My name is Daniel Miessler (\mē’slûr) and I’m an information security professional and writer born, raised, and living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Concept
I’ll start by saying that if you’ve not tried to summarize yourself in this way, i.e., via some sort of “about me” page, you should do so. It requires a considerable amount of self-discovery, and is more difficult than it seems.
I started this site in 1999 as a platform for collecting technical knowledge. Today it is my most important life project, with over 2,500 essays, posts, tutorials, articles, and other types of content. In fact, it’s less a project and more like an avatar, or even a child. It is where I put both my time and my (currently weak) hopes for immortality.
While most see their websites as a place to release pressure through ranting, or to project a presence, I see my site as nothing less than an extension of myself in digital form. I use it as a means of organizing everything I have learned and want to learn, and then as a way to share that same content with others.
Interests
My interests, and therefore content on the site, drift towards the following:
- Philosophy: Thinking about the interesting questions in life that aren’t easily answered by science, discovering what brilliant people have said about these questions throughout time, and sharing these thoughts with others
- Existentialism: Contemplating how to create our own meaning and our own happiness in this life, since I don’t believe it exists intrinsically in our universe
- Happiness: How to live a happier, more fulfilled life, especially given my Absurdist outlook
- Productivity: How to be more effective in everything you do, ideally leading to improved happiness
- Beauty and Wonder: Finding and sharing interesting and beautiful things, such as art, writing, science, wonder, etc. I enjoy sharing such things, spreading the feeling they give me, and experiencing it with others
- Politics: A discussion of what we are doing today to build a civilization, what’s wrong with the current approach, the reasoning behind those errors, and what we should be doing instead
- Technology: I find technology fascinating. But I see it as subordinate to the pursuit of creativity and beauty
- Future: I enjoy thinking about the future and trying to predict certain parts of it based on understanding of current trends
- Information Security: This is my profession, and it’s also something I’ve always been fascinated with. That works well in every way, except that it keeps me from #4
- Concept Mapping: Finding discrete components of wisdom, identifying them in various mediums, being able to map and link them together, and ideally even being able to create new ones
Collections
Peoples’ favorites are full of insights about them, and for that reason they’re good to include on a page like this. It’s a great conversation starter, and helps people find common interests.
One of the things I do on my site (poorly right now) is maintain a list of these collections—or a collection of these lists—so I can refer to them when needed.
Contact
So that’s a bit about me. If you have a question, a comment, or if you just want to say hello, you can find me on Twