devmorgan.com

I want to clear something up. The United States legal system is not based on the Ten Commandments.

This information is already written about many other places (as I am clearly not the first to have issue with this statement), but I wanted to place it here, where I can link to it easily for those who don’t believe me.

By the way, different religions have different breakdowns of what actually constitutes the 10 commandments. For this post, I will use the “Anglican, Reformed, and other Christian” breakdown from wikipedia. We will also not discuss the nuances about translation here.

Preface: I am the Lord your God
Legal: Not a Law

This is not a law in our legal system. It’s also not really a commandment in this particular division.

1: You shall have no other gods before me
Legal: Not a Law

This is not a law in our legal system.

2: You shall not make for yourself an idol
Legal: Not a Law

This is not a law in our legal system. Depending on how you interpret it, it could be quite the opposite in our culture.

3: You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God
Legal: Not a Law

God damn it, Jesus Christ. This is not a law in our legal system. See, I wasn’t arrested just then.

4: Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
Legal: Not a Law at the Federal level

This is not a law at the federal level, but I will concede that some communities have put laws in place prohibiting some things from happening on days such as Sunday. Which is just one of the possible days that could be considered sabbath according to various Judeo-Christian sects. What about Saturday?

5: Honor your father and mother
Legal: Not a Law

This is a nice thing to do, and perhaps most people would believe it to be the right thing to do, but it is not a law. Doesn’t address the problem if your father or mother were horrible people either.

6: You shall not murder
Legal: This is a Law, almost everywhere

Hurray! We have reached the first commandment that is actually considered a law in the United States. I would like to point out that it is also a law everywhere else in the civilized world as well, Judeo-Christian or not. This is a socially understood human reality, not a religious one. Killing is bad.

7: You shall not commit adultery
Legal: Not a Law at the Federal level

This one is a little tricky. There is no law against committing adultery at the federal level. There are still some laws on the books in some areas of the country, but they are rarely, if ever, actually enforced.

8: You shall not steal
Legal: This is a Law, almost everywhere

Our second commandment that is actually a law in the United States - as well as most other places in the world. Taking from others, what is not yours, is immoral, as well as illegal. If you are going to steal, just do it right, make sure you give those you take from small-pox infested blankets and march them for hundreds of miles. Committing a greater atrocity can trump this one.

9: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
Legal: This is a Law, but only in legally binding contexts

Telling my neighbor: “I saw a giant cyclops in my back yard!” does not get me arrested. Telling a judge that I saw Billy stealing a Goat, when I actually didn’t, will. Also, that dress doesn’t make you look fat at all.

10: You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife [...] anything that belongs to your neighbor
Legal: Not a Law

If you want your neighbor’s wife, you might be a dick, but not a felon. If you want what your neighbor has in his garage, you might be an American.

I guess 2.5 out of 10 isn’t too bad? The commandments that happen to be laws are that way because they are good for any society, not because a god said so. The best thing that one can do is to look at them for what they are. They are a list of directives for people, who choose to believe in a particular deity, to follow. They are not laws for our nation, and they only apply to those who subscribe to that particular dogma.

Those who say that our legal system is based off the Ten Commandments are flat out wrong. If they said “2.5 of the 10 Commandments”, “Some of the Ten Commandments”, or most accurately “A Minority of the Ten Commandments”, at least they’d be closer to accurate.

Our legal system was and is built off what is good for society as a whole. It may fail sometimes, and it may succeed others, but that is why it works. Not because a god said something, but because society is better off with generally accepted rules in place.

rambling, religious views

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything, I am still alive. Hopefully I can get some time to write again!

Being a dad takes up a lot of that free time! ;)

life, rambling

Everyone has probably heard about the $8,000 in tax credits that are available to first time home buyers, right?

Right.

Ok, so I am a first time home buyer. I would like to get these tax credits, right?

Right.

I filled my amended tax return in June, do I have the $8,000?

No.

Let me start from the beginning…

We bought our house at the end of May. It needed some work (namely a completely new roof and new electrical line coming in), but we were ready to tackle it. We got a little bit of a discount from the previous owners (in the form of seller concessions), but we had to pay a good portion of it ourselves. The roof was going to be the worst part, it would turn out to be about $5,400 out of pocket.

