Putting things out here

For me one of the best things about the web has been in getting information in areas previously either closed or where it was hard to get. Or hard to be sure of what you got. But for instance I like documentaries and thanks to being able to view several on the same subject had the ability to compare. The web makes that routine, as before that would require special access of some kind.

One of the things that I often see on documentaries are people who don't fit what was seen as a traditional mold when I was growing up talking about being frustrated at not seeing people like themselves while growing up! And I'm the same way! So it seemed like a good idea to note how I see myself as being way outside traditional molds.

May as well,

So grew up in a small rural area next to a small Georgia, USA, town called Tifton. Where I mention USA to keep from possibly confusing people with the country. Web is international. As a Black person in that area was very much aware of race. And family was not well-off but were lower middle class, at least until parents had a nasty divorce. Which means were not poor. Had shelter, food without public assistance, clothes though my Mom just PICKED them for us, no debate.

So yeah, grew up much of my childhood as a rural Black person in a lower middle class family in the Deep South. There was a lot of farming activity around me. And lots of farms. Grew up next to a farm. Sometimes farm animals would run through the yard, dropping turds. That was actually cows should say. And those were really big turds. That was really rare though. Farmer had great control of his livestock.

Went to school and did better than others. And that's where I got to stand out.

Was good at math, loved it. Loved to read, and thought one day I'd be a science fiction writer, which is one of the reasons I took physics in college. Other was it was the hardest degree field I could choose which still gave me flexibility.

I know the value of your interests. So much is just about curiosity in a world where more and more people can chase knowledge with a passion, and see where that pursuit leads.

Oh yeah, started programming computers when was 12, as despite us not even being solidly middle-class was lucky that my father bought one of the early personal computers which I mostly used, which was a TI-94a. So I just did BASIC. But also took a community college course on BASIC at ABAC which was local, because my mother thought I was a prodigy. She was wrong. But course was easy enough. Did get an A, but was so bored as it was focused toward business.

So been coding since was 12 off and on so to me it is a natural activity where for some reason I rarely do it professionally though did for a while around 2000 when the tech bubble burst so was right there in a major corporation watching the carnage.

So am I think rather nerdy, though it can be hard to define. But for the most part am a creative who is a writer, with a political, math and science focus, who can code.

And I'm global if we can trust Google, where by various measures for various things have had interest in something or other of mine according to their metrics available to me from over 100 countries for a while. I finally noticed back in 2006 or 2007.

Still puzzle over it, but well if Google says. And am kind of like, oh, well, whatever. Just roll with it. Haven't figured out how best to make money from it though, in case you're wondering. Know I do.

And finally in 2010 decided I had a responsibility to put a face up, so that people could see someone unlike who they might usually see from usual sources. Here I get to put up what I want. No desire to discriminate against myself. So convenient!

It is odd to consider that a simple choice for me, put my face potentially in front of people in over 100 countries, which was a choice unlikely to have ever been made by others. Some of them silly people who thought they knew which humans could possibly do what. Such silly people. They dominated so many things for decades. Now they don't.

Web gives you that potential.

Today with a lot of help from the web I think as gives such easy access to the information, of course we're learning all it takes is to be human. Then you can do those things that humans do.


James Harris