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Brendan Eich: people are not always as they seem
Obviously this is post is all very subjective and opinionated, but this is how I generally feel…
For a long time, I’ve held a high level of respect for people like Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux), for Richard Stallman (GNU) and generally the people who have done amazing things without having to pile patents or copyright on them and have worked with open source heavily, etc.
Along with advocating open source and not being evil, I generally feel they’re good with things like human equality and I like to feel that they think “open source” when it comes to equality.
Today, I heard about Brendan Eich, the man who invented Javascript - something I use on a daily basis and something which is forms key part of the work I do and the services I use.
A close friend of mine mentioned him. I said I didn’t recognise the name and he said the guy invented Javascript. Instantly I’m thinking “wow! how didn’t I know about him?” and thinking the world of the guy who has changed a LOT about how my life works. Problem is that this guy isn’t quite so lovely and nice and, specifically, he doesn’t really seem to be into equality. He’s strongly against same-sex marriage.
This surprises me. The guy works at (& is the Chief Technology officer of) Mozilla - an amazing company which works with a massive variety of people from all over the world. Their community is incredibly accepting and inviting of anyone who wishes to be a part of it. How can he fit into that?
Three years ago, California was debating Proposition 8. This was there to remove the right of gay or lesbian couples from getting married. Brendan Eich donated $1,000 in favour of passing Proposition 8. Brendan Eich is no longer one of the people I look at fondly as a “nice open sourcey guy”. (See: http://projects.latimes.com/prop8/donation/8930/)
So the friend who told me about this wrote a letter about it a while back. He couldn’t summon the courage to send it, but showed me today and gave me permission to publish it. I think it’s quite a powerful read and maybe might help some people see why equality is important from the personal feelings of someone it is important to.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I’m a human. I’m a boy. And I’m gay. I was born nearly 15 years ago in a civilized country and I’m a future webmaker. Since I was born, I always had the illusion that my future would be bright and that people would support me to become what I want to be. I’ve been growing up in a nice country and I have lots of friends who like me, not because I’m like everyone else but because I’m just myself. Diversity has always been a huge and important part in my life.
Seeing the discussions against same-sex marriages is painful. Every time I see them, I feel like someone is piercing a needle right through my heart. Years ago, I promised myself to always respect other people and treat them in a way in which I want to be treated too. But unfortunately, I’ve learned about what the world really is like and that my life will be quite hard.
Politicians already put obstacles in my way. I’m only 14 and I want to have a normal like just like everybody else. It was not my choice to be what I am right now, I just want to live in a world where I have the same rights as other people do. Although people say that marriage is only a minor thing, I strongly disagree and to be honest, it is a really personal thing that currently makes me feel misunderstood, disgusted and unwelcome.
Mozilla is a really huge community. Diversity plays a huge role. There are black people, white people, men, women, kids, Africans, Asians, Europeans, Muslims, Christians, straight and gay people. If you’re against one of these groups, you’re automatically against the whole community. Luckily, there’s no discrimination going on. All members are respecting each other, which is a very good thing. In a community, you have to respect everyone, even their opinions. But it’s important to have a border between opinions and discrimination, and in my opinion, this border has been crossed.
In a community, we need to be strong. We need to respect each other’s rights and we should never forget how far we’ve come by working in a team. Some comments highly disappointed me. In fact, sometimes, people don’t have a real reason to discriminate someone or something in general, because they don’t have their own opinions. It has happened very often in my life. At school, outside, yes, even some of my friends are discriminating to a point.
Having your own opinion is important. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons why Mozilla and many other organizations are so successful. We promote choice. We don’t do things like the others do, we do it in a way in which we think about other people, because doing something without keeping other people in your mind would be egoistic.
Mozilla is definitely one of the best communities ever. The members are very accepting, understanding and whenever I talk to them, I feel like I’m wrapped in a warm blanket made of welcomeness, joy and pride.
When I’m older, I want to look back and be satisfied about my life, my achievements. I’ve set myself some personal goals that I want to reach by the end of my life:
I’m determined to move to another country when I’m older, to find a partner and to travel around the world, and I’m determined to marry somebody I love. Yes. There are definitely politicians who can take away my rights to marry someone.
But they can not take away my pride.
Faithfully Yours,
Someone who wants to be like you
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Erm... I actually just said this to Dylan... a bit weird.
James: Happy that I somehow seem to fit into your highly strongly typed interfaces
James: <geek />
James: Though I suppose I haven't exposed all of my methods yet.
James: We shall have to see how compatible I am with further reflection.
James: Whether I forget to implement a few bits of the interface.
James: <geek level="9000" />
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The curse of (such immodest) intelligence
Have just been chatting to my oh, ever so lovely bf (he said he was going to read it on the way to college tomorrow, so I should be extra nice to him!) and I realised that I’m feeling a bit shitty tonight. Few reasons for it (partly him, but whatever… hehe), but one overriding one.
I don’t know how many of (the very, very, VERY few of, I would expect) you can relate to this or know the feeling, and I sincerely apologise for my immodesty here, but as someone who is generally pretty intelligent (SORRY. I actually hate writing it (like being a self-proclaimed entrepreneur), but no other way to do so!), I constantly get the feeling of dissatisfaction with my abilities, success and achievements. It’s so fucking awful.