Alright, sounds fine. Especially when there is this great tax credit being offered by the government for first time home buyers. We don’t have the money right now, but we can get this 0% loan (for 6 months) to cover it now, and we can make those payments until the money from the government arrives.

The roof needed to be done, it leaked, and it needed to be replaced a few years ago. We didn’t want to spend all of our savings/emergency money to cover it, so we opted for the loan.

A couple weeks after we bought the house (June 9th) I filled out the IRS amended tax return - Form 1040X - and the First Time Homebuyer Credit - Form 5405. I sent it in a week later (around June 15th) - the IRS received it around the 22nd.

Sounds all good, right? Wait a little while, and I should get a shiny check for $8,000. I could pay off the rest of the loan, and a bunch of stuff we had to buy in preparation for the baby.

Except, no. I received a letter from the IRS a few weeks later (letter dated July 6th).

“The First-Time Homebuyer Credit is not available until a home has been purchased.  The date entered on the Form 5405 indicates you plan to purchase the home in the future.  We cannot allow the credit until after you have acquired the home.  Please resubmit your claim at that time.”

Shit! What? Did I fill out the form wrong?

I immediately looked at the PDF copy of what I had sent in (and boy am I glad I had that copy), and I became pissed.

Part 1, Section B:  Date acquired: 05/29/09

Well, Since I didn’t even send the paperwork in until mid June, I have no idea why they said I was in error. I read the rest of the letter and called up the 1-800 number they provided for if I had any questions.

I was on hold for a long time. A very long time. For those of you who don’t know, the hold music at the IRS is pretty shitty. It’s classical, but it skips.

Anyway, eventually I got through to a very nice man. Lets call him Bob from Oakland.

Bob listened to my explanation, and did a little digging. He was able to bring up a copy of the forms that I submitted and agreed with me that the IRS was in error. He put me on hold for a little while to figure out what to do.

When Bob came back, he had a game plan. He told me that they had screwed up, and he would like to refer me (I still don’t know exactly to where), but I didn’t make the credentials that usually warrent a referal - but he would try. He recommended that I submit my paperwork again, with a note explaining the error the IRS had made, just in case his manager kicked back the referal.

Bob was a very nice guy. To be honest, I was actually extremely impressed with the customer service I received while on the phone.

So, the next morning I printed out the PDF copy of the form I had, hand wrote a note saying something to effect of “I own the house, the date has always been right. It’s past May. Gimme my money you little bastards”. Ok, maybe not that last bit, and I sent it in - again, with the proper paperwork included.

I got a response from them so quickly from the first submission, I figured I’d hear something pretty quick for the second. I waited til August. No news.

I decided it was time to call the 800 number again, and figure out what was going on.

This time I got Steve. Steve was also a very nice guy. I started off explaining that I had called before, I had filled a return, and I was wondering what was going on.

Steve looked into my file, and said “Well, we only got your amended return a few weeks ago, you’ll need to wait a while before it will be totally processed”.

Hold on a minute Steve. This was my SECOND submission. I want you to look some more at my file.

He did. He looked into it some more and noticed that my previous submission file had been closed out by some woman (not Bob). He realized that shouldn’t have happened, and put me on hold so he could figure some more things out. When he got back, he told me that he linked the two claims, and got approval from his manager to pass it on to the Taxpayer Advocate System. Fancy title.  They would be getting back to me within 7 business days.

…8 business days later…

I called the 800 number back. This time I got Billy. I asked if I should just give him my information so he could bring up the file, but he said I should just tell him the story. 5 mins later: “Ok, What’s your information?”

(insert facepalm here).

Now, Billy turned out to be one of the best guys I talked to. Billy told me much of the same, but let me know that my file is one of the most poorly handled ones he’s seen. That made me feel good, almost proud.

Billy was about to say he wasn’t going to be able to do much for me, but I mentioned for the first time that this was causing me financial difficulty.

Immediately Billy decided to refer me again to the Taxpayer Advocate System, but this time he also gave me their number. Told me it was probably too late to call that night, but I could try Monday (it was a Friday). I told him I’d call after we hung up to at least find out their hours.

