Amusement Park Windmill: Week 1 of The Two Bits Processor Project

The Old Mill, Luna Park, Coney Island, N. Y. Postcard from the New York Public Library Digital Images Gallery.

"What geeks may lack in social adroitness, they make up for in archival hubris."
-Chris Kelty, Two Bits

"I am not a nerd. I refuse to revert to my natural state."
-Me as an eighth-grader, in a "fictional" story titled "They're After Me"

* * *

It's Week 1 of the Two Bits Processor Project, and it's time to have something to say. After some freakishly thoughtful and thorough posts from fellow processors Tim, Christina, Michael, and Alex, it's hard to know where to start. But we're going to go ahead and start anyway.

On the phone with Christina the other night, I plotted this post. "It's going to be about my complicated relationship with being a geek," I told her. "And also about how in the world I got involved with Free Culture last year." It was a good plot, but I think it's not what I'm going to do. After all, the second excerpt above tells you just about everything you need to know about the first part, namely:

The relationship. It was complicated.

As for the second part, that's maybe a little bit more timely. As the five of us embark on reading Chris Kelty's new anthropological adventure into "the cultural significance of Free Software," Two Bits, a brief explanation of my ties to Free Culture might be in order.

Last year, as part of my Internet Immersion Project, I started reading a certain blog called BoingBoing on a daily basis. Okay. Minutely. I liked that it was a weird mix of international frippery, internet memes, and steampunk catalog. Needless to say, at some point during this past school year I stopped reading BoingBoing. The volume of posts was absurd, for one thing; for another, I became slightly suspicious of The Internet According to BoingBoing. But. Before this happened, something else happened. And that something was my induction into the culture of Free Culture.

BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow is a big proponent of Free Culture, as formulated by Lawrence Lessig. Creative Commons, the legitimization of remix, the sharing of artistic production: these are all things that people who support Free Culture tend to believe in. In between all the frivolity, Doctorow injects a healthy dose of Free Culture advocacy into his blogging routine. Over the course of last spring, I managed to absorb an awful lot of information about the politics and pertinence of Free Culture. Creative Commons, the legitimization of remix, the sharing of artistic production: these are things I started to believe in, too.

So, I did what any new believer does: I joined a mailing list. The Harvard Free Culture mailing list. It was low-volume, but it did convince me that there were plenty of people at my school who were thinking about these things. Probably, thinking about them way more than I ever had. Fall came, school started, and my suspicions were confirmed. In the muffled hallway of a half-abandoned student center, I asked Tim (someone I barely knew, back then) whether I should join the club. The answer was not no.

Harvard Free Culture introduced me to almost everyone I now know, in one way or another. Halfway through the fall, a subset of HFC turned its attention to a small event you might have heard of, called ROFLCon. I was part of that subset. As such, I feel like my induction to Free Culture was snapped off at the fragile beginning: there's plenty I still don't know. While it felt exhilarating and mischievous to bury a Zune and an iPod at last month's Zuneral, I never quite stamped out the hypocrisy: how many iPods do I have? More than one. I never even got far enough into understanding Free Culture to decide whether or not I personally needed to "stamp out the hypocrisy" on principle. What I do know is that I found more talented and driven people through Free Culture than I ever could have dreamed. For that reason, it is something I still believe in. Anything that attracts that force of gracious dedication is something worth keeping around.

* * *

In Chris Kelty's Two Bits, the "cultural significance" of the Free Software movement ends up having a lot to do with the publics that coalesce around it. In Kelty's introduction, two things caught my attention right away: his formulation of geekdom, and his definition of "recursive publics." Christina already wrote quite beautifully about the cultural reclamation and consequent popularization/sanitization of the term "geek." The geek aesthetic, or even mindset, is something that can be worn like a fashion. Maybe.

This dilemma reminds me of something my friend MacArthur once said about Seattle: "I hate hipsters. But I love all the trappings of hipsterdom." As with hipsters, so with geeks: there's a way to access the trappings without espousing the identity. But I think Christina's point stands. It's not that we have some rarified "genuine" hard core of geeks, attended by a periphery of wannabes. That would be weird. But the recursiveness of contemporary geekdom is somewhat precarious. If you just accept geek culture without contributing to its production, or enhancing its reflexivity, or cataloging its existence in excrutiating detail, then: are you in or are you out? Are you part of the recursive public that continuously redefines itself as a condition for its existence, or are you a consumer of that public's identity? If the continuous redefinition of those identities is sent out in daily listserv digests, or a weekly batch of RSS feeds, then do those identities become things you can subscribe to?

