Sanity's Journal: News about me. Stuff that matters.

It is getting a little bit silly how frequently I and/or one of my projects is appearing on /. these days. I am not complaining, it is great when stuff you are doing attracts attention. Nor do I take it for granted, I am amazed that people are still willing to hear about my crazy ideas. Having said that, the latest story is something I never wanted or intended to enter the public arena.

There are those that have accused me of being a self-publicist (you know who you are), but I think this latest episode demonstrates that not everyone that gets some publicity for something did it through shameless self-promotion.

I was following a debate on Slashdot about an Intel engineer who had admitted (under considerable duress) that he was a terrorist. Many people took this to imply that he was actually guilty. In an attempt to wake people up to the seriousness of what was going on I posted a comment under my slashdot nickname (but making no further attempt to identify myself) explaining that I was leaving the US, and how concerned I was about the direction this country was going. Admittedly, I used somewhat hyperbolic language, and gave fans of Godwin's Law the opportunity to indulge in the meta-arguments that they enjoy so much, but it was just a throwaway comment on /. after all...

...or so I thought. It didn't take long for someone to post this to InfoAnarchy, and with that my throwaway comment had graduated to an "announcement". It didn't take long to go from there to a story on BoingBoing.net by Cory Doctorow where by now my throwaway comment was a "goodbye letter".

As a result of this I got one phonecall from the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and an article in the Irish Times, followed by a request from GrepLaw to do an interview. As always, I accepted these requests to discuss what I had said - I learned long ago that whether you talk to them or not, journalists will write a story - and it is far better that you have the opportunity to inject your perspective than to leave it up to them and their editors.

Bottom line - it might make people feel better to imagine that the amount of coverage someone gets is directly proportional to the size of their inflated egos, but it isn't always true. Of course, sometimes it is ;-)

Fuhgeddaboutit

[GeorgeH]

I've quickly found out how quickly people will assume that anyone who gets their name on anything is trying to self-aggrandize. Don't let the Intarweb get to you, it's not like they made something that helps human rights. Most OSS projects are wheel-reinventions, Freenet is the Real Thing (tm) by actually furthering human rights.

Don't worry

[Sanity]

It doesn't keep me awake at night.

Where?

[ryanr]

I didn't read every article involved, so apologies if I've missed it. Where are you headed?

Re:Where?

[Sanity]

Edinburgh, Scotland.