Billy apologized to me several times and wished me luck. I hung up and called the Taxpayer Advocates.

PS: The Taxpayer Advocates have the same shitty hold music as the IRS Customer Service people.

I actually got through that night, and I talked to a guy, we’ll call him Mike. Mike was a nice guy, and I told him my story. He asked for my information and I gave it to him. He was able to give me a pretty good background of how my file had been passed around. Mike said I might just have to wait a little while longer before an advocate could help me, since now the filings were taking 3-4 months to complete (previously 6-8 weeks), and mine wasn’t outside of that window yet, since my second filing was the date considered.

I decided to say the magic words - in fact I said them randomly, and not even in a sentence.

“Financial Hardship.”

“Excuse me sir?”

“I don’t know, but I was told if I say those words you’ll listen to me.”

Mike started listening, asking for how I was having a financial hardship. I explained that the money was going to help pay for the repairs on the house that I had a loan taken out for. I explained that we had made our budget, and we were ok for now, but without that money we would start to go into the red.

By the way, apparently financially planning, and knowing that you will be going into debt a month or two ahead of time isn’t “Financial Hardship”, you have to go into debt first before you can call it that. Yeah, fuck you government.

Anyway, Mike did say that if I asked him to - he could get me assigned to an Advocate immediately, even though he warned that I don’t make the qualifications. He said he felt I was not being handled well, and it could help, but at the same time the Advocate might not agree. In the end it was the Advocate’s decision, not his, to determine if they could help.

I told Mike, that I had send in the paperwork in June - the 2nd filing was because I was told to by the IRS, and that it wasn’t fair for my second filing date to be considered as the date. He looked more into it and said, that he felt maybe it would be worth the Advocate taking a look. An advocate should be in touch with me within 3 business days.

…4 business days later…

I hadn’t heard from the Advocate, so I called the number I was given by Billy again. This time I got Joe.

Now, at this point I was not a happy camper. I feel bad because I was a little short with Joe, but he was also a little short with me. Eventually I got Joe looking at my file, and he told me that I was assigned to an Advocate, and I should be getting a call shortly. Joe also apologized after looking at my file, saying it was poorly handled. Joe decided to give me my Advocate’s name, and his number.

Thank you Joe.

Joe told me my advocate would be in his office 7:30 - 4:30 Monday - Friday.

I called my advocate, we’ll call him Jimmy. Jimmy didn’t answer at first, so I left a voice mail explaining the situation. I thought I was screwed, but it turns out Jimmy actually called me back. He got information from me and told me he would look into it. He read parts of my file to me, and he said he would need to get copies of some paperwork from various IRS offices around the country (mostly places that I had called previously). He told me the whole process would take a while, since there was something still being transfered to the Fresno office. I asked him how long this would take, he told me it depended on if they audited me or not. Since I made less than $10,000 last year (yay being a grad student), my file would likely be flagged for closer examination for fraud. But, he told me, he would get back to me by the end of September.

End of September? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS. FUCK YOU JIMMY.

I politely asked if there was anything I could do to speed things up, and he told me no.

I hung up, and decided I would call him again in about 2 weeks (which was the 7th), he told me paperwork was being looked at in the Fresno office, but nothing had been figured out yet. He told me he would get back to me by the end of the month with any information if any came by.

So, here I wait. I still don’t know the real status of my filing, and nobody really seems to care. It’s frustrating because I know if I owed THEM money, things would be moving a lot faster. I also am frustrated because THEY screwed up, and are taking their damn time fixing it.

Look, I know I’m not financially as screwed as many other people in this country, but it shouldn’t take this long to get this figured out. I am counting on that money to make sure I don’t run into financial problems in the next few months (the roof payment alone takes a big chunk out of the money we have to spend - and that was supposed to be paid for by this credit). The fact that I’m not already in debt means the IRS will take its damn time sorting this out.

The only good part about all of this is that apparently I am supposed to get the $8,000 plus interest. We’ll see if that actually happens.

As nice as that interest would be — does anyone have any ideas on how to make this get sorted out sooner?

house, life, rambling

I got an e-mail this morning from a site that linked to me.  I got the 99th slot for “100 Best Blogs for Career-Minded Students“. Kinda cool I guess. I jumped to the site and read the little blurb about me.

