Eternal Life Online?

Twenty cups of coffee, countless hours and a few red-eye nights have birthed my Web site into the great, wide online world. Check it out, if you have a minute or two. (Please feel free to shoot me any feedback. A colleague at KOMU last night pointed out I was missing a word in my resume!)

Birth is an easy go-to metaphor for anything creative or requiring hard work. "This [car, story, painting, Web site, etc.] is my baby," implying that person has been laboring over her or his project for some amount of time.

That's interesting when you contrast the birth of Cyber You, in the form of a profile or Web site, with a panel topic from the 2010 SXSW conference called Post Mortem: Digital Death and Legacy. I was listening to the local NPR station when I heard a report about it. Read the description and try telling me this isn't intriguing:

If you passed away today, how would your online friends find out? Should logins and passwords be in your will? Has technology changed mourning? Will your digital media stay online forever? Our lives are lived and documented online, it’s time to talk about the implications of death and digital legacy.

What a thought, huh? I've wondered that about Facebook profiles of victims we report on in the news.

Let's pretend nobody knew your Facebook password, you didn't have it written down somewhere and it was entirely distinct from all your other passwords. Let's also pretend - for the purposes of this conversation - you somehow die. (It can be quick & painless)...

- Is it irreverent and discourteous to keep your profile up?

- What is Facebook's role in this? Who would authorize it to deactivate your profile?

- What would it take, legally, for a family member to obtain that private information from Facebook? How much might that cost (on top of funeral/burial costs)?

- Would friends at first use your profile as a mourning site to post memories? (See this Newsweek article, "R.I.P. on Facebook") What would it later become, years after your death?

It's like Cyber You lives on while Physical You is gone.

This prompts two thoughts:

1) It's probably a good idea to keep a record of your passwords somewhere -- even if it's in a safe vault at your bank.

2) Perhaps this is the new way of wills. Alongside to whom you will your car might be the name of the person entrusted with carrying out your Digital Wishes, whether deactivation, deletion or - who knows - Digital Immortality*.

Here's a Web site that has gone so far as to discuss Stages of the Digital Afterlife. It mentions what I talked about earlier: death... remembered... forgotten.


(Here's a great, short little explainer video)

Regarding the Forgotten stage, the site says this:

"As far as I’m aware, there are no services addressing this stage. This is where the real potential exists in this industry. Imagine being able to examine the online content of your ancestors and know who they were and what they thought. I’m not sure how this will work, but we’re here to talk about it."

Sound like it's a conversation pushing itself to the forefront of the cultural conversation.

* For kicks, I Googled "Digital Immortality" and stumbled across this creepy Web site. Despite its "old-school" appearance, it does address questions about the ethics of Digital Immortality (copyright, for example).

Six Hours Hooked Up to an IV Drip

If being a fledgling reporter is like having the common cold, then I spent a chunk of my morning and afternoon soaking up that which will help me get better.

You've heard it said since you were young: the best treatment for the common cold is a combination of rest, fluids and waiting.

Somewhere in the mix, you heard something about vitamin C and how taking it might prevent - or even cure - your ailment.

However, studies show no real link between the nutrient and even shortening the duration of the common cold, let alone curing it. Read more about that in this Newsweek article.

According to that article, though, doctors don't mind that many people take vitamin C in hopes of improving their health, since "consumption of vitamin C is not considered a public threat. (In fact, some studies have associated vitamin C's antioxidant properties with a decreased incident of some cancers.)"

Plus, when the only real cure is to wait it out, don't you like to think you're doing something to help the process along? Taking vitamin C makes the waiting, resting and hydration a little easier.

So if being a fledgling reporter is like having the common cold and the real cure for that is time - or experience - then taking Vitamin C is like motivation.

Motivation alone won't better your reporting skills - just like vitamin C won't cure your cold - but it will help you through the process of improvement and learning.

Today I was hooked up to an IV drip of pure motivation in the form of Boyd Huppert. He's a reporter for Minnesota's KARE 11 TV and highly decorated, at that. Widely considered one of the nation's finest storytellers in television news, ~80 University of Missouri School of Journalism students sat, entranced, as he imparted his wisdom to us during a seminar. (Get a sample of his writing and delivery tips from these YouTube videos.)

One big lesson I took away was to let viewers discover the layers of a story. You can literally spell out for people what they're seeing on the TV screen or you can let them take in information by hearing and seeing it for themselves. Then your writing is free to be a little more nuanced.

He talked about his twelve tools of good writing techniques, which, used sparingly, can help bring a story to life. Those include using metaphors, alliteration, supposition (supposing that xxx, then yyy... see the opening line of my blog!) and the rule of three.

Motivated by his seminar, I am taking actions to improve my journalistic skills, starting with updating my blog and ending with who-knows-what.

What I do know is that I'll be putting his tips to use in my reporting from now on.

See more of Boyd's work in his series, Land of 10,000 Stories.

This is my brain, on acid.

Acid does funny things to the mind.

Whenever I'm on a bike ride - no matter how intense or leisurely - the final stretch becomes agonizing. Some of it is fatigue after two hours on the trail, but most of it is my conditioned r

esponse to acid.

Lactic acid, I mean.

My tired quads start burning, and I start wondering silly things like whether I'll even be able to make it home.

It's not like the last mile is more challenging than the rest of my ride. I think just knowing the adventure is almost over

causes me to drag my feet - or wheels. The exhilaration of the ride is coming to a close, and instead of finishing well, I dread ending it.

The same thing's going on with my mind as I round my last collegiate lap. Graduation is in May. Job hunting is even sooner. I see the end of this particular life journey, and instead of pushing triumphantly to the end, I dread the conclusion of this ride.

Lactic acid panic of the brain.

If only I could figure out some way to change my response to lactic acid from dread to a burst of enthusiasm, I'd feel much better about the entire ride.

Who wants to end on a sorry whimper when you can sprint to the finish?

While I work on this problem, I'll continue to use my performance-enhancing drug of choice: black, home-brewed Caribou Blend coffee.

By the way, the title of the post is a nod to this classic 90's anti-drug commercial, starring Minnesotan native Rachael Leigh Cook: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kci12O2EI8I