Kevin Zak

I would like to think of myself as a fairly intellectual person. While I admittedly lack common sense at times (specifically when rewiring something is involved), I am often teased by friends about being book smart. That is, I remember a lot of random and seemingly useless pieces of information, and occasionally bring them up in conversation.

That said, I find myself having to look up words and subjects quite often when having a conversation with someone who is consistently smarter than I am. Occasionally I will just ask about the meaning behind a word or phrase, but more often than not I use Google or Wikipedia to remedy my ignorance. Sometimes I will throw into the banter that I just looked up whatever it may be, but more commonly I will just continue with the conversation and enjoy my newly-gained knowledge.

However, I seem to be in the minority. More and more, I notice people choose to elaborate on whatever it is they just looked up, as if they’ve known about it their entire lives. They smugly proclaim, “Zeitgeist? Why, you mean the German expression which means ‘the spirit of the age’? It obviously describes the intellectual and cultural climate of an era!” Now, this guy is either a German expressionist/aficionado, or he is full of shit.

Depending on your personality, you may react to this in different ways. If you are someone who is not quick to judge others, you may think, “Wow, this is an educated guy.” If you are a German linguist, you may think, “Hmm, this guy has a fairly capable grasp of my language.”

If you are a teenager living in the middle of Nebraska writing a blog post about people who look things up on Wikipedia and pretend that this information has been implanted in their brain for a long period of time, however, you may think, “Alright you smug bastard. Looking something up before replying to my IM and pretending you’re an expert on the subject does not make you an intellectual, nor does it impress me. It makes me think you’re an arrogant ass who is too egotistical to admit that there is a piece of information under the sun that you don’t know.” But again, your reaction may differ.

I like to refer to this kind of knowledge as Wikismarts. Wikismarts are tidbits of information you learn because you had to look it up before you could reply to someone’s message. While there is nothing wrong with Wikismarts in theory, they can easily be abused. As outlined above, don’t pretend to be the most knowledgeable person in the world about the subject, just because you have the Wikipedia page opened. It is painfully obvious to the person you are talking to and makes you look like a pompous ass.

It seems as though I have been neglecting this place a little too much. Two weeks without a blog entry is unacceptable, especially when you consider that I set a goal of two posts per week. That said, I have been busy with work and school, so I haven’t just been playing my FPS game of choice (America’s Army). I will attempt to make up for my absence by detailing the events that caused it.

Read the rest of this entry »

No, I’m not switching keyboard formats. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of research concerning typography and its uses when applied to the web. It is an interesting look at how type should be displayed and formatted in terms of web design. Unlike most web-oriented learning adventures I partake in (I am notorious for learning the basics of a coding language and then getting bored with), I am actually intrigued by typography and find myself wishing to learn more of the concepts behind it.
Read the rest of this entry »

I usually use Google Reader to manage all my RSS feeds, and check it through my iGoogle page or Reader itself. Lately, though, I’ve been getting lazy and started adding feeds to my bookmarks toolbar. Just today I noticed that they have literally taken over this very toolbar. I thought it would be interesting to show you all which feeds I read each day.

(Click to see full image)

This excludes the ten or fifteen tech deal sites that I read, as I have a separate folder in my Bookmarks menu for those.

Which feeds, if any, do you read?

This fall I resigned my position at InvisionFree after two years of providing support and documentation for its users. After two months of unhappiness, I finally decided to call it quits. This was not because of any one person. It was just a general boredom with what I was doing.

My resignation has reduced the amount of stress in my life significantly. I no longer wake up in the morning wondering if there was a late-night spammer that I now have to deal with before school. I no longer feel the pressure of documentation deadlines and I no longer feel required to log in and answer support tickets each night. While having less stress is usually construed as a good thing, I find myself having more and more free time. When I normally would be writing a documentation or giving support, I have nothing to fill these gaps of time. That is, until now.

Recently I’ve decided to become an active member of the Ubuntu community. Ubuntu is an open source Linux distribution that focuses on usability, regular releases, and freedom from legal restrictions. For over a year I’ve been using Ubuntu and its KDE derivative Kubuntu as a secondary operating system to Windows XP. While I still familiarized myself with Ubuntu and Linux in general, I never used it enough to grasp the concepts behind it. Lately, however, I’ve started using Kubuntu 7.10 full time and I find myself learning more each day.

While maintaining my position as an active member of Kubuntu’s IRC support channel, I now frequently visit the development channel, which is full of well-informed people willing to lend a hand. I’ve also started visiting Ubuntu+1, a channel dedicated to the next version of Kubuntu, whatever that may be. Currently, it is Ubuntu 8.04, which is an LTS release. I’ve recently installed 8.04 and have been testing it out for a few days.

I’ve also started the process of joining the Documentation Team there. I proofread my first documentation today, and I had a lot of fun doing it. An operating system is such a multifaceted thing to document that nearly anyone can find some area their interested in. I can tell already that I’m going to have a lot of fun documenting the system.

As the title indicates, I have an entirely new perspective of Ubuntu. Prior to my decision to become active in the community, I thought of it as simply another operating system. Now, after a couple weeks of seeing the community in action, it’s clear that it is so much more than that. Never before have I seen so many people from all over the world work for such a specific common goal. Whether they go about it the right way or not, everyone has improving Ubuntu on their mind. Programmers, writers, artists, and even the most basic of users want the same thing. The best end result possible. Ubuntu works towards a common goal to achieve a unilaterally desired result, whereas other organizations work toward specific goals to improve what they want, as opposed to what everyone wants. This is essentially what sets Ubuntu apart from any other group, and what makes me so eager to help out the project.