The Outernet

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are neck and neck. The next primary coming up iszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Man, I could not find this election less interesting. I'm actually ignoring it at this point, after spending most of 2007 posting nearly every day about how excited I was. Sad.

So instead, I'm going to dedicate this post to something that has, apparently, fixed itself about 2 days ago without my knowledge.

Despite running one of these blogs, I don't read them that often. I used to, of course, but much like the XKCD comic:

I realized I was spending countless hours of my day fixing other people's mistakes. Worse, they were subjective mistakes, though as far as I'm concerned I'm still right.

I stopped reading them altogether, with the occasional exception - a few blogs that I would check once a week or so, simply to see what they're writing about at any given time.

One of these blogs, run by Spiiderweb, is run by a guy that posts 4-5 times per day and doesn't have a single ad. I have these ads on the side because I find it fun when I make 16 cents or so every 7 or 8 days (in my entire time blogging, I have made approximately $11.15 - Google does not pay you until you reach $100. Lame). So I have a lot of respect for someone that blogs for the hell of it. But recently I had noticed that he had not posted in over 5 weeks, with no mention of a vacation or trip coming up. There were over 9 comments from different readers worried about where he went.

It made me realize how... creepy the Internet is. Online, you can read what they put on here, comment, possibly even communicate. But once the person is offline, they don't exist to anyone. They may never have existed. They could be dead, they could be alive and well. There is no way to tell.

I think that's why I hate the Internet. Sure, I'm online often. I even work as an freelancer now for online content. But if it weren't for work or communication with both online and offline people that takes place through the wires, sometimes I wish the Internet didn't exist.

Spiiderweb came back two days ago. Apparently it was Internet/Blogger issues. Welcome back. Still, it is something that continues to bother me - an issue with blogger, and as far as anyone else is concerned, that person no longer exists. I need to get offline more. The Outernet awaits.