This is communication number One Thousand. This one kinda snuck up on me, I had noticed over the summer that I was close and then forgot for a while but I have been thinking about what to write here for about a month and had absolutely no clue. A lot of this communication is repeated somewhere else within this site as it seems sensible for some reflection of: Operation Parish On The Web.
I am often amused by the response at work to the phrase “on my website”. The response is often “you have a website?”. I’m not entirely sure why the response is phrased that way, because, as becomes clear, the responder often uses Faceshit loads. What is Faceshit other than a way for everyone to have a presence on the web. A method for letting their friends know what they are up to? A way of publicly displaying the version of us who we want people to see. Faceshit is easy. It’s something I don’t really do.
I started editing web pages in 1994 when I was involved with Imperial College Union. I maintain the pages for the student union for about six months. After that I did nothing until around 1999 when I decided to have a web site. I have owned the following domains over the years:
www.ianparish.me.uk
www.iparish.org.uk
I used those in the days before social media. I have used various programs for creating the code including Frontpage, which I hated. Over time I wanted to have a domain name that actually meant something to me rather than just my name. Hence Fooyah.net you can see why I chose that here. This website was started in June 2011. Initially I tried to use Joomla and while I could see how it worked I couldn’t spend that amount of time to get it right and wanted something a little more user friendly. I chose WordPress and have used that ever since. My very first communication is linked here it’s not very interesting.
My general policies on this website are:
- Write stuff about what I do
- Write stuff about what I think
- Write whatever I want about nerdy stuff
- Not to include “state of mind” information
- Not to write about emotions and shit
- Not to delete anything, but to openly edit if necessary
- I will use the language that reflects who I am
As with all web-based stuff this site only really shows the part of me I am happy having in the public domain. I am acutely aware of the fact that anyone can look at this site and draw whatever conclusions about me that they want. I don’t really include family stuff directly, I don’t really moan about work and I try not to slag off individuals. I will try to defend my position on things but I’m not very eloquent at that. Reading this is like reading the stream of my consciousness and that doesn’t often make for easy comprehension. But, what you see is what you get.
Sometimes in the history of this site my general well-being can be inferred by the type and number of communications but then sometimes I don’t publish much because I just don’t have the time. I am able to look over this site and see how I have been and those close to me can figure it out. Everyone goes through rough times in their life and this public web thing means we don’t show that. You can read this and figure out my quite obvious views on religion, science and politics but you shan’t know me!
Earlier I wrote the word Faceshit. That particular social media site is one that I don’t regularly use. It disturbs me somewhat at how ubiquitous it is. There’s an awful lot of information out there on people who possibly wouldn’t want that out there. I like to think that I’m reasonably with it, and when a new service starts I tend to investigate it and then decide if it will add anything to my life, normally it won’t so I don’t bother with it. I have communication routes with my friends through different methods and these work for me:
- Rich – twitter, Fooyah and meeting up
- Jase – phone and meeting up
- Jim, Andy and Daryl – Whatsapp
- Andy – Twitter and Fooyah
- Jo – Twitter
- Mazza – meeting up
- Andrew – text
[Not all friends listed, don’t be offended if you aren’t there] A lot of my friends aren’t on Faceshit I guess that makes it easier [also, I have too many friends named Andrew perhaps I’ll have to cull one!]. I do have a Facebook account, not in my name but I use it to follow a couple of groups who don’t have a presence anywhere else. This annoys me a little but I guess FB is convenient for a lot of people. My twitter account was started to follow more information about Formula One and it grew for me into a more political resource.
So, more stuff, about me. My views, my thoughts [edited for public consumption]. When I started this site I wrote this about me:
Geeky maths teacher who likes motorsport, NFL, cricket, film, proper music and PS3.
Like Battlestar Galactica and West Wing, Megadeth and AC/DC, New Orleans Saints, Miami Dolphins, Essex and England cricket.
This is what my Twitter profile said originally and I didn’t update it for a long time. I have recently changed it to the following:
Geeky, sweary, skeptical maths teacher who likes NFL, motorsport, aggrotech, PlayStation, running, planes and science. Kinda fascinated by everything.
This seems more appropriate for the recent me. People and tastes change over time and this is me at the moment. I’m sure it’ll change again, slowly as I discover more about this world. I am currently an angry atheist, politically left leaning humanist. I try to live my life by the following principles:
- Look after yourself
- Be nice
- Speak openly about what you believe, discuss with people
- Try to do good [as defined by humanist principles rather than religion]
- There are RIGHT answers and you can find them
Time to stop this particular stream of consciousness now. I will probably look back over this and try to make sense of it and maybe edit it. If this page is edited then I will use strike-through to show where that happens, apart from spelling and grammar mistakes. If I change my mind, it will be published.