Why 'paradox'? Well, I thought it was appropriate. Almost everybody is a mass of contradictions, for one, myself no more or less than anybody else. I'm not sure exactly when I realised this, and that I wasn't quite as wierd as I thought I was. I'm willing to bet the process started when I went to university, when I went from being (in my high-school councillor's words) the "only 100% scientific personality in a graduating class of 500" to being surrounded by hundreds of other geeks, a lot of them just like me in more ways than I had thought possible. We are all paradoxes, we all have contradictory masks we wear for different groups of people. I am a different person with my parents, my classmates, and my boyfriend, and a different one again in front of strangers.
But this website isn't about how we're all paradoxes, I just liked the name. What this website does contain is mostly things I've written or worked on at various points in the past. Essays, projects, short stories, tutorials... it's all here somewhere. Oh, and the title picture? I liked the paradox of the black sun.
Some of my projects
I have a variety of projects going at any one time, although I don't work very fast on most of them at any one time. The only order that really makes sense is how actively I've been working on it lately. Although I may or may not be working on them in this order at this time.
- Write On! (or here if you use OpenNIC)
- This is a website for discussing writing that I started a while ago. It is as discussion oriented as a website can get, and kind of looks like a magazine. Articles are written by anybody that wants to try his hand at it. The discussion topics can be anything related to writing at all - read a few articles to see what I mean.
- HTML Tutorial
- This is a tutorial that started its life as a "quick & dirty", then based on the responses I got I decided to expand it significantly. Most of the original tutorial can now be found in the beginners section, and some of it in the intermediate section. There is also an advanced section, partially completed. All three sections together will (once the advanced section is complete) cover all parts of the HTML 4.01 specification - and all pages are compliant.
- OpenNIC Search engine
- The OpenNIC is a democratically operated alternative DNS root system. For those not familiar enough with computerese, it means that if you use OpenNIC, you can get a selection of alternative domains in addition to the "normal" .com, .net, .org, etc. The TLDs (Top Level Domains) operated by OpenNIC are strictly chartered, so you are not allowed to run a website on an OpenNIC TLD if it does not follow the charter. That said, the charters are fairly loose; .null, for example, is for personal websites only. (This site is also available at www.paradox.null.) So a .null website could not be operated as a company, though a specific exception was made for a personal page that also sells a few items "out of the owner's garage."
Right. Anyhow, I started a search engine that crawls all of the OpenNIC domains and allows you to search them. Kind of like google, but not as big or as powerful. You can use the search engine if you're not an OpenNIC member, but you won't be able to follow any of the links. If you're interested in becoming a member, there is joining information and setup instructions to be able to get to OpenNIC domains. Don't worry, they don't require you to install any programs, only to tell your computer that it should talk to OpenNIC first when looking for a domain name.
Essays and other writing
These bits of writing tend to be written all at once, or at least over a short period of time, as opposed to the written stuff I list in projects, which are ongoing. The stuff listed here is mostly informal essays or short fiction.
There are enough of them now that I've separated them out onto other pages, and I'll just list the type of writing it is, and the most recent few.
Most recent
- My NaNoWriMo 2003 submission
- A 50,000 word novel written entirely in the month of November. This is first draft writing; the goal is to write a 50,000 word first draft, not a polished, submission-ready novel.
- Chapter 1 of my novel
- Chapter one of my novel. It's a Science Fiction story, and I've been working on it for quite some time now. Enjoy.
- Privacy on the web
- A rundown of what kind of privacy you can expect to get on the web, ways you can protect yourself, and things you really shouldn't bother worrying about.
Topics
- Fiction
- A mixture of short stories and exercises, sometimes first drafts sometimes polished.
- Rants
- Things that bug me, how I wish things would work, and generally just me venting. You could also call them opinion pieces, because they don't tend to be as flame-y as some people expect from a rant.
- How it works
- Explanatory articles on whatever topic I feel like writing about. This series was kicked off by a message board post correcting a few misconceptions about computer viruses; that post grew and grew and grew that day while I was writing it, until it was several pages long and explained the history of viruses, what they could and couldn't do, and some practical advice for protecting yourself from them. Suggestions for future topics welcome; if I know enough about the subject, I might write it up.
About me
I suppose I should tell you a bit about myself, since this is a personal page and all that. Well, I've got a separate page with a bunch of that stuff, but here's the short version.
I've just graduated from university as a chemical engineer, I'm an amateur computer geek, and I write. People I know in any one of the three fields have a tendency to boggle when they hear about the other two. I don't know why, because everybody does a few things that are totally different from one another; those are just the three I ended up with.
If you'd like to leave me a note, you can drop by my guestbook.
I also have a page full of links to stuff I'm interested in if you care to take a peek...
