10 years ago I started this site to (1) learn something, and (2) secure a reliable email address. I’d already been burned by mergers, buyouts and bankruptcies, and knew better than to trust that Free™ webmail would always be there for me. The hosting package came with a webpage directory, so I used it continue learning HTML. I didn’t have any content to speak of, so I uploaded emails I’d written. It was simultaneously public and private: my writing was there for anyone who knew to look for it, kinda like unencrypted email.

The web was still kinda like BBS’; anyone could find it but you had to know what you were looking for. Then came Google, and blogging tools, and ‘link monetarization’. The flood gates opened and the web came alive with millions of blogs and search engines and syndicators, competing for links and traffic and eyeballs and advertising revenue and… with them: a plague of spiders, Black Hat SEOs, webspammers, stalkers and all manner of vermin.

For a long time I ignored the traffic, the comment spam, the theft of content and bandwidth. Recently I reached a tipping point with the bots: most of my bandwidth was going to the machines. I needed to either squash the spiders or upgrade my host. A buddy likes to say that when faced with an “either/or” situation, I always came up with a third option.

So I’ve decided to diverge from the dominant paradigm, and close off content from the outside world. I’m taking the OpenDNA Project back to it’s roots: It’s going back to being a semi-private, intimate little vanity site. Some sanitized items will be left out in the wild to be found by search engines, just so I can be found, but the real meat is now accessible only to people who want to tell me who they are. Please click here to login.

If you are looking for a favorite rant, it’s inside (augmented by stuff recovered from 3.5” floppies). If you’re looking to find out what I’m about, the resume is inside with hyperlinks and a touch of multimedia. If I’m going to take a run at making a website turn a profit, I’ll do it with LongBeachPolitics.org. (Nope. -ed)

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