Heh. Almost completely wrong.

A student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, this blogger is a computer science major with aspirations of being a programmer.

Not a big deal. In fact, I won’t even tell them to correct it, but I am not a computer science major (I am an Information Technology major). I am also an actual programmer. I do have a job, and I code things.

At least they got the RIT part right ;).

However, this e-mail kinda caused me to revisit a lot of things with this blog and with my life. So, lets start with the tagline to the blog…

Code Monkey and Grad Student Extraordinaire

I still like to consider myself a code monkey. So, thats still fine. Also, technically I am still a grad student… but that is only because I haven’t finished my capstone yet, but I am done with my coursework (although they do let me teach every once and a while). So that’s cool, but there is now a lot more.

I now work as a Lead Integration Analyst for the University of Rochester Medical Center (PS: Nothing I say on this blog reflects their opinions, or any other legal mumbo jumbo). This is a new direction for my career - a step away from web development, and a step towards back end programming.

Another major change is now I am a home-owner. What a crazy change! I spend my spare time fixing up the house or cleaning or changing things. It’s a very different process than what I’ve been used to.

Of course, the most major of changes coming up (not here yet!) is that I am a father. In the next few weeks we will have a newborn and that will take up most of our time. I am excited, and so is Jess. It’s going to be one hell of an experience.

So, I guess what it really comes down to is, I am going through a career change. I am no longer “just a student”, I am a Father, Programmer, Academic, and I guess: Adult.

coding, education, life, rambling, technology

Time Warner Cable announced the other day that they are going to be placing low usage based caps on usage in select markets, one of which being Rochester, NY.

Hey, the twitterverse is already pissed. I’m pissed. But lets think about this for a moment.

Media-on-demand providers should be pissed. Their service requires that end users have expendable bandwidth. High Definition movies are over several gigs a piece.

Families and Roommates should be pissed. Every computer you have on the net will be consuming that bandwidth. I live with 2 friends, and yes we’re techies, but we each have a computer. We have an xbox media center (for watching movies and such), a wii (which we utilize the internet for games such as mario kart), and we all have iPod touches that we use day to day for various reasons. All of these go through our pipe. Just imagine if we played online games! My World of Warcraft addiction would start to cost me more than the monthly fee.

People with a home office should be pissed. It’s highly doubtful you have a business line into your home, especially if you do less than 50% of your work at home, so you will be affected. Sure, it depends on what you do in your office… but if you use services like Skype (for conference calls), or are involved transfering documents, all that data is counted as well.

Friends that come over with their laptops should be pissed. What happens when Steve your buddy from freshman year comes by to say hi and you have to tell him “Sorry dude, I can’t let you connect to my wifi… I’m at my limit.”  or “sure, can you give me a buck or two to cover for your bandwidth?” Even worse, what happens when someone leeches your wifi?

Well, lets address some of the issues…

In Rochester, there is no real competition to Time Warner for broadband service. Frontier doesn’t have the infrastructure, and other services are just reselling Time Warner infrastructure.

Of course, ’shit ain’t free’, I agree, and I totally understand. However, a strange thing happens when companies become the only really shop in town… they charge more then they need to. Numbers that I have read vary, from 3 cents to 5 cents, but that is the approximate cost for Time Warner to have a gigabyte of data pass over their network. The means, at the high end of those numbers, it costs Time Warner two dollars for 40GB of data. Then, they are going to charge me a dollar for every gigabyte I go over? Does that seem fair to you? Ok Ok… Support costs? Fine. You know what though? The average person who will constantly go over, doesn’t use support… unless Time Warner screws up their network.

Should someone that barely uses the internet have to pay the same as me? No. I agree again. You know what? Offer people the choice. Usage based consumption, or all inclusive. Usage based should be cheaper, and it should be FAIR. You wanna set up low limits? Fine. But charge reasonable overages. Still worried about the “all inclusive” plan being abused by people who transfer truely massive amounts of data? Fine. Limit them. Write it in their contracts that consistantly going over 1TB of data transfer will cause their service to be discontinued - but let it be a truely masive amount, and only if it’s really a problem should it be addressed.  There are better ways.