"Lurk moar," the snide entreaty goes. Lurking in the definitional space of a community—say, a listserv, or an IRC channel, or some other medium—has the advantage of introducing a novice to all the levels of recursion. I certainly absorbed a sense of that recursive complexity when I attended a certain Free Software Day last fall, lurking in three dimensions. (Incidentally, I met Christina for the first time that day, and Tim for the first time that didn't involve anarchy and red jumpsuits. I am glad I did not lurk forever.) Maybe it's not that every geek—Free Software or otherwise—has to participate actively in the process of continuous definition, in order to be the genuine article. Maybe it's just that they need to care. The willingness to lurk is the willingness to be bombarded with the dull but crucial details of text-based arguments and endless email threads, and to admit through your passive reading that—at some level—the results matter to you.

* * *

I have a lot more to say about "archival hubris," and there's plenty more to say about Kelty's introduction. However, since it was an introduction, after all, I trust that it prefigures thought-provoking excellence to come. I'm going into this book eager to see what Kelty does with the ethnography of geekery; to witness his up-to-the-minute anthropological methods in action; and to talk on a weekly basis with four of my closest friends about all that and the rest of it, too.

Locker #12: HBS 2+2 and the GMAT

warning: this post will be pretty long, and possibly full of adjectives. probably verbs, too.

Yesterday, I sat in a room full of cameras, and took the GMAT. The room sat behind an imposing door, redolent of office parks and rendered in falsely cozy wood. The door sat behind a fingerprint scanner, and a lobby full of numbered lockers.

I left many things at the door. These things included: a locket, some chapstick, and my composure. I left a little less than three hours later.

I know I’m making it sound like a very brief prison visit. It was not like prison. It was, in fact, not so bad at all. But it was definitely weird, and the process of taking the exam felt a little bit like stepping into an alternate universe: one populated by computer graphics straight out of the 1990s, ineffectual earplugs, and the muffled mass anxiety/solidarity of 15-some students, each clicking away in a gray-walled cubicle.

Before I forget what it was like, I wanted to record some aspects of the experience, in the hopes that others bound for this alternate universe can bask nervously in some of that solidarity ahead of time.

* * *

A Miniature History

But first, a miniature history is in order. I’ve kept pretty quiet about this, but quite a few people know by now that I’m in the process of applying to business school. Business school! Weird. I wouldn’t have expected to end up there, either; even now, whether or not I end up there will depend on a series of upcoming contingencies.

As usual, though, the internet changed everything for me. I’m not so much interested in accounting and optimization and mergers and acquisitions, it’s true. But I’m incredibly interested in the ways that the internet upends those things, and everything. A few of my friends have recently realized that they want to go to law school: not so much because being a lawyer is so awesome, but because copyright law is a crazy and exciting place to be right now. Business school is like that for me.

Also, I’ve been covertly reading the Marketplace section of the Wall Street Journal most mornings, over cereal and sometimes oatmeal, since I was about 9 years old. (It was on the kitchen table! What was I supposed to do?) So maybe, secretly, this isn’t such a surprise after all.

* * *

An Unsimple Equation

Back in November, I wrote two articles about a mysterious program called HBS 2+2. And then never wrote anything about it ever again. But steadily, those posts have continued to surface in the search engines when people go looking for information about this strange new program—a fast-track to Harvard Business School for juniors with liberal arts degrees.

This has lent those articles a sheen of authority that they may or may not deserve: after all, no one really knows what the program will look like or what it’s all about, since it’s never been done before. Even the people behind the program itself will have to do a certain about of figuring it out as they go along: it’s the first year of a new initiative, and it’s filled with possibility and uncertainty. Anyway, I’ve known for a little while that I wanted to apply, but the prospect of taking the GMAT seemed very confronting.

* * *

Combinations and Permutations

It goes like this: in order to apply to business school, you have to take the GMAT. But in order to take the GMAT, you have to temporarily suspend your awareness that the test is almost 100% inane.

The GMAT, I quickly discovered, is very much like the SAT on steroids. Except I’m not 16 anymore, and it’s been an extremely long time since I thought about the angles of pentagons and the vagaries of combinations and permutations.

In general, I’ve never really believed in test prep. Learning how to excel at a bland standardized test always seemed distinctly unnecessary in comparison to learning about really interesting things. I wasn’t really sure how I was going to approach the GMAT; I bought a few books full of previous test questions and basic strategies, but spent the entire four months of January through May assiduously avoiding them. If I’d kept going like that, I imagine that at some point I would have panicked, spent a few weekends taking practice tests, and approached test day itself with trepidation and reluctance.

