Archive for March, 2007

• 3.27.07 "A sad sad sad time for the internet. I hope there’s a lesson buried in here." is posted in Reflections

I sometimes let Kathy Sierra’s writing accumulate in my blog-reader, because I don’t like skimming there. She’s my favorite writer online, and a huge inspiration both to my work and what difference a passionate individual can make. Reading what she’s been through, the way she’s been abused (serious death and sexual threats) as a blogger and as a woman, is just plain awful. Hurtful. Disgusting. While nothing could justify such treatment, the fact that she’s been subjected to it is just unfathomable to me. She’s making such a difference for so many people, in a field that’s not even personal (people have opinions about usability…but it’s not personal). This just hurts.

I thank people like Kate who are continually bringing attention to the continual violence against women, time and again. For raising issues to the light that are often glanced past. This sort of news needs to be in the media. And it needs to change people’s behavior.

I applaud Scoble’s stance on this and hope others will protest as well. If I had a way to, I would. Reading the comments on Kathy’s page shows that people are listening today. I just hope this can make a lasting difference.

• 3.10.07 "Presence, and the barometer of friendship" is posted in Friendship, Reflections

I had a strange reminder today of how my idea of friendship might be different than my friends. It was kind of an unfortunate conversation, where she actually said “how can you be considered a close friend, we’ve only seen each other twice.” It was clear that we had different definitions of what constituted friendship. And let the record be clear, this wasn’t one of those blurry interested-in-something-more-because-in-When-Harry-Met-Sally-guys-can’t-be-friends-with-girls, this was a question of friendship alone.

In this particular case, I valued the friendship more on the fact that we’d been talking on the phone for probably about a year and a quarter, every month or so, and usually for over an hour. We emailed a fair amount, as well. We didn’t see each other much because we lived far away. I thought of her not necessarily as a close friend, but at least as a friend whose company meant a lot to me.

You’re probably curious why a conversation like this would come up. (more…)