the klog

Back when I made my old MIT homepage in 1996, I put my whole personal history on there, my contact info, all sorts of things. That just seemed like the thing to do. When I graduated and started this new site, I realized I was a bit uncomfortable with letting everyone read all about my life. Also, no one who knew me would ever go to the web to look up my contact info, so I stopped publishing that, too.

I don't think it's so much that I've changed, but more that the web has changed. Back in 1996, it was something only computer geeks and college kids used. Now almost everyone has an email address, and there have been articles written about people using Google to check up on their dates. Privacy is worth more than a passing thought now.

Personal thoughts

Ironically, as I decided to stop revealing my life history on the web, I also started to write this blog. It's been interesting figuring out what I do and do not feel comfortable talking about here. I've found that I've mostly talked about abstract topics and thoughts, and I've mentioned little about events in my personal life. I think that's a good compromise.

There are still privacy issues relating to revealing my thoughts about things. Theoretically, a potential employer might not like certain political views or something. But I'm a big fan of open communication. I stand behind my opinions. I hope I'm giving people a new perspective on life. There's certainly more than a little hubris involved, too. I'm assuming that people are interested enough in what I think to read it, and if they do, well, that's a good feeling! Maybe I'll even influence you them! That's worth giving up a little privacy about my thoughts.

Other people's lives

In my old static homepage, I didn't mention other people much. Here in my blog, though, I may sometimes refer to what other people are doing, and I have respect their privacy as well. That can be a bit tougher. There have even been a few cases where I've asked someone whether they'd mind my talking about something, and we came to the conclusion that I wouldn't mention it, or that I'd talk about it in a more indirect way.

This brings me to my pictures. For a while now, my main nod to privacy was in mentioning names: I only mentioned first names (to foil Google searches), and I avoided mentioning who people were (who was my friend, who was my coworker, who was dating whome, etc).

Public access to my photos

Since I got my digital camera, I've started to put a lot more pictures on the web. It's gotten to the point now where people can see quite a bit about the concrete aspects of my life from my photos, and I'm no longer comfortable with that. So I've closed them off to the public. If you know me, just ask me for the password. I'll be pretty liberal about giving it out to people I know. I just don't want them to be open to anyone with an Internet connection.

This decision was made easier by the creation of my photoblog. It started as a list of photos I wanted to show to the public at large. I noticed that it had mostly impersonal photos, and so I realized I wouldn't lose much by closing my normal photos to the public. Over the next few months, I'll probably occasionally post some of the more interesting photos from my archives on my photoblog as well.

What do you all think?

I know a lot of people who think blogging is weird, who think it's weird to reveal so much of your life to the world. As you can see, I certainly don't just write totally freely here. Please place your thoughts below. If you blog, what are your criteria for what you do or do not mention on your blog? And if you don't blog, is it for privacy reasons?