* * *

Sprints and Stops

But then, something interesting happened: someone from Veritas Test Prep wrote me an email, out of the blue, and offered me the opportunity to try out their test prep & admissions consulting program.

This was pretty extremely nice of them; there’s really no way to get around that. As much as I’m a skeptic about test prep, I can’t deny that I was secretly terrified about the GMAT. Their email forced me not only to confront the reality of my upcoming trial-by-computer-adaptive-fire, but also handed me some really kind people who were willing to help me through it, to boot.

Anyway, here was the deal: they would let me try out all their services, (for the low cost of free), and I would write about them however I saw fit: good, bad, whatever. “So you mean I can say whatever I want?,” I asked. “Yes,” they answered. “Okay,” I replied. And then spent three weeks feverishly plowing through test prep, in sprints and stops, culminating in the aforementioned alternate universe of yesterday.

Here goes, then: Veritas was nothing but excellent. I’ll save the details, since this post is already getting unmanageably long, but if you’d like those details—maybe you’re trying to figure out whether test prep makes sense at all, or what type to go with—please feel free to email me, anytime, at diana (dot) kimball (at) gmail (dot) com. I don’t know everything, by any means, but I’d be happy to tell you whatever I do know. Veritas's program was extremely professional and engaging from start to finish, and I feel really lucky to have gotten the chance to use it, just in the nick of time.

* * *

Back to the Future

Anyway. Back to the alternate universe! I woke up at 5:30am on Saturday morning, ready to make a somewhat-nutritious breakfast with trembling hands. I drove to a no-man’s land north of Seattle, where the shopping malls roam free. I sat in the parking lot, drinking lemonade and trying to stay calm.

When I finally made it up to the test center, I was told repeatedly that I should empty my pockets of all their contents. “Aha!,” I thought. “I am sure that chapstick doesn’t count.” I have a slight problem with chapstick, which is to say that I need to have it on me at all times. (I have heard that chapstick manufacturers make it addictive on purpose. This is probably true. I am sunk.)

As I approached the vestibule that held the surveillance computer and the fingerprint scanner, I started to get the feeling that I was probably wrong. The attendant looked me and another student up and down, saying in a sweet but ominous tone of voice, “You should make sure you don’t have anything in your pockets. You’ve been videotaped ever since you set foot in this room.” I think she probably says that to everyone. But I slunk away, and retreated to my tiny locker (number 12, which came right before the cleverly evasive 12B. Imagine confronting a locker #13 on test day! Superstition is nerve-wracking, even when unnecessary.) I put the chapstick away. Okay. I was ready.

* * *

A Blur

The test itself was a high-velocity blur. The introduction contained a screen insisting that we not reveal any of the test’s contents to friends, teachers, or “on Internet ‘chat rooms.’” It was just like that, too: Internet “chat rooms,” with “chat rooms” in scare quotes. Like the test makers weren’t really sure they believed in chat rooms, and possibly weren’t really sure what they were, but definitely knew they were a threat. Kids today—always fooling around on zany “chat rooms” and that newfangled Internet SuperHighway! So. This isn’t a “chat room,” but I’ll do my best to hold up my end of that agreement. I do, though, have a few observations on the test overall.

And now that you know my entire life history, I will finally get to the useful part!

* * *

THE GMAT, AND VARIOUS THINGS TO WHICH IT IS SIMILAR

* * *

1) The GMAT = The SAT on steroids.



Okay, yes, I used this one already. But it deserves at least a tiny bit of explanation. The GMAT doesn’t really test anything you didn’t know in high school. However, it does test quite a few things you’ve probably forgotten since high school. Like geometry. And long division. Also, reading comprehension.

(Well, hopefully you haven’t actually forgotten reading comprehension.)

I found that the verbal section of the test was pretty manageable: after all, I read at least a little bit every day. Most of the time, I read a lot. The verbal section was full of idioms and vague, arcane grammatical rules, but those are all things I like.

The quantitative section wasn’t full of things I hated, or anything, but it provided different challenges. Like not having a calculator. If there’s one thing I’m happy about, it’s that I haven’t owned a useful day-to-day calculator in years. Out of a combination of stubbornness and forgetfulness, I’ve managed to spend most of college doing addition, subtraction, and simple multiplication in my head. (As you might suspect, these skills have been almost exclusively employed in tip calculation.)

