a history of me

There's been quite a bit of stormy weather lately, complete with heavy rains and fantastic bolts of lightning. We also had a tiny earthquake yesterday morning, a standard feature of Japanese life I'm starting to get used to. I've experienced at least three or four in the past year, though none of them lasted more than a moment nor did they knock over even the flimsiest of my possessions. Here's hoping I never have to learn the difference between these trivial tremors and the real deal. Mako knows; she was there.

Today I've got a couple things I want to say about the Internet, and I'm not just going to complain either. There have been a few things lately that I've come to really enjoy about the Internet, things which aren't even that new but I only recently figured out how to use them.

As an American living in Japan the Internet has been, without hyperbole, a life saver. I don't mean that my life would be over if I did not have access to the Internet, because I don't mean that "life." I'm talking about the much more general "life" that the Japanese love to bandy about on awkwardly-worded signs (i.e. "We support your socks life"). I'm talking about my piece of mind, my day-to-day activities, the general sense of who I am and what I enjoy. I suspect the Japanese word for it is seikatsu (生活, a clearly distinct word from the concept of "life" that is the opposite of "death") which they use in all sorts of compounds to describe one's life concerning marriage, home, socks, whatever. I suppose I should test that sometime by talking about my "socks life" with my co-workers and see if they nod knowingly or make a funny face.

I use the Internet a lot in my life, in part because there's simply so much on there that interests me. Aside from the obvious communication uses, I read the news to try and stay informed, I follow the Yankees as best I can, I peruse reviews of major media releases so I some sense of what's out there to read, watch, play, etc. etc. etc. Honestly, just keeping up with those few things alone would take a significant chunk of my day, and the fact is that's only the tip of the online-content iceberg I seek.

As recently as May of this year, the only way I knew how to deal with all this was to plod through my bookmarks one by one and glance at each site to see what was new or interesting. Often I'd load a page and discover there was nothing new. Other times I'd spot something I thought was new but turned out to be something I had already read. It took forever and I always stopped having wondered which site or sites I had forgotten to visit.

My discovery of Syndication changed all that. I had seen mysterious logos and acronyms (RSS? XML?) on blogs for years but I had never figured out what it had to do with anything. I guess I wrote it off as a programming tool or encoding method; some kind of background element that had no relevance to me, the reader. It was a chance encounter with a cheap-looking video that showed me how wrong I was.



I can't explain it nearly as well as the video does, but the concept is straightforward. Rather than blindly and routinely visiting site after site to see what's new, you can "subscribe" to your favorite sites and the latest updates are collected for you. It's one-stop-shopping via a concise list instead of driving to mall and sticking your head in every shop window. In my case, I use Google Reader rather than software on my PC because being on the Web allows me to log in from any computer and check my updates - even at work, where some of the sites I like to read are blocked because they are not "education related."

Predictably, as the time I spent visiting all these sites decreased, I found myself wanting to read more online so I sought out more and more sites to read. So maybe I end up spending a similar amount of time reading shit on the Internet after all, but at least this way I don't have the feeling where I'm mindlessly wandering about, looking for what's new. I know what's new, and I can choose to read it or not. It's that proactive sensation that makes all the difference.

Beyond the black and white of reading things on the Internet, I am a late arrival in the world of podcasts. The fact that I never owned an iPod until last summer was surely a factor; while I used iTunes for months and months before that, I always saw the "Podcasts" option on the list and I never understood what that meant. Even if I had investigated, I don't think it would have appealed to me much. When I'm sitting at my computer, I'm doing something. It's one thing to listen to music in the background while you surf the Web or edit photographs, but it's quite another to actively listen to people talking.

So since I have an iPod and a decent daily commute, I began to look into podcasts as a alternative to just putting my music collection on "shuffle" each time I got on the train. It wasn't long before I found a number of shows that got me hooked on the concept. These are topical broadcasts that I can subscribe to, download for free, and then listen to at my leisure. It feels like I'm back in high school, actually, listening to Howard Stern on a walkman again. Indeed, most of the shows I download are pretty funny, so I am giggling to myself now just as I did then. And the good ones give you a "radio show" feel rather than a cacaphonic roundtable discussion. Podcasting is a learned skill, like broadcasting, and there's a surprising number of shows out there where there are long, awkward silences or people talking over one another and it's simply intolerable.

I know there are people making video podcasts as well, but these don't appeal to me nearly as much. The iPod has a very small screen and I simply can't get past that. Furthermore, you can't watch a video while you're walking around, whereas audio is good anytime. Unless it's a video clip or TV show that I know so well that the images are secondary, I'm not interested in putting up with those restrictions. I can't sit there and squint for my entertainment. I'd much rather watch videos, any videos, at home.

Yet as I find the Internet's appeal increasing in some areas, I've noticed an unpleasant trend that I'm quickly getting sick of. There's this misguided notion that every site, no matter what its purpose, must include a robust, customizable profile or homepage for each and every user. I'm not talking about mandatory registration to access a website, a bad habit that seems to be declining (and with Bug Me Not out there, it doesn't matter anyway). I'm talking about the elaborate shoehorning of "social networking" into websites where I really don't want to network with anybody.

Let me first say that I understand the convenience of registering a nickname as a Web 2.0 participant. As I mentioned, I read a lot of blogs and a good portion of their appeal is the ability to give feedback and discuss each post in the comments section. I also visit a couple message boards which are, of course, entirely built on the contributions of the respondents. In the case of the former, having a static identity is positive for communication and any move to de-anonymize Web comments is a good thing. In the case of the latter, a login name is a logical requirement for posting information on the boards.

Where I start to get sick and tired of everything is the insistence on field after field of input. What are my interests, what books am I reading, who are my heroes? It's bad enough I've gone through all this on MySpace and Facebook (which both came years after I did all that on Friendster), why the hell do I need this just to leave some comments on a blog? Do I need a "friends list" on every site I visit? I just want to secure a minimal sense of identity, I don't want to re-think of a list of movies to recommend.

There's nothing sinister at work here, it's all "follow the leader" bullshit. Everyone sees the success of the major social networking websites, so they figure they need to copy that model onto their site. They can't bear the thought of someone using a social networking site for social networking, and visiting a blog just to read and occasionally comment. No, no, everyone's got to be able to do everything and anything they want on our site. It's like when you listen to "wacky morning zoo" radio show and they keep taking breaks to report the traffic and weather. Nobody cares about that shit because there are a half-dozen stations that report those conditions every three minutes. If I want to check on my morning commute, I'll pick one of those stations and then move on. If I tune to a comedy show, I want to hear your phony phone calls and zany contests. I don't care if the FDR is backed up all the way to the Harlem River Drive.

This is all on my mind as of late because I'm working really hard behind the scenes to improve the look and functionality of feitclub.com, so I've been cataloging all of the sites where I've got this digital representation of myself. I was surprised at how long that list was, and I'm probably forgetting a couple. But don't worry, once everything's working you'll really be impressed by the improvements around here! You'll be able to register your nicknames, tell me your favorite songs, pick out a wardrobe for your virtual ninja avatars...