There's something to be said for a quiet work day. It doesn't happen that often, but getting un-immersed from projects can be a very pleasant thing. I went off on a whimsical track here, considering the habits I've now built since becoming an ID about 21 months ago.

Backing it all Up

By nature, some people hoard things. By nature, I actually tend to slough things off unless they're proved some level of repeated use. However, I've found that my digital self tends to save everything and to back stuff up several times. This is actually a rational response to the workplace reality of having lost work files. Trust me, it only takes losing something once or twice before one learns to build those backup pieces.

Weighing the Relative Value of Information

Immersing in Web spaces really helps a person to be fairly skeptical of information: its sourcing, validity, the potential motives of those who would disseminate the data, and the "behaviorist role" of the recipients of that information (as consumers, as political actors, etc.). Strategic releases of information and the ability to escalate them up media gatekeeper chains in certain time continuums is harder than most people realize. And it often requires some sophistication to move those levers.

And how people make their own images online (impression management) does intrigue me.

Connections with Reality

Discern, discern, discern. It's a challenge getting into others' headspaces and reading between the lines without over-reading, but that helps a fair amount to see "whad-dup".

The Work Behind the Razzle Dazzle

And maybe lastly, I have a stronger understanding of how much design and scripting work there is behind the online razzle dazzle. Talking to the Machine sounds all glamorous, but a lot of it is sloggy step-by-step work. Yes, the WWW is an artifact of "intelligent design" and a fair amount of "not-so-intelligent design".

Naming Protocols

It becomes second nature to apply naming protocols to all emails, all files, all everything. We've all likely had to rummage through screens of information to find an old email or file or graphic or diagram. It does help to be able to call something up by a key word that doesn't also dredge up too much history to be of use. Like Hansel and Gretel, we have to be purposive in laying down a digital trail of words to find our way back again...and to avoid the digital birds that would erase those tracks. The "indestructibility" of information though tends to make it harder to disappear things either, whether one wants them or not.

No Comment

And that indestructibility also helps one to keep a tight restraint on one's public commentary, particularly in writing.

People do have long memories, and those memories are aided by digital files and emails and voice mails...so if I shouldn't say something, I just shouldn't. There's no satisfaction in having information go where it shouldn't.

Assuming Non-Privacy

It didn't take Lawrence Lessig's Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace to let one realize just how little privacy there is online or how centralized some controls of it may be. There are ways to backtrack created identities to their owners, and while there's a lot of faked identity online, there's plenty of real...and the real ones absolutely matter.

Avoiding the Human Need for Spectacle

When I lived overseas in the Far East, I use to watch how quickly a common street event could turn to a spectacle and affect people 10-deep all around to see what remained of a car accident, or a spousal drag-out fight, or a physically unusual beggar hopping on his hands.

But now I find it a constant slippery slope to try to avoid petty and irrelevant information. Every so often, I get emails from friends about silly YouTube things I have to see...and I grudgingly do. And they are funny...but I wonder what I've gained in watching hamsters play with food or a baby wince from tasting a sour slice of lemon or a sickly fox get confused for some mythical blood-sucking beast or whatever. I really needed to see modded out immersive game characters dancing to disco. And machinima stories. Puh-leeze.

I'm striving to be inured from the wacky. And I only go to YouTube wackiness if I absolutely cannot help myself.

The thing about the wackiness online is that it comes from quiet work days...like today.