Long division isn't so much a bastion of mental math—but you’d be surprised at how those fourth-grade math drills come back to you, when you’re really under the gun. The GMAT requires a certain comfort with these things, or at least the confidence to barrel through them. Thinking about the test as a sort of grown-up SAT will give you a pretty accurate sense of its difficulty level and its ultimate inanity. Which leads me to my next point:

* * *

2) GMAT = Game.

Thanksgiving board games, originally uploaded by utini.

You pretty much have to look at the GMAT as a game, in order to get past that inanity factor. It has its own rules; its own strategies; its own quirks. The GMAT does not test your excellence as a person, or even as a scholar. As my instructor at Veritas was fond of saying, “the GMAT does not reward elegant solutions.” Unfortunately, it only rewards correct solutions. And guess who gets to decide what is correct? That is right. The GMAT does.

There are two ways to react to this seeming injustice. One is to get frustrated at the absolute inanity and apparent uselessness of data sufficiency questions and inconsistent idioms. The other is to accept that the test is a game, and learn to game the system.

Part of my long-running aversion to test prep has been the belief that, if only I were just way smarter, I would own standardized tests no matter what. Sadly, this is not true. The secret goal of the GMAT is not to test your brilliance, but to test your command of the English language and your dedication to business school. It is a filtering mechanism. It is not meant to be fun, or even useful. It is a hurdle that nominally gives business schools a way to compare candidates objectively, but mostly just tells them that you must really, really want to go to business school.

Otherwise, why in the world would you have spent (wasted?) $250 and possibly months of studying, all on a test that has almost no real-world applicability? You’re proving your dedication. In the meantime, you might as well have fun.

Re-learning geometry and probability and algebra isn’t so bad when you don’t beat yourself up for having forgotten the skills in the first place. It’s okay if you’re rusty. Overcoming the rust is part of how you prove that you’re in it for real. And once you’ve passed through your own trial-by-computer-adaptive-fire, you will probably feel at least two ways: relieved and excited. Relieved, of course, because it’s over. Excited because now that it’s over, who knows where you could go next?

* * *

3) GMAT = A three-hour-long checkbox.

Love comes with choices, originally uploaded by imjustkimmie.

Ultimately, if you’re applying to business school, the GMAT is just something you’re going to have to do. If you never expected to apply to business school, (like me), you’re probably going to feel a little bit bewildered at this sudden, imposing obstacle that takes up residence in your life.

But the GMAT is just one component of any application. It is not the beginning of the world, nor is it the end. Like all standardized tests, it is just a check box to be ticked off; one more requirement on the path to something you really, truly want to do.

That is important to remember. The GMAT is not an end in itself. It is just a way to get somewhere you think you’ll love to be.

Your score may matter, but it probably doesn’t matter as much as you think it will. When I was applying to Harvard for undergrad, I got a chance to talk a bit with my interviewer about the Truth About SATs. Here’s the truth about SATs: above a certain level, it just doesn’t matter what score you got. Every school has a different loose bar that they like to see scores hover around, but if you really knock it out of the park, that’s not going to change the whole picture that much; if you don’t knock it out of the park, it’s actually not going to chance the picture that much either.

The best a standardized test score can do is provide an affirmation or counterpoint to your GPA—another one of those elusive numbers. Beyond that, it’s all very vague. If you want to go to business school, you’re almost definitely going to have to take the GMAT. But in the end, I think my original gut feeling was probably right: learning how to excel at a bland standardized test is a pale alternative to going out into the world and learning about what you really love.

If what you really love is the business of business, then maybe the GMAT is a game you’re willing to play, in order to get to the good stuff. But never forget that it’s about the good stuff. The GMAT is a means to an end. You are not stupid. You are just a novice player in a wily game, designed to test the fortitude of your dedication. And if you're that dedicated, there's not much that's going to stop you: not the GMAT, not the absence of chapstick, not anything.

* * *

With thanks again to the good people at Veritas GMAT Prep, who made this whole process much more pleasant. Check out their GMAT Prep blog—especially their post on HBS 2+2 program —and their brand-new HBS 2+2 page. Again, and as always, please do send any questions or thoughts to: diana (dot) kimball (at) gmail (dot) com. You can also add them in the comments!

