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Today I updated my home page for the first time since 1998. I changed from the various barcodes I had been using to a collage of photos I have taken. Why the barcodes, and why the change now?

I am a fairly private person, something friends often find frustrating or just don't quite understand I guess. As such, my home page is more about my work and professional related activities than about me. When I first set up djw.org, the cliché home page was your name, email address, a picture of something funny, a favourite quote and a few links to your interests. My photos were yet to be digital at that time, and anyway, they were mainly personal. I think I was wearing a lot of black at the time, and generally avoiding the light of day. A barcode seemed like a nice statement of the Orwellian nature of the digital age that I was (and still are) so centrally involved in. I don't have a barcode on the back of my neck, nor do I plan to have one, but I am sure there are powers that be that really would like that idea.

The barcodes were always my current work phone number. That fact was something that friends could remember, even if they forgot the actual number, or it changed, and if a recruiter or same was smart enough to read the source code to the page, they probably could have worked that out - and the prize would be that could phone me. But I don't think anyone ever did actually work it out. Oh well, who uses phones any more (yes, I know you do, can you please stop?).

So today... I don't wear quite as much black these days, I still fear the ever growing power of the corporation and its seemingly inevitable takeover of all things that we once believed to be the domain of individuals, family, government or other forms of common wealth (No, I'm not a loony, just someone who thinks that people should run the planet, not board rooms). But, I figure it is inevitable, so why not at least splash some colour around while you still can.

Hey, I need a new image.

The images from top left to bottom right are:

• Michelangelo's David, or at least a refrigerator magnet set of same that a friend gave me many years ago, and I used while dabbling in stop animation. The shot is of David on my compositing table.
• My Ludwig 20 inch blue sparkle bass drum, circa 1965.
• My throne.
• The lighthouse at Point Lonsdale.
• My Powerbook G4.
• My brother Peter and myself off all four wheels in his 1959 Austin Healey 3000 Mark I, while competing in the Classic Adelaide.
• Looking out to Tongue Point at Wilsons Promontory.
• A cow.
• A lake east of Vancouver.
• My number from the 2002 Honolulu Marathon.
• A Foster's neon sign.
• Some of the hiptop's I have worked on.
• My stop watch over my fire suit.
• My foot on a rock on Rangitoto.
• Something green on Rangitoto.
• My Ludwig SuperSonic snare drum with gaffer tape applied.

These images represent things in my life; many professional, some personal, and some just fun.

- January 27, 2007.

By the way, the barcodes were created using my friend Dan Bornstein's excellent Barcode Server.