They say there are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary code and those who don’t.
For the latter half, it’s basically the bare-bones of any code that goes through a computer processor, where billions of zeroes and ones come together to create text, images, video and basically anything electronically seen or heard. When I was asked to write a tech column for the Optimist, I could think of no better name.
Now, one and half years later, I’m sitting down to write what will become the final edition of “Ones and Zeros” as I am set to graduate next month. All I can think about right now is all the things I still want to write about, such as why region locking on Blu-Ray and DVD players is wrong and why Microsoft’s version of Kinect will amount to nothing more than a $200 webcam.
But it’s time to move on, and it’s been a great run. It’s been awesome to hear feedback from all of you, whether in person or from a Facebook message that somehow found it’s way to the right Blane Singletary. I hope I can count on support from readers like you as I move into bigger projects in the real world.
For example, I’ll be flexing my DJ muscles with a new Electronica/Dance music-centric radio show currently set to air on a bilingual station based in Argentina. Plans to take it stateside (perhaps even locally) are in the works.
Also, I’m producing and writing a new web series about commercial advertising, where we’ll pick apart various commercial campaigns and ask the question, “Is it really doing any good?” Chances are if you enjoyed my recent columns about MySpace and Facebook’s recent ads (that one about chairs, remember?) you’ll love this as well.
That’s just two of the many endeavors I’m beginning, or continuing. To be honest, I have no idea if they will be profitable or successful in any way. But to me, that’s the fun of it.
Some might come up as ones and others might come up zeroes. But no good processor code is made of only ones. The zeroes are integral as well. A project that fails isn’t a failure; it’s important experience that we learn from, and move on to the next bit.
This binary analogy applies to not only our professional lives, but also our personal lives. Someone you have a relationship with might eventually come up as a zero. (Even if he or she initially scores a solid 10.) But you learn from this zero, and move on to the next bit, which might just be the one you’ve been looking for.
To all my fellow graduates, faculty and classmates of whom I’ve had the privilege of knowing, I leave you with a quote from the song “Old and Wise,” from the end of the Alan Parsons Project’s Eye in the Sky album. One of the last lines goes, “Someday, in the mist of time, when they ask you if you knew me, remember that you were a friend of mine.”
Many thanks to you all for this great run.
End of line.