She is Very Famous for Her Donkey-Tree

Without regular internet access, I am forced to plunder the depths of my own computer for items of interest. Yesterday, I was doing a brief scan of my hard drive, and noticed two areas bursting with unexpected material. One was my small fortune of TED talks. The other was the set of PDF scrapbooks containing everything I wrote, drew, or performed between the ages of 0 and 18. Gems included: a photograph of me dressed as Helen Keller, a timeline of my future successes (I was supposed to be a published author by now, several times over), and the drawing above. You will notice that it is a spaceship. Or, as I dubbed it, a "space-ship." I drew this when I was in third grade. 1995. No joke. See text below:

"My Scientist is preparing to make a trip in her space-ship to try to go beyond our solar system, so that she can do research on Aliens. She has never failed any task, and is very famous for her Donkey-Tree. Her name is Frances Limodock, and she is 39 years old. Dr. Limodock will be leaving tomorrow for Outer Space."

Yes. Yes she will.

Thanks go to my incredible mom for making these PDF scrapbooks possible, in every sense of the word. Also, for making me possible.

Lemonade > Kool-Aid: Introducing the Two Bits Book Club

Chris Kelty: professor of anthropology. Moderator of the wildly popular Internet Cult Leaders panel at ROFLCon. Enormously famous citizen of the world. And, most recently, author of a new book about Free Software and its cultural cultural significance, titled--appropriately enough--Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. (Freely available for PDF download here.)

Courageously, Kelty decided from the get-go to explore and amplify the cultural significance of Two Bits itself , by encouraging "modulation" of the text. Over at Harvard Free Culture, modulation is something we like a whole lot.

So we started a book club. Which is not all that similar to modulation, but everyone got so excited thinking about sitting around on porches, drinking lemonade and thumbing through pages, that we totally forgot the following facts:

1) Tim is in San Francisco. I am in Seattle. Christina and Alex are in Boston. Except, Christina's actually not in Boston right now.

2) Digital lemonade is not a thing.

3) We do not, in fact, have copies of the book. Only PDFs. There will be no thumbing through pages.

Okay, we didn't really forget those things. Nevertheless, they do present certain challenges. But also: opportunities! Because how many book clubs do you know that meet on the front porch of the world??? AKA Blogosphere.

That's right. Not that many. (Real answer: many.)

Anyway. We're trying. And we'll keep trying, for the next however-many weeks, as we trundle together through Two Bits. We hope you join us for the ride. Once the ride starts, anyway.

The players:

Tim Hwang, blogging at The U.S. Bureau of F.B.

Christina Xu, blogging at ComPromise

Alex Leavitt, blogging (sensibly) at Alex Leavitt

and yours truly, blogging here

EDIT: And the magnificent Mike Wolfe, blogging at Machinations!

And so, there you have it. The ride will start soon. We promise. And, while we're not making any (other) promises, I think it's safe to say that the results may or may not be extremely culturally significant. (See how safe that was? Ambiguity is go!)

More soon. Stay tuned.

The Internet vs. the World of Tomorrow

Image: Teaching a Machine to Think, from the NYPL Digital Images Gallery. An old cigarette card, from the Age of Power and Wonder series. i.e. my favorite series of cigarette cards ever made.

For the past two weeks - almost three, now - I've been in what can only be described as Internet Detox. Early on, I decided to think of it as Internet Detox rather than Not Having Internet at my New Apartment. For the most part, this formulation has been successful: I have surely seen more of Seattle (my new, extremely temporary home) than I would have otherwise. I have also probably gotten more sleep. But when I found myself slipping out to the outdoor corridor at my apartment complex - on a nightly basis - to stand, vaguely, in the one area where I could catch an unlocked wireless signal: that is when I realized that it was time for Detox to end.

With that: I missed you, internet. I'm glad to be back.

(Note that I actually still do not have internet at my apartment. But, I mean. This has gone on long enough.)

I'm now firmly situated in Seattle metropolitan area, getting used to freeways and plenty of mist. I found some wonderful corners of town; I lost my camera. "Losing" and "finding" tend to travel together, have you ever noticed? But it's good, it's all a part of starting something new. And this: this is definitely new.

Before I forget, here are some things I noticed from the dark days of Internet Detox:

1) They were not so dark. Yes, it was incredibly weird not to be plugged in all day long. It was definitely strange to be without an ambient ocean of information to swim in - or, as my new friend Tantek wrote earlier today regarding Twitter, the constant presence of "asynchronous ambient intimacy." But the quiet was not so jarring, except on weekends. I think this is because the life of a desk worker is full of opportunities to dip into this stream and then quickly dip back out again. Unfortunately, few opportunites to immerse myself.

