar Vanilla Red Tea."

Performance Review

It's "perf" time at work, where you get feedback from co-workers and bosses and whoever wants to send it to you.  It seems like this is supposed to be a stressful time, but I really am looking forward to getting this feedback.  Unfortunately, I won't be able to read most of my peers' feedback.  However, an engineer sent me his, since I think the engineers operate on different rules.  In his feedback for me, he said I should be more confident.  He also said he thinks I work too much and I need to get some hobbies (haha).  I think his first point is apt, and it's something I'm working on.  I've often wished there was something like "perf" in life, where you could give all your feedback to your friends and family.  Of course, this might not go over so well with some folks.  But I love getting constructive feedback.  If anyone wants to give me some "life perf" reviews, feel free to email me, subject line "Life Perf."

I'm moving across town tomorrow, from the Mission to the Haight.  I'm pleasantly surprised tonight by the minimal amount of stuff I actually have to transfer.  I just moved across country 6 months ago (wow it's already been that long?!) and haven't really added much to my possessions here.  Just a guitar, a TV, a desk, and a bed.  I have a small armada of cars helping out, and it will hopefully be a smooth and not completely time consuming process.  Far easier than my last move.

I wrote my grandparents a letter a few weeks ago and really enjoyed reading their response letter.  I think I will try to keep up a written correspondence, time permitting.  This is one of several things I hope to accomplish in the next few months.  In the interest of committing myself to these goals by immortalizing them on this well-trafficked (ha) site, here they are:

1.  Go on hikes, either by myself or with friends, at least every 3-4 weeks (i.e. take advantage of all the neat stuff just outside the city)

2.  Finish my album/EP with Henry

4.  Cook more meals with Steven; continue exploring SF restaurants with him

5.  Talk to my sisters more

6.  Finish learning Ruby on Rails
7.  Read at least every other book for book club