Today, this feeling was brought on as a result of chancing upon my other half’s website from when he was younger. (I don’t think I’ll link it here, but let me know if you want to see it.) He was about nine when he made this website. And it’s a good website, because it has content and really, really decent content at that. The design isn’t quite (at all) there and it’s all cobbled together with a bunch of Bravenet plugins, etc. but it WORKS and puts my efforts of that age to shame. (Though I did have a 100% homemade forms auth login thing.)
Small update: he’s fine with me linking it, so here it is: http://www.unmod.co.uk/
Anyway. Being the type of person I am, I am constantly dissatisfied with myself and what I do and constantly feel that I’m not doing enough and that I need to work just that little bit harder. I’ve also never, ever had any kind of publicity from any of the work I’ve done, which is really, really disappointing because I work so hard on so much stuff and I just do more and more and I fear (my Mum keeps telling me this, but I haven’t really been listening to her) that I’m going to run myself into the ground trying to do all this stuff (atm, I’ve got about 25 project that I want to do, simultaneously working on about 7) and I know I shouldn’t do this and I should just wait and one day I’ll really get my “break”, but it’s frustrating and upsetting, solely for the reason that I’m never satisfied with myself. Maybe even when I do get my “break”, I probably STILL won’t be happy. I don’t know what to do about it. :(
If you’ve got any suggestions to stop me being so pathetic or how to be happy with myself or whatever, please (srsly, please) email me, Tweet me or leave a comment below or send something to my “ask” or “submit” page or whatever.
Don’t really want to write any more about this. Can’t really remember even what I’ve said so far, but I’ve probably got across my general feelings, which I guess is the point of this anyway.
P.S.: Also, does anyone know of any way that I can add inline “notes” to my posts to replace the constant brackets I put into my posts which can then be hovered over or whatever? (Comment below this post when reading on my blog itself if you have any ideas.)
P.P.S.: Btw, I just sent the people who are doing the gov.uk website an email saying that I’m desperate to work for/with them on it and I’m hoping something happens with it. Wish me luck!
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Feeling shit. (& being in the mood.)
So at the moment, I feel pretty “shit”. I was feeling pretty good this morning. Had a sleepover with my best friend and had fun. But for whatever reason, I now feel a bit rubbish and it sucks and stuff.
Don’t know why really. Maybe to do with having this boy I rather like (luckily likes me back!) and not being able to see him for a while. Maybe I’m coming down with something; my Mum and step-Mum have both had long (several weeks) bad colds, so maybe I’m getting that. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been out at all today and so feeling kinda isolated. Maybe I’m tired from sleepover, but didn’t go to bed late (12:30) and only got up at about 9am (usually quite early anyway), so this shouldn’t really be why.
I was just texting that boy I rather like. He’s nice. (smileface.jpg) And I gave him an excerpt of kinda how I feel.
A year and a bit ago (year 10), I studied a poem called Havisham and we had to write an essay about it and stuff and it was kinda rubbish at the time, probably because it wasn’t my choice and I was forced to write an essay about it. I’m the sort of person that has to be “in the mood”, or I’ll be incredibly unproductive and whatever I make will just be a bit crap.
In any case, at the moment (though I’m being less mopey because I’m now writing this blog post), I’ve got all my clothes on with a big thick wooly jumper and I’m just splayed out in my bed, clutching at my pillows and hugging them. My glasses are strewn to the side and I’m just lying there breathing heavily, eyes closed, feeling sorry for myself. I don’t understand why I’m feeling a bit depressed (is that feeling depressed? not sure…), but it’s upsetting and frustrating. (sadface.jpg)
Anyway, the relevance of that is that I was texting cute boy and I texted him this excerpt. It’s probably a bit overdramatic and silly, but I wanted to send him that to show how I felt and I don’t know why. But, whatever, here it is:
Some nights better, the lost body over me, my fluent tongue in its mouth in its ear then down till suddenly bite awake. Love's hate behind a white veil; a red balloon bursting in my face. Bang.
I know there is a pile of innuendo in that. I’m not sure I was feeling that, but whatever.
I kind of want to go for a walk, too. Because I really, REALLY want to get into a habit of going for a walk once a day. Apparently (I know it’s silly to go off the views of ONE scientist or whatever, but it makes sense and it’s more of a lifestyle thing anyway), doing half an hour of walking every day is the single best thing you can possibly do for your health. For me, also, since I think about so much and the fact that I think and learn by talking (blog post to be written about this), it’s a great thing (I think…?) to do psychologically (as is writing a blog… I think?).
I’ve been trying to make an effort to write on this blog more and currently I have (six? -looks at Wunderlist (amazing app)- Nope, five) five blog posts (not including this one) which I want to write about. They’re probably kinda no longer relevant, but people are apparently interested in my thoughts on things (no, they’re not, they’re just being polite).
Anyway. So I was lying in my bed feeling all shit and sorry for myself and stuff. And then comes along that thought. The one I should have thought of ages ago. Is me sprawling in my bed feeling all shit “useful”, or is it “not useful”? Well, I think we ALL know the clear answer to that. (This is another blog post I want to write. Maybe later?)
Um. I think there is more I need to write in this and I haven’t read it over and it’s probably a bit messy and difficult to understand, so I’m sorry if it’s a bit shit. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t care that much because I’m feeling, hence the title, a bit shit.
