From 5 Myths About Suicide, Debunked:

That's why mental health experts advise removing opportunity and means from suicidal people — once the crisis is past, the person can be successfully treated for the underlying mental disorder. As survivor Ken Baldwin told The New Yorker magazine in 2003 of his attempt to kill himself by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, the regret was immediate: "I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable — except for having just jumped."

This past weekend, I looked up the personal websites of a number of my new coworkers. I know their names, I have their Google profiles forced from our work emails, for a number I was able to find their twitter accounts or use their github profile to find their sites.

Most of the accounts point to plain sites: a one page site with a fancy font and few words, usually the developer's name and a small number of links pointing a visitor off to other locations on the web where the coworker is more active, more engaged.

For one coworker, his personal URL didn't connect. It resolved, but the web server never answered my request. As he is an immigrant, I thought maybe the delay was because his server was on the other side of the world.

This morning, I mentioned it to him. Confused, he typed in his URL and watched as the browser status bar informed us of its "Connecting..." status, without actually getting through. "Yep, that's what I got," I said.

He shrugged. "Probably because I stopped paying them," he commented, then typed in nearly the same URL, but with a new TLD. It, too, didn't resolve. He shrugged again, seemingly unconcerned about the loss of his domain name.

I find the thought of caring little about a domain name, a place staked out on the web, stunning. It is so antithetical to my way of thinking, I nearly can't comprehend it. I struggle to put any of my data in a location outside of my control (Flickr is great for pictures, I have them stored locally; Gmail is great for email, I have my own server; github is great for social coding, i keep my code on my own servers), that not having a place to put my notes and pages and thoughts and projects, is like, well, like not having clothes, or going somewhere without my backpack, or a pen and index cards. Or, I guess for some people, without their phone.

It's just weird, and strange, and utterly foreign to me.

I want to think his concept of permanence is that there isn't any. That he takes the Buddhism point of view of life being changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance. That he accepts the true lack of permanence in this physical world, and reflects that in the online world.

I want to think this. And I want some of the acceptance that comes with that belief.

Unrelated to that desire, I will express delight about when he asked about my site, and stared at me when I told him "kay eye dot tee tee." After a few moments, and repeating the URL, he asked, "That's it?!" Total delight.

And unrelated to everything in this post, apparently you can write a blog post on a phone on a commute home.

Any place you go, there are different driving styles. In Los Angeles, I was very careful to always turn on my turn signal and let it cycle at least twice before turning or merging into the other lane. The drivers in Los Angeles are aggressive, but everyone knows everyone is aggressive and expects it. Using turn signals was required not because you were smart, but because everyone else was dumb with distractions and aggression.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, there's still the aggressive driving, but no where near the level of Los Angeles. In SF, you wouldn't turn left between two oncoming cars unless there was three car lengths between the cars. For comparison, in Los Angeles, you need only one and a half car lengths, even when cars are going 50mph.

Driving around here, I'm far more relaxed, causing my signal turning routine to soften. I haven't been using my turn signals at all if there isn't anyone behind me when I move into lanes. I hadn't really noticed until it was mentioned to me, in the most approachable criticism I've received about my driving in a long time.

"I'm surprised how much your lack of turn signals bothers me."

How's that for approachable criticism?

It addresses the issue: my lack of turn signals.

It doesn't pass judgement. There's no, "You're an awful person for not using turn signals," or "You're going to get us killed from not using turn signals!"

It brings up the topic without accusing me of doing anything wrong.

It gives me the opportunity to see my behavior is affecting others.

The rest of the drive home, I used my turn signals, even when there was no car behind me to see my intended movement. I may have over-used them, if that's possible. I did notice, however that one oncoming car that arrived at a four way intersection at the same time as I did, stopped fully and waited for me to turn. I suspect the left turn signal may have indicated I was going to turn. Normally, I would have just waited for the other car to go.

So, yay, turn signals!