Inside Colin’s Head

I have a new walk. I have to consciously think about it or I'll revert to my old walk. It's a bit slower, has a slightly longer stride, and has more rhythm. It seems to allow deep breathing to occur more naturally and brings a sense of confidence and contentedness to the moment.

The older I get the better I understand how perspective affects the outcome of transpiring events. The simple example is how feeling confident often gives off the impression of wisdom, which leads others to trust your judgment, which in turn creates more scenarios for you to become truly wiser. This thought pattern is really applicable in the realm of happiness, in my opinion. Being optimistic (preferably realistically optimistic) fills your mind more with possibilities than liabilities and the beauty of things is easier to see. The bad stuff will always be there, but no one is forcing you to focus on it.

In "Meet the Parents," Pam tells her kindergarten class to imagine the problem they've been thinking about all week and yell "boo!" to scare it away. This seems childish, but there's real wisdom here. Are brains are wired for logic, imagination, and abstraction. Creating an abstraction in our mind for some specific stressor allows us to deal with that stress virtually, where it is forced to play by our rules. The key is finding an abstraction that works for you.

Similarly to mental abstraction, changing your body movements seems to be another way to exert control over the intangible, hence my new walk. I don't have a specific stressor in mind, my walk just generally leads me to feel more calm, collected, and in control of my direction.

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A person is successful if they achieve the thing they set out to accomplish. So, being successful means you must:

• decide to actually do something
• seek paths that lead toward your goal, instead of adjusting your goal to match your path

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One day in the not-too-distant future, the Internet will be much faster than it is today and resilient connections will become so ubiquitous that Internet outages will be treated like electricity outages.

In today's world of always designing for transition in technology, developers are forced to deal with old browsers, slow connections, offline access, cross-device incompatibilities, installation complexities, search engine optimizations, accessibility guidelines for users with disabilities, decisions on requiring cookies/JavaScript/etc., and dealing with the archaic world of email (design, delivery, etc.). Hell, file uploads over the web are still ridiculously clunky in most browsers.

Developer paradise is a world where the only hard stuff is *gasp* actually building the product. Browsers should understand websites and provide tools for disabled users. Native applications should be run and delivered via web technologies and have access to device APIs. Installations should be a thing of the past, at least in the eyes of customers and product developers. All software should be able to be built once and easily ported to different form factors.

Internet access is almost exactly analogous to road access. It should be free to everyone because it is a foundation on which we build commerce, social interactions, etc. No one should be able to censor or throttle Internet traffic. That'll surely be an adjustment for some companies and governments, but a free Internet is the strongest path towards global peace.

When the big Internet pipe arrives, everything we know about computing will be drastically improved. We'll finally be able to reach a world where software really does "just work." Install CDs will be a thing of the past -- everything, including big bundles like Starcraft II will run directly from the Internet. Piracy will be much easier to fight while at the same time providing consumers with more options and fairer policies. Computers and devices will be able to be much simpler and dedicate more resources to managing the user experience instead of exhaustively trying to support every ancient API and peripheral.

Of course this comes with new issues (security topping that list), but I don't see a truly sustainable computing world happening any other way.

Google Chrome OS, Android, and iOS are all steps in this direction, but we have a long way to go.

The App Store, opponents of net neutrality, and governments requiring encryption keys for private, electronic communications are really hurting this potential.

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I always enjoy posting about positive experiences I've had with businesses, especially considering how often I feel uncared for as a customer in today's business world.

Holiday World is a family-owned theme park in Indiana and has been since its opening in 1946. It's no Cedar Point when it comes to roller coasters, but it's an excellent theme park overall. Splashin' Safari is the water park section and is my favorite area. The wave pools are bizarrely fun and addictive. The Voyage is a great coaster and although Pilgrim's Plunge wasn't as thrilling as it seemed, it was still a very unique and pleasing experience.

There are so many opportunities for Holiday World to be an evil business and they steer clear of them all:

• Admission is $42 for an adult (cheaper with easily accessible coupons). That's the only fee they charge. No parking fees, separate charges for the water park, or any other random fee that some places try to push on you.
• There are free sunscreen and pepsi stations throughout the park.
• Every single worker was extremely polite and helpful. I saw one (male) employee discretely comfort a young boy who was crying regrets from getting on one of the roller coasters. He then stopped the line to let him get out.
  
• The whole place was as clean as it possibly could have been.
• Food was so reasonably priced that it was probably cheaper to eat at the park than it would have been on our way home. 

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To me, it seems that the human brain never stops processing a million things at once, it just shifts attention. It's like a CPU that never overheats. And from all the random science blogs/articles I've read, it seems that it is the least degrading component of the human body over time.

I'm sure you've experienced the scenario where you've racked your brain over a particular problem, only to figure out a solution the second you walk away. Or how great ideas come to you while you're in the shower or as you're about to fall asleep (or after waking up from a dream). I think our brains are like glow in the dark stars. They need to be exposed to light for a time. Later, in the dark, they begin to glow. A lot of time I find myself exposing my mind to the details a problem just to soak up the light. After I rest, there's a good chance a solution will have presented itself.

(image from Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vblibrary)

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Without getting yourself hurt, treat it that way.

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It's easy to feel overwhelmed. It's easy to imagine a thousand people in the world that possess our exact, unique skills, and are better at all of them than us. It's easy to go to YouTube and assume that every possible kitten video has been filmed and uploaded.

So how do we deal with the threat of feeling so insignificant and out-done?

I think if you do what you do with passion and intensity then no one can ever be exactly like you. As long as you are always seeking improvement, making such meaningless comparisons only serves to pull you away from your vision; the major player in what makes your art unique.

It seems foolish not to critically evaluate yourself through the inspiration of others, but I don't think you need to be anything like those people. And if your deeds happen to resemble theirs, as long as you came about them in your own independent way, who cares!? They'll always be room for similar products, song riffs, poems, and the like.

When I was just trying to create a foothold for myself in the world of software, I didn't want to share my insights with others for fear that we would emerge identically skilled. Eventually I realized that at a certain point in your craft, it becomes impossible to evaluate people objectively. At a particular level of expertise, you become a unique flavor that will be loved by some and loathed by others.

With a lot of people we interact with, it's sometimes hard to live this way, and I find myself occasionally overwhelmed and in need of a reminder. For me personally, I need to be alone for a time and critically think out my vision or philosophy in my head. After I've made a decision about how I feel or how I plan on approaching a problem, I just stick to my instincts, ignoring the noise and distractions that make me second guess myself. It's my art after all, and they'll love me or hate me for it either way.

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You may notice a few new things on the blog today:

• A navigation bar at the top will give you a chance to read some information about me.
• "Current Top 3 Sites" on the right sidebar will list my changing opinions on the best uses of the Internet
• "Current Inspiration" on the right sidebar will list a few changing links as to what is inspiring me at the moment

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