Really, the crux of the matter is this… You may not use all that bandwidth yet. You may even think one dollar of overages aren’t that bad. What needs to be realized though, is that our world is becoming a truely connected world. Data transfer is what is making much of this possible. Limiting access to this data will stifle our economy more, and will cause a decline in the utilization of the internet for all of its purposes… and believe it or not, thats a BAD thing.

Just remember, even reading this brings you a little bit closer to your cap. Don’t worry though, to be considerate I decided not to include any images that might needless cost you more.

rambling, technology

I want to let you in on a little secret: Technology doesn’t solve every problem.

In fact, it sometimes creates some.

My friend Elvis wrote an article about a conversation we had a few weeks ago. We were talking about communication mediums. The article he wrote is a much shorter distillation of what we discussed, leaving out key points (editors and word counts! Ha. Who needs ‘em!). So I wanted to touch on some of the discussion as well.

The first thing we have to talk about is hyperconnection. In reality, we have a pretty sweet deal right now with technology. If we want to get in touch with someone, or send someone a message… we can. Send a text message or an instant message. Done. Want to set up plans for tomorrow night? Done. What an excellent ability to have! There is only one problem, it’s a horrible method of communication.

In fact, I text and IM constantly. We don’t even need to get started about how much I use Instant Messenger and GTalk, but on any given day, I’ll send and receive over 40 text messages. For some, that’s a lot, for others, that’s nothing. To each their own. However, even though many communication tasks in a given day are similar to the ones I just mentioned and they are perfectly fine remaining asynchronous. Others are not. Others require synchronous communication.

Asynchronous communication isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sure, it’s ok to shoot off a message and not have to care about the response being timely. In fact, a lot of times you don’t even need to worry about if the message was received at the same time you sent it. “Hey - see you tonight at 8″ isn’t a problem. The problem is when you use an asynchronous communication method when the communication clearly needs to be synchronous.

I suppose we should go over what the difference is:

Asynchronous communication includes text messaging, emails and instant messaging.

Synchronous communication includes telephone calls, video chat and meeting in person.

Do you see the difference? The first set lacks what is most important in communication: an implicit expectation of immediate response. When you stick to conversations that can be done asynchronously, it doesn’t matter at all. However, if a conversation turns to something that requires responses and is actually meaningful you must be wary of the asynchronous methods. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to hold a conversation with someone that isn’t paying attention. Using the asynchronous methods that is exactly what you are inviting. The reason they are so damned convenient is because you can do them while doing something else. This is only the start of your problems though, because unfortunately the mediums that are asynchronous also lack other required communication features.

I don’t know about you, but my thoughts can not be expressed in 160 characters. Text messages are short. Sure, you can link messages to send a longer one, but, in reality, you are typing on a keyboard smaller than your hand - you aren’t going to be saying much. The same can even be said for instant messaging and emails. Once you turn to these mediums, the accepted practice is to put as much information into text as humanly possible. Again, for some communications this is perfectly fine. You can say exactly what you mean by using a few words. However, if you want to have an important, meaningful conversation with someone, you will be out of luck.

Written word is one of those tricky things. Determining tone and meaning from a particular piece of text can be very difficult. In fact, its very easy to misread a particular message and interpret a very different meaning.

For example, one of my most hated words in English (but, actually one of my favorite in ASL): Fine.

What does “fine” mean? Just the way it sounds in your head can be different.  When reading the word, it’s  tone is ambiguous. You need to take other cues to try to understand the meaning behind it. Does the person mean “everything is fine” or “things are… fine“. Responses to requests can be met with “…fine.” which has a much more negative connotation than “fine.”, but is still not as great as “fine :)”. Things can be “fine with me.” or “fine with me!” and they have a different meaning. All of these different versions need some context, some clue to help explain what they are really meant to mean. This is where textual mediums fail. Sure, I’ll use over my fair share of emoticons to try to express meaning, but you just can’t get the same effect as using verbal and visual cues from conversations when using the telephone, video chat or actually physically standing to chat with someone.

