| November 7, 2005 Vol. 77,
no. 11F
 |
| IN
THE LAND OF DREAMS: Jon Thysell is part
Hawaiian, and the name of his blog is Hawaiian. According to an
explanation on his site, “Polikua comes from poli for ‘concave’
and kua for ‘back.’ It is the dip at the horizon beyond
which the eye cannot reach, also personified in the playful saying
of one who has been in the land of dreams — he has been
‘flirting with Polikua.’” (Photo Credit: Rachel
Jackson)
|
Got Polikua?
IEOR senior blogs the Berkeley Engineering life
He’s not famous. He’s not powerful. He’s not an expert
or a personality. He’s not Matt Drudge. But IEOR senior Jon Thysell
is among a smattering of Berkeley engineering students who blogs.
Here is a fairly representative post from October 10 last year: “This
week is my Hell week. Four midterms in three days, plus scattered homeworks,
labs, review sessions … I’m already drained from studying
this weekend. Two exams back-to-back tomorrow morning. On the plus side,
I’ve added some stuff to the website, including some book lists
under Reading, and a new program under, you guessed it, Programs. Well,
I’m off to get in some more Buddhist scripture before I go to
sleep. I need to put it in the forefront of my mind so the numbers can
crunch in the background. And I need to go grocery shopping soon.”
Not many people regularly read Polikua.com, but gaining a
fan club isn’t why Thysell does it. “It’s a record
of what I’ve done, what I’ve been thinking,” he says.
“This way I can go back and see that personal side of myself later
on.” Every week he tries to post at least once and devotes a few
hours to it, plus site maintenance and improvements. The posts are usually
highlights from the day or week (one such post included his thoughts
about being interviewed by Engineering News).
Thysell first began to blog during his freshman year at Berkeley. He
trolled for weird or funny bits on the Internet and posted them with
a short comment. Occasionally he ranted, relieving frustrations or stress
with school, especially during his freshman year. About a year ago,
he launched Polikua.com with its “dear diary” component.
Because his blog is online and available to the world, Thysell carefully
considers what he posts. “I won’t put stuff about my family
on there,” he says. “I don’t write something that
might be harmful to anyone I know.” He adds that he also doesn’t
make things up.
Restraint is a common theme with Thysell, and he advises other bloggers
and bloggers-to-be to keep it simple. “Don’t try to be all
encompassing,” he advises. “Pick something that you can
keep writing about. Don’t post unless you have something interesting
to say. It’s not like a newspaper where you have to write every
day.”
Polikua.com also functions as Thysell’s artistic canvas
and technical testing ground. “My site is almost more about the
design and layout,” he says. “I like to figure out color
schemes, fonts, and what pictures to use. I like to play with HTML and
CSS. I tried Flash, but it was too overbearing.”
Thysell designed and launched his first website in seventh grade. Currently,
he’s webmaster of Cal’s chapter of the Institute of Industrial
Engineer’s site. “I call myself a computer nerd, and why
not?” he says with a big grin. “I enjoy programming. That’s
why I did websites in the first place: They were a place to put my programs.
I like using the computer.”
Read more at www.polikua.com/.
|
