Why Are There So Many Of Me?

Last night, in a bit of vainglory, I entered my own name into Google search just to see what came up. Since I have now had some technical articles regarding my chosen craft of software development published on an industry news-site, I wanted to see if my fame (and fortune?) were increasing. While my name did come up near the top, I also saw some distressing stuff. There were lots of other hits for people with my name that weren't me. One was a ball-player, another a doctor, etc. I went to the second page and things didn't improve.

Who are these people? Why did their parents give them my name? Given my current age, I'm most likely older than them -- don't I get some preference for having been there first? The first thing that came to mind was the Schwarzenegger movie, "The Sixth Day". In it, he plays a character who is cloned -- the premise of the movie is that the main Schwarzenegger character is the original, and the other Schwarzenegger is the clone. Which of course turns out to be false. Imagine, as the movie wants you to consider, his surprise and dismay when he discovers HE is the clone. And then I thought of the Micheal Keaton movie, the titile of which escapes me, where he is cloned, his clone is cloned, the clone's clone is cloned, etc. It was funny, but disturbing. Which is somewhat how I felt last night.

So what's going on here? Up until about 4 years ago, if you had a reasonably distinctive name (not say, Bill, Bob, or John -- sorry to any of you out there) you could be assured of your relative uniqueness in your own little universe. The Internet and Search Engines have changed that. There are people with my name all over the fershluginer place! I'm stuck. I'm not about to go change my name at this stage. But we all crave some form of uniqueness in our lives -- and a name used to be part of the distinction. What are parents going to do now? Will new parents start doing searches on the internet to see how many times their proposed name for their future offspring shows up in a search? "Let's see, 'Robert K. Jones' shows 17 million hits. Let's try 'Balthazar_Lord_of_Darkness'. Hmm, nothing yet. Honey! What do you think of "Balthazar_Lord_of_Darkness'?" When the Hippie movement was taking off, parents started naming their kids things like "Rainbow", "Moonbeam", and "Dweezil". Will new parents start using screen names? Will the "@" symbol be part of new names? "CleverBoy@IAmWhoIAm.com".

I can't wait to see whether this goes anywhere! Now that I think about it, I've always liked "Balthazar" -- just not the Lord_of_Darkness part. Mabe I'll reconsider that part about not changing now. Let me see how many times "Balthazar" shows up. Hmm, almost 2 million times -- nope. I'm part Scottish, so let's try "Balthazar deVasquez McTavish". No hits whatsoever! Let's do it!

Road Rules vs. Road Laws

I've been driving virtually every day of my life for almost 40 years. Most of it has been in California. Since the beginning some things about other drivers (never myself, of course), just annoy me like nothing else. I won't discuss them here -- yet. This is about the distinction between Rules of the Road vs. Laws.

In California at least, a distinction is made between Rules of the Road, and Laws governing driving. Rules basically cover commonly accepted behavior that make traffic work at all and apply universally, while Laws govern certain specifics. A good distinction is the direction we drive and the speed limit. Here in the US, we drive on the right-hand side of the road while in some countries, like England or Japan, they drive on the left-hand side. This is actually a Rule of the Road. The speed limit on a particular stretch of road is a Law. The speed limit on two different roads in California may be different, but everyone is expected to drive on the right-hand side of the road on both roads.

What bugs me the most is when drivers do not understand the importance of the distinction, and either ignore or do not understand the Rules of the Road. Rules are actuall more important. As a demonstration of this fact, let me present the following two scanarios. Assume that for each scenario we have the following conditions: you are travelling on a 4 lane road that goes North/South. Each direction has two lanes, a fast lane and a slow lane. The speed limit in each direction is 65 mph. You are travelling Northbound at 65 mph in the fast lane. You are obeying the Law, and following the Rules of the Road.

Scenario 1:
A car travelling North approaches you from the rear in your lane travelling 70 mph. The driver is breaking the Law, but following the Rules of the Road.

Scenario 2:
A car travelling South approaches you from the front in your lane travelling 55 mph. The driver is obeying the Law, but ignoring the Rules of the Road.

Which scenario makes you feel least comfortable?

Cheers!