About This Site... · 26 April 2008

The Site

I'll be brief. I use this blog as a place to philosophize, ponder, ruminate, speculate, and otherwise harass denizens of the internet with my thoughts. I also use it to disseminate a few random bits of software development knowledge (most of my day-to-day is either proprietary or trivial, and hence not suitable).

I like to drink, and I like to share my experiences, to help other drinkers out there. I enjoy reading books and watching movies, and like to help other people find the good and avoid the bad. I am working on becoming a more-regular writer, and having somewhere to put some of my writing helps me motivate myself to write. I like to earn money, and having some ads on the site gets me...a couple bucks now and then. Hey, free short cappuccino!

Disclaimers

I run text ads from Google's AdSense; you clicking on those, or clicking on the ads resulting from use of the Google search box, gets me some money (not much, mind you...). The sidebar graphical links to Rhapsody et al. will provide me a small commission, if you sign up using them. I have an affiliate relationship with vendors of some of the things I mention in blog posts; eMusic, Rhapsody, Amazon, MyFonts.com, and NetShops (which runs a whole slew of fairly specific product-oriented websites). I often, though not always, add my affiliate information to links to products they offer. I do not, never have, and never will, alter my judgment or recommendation of products or services based on an affiliation or money paid to me. Frankly, I'd rather shut down my blog than prostitute myself in that way.

I do not, however, claim that there is no change to the content of my blog or the things on which I choose to post based on my affiliations. What I mean by that is, if I run across a particularly fine selection of china that I think is the best thing since sliced bread as an eating platform, I may or may not write up a blog post on said china. If I have an affiliate relationship with a vendor of that china -- for example, if they sell it on Amazon -- I'm probably slightly more likely to write up the blog post. The money I potentially stand to gain would not affect my opinion of the china, nor the effusiveness (or lack thereof) with which I describe the china, just the chances of it getting mixed into the poststream.

I hope that's clear enough. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them of me.

Privacy Policy

Any e-mail addresses I encounter as part of running this blog will be treated with the same level of privacy with which I treat my family's e-mail addresses. I will not give them out (or sell them!) to anyone, and I won't use them for my own nefarious purposes. If you supply an e-mail address, either as part of the commenting process or by e-mailing me directly about the site, I will feel free to use that address to continue the conversation you've started, but no more than that. If at some point I decide to offer e-mail based services -- like a mailing list or newsletter -- I will explicitly collect e-mail addresses for such purposes at that time.

I can't supply the same guarantee to any site or service I link to, of course, so if you're concerned about your privacy and/or getting spam, pay attention.

The Author

David A. Pickett. Father. Software Developer Extraordinaire. Painter. Sculptor. Woodworker. Writer. Reader. Blogger. Music fan (mostly hip-hop, truth be told, but I'm pretty flexible). Former Airborne Infantry Squad Leader and Jumpmaster. Recovering EverQuest addict (clean for some years now!).

Comments on any and all of this are welcome. You can either post them directly, here, or send e-mail.

dabbler@exold.com

-- David --

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