Writing a public blog about your private life can be frustrating. It’s almost inevitable to have some uninvited guests digging through your blogs/facebook/twitter/plurk if you don’t watch out.

I thought of writing this post before but worried that I would come off as an obsessive stalker. Well, I still don’t know how to get around that, so I am already making a sacrifice for offering my experience.

Disclaimer: This post is written purely for educational purposes. I do not personally participate in cyber-stalking, except out of necessity, like when answering favors or doing research or in the rare case when I am really really bored.

Here are some points to watch out for:

1. Crank up privacy settings on social networking sites, Facebook especially.
2. Don’t publish anything you don’t want your potential stalkers to find out.
3. If you think your potential stalker can’t find your blog, try Google your name or the user IDs you most frequently use.
4. Make your blog private, so that only those who are invited may enter.
5. Make your blog search engine unfriendly, so that it wouldn’t come up in search engines. Wordpress can do this, but I don’t know about others.
6. Don’t publish your blog address anywhere online. It’s quite often neglected. This includes on any profile pages and blog comments.
7. Use a new online alias so that your blog comments won’t show up if someone searches your name.
8. Watch out when leaving your email address. This is another identifier.
9. Tell your friends not to quote your posts. If someone is looking for your blog, she might also be digging your friends’ blogs.
10. Make sure the web pages you link to don’t have trackbacks, otherwise your URL will show up there.
11. Avoid posting hypertext links if you are bad mouthing someone. Your web address will come up as the referrer if the page you are pointing to has tracking function. The author might come back to see what you are saying. Make the link plain instead.

What did I miss?

[In case you are still wondering, that's my elbow.]

I have a confession to make, for I have sinned. I took a 13 hrs flight across the Pacific Ocean to Taiwan.

I find it difficult, even unrealistic, to convince anyone not to fly, myself included. In most cases, there is simply no reasonable alternative other than not going. I bet even the environmental activists fly to the Amazon to defend the rainforests. Sure they fly to defend the nature, and maybe their efforts would have offset the CO2 their flights emit, but how about the parents who take their kids to a trip of their lifetime? or a girl working abroad for years decides to go home for Christmas? or a sales manager whose family depends on his income has to fly to a trade show?

My point is that, everyone has a good reason to fly. Even for someone who cares about the environment, the value of flying usually exceeds the cost of the fare plus the guilt disincentive.

While I believe it is futile to persuade people not to fly, a few things I hope to see:

Airlines integrate carbon offsets plans. Make it mandatory, opt-out, or at least available for opt-in. If flying is a necessary sin of modern life, please have means of redemption ready. Passengers can buy offsets as an option with the ticket, or they could be sold on-site (well packaged of course).

An increase in price will lower demand. Perhaps a tax that goes toward technological innovation or public improvement to offset emission. People will consider the alternatives if the price isn’t right, like picking a closer destination or a mean of transportation that was more expensive without the tax. Most will still fly, but at least part of the fare will go toward offsetting the emission.

I’m not a climate scientist, use a unit I can understand. Only the hardcore activists understand what “15 tonnes of GHG” means. I still have to Google to get an idea. Tell me how many km of driving equivalent, or how many trees I need to plant to offset it (forget the technical details for now). The point is to get people thinking.

Something interesting happened. When I was about to order my coffee, two little girls walked in and asked everyone if they could sing us Christmas Carols.

After their 10 seconds huddle, off they go. I didn’t know what they were singing (It’s just me. I have problem catching lyrics), but it sure was lovely.

Someone was saying how we don’t know our neighbours anymore. I don’t know. I grew up in the age of not-knowing-neighbours. I don’t think it’s that bad. Maybe we just like the idea of having good neighbours. Sure it’d be nice, but it’s also never been easier to get in touch with friends and families.

I’ve been using stickK for a week now (via Freakonomics), and I think it’s pretty interesting. So what does it do? Here is a short excerpt from their FAQ section:

stickK helps you achieve your personal goals through “Commitment Contracts.”

After signing up with stickK, you will be able to create a contract obliging you to achieve a specific goal within a particular time-frame. By creating a contract to meet one of your goals, you´re actually testing yourself and saying, “Hey, I can do this”. Not only are you challenging yourself, you´re also putting your reputation at stake.

Every week I’m asked to report if I’ve achieved my goals. It’s working great for me so far, because I constantly remind myself to keep up with it.

Right now my daily goals are:
1. Exercise (anything)
2. Spend at least 30 minutes on writing

I wonder how effective money stakes actually are, because people can simply lie to get out without paying. Would the incentive be any different without money stake?

But do we really believe in any of this?

Not really.

Just ask yourself if you are doing “this” and not “that” (which you enjoy more) because “this” pays better.

Is it because earning more money feels freakin’ awesome? The thrill of getting a raise or closing a big sale is not only gratifying but also serves as the beacon of light in the midst of mundane tasks. However, the thrill wears off soon enough. Before you know it you are stuck with more work and spending more money to compensate your loved ones. Years later you realize this sucks but can’t get out of it because the huge mortgage that you thought was a good idea. On top of that, you don’t really want to get out of it because you become good at it. One day you look back and you forgot the thrill you were chasing after, and you ask, “Why didn’t I spend time on what I love?”

Of course, by “you” I don’t actually mean you. This is a cautionary tale for myself: stay focused on what matters.