2) Everyone is on the internet all day long, every day. This is obvious, but it's also true. Even just 12 hours away from a computer - let alone 24 - left me feeling hopelessly behind. The upside of being hopelessly behind, though, was having lots of interesting things to catch up on. Never in my life - my recent life, at least - have I gone without checking email for long enough to accumulate a pile of such interesting, engaging, beautiful letters from people I like very much. Surprises, too - like the email from a former editor of a magazine about magic, regarding my paper on amateur magicians. Which leads me to the next thing I noticed...

3) Email. We are back in the 19th century, people. I've spent so much time over the past year just answering emails all day long (and loving it), I never managed to take a step back and realize what I was really doing. Have you ever seen a movie based on a Jane Austen novel? You know how the characters in all their beautiful clothes are forever sitting at writing desks, spending hours upon hours writing letters on paper? How romantic and frivolous. Right? Well, yes, sort of right, but: we do that, too. Now. All day every day. Email, as has been pointed out, is a totally inefficient and arcane system. This has led people like Tantek to suggest that it should be permanently renamed "EFAIL." I see the reasoning. I even understand it. Here's the thing, though: that's kind of why I like email. I like that we're all sitting around, writing letters to each other all day long, pondering which sign-off to use and slipping in clever salutations. My short-lived once-a-day email checking during the first part of Interent Detox really drove the point home, since it felt very much like receiving mail in a physical mailbox. (I used to wait at the window for the mailman to come, when I lived back in Ann Arbor...even though the mail was almost entirely catalogs and credit card offers. Every day.)

This is the 19th century. But you all know how I feel about the 19th century. It has not a little to do with love.

And now I'm back, and now it's tomorrow.

Viewmasters Deluxe

My fascinations tend to traffic in miscellany. I'm never quite sure what's going to catch my attention. But there are a couple of wizards out there who have somehow divined the formula, and who deserve a great deal of credit for the content of this website and my noisier Tumblr zoetrope. My old friend nickd, as ever, serves up a steady stream of weirdly charming artifacts. Phil, one time, sent me an extremely great list of blogs he reads, including such gems as the Hoefler & Frere Jones typography blog. Lots of very kind readers of this site will occasionally send me things that strike their fancy.

But special mention goes to one Steven Melendez, who for some reason decided one day to start sending me extraordinary things on a regular basis. Getting new leads from Steven always felt like having access to some secret, personalized newswire, with dispatches telegraphed in. I felt pretty lucky. Alas, I couldn't keep this newswire to myself—not in good conscience, at least. So when Steven mentioned that he might entertain the possibility of starting up a zoetrope of his own, I may or may not have used some capital letters to express my opinion about that possibility. The opinion was: YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.

And, luckily for all of us, Steven made the right choice. That is to say: the only one.

And so, St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast. You will probably love it. I know I do.

photo via

RIP, Old Headshot!

Last year, when I first started this blog thing, I tumbled through a few different photographs of myself. I was trying to find a picture that could sit quietly in the upper-right-hand corner of the page, black and white and gray like the letters on the pale blue background, and be pretty unobtrusive. One stuck. Today it is unstuck.

I guess when you're 21, you look significantly older than you did when you were 20? Like, maybe 5% older? Definitely a statistically significant amount, at least. Anyway, I heard from three separate people over the past month or so that my old profile photograph (which I used everywhere) looked a little young. So, naturally, I set out to rectify the situation.

BUT. Do you know how discombobulating it is to wake up and think, "Today I will overturn my online identity in an extremely minor way?" During the accidental photo session that begat the first photograph, I had no idea what was going on; the process wasn't loaded with the dubious weight of an impending online identity shift .

Except then, I settled on one of the photographs, and used it almost exclusively whenever I needed to attach a photograph to my name online. For an entire year. I even sent a copy of the picture out to all of ROFLCon's guests before they arrived, so that they'd be able to recognize me IRL. It was disconcerting how many of them came up to me to sincerely thank me for this gesture. "It was so easy to recognize you!," they said. "That was really smart to send your picture out!" As I basically wrote in the email that accompanied the photograph: the real world's not text based, yo. Weird, right?

So. Today I enlisted some help to create a bank of replacement candidates. Sadly, I think my short haircut did little to bolster the illusion that I am 5% older. However, I hope the critics will be sated nevertheless.

I've settled on a temporary replacement (visible to your right), but I'm not stuck on it yet. Since this is so extremely important (not), I'd love your thoughts! I've got a couple hundred more to choose from, which is just overkill, so, you know. You've got choices.

I will crowdsource the determination of my online visual identity? It will be revolutionary! In a microscopic sort of way.