So, we have new communication mediums that are great in certain situations. Sending short messages, or trying to get a message to someone that may be busy has become easier. However, with these new mediums, it becomes more and more the norm to attempt to use them for what they can’t do: real, deep, valuable conversation.  You simply can’t depend on a text message to consult a friend about life decisions. Just as much as you can’t call someone 3 times an hour just to tell them something random that just happened. There is a time and a place for each medium. The really important part is deciding which to use when.

life, rambling, technology

I have had a lot of time lately to try to figure out who I am, but really, I only have questions.

Am I a Developer? Am I an Academic? Am I an Industry Professional?

I don’t even know anymore. As the summer is starting on it’s downward slope, I’ve realized that I am not going to finish all of my grad work before my intended “start working again” date, which means I might need to make changes to my plans. This scares me because I am all about the plan.

Am I a Planner?

I understand that sometimes it’s better not to have a plan, or to let the wind take you wherever you may go, however, I also realize it is critical to have a plan. When is it appropiate for each one?

In the development world, you need to have a plan. People that code from the hip generally fail as the project scales. At the same time, I will be the first to tell you, that if you spend all your time trying to figure out the plan, nothing will ever get done. For me, my development plans tend to be short, major goals to accomplish and some general ideas of how to do it. Designing the plan needs to be simple, but loose enough to allow for change.

Am I a Designer?

The problem is, when designing the plan, you don’t always know what is coming up. However, if you specifically define something in the plan, you need to be able to follow through with it. The designer has a picture of what they want, a set of requirements they are looking for. The plan can be a set of requirements, for software it tends to be measurable goals and tasks that can be met. What about real life? Can you set requirements as a part of the design plan?

Am I Breaking Requirements?

What happens when a requirement changes? Was it dependent on something you had no control over (Loss of job, Loss of relationship, Gain of opportunity, Gain of responsibility)? If the dependency fails, are you at fault for the breech of requirement? Does it even matter? Sometimes having overarching requirements is helpful in life and in software design - but we can’t always forsee the best path to reach them.

Do Requirements Define the Project?

In software development, I say yes. In Life? Maybe? My top requirement right now is to finish my Master’s Degree. The path I need to take to do this can go in many different directions, some easier than others. Finding the right path is the hard part, and has been giving me a lot of sleepless nights lately. What is the right path? What process will be the most efficient in development? What process will be most efficient in life?

Is Life a Project?

We spend our lives committing ourself to making life better, as least, I hope we do. I tend to want to look at life as something that we are continually working at to achive our goals. This however, implies that we have clear goals. If we can assume that we live life to accomplish our goals, and we know that the goals are the requirements of the project, how do we define those requirements?

How do we Define Ourselves?

Is how we define ourselves based off our previous projects that we have already accomplished, or would it be better to define ourselves by our requirements that we have set for ourselves, and how we plan to accomplish them? Maybe that’s the question.

life, rambling

*buzz*

Off goes my cell phone again with another text message.

I have an addiction. My addiction is to data, to communication, to the internet, to technology. This is not uncommon for people that are in the computing industry. The real question is how dangerous is this addiction? The ways we socially interact have changed. We connect in a virtual space, on a virtual medium all the time now. I am not sure if this is good or bad, but it is what it is.

I am apart of the iGeneration. We are wired, connected, and on the tubes constantly. I got into a discussion with my mother the other day about packing. I basically told her that the only things I must make sure I bring on a trip are my wallet, my cell phone, my keys, and my laptop bag.

To be fair, a quick glance inside my laptop bag includes these items:

• Wacom intuos tablet
• Garmin nuvi 350 GPS
• PowerShot SD630
• Thinkpad T60p
• A bunch of power adapters

This is what I consider essential to my being. Notice how I didn’t mention clothing. That was not a mistake. While having clothes is nice - I don’t feel that I need to have them packed, since I can purchase them if I forget anything. Yes. I travel with clothes, I just don’t get worked up if I forget a pair of socks or a shirt. The point I guess is that more then half of what I really care about when traveling is technology… ways to stay connected.

This is hyperconnection. A reliance on the technologies that keep the world connected. As a people, our world has changed, and some of us have latched on to all the technology and can’t let go. We must have our instant gratification technologies… We tweet, we facebook, we instant message, we subscribe, we text. We do all of these things and this is what life is for us: Technology, Communication and Information.

Try this: How many times do you check your cell phone a day? How many times do you check social network? How often do you check your Google Reader? E-mail?

