Note: This is cross-posted from my other blog, It’s Randomonium.

Best class ever. Get famous on the Internet, get a better grade.

Think this is a stupid waste of time? Think again. Having a good grip on how to manipulate their digital footprint will be key for these kids come time to get jobs.

People (prospective employers, prospective girlfriends/boyfriends, teachers and just about everybody who knows you in real life) will eventually Google you. Internet stalking is a reality. I’ve done it and so have you. Let’s just admit it already.

Ultimately, we all want Google to reflect the real us—or at least, the very best parts of the real us.

This is why I have a Linkedin resume, two blogs, twitter and a public-facing Facebook profile among other sites plastered with my name that I control. Ultimately, if you Google me I want you to see me as I want you to see me. Not as I was posting on forum boards and IRC years ago.

Online image literacy is going to be one of the most imporant things coming up as Gen Y hits college and the workforce. We’ve only scratched the surface at what Google can do to affect our personal lives.

From a professional/creative standpoint, you want to make a good impression while having as few barriers to entry as possible. The Internet is all about communication and lowering the barriers (and with it, many of the old guard standards) of obtaining audience share.

On the Web, we are all media entities.

Ok, finally, we’re back up to where I want to be with blog-o-blog.

I’ve added a few simple design changes. Mainly in the single post pages. Integrated categories and tags, as well as pulling in similar and recent posts at the bottom of the article page.

Aside from that, I suppose I don’t have much more to say.

Your regularly scheduled programming will be back in no time.

I twittered tonight that I was going to watch a movie because the Internet was sucking, but then it (it being the Internet) distracted me again. I know right!

A while back I also twittered–god damn, I hate the Internet sometimes–anyway: I wrote a post on the Web site twitter.com:

I’ve stopped bothering to remember things. Not immediate little things like get milk. Wikipedia has everything I need to know now. It’s official.

Well it’s true, I believe. If someone asks me what I know about NAFTA (who wouldn’t ask me what I know about NAFTA?), I don’t even bother thinking about what I actually know about NAFTA. I just look it up on Wikipedia. NAFTA. Hell, the Wikipedia page for NAFTA is the first page to come up in a Google search for NAFTA. Take that USDA!

Shit, there’s an entire generation of students out there who rely entirely on Wikipedia as a starting point (and oftentimes ending point) for their C-grade papers. The ‘C’ stands for consensus, or decision by committee or most commonly, crap.

Back on topic: Wikipedia contains all knowledge. Or at least approaches containing all knowledge (kinda like .999 repeating approaches zero). So tonight I set off to prove it using completely arbitrary arguments and irrational thought processes.

Here are the rules, arbitrary and irrational as they may be:

• Start at Knowledge because that makes the most sense
• Follow the first link in the article
• Don’t include the disambiguation links, dummy
• Or the links to Wikipedia policies
• Or the links to pronunciations
• Just click the first legitimate link
• Repeat until you can’t go any further

Easy enough.

Knowledge starts out with a definition of knowledge from the Oxford English Dictionary, which, as it turns out, is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press.

Dictionaries, if you didn’t know (because you are stupid or of stupid-descent), are also known as a lexicons, as well as being books “of alphabetically listed words in a specific language, with definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, and other information.”

You get where this is going. Lexicon begets linguistics begets science begets knowledge.

Shit. Now what? I think we’ve run into a Wikipedia circle. Now, ‘Wikipedia circle’ doesn’t have an entry on Wikipedia, because ‘Wikipedia circle’ isn’t Knowledge according to Wikipedia (yet). I’d add the entry myself, but those snobs over at Wikipedia would delete the page instantly.

Ugh. Sometimes I hate the Internet.

Back on topic: Wikipedia contains all knowledge. Maybe I’m just starting at the wrong point. If Wikipedia contains all knowledge then Wikipedia itself is all knowledge.

So, let’s start at Wikipedia:

• Multilingualism
• Monolingual
• Greek
• Language
• Phenomenon
• Event
• Festival
• Religion
• Prayer
• Deity
• Preternatural
• Natural
• Phenomena

Again. Notice that it’s not a complete circle. Wikipedia takes us on a fun journey, then we get stuck in the phenomena Wikipedia circle phenomenon.

Phenomena are everywhere.

But to the keen eye, you’ll notice that this completely arbitrary system I came up with (not unlike tech bloggers using compete.com for stats comparisons) shows that the Wikipedia path is longer than the Knowledge path.

If I know anything–not that I’d need to know anything anymore. If I know anything, longer is always better.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it tonight.

Now, time for that movie.