Broadcasting Brain

Catch the Brainwaves is our ongoing series of interviews with a variety of folks participating in blogging and social media. I ask them ten questions and they respond with their brilliant answers and insights! Today’s Q&A features blogger Jon Dyer!

1. You describe your blog as “softcore hobography”. (Here it comes, wait for it…) What the heck does that mean?

Well, I worked in network security for a giant multinational for a long time and even though I was at the top of my game, I quit and because I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was wasting my time. In the 36+ weeks since, I’ve been living off of savings and drifting around the net, so it’s been a running joke that I’ve become a digital hobo. Because I get all my meals from a grocery stores and restaurants, I can’t claim that I’m a hardcore, dumpster-diving hobo. I’m more of a softcore hobo who documents everything he does in weekly posts called “The Life of Riley”. That’s where the “softcore” and “hobo” come from, and the “-graphy” just means “writing about”, so we put it all together we get “softcore hobography”. I’m just writing about the life of a digital hobo. Like anything on my site, it’s nothing to take too seriously.

2. Mr. T keeps showing up in your blog. What’s up with that?

Like a lot of 30-somethings, I grew up with the A-Team, so Mr. T is a pop culture icon to me. Over the years I’ve noticed that unusual people have an affinity for Mr. T that more straitlaced people don’t. If I post about Mr. T and someone points and says “Awesome! I pity the foo!”, there’s a high probability that they’re a strange, pop-culture savvy person who’s on my wavelength. Birds of a feather do flock together, even if they’re weird birds. I suppose you could say that Mr. T is like my weirdo magnet. (Please don’t tell him. I can’t imagine he’d be happy.)

3. Is security is boring as one might think? Or do breaches provide the adrenalin to keep going?

Network security is only boring if you’re good at it. If you’re not good at it, it’s a life of bleary eyes, frustration, and explaining yourself to people who don’t really care that they don’t understand what you’re talking about. The job gives you a lot of power, but it usually ends up making you treat people like idiots who need to be locked down on every aspect of their computing life. After a while, you figure out that you’re fighting a losing battle defending people who only care about neck ties. Are you still awake? Hello? Maybe I should’ve told the stories about all the cybercrime and porno that people think they get away with. Damn.

4. Are movies getting better, worse, or staying about the same, year after year?

While I think that underlying movie technology can now make the fantastic seem more plausible, I think great movies are made by directors and writers rather than technology. There are movies that I love from every era, but even when I went through the last 30 years, I couldn’t say that any decade came out ahead of another. The 80’s had Blade Runner, Mystery Train, The Running Man, Full Metal Jacket, and Die Hard, not to mention two Star Wars Movies and (I think) four Star Trek movies. The 90’s had Breakdown, Fight Club, Go, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, The Matrix, Life Is Beautiful, Office Space, and The Sixth Sense. And this decade had Superbad, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Sin City, Batman Begins, Amelie, Donnie Darko, Elf, Talladega Nights, The 40 Year Old Virgin, and Bad Boys II. There are so many good choices in each decade, that I think it’s impossible to claim that movies are getting better or worse, and it’s even harder to say that they’re staying the same. I knew I wasn’t going to end up with an answer to this, but at least the movie list covered the stench of my indecisiveness. Seriously, if you haven’t seen all the movies on this list, I highly recommend them.

5. Do comments provide the fuel for blogging?

I was a radio DJ back in college, and I learned early on that expecting or begging for callers will suck the life out of a show and make it sound more than a little pathetic. You learn to just do your thing and hope that people like it. If you stick with it long enough, you figure out that for every person who calls in to tear you down, there are ten who are nodding along in silence. Even if there are only two, one, or none, you still DJ because it’s what you do. To me, blogging is just a verbal version of the DJ booth. I write because I love to write. I’m glad that people stop by, but even if people don’t respond, I’ll still be here doing my thing because it’s what I do.

6. Do you think all content (written, audio, video, etc.) available over the Web should be free?

I am a huge fan of free. Huge. You know that feeling when you find a dollar on the sidewalk and you feel like it’s your lucky day? A lot of times, I drop coins in places where I know kids will find them, or drop dollars in places where adults will. It’s worth the small amount of money to know that some anonymous person will get that feeling and it might change their day. Even though I like this little gift giving process, I would feel differently if someone tried to force me to leave a dollar for someone. That compulsion kills off good feelings and turns a gift into a tax. The same applies to the web. I think it’s better to give things away, but I think that if people want to charge for something they created and the market will pay the price, then hey, all the power to them.

7. Do you have any tips for shaving a man’s face? I suck at using a safety razor.

Personally, I only shave for the summer months, and because I don’t have a boss, the beach doesn’t require that I shave more than every two to three days during that time. If you want to know how to trim a beard, I think I’ve had nearly every conceivable beard type. It took years, but pictures of all my beard types are online.

8. Do you prefer serious questions or slightly snarky? (sorry, for some reason I feel like I’m being snarky in writing these questions, maybe it’s a vibe I’m picking up somewhere)

Look, I’m all business and make only serious decisions about very serious matters that require serious attention. I don’t have time for humor and jokes or snarky questions. I have to train that neighborhood kid to paint the fence and wax the floor so that when those Kobra Kai guys try to sweep his leg they get a mouthful of Crane style. You know what I’m sayin’? Booyah. All business…

Oh, hold on, that’s not me at all. That’s Mr. Miagi. I always seem to get our lives confused. Miagi is all business. I’m a digital hobo who will joke for food. Life is too short to take things too seriously. Snarky or not, I’m happy just to be asked at all.

9. Pretend the Internet is destroyed overnight. What do you do the next morning?

Stock up on water, canned goods, and porno. The porn will be worth more than gold due to the sudden loss of its best distribution channel, and the water and canned goods are so that I can hunker down at home. I’m not saying that the downfall of the internet will signal the fall of society. I just know that if someone takes down the internet, there is
going to be widespread panic among people who wear capes and have Elvish names. If there are LARPers in my yard, I’d just assume stay in until the internet is back up.

10. What one piece of knowledge, advice, or wisdom do you have to share with our readers?

You always have a choice. Everything you do, it’s because you choose to do it. If you choose to do something, put your heart into it without complaint. If you can’t put your heart into it, don’t do it. Anything less is lying to yourself and wasting everyone’s time.

Thanks to Jon for sharing his brainwaves with us!

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