How do you feel when you are without one or all of your technologies? Do you feel like something is missing? Do you feel perfectly fine? If the former, you might be hyperconnected. Don’t worry. Being hyperconnected isn’t necessarily a bad thing. By it’s nature you are accustom to digesting massive amounts of information quickly. You tend to be more in tune with recent happenings of your areas of interest. You are also usually in touch with more people in your social network then others. The quality of the relationship may not be as great, but you are certainly more aware of recent updates then others.

What do we lose when we are hyperconnected? The short of the answer is fullness. We become masters of the connection, but not the node. While we might be able to accept more information in a shorter time, we have less time to really process all of that information. Think wider not deeper. While still connected to your social network - how much value is in every relationship you have? I try hard to keep meaningful relationships with everyone that is in my social network, but the truth is I only have a few good friends, but hundreds of acquaintances. Sure - if I run into someone at a party, I’ll be able to make conversation, but I won’t be able to hold much more then that. Of course, if someone asks me about someone in my social network - I might have a remarkable amount of information about that connection.

This concept has been running through my head for years now, and I hope that I will find more time to write about it. I gave a talk at BarCampRochester3 and received a lot of feedback talking about just the differences in the generation gap between e-mail and instant messaging. This topic is ripe for discussion, and I hope to continue it. Let me know!

Are you Hyperconnected?

life, rambling, technology

I guess one of the upsides to being on the west coast is you are up late enough to hear these stories BEFORE you goto bed.

George Carlin has passed away. (Link 1, 2, 3, 4)

George Carlin was the comedian that got me to like stand up. I still remember seeing some of his early HBO specials on VHS tapes when I was younger. I still consider him one of my favorite comedians, and always had a hearty laugh when I heard his jokes.

He was real, to the point, and not afraid of offending. Although crass, he is one of the few comedians that could bridge the generational gap. Both my parents and I found him funny. This world has lost a great comedian.

Rest In Peace Mr. Carlin.

rambling

It’s strange really. I never liked traveling anywhere when I was younger. In the past few years, I have traveled from coast to coast and enjoyed it. Sure, business travelers probably have a lot more experience than me, but, I wanted to share some advice that has made my traveling experiences much better.

Don’t travel with annoying people

For me, this means, don’t travel with family. I figured out after I got older that the reason I didn’t like traveling is because I traveled with family. Sure, I love my family, but, wow, being forced to spend X hours with them can get a little frustrating. This applies for all people that might rub you the wrong way. If you have a friend, but you don’t get along that great, it might not be the best idea to be stuck traveling with them.

Travel with a Friend

If you can, it is always fun to have someone to travel with. A good friend is a good choice. I have taken several trips with girlfriends, and I have taken several trips with friends from college. Usually things go great, and it’s always nice to have someone to hang out with. Only thing to keep in mind is to make sure you have plenty of opportunity to chill and do your own thing, it’s never fun feeling like you have to entertain someone when you don’t want to.

Talk with people

Meeting people is one of the most exciting things to do when traveling. I personally like chatting with business people on planes. Don’t be too talkative, but say hi, and ask where they are headed. Business or pleasure? Travel much? Ask a few small questions, if they seem like they enjoy chatting, keep talking, otherwise, put on your iPod. I met 3 distinctly interesting people in my trip to Cincinnati last week, and it wasn’t hard to do. I had a good time, and I think they enjoyed the conversation as well. Good stuff.

Make sure you won’t panic

The only other thing that has made traveling easy for me is knowing that if everything goes wrong, I’ll be ok. I usually make sure I have plenty of money in my checking account and my credit card paid off before traveling. If my car breaks down, I can pay to have it be repaired, or I can rent a new one. If my flight gets screwed up, I can buy a new ticket. Forgot my socks? Buy new ones. Knowing that you can cover any unexpected expenses and events helps in making sure you have a good time because you are less worried about them. Make sure your schedule is loose enough that if you are running late to something, you won’t be in trouble. The biggest problem I had with traveling with family is that my mother always schedules 500 things to do, and usually runs late to all of them… stressing herself and everyone else out. Remember to relax and enjoy traveling, not many people get to do it.

rambling, travel