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authormjfernez <mjf@mjfer.net>2021-10-25 00:30:38 -0400
committermjfernez <mjf@mjfer.net>2021-10-25 00:30:38 -0400
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about done. how to build first draft
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-<p>Last I checked:</p>
-<code>
-$ whoami
-mjf
-</code>
-<p>There's a lot of ways to go about this question, honestly.</p>
-<p>I could start with my name, but that doesn't really tell you much and it's
-on the site anyway. A lot of people answer "who they are" with what they do.
-I'm working in an IT department right now trying my best to wrap my head around
-securing their network. I suppose that tells you something, even if I haven't
-been at this long. I got here after I fell down the rabbit hole of
-understanding how the hell this whole Internet thing works, and I've been
-trapped ever since. Cybersecurity people seem to touch a lot of things in this
-area so I naturally sort of stumbled in this direction.
-</p>
-<p>At this point, though, I still don't think I've really answered the
-question. I'm not my job title to probably most people I know. And I think it's
-a little unwise to base my identity on something that could taken away by a
-financial crisis or an EMP blast.
-</p>
-<p>I could get more vague and go for a meme-y tribal identifier like "nerd,"
-"metalhead," "hacker," "warlock," or whatever classes people are running these
-days.
-</p>
-<p>
-None these are really true though either. I was never really smart enough to
-hang out with nerds and I never much liked keeping up with them anyway. I
-certainly have enough of a music snob streak to fit in with metalheads, but
-I've gotten over that illness for the most part, where most of my peers have
-not. If we're going with Richard Stallman's notion of
-<a href="https://archive.is/epjm4">hacking</a>, then maybe I share some of the
-same spirit. But I didn't grow up in that culture. I knew of a computer mostly
-as Windows--and even that I didn't understand well. My parents were luddites so
-these were all magic boxes to me growing up and I was far to afraid to try to
-look inside and risk breaking it. I had a vague notion that I wanted to design
-games, but I spent my time playing Runescape and Elder Scrolls instead of
-botting and modding them. Maybe I'm gatekeeping myself, but fitting into any
-sort of tribe has never really been on my mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-A lucky few will have biographers write their final word, but most of us
-will have to settle for the obituary. Either way though, I think it's important
-to remember in the long term, all we really have is our history. Hopefully,
-that won't include web history...
-</p>
-<p>
-So I think it's probably better to start with who I am, with where I've been.
-I was born in the US in 1993 about two weeks after the World Wide Web was
-released to the public domain. Our family didn't get online until I was around
-five or six when people started handing out free Windows and America Online CDs
-around public places. Pokemon was also released around that time so that
-computer was primarily used for Pokemon-themed version of Print Artist and
-reading fake articles on how to get Mew in Blue version. As I grew up, my
-school assignments went from stacks of notebooks to folders full of .doc files.
-It became expected by around middle school/high school that you had a Windows
-PC or at least had access to one to write essays. Runescape was a thing, so
-that same computer still saw it's fair share of play, but study crept in when
-it could.
-</p>
-<p>
-I never bothered studying the computer itself though. Any tutorial I could find
-on messing with Windows (like getting a stupid cursor or soemthing) started in
-big bold letters with "DON'T TRY THIS IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING."
-Well I didn't know, so I didn't try. I did fall in love with Wikipedia though
-and just hopping through history and philosophy articles. I couldn't always use
-the PC downstairs so I learned to use the PSP and eventually the PS3 browser
-instead so I could read up until late. God knows how much crap was on there
-back then...
-</p>
-<p>
-I got into guitar around eighth grade since Guitar Hero was popular and I
-wanted girls to like me. I was also into band and chorus at school and somehow
-got the idea that I was pretty good at all that. The idea of playing music or
-composing started to really look like a serious thing after two years at it,
-but when I first started to write music, I had so much trouble drawing the
-freaking clefs and fancy stuff that I would waste too much time to write half
-of a score. I need like Microsoft Word for music, but I didn't know if such a
-thing was even real
-</p>
+<center>
+TL;DR Above everything I'm a lurker. And I mean that in the traditional
+forum/mailing list sense. You could put it a few ways and still be
+right: a reader, a people watcher, a listener, maybe a coward if you're
+cynical. But all in all, not anyone in particular really.
+</center>
+
+When I first came up with a writing a page with this title, it devolved
+into a kind of personal essay. The kind of unwelcome nonsense you no
+doubt encounter (and I no doubt supplied) in comment sections on the
+Internet or the paginated newsfeeds written by faceless names or in
+the rambling profiles that start with birth and forget where they're
+going around college. It seems to come easy to a lot of us.
+
+Now, I'm not sure I've earned the right yet.
+
+I'd rather just let my work (and my play) stand for itself, for whatever
+it's worth. You'll get it as you go I'm sure. That said, there are some
+things that probably help for context's sake:
+- I'm born, raised, and hosted on the US East Coast. By most countries'
+ standards, that means I have no sense of the world outside of my own
+ country, which despite my best efforts, is probably true
+- I'm raised and hosted (not born) on free software (unless you count
+ whatever my VPS is running). This server is running OpenBSD with
+ nginx and httpd working together to host a small git repo and this
+ flask app I threw together
+- I'm born and raised (not hosted) by Luddites, for the most part. And I
+ don't mean that in entirely bad way. What I mean is I grew up around
+ mostly people who didn't know and didn't care to know about advances
+ in technology or the merging of that technology with culture. In
+ fact, that might be the appropriate view to have in light of
+ recent circumstances.
+- By trade, I'm best at data recovery and writing good documentation.
+ I'm self-taught at programming software design so by most metrics,
+ I'm probably not great at that, but I'm getting there. I love a good
+ math problem, and though I only got a B in my college circuits class,
+ I still find time to make some lights blink.
+- I spend a lot of time on the Internet lost. And in the process,
+ sometimes find useful things; though I largely find nonsense, which
+ has it's own value, but it's separate.
+
+Here is as close to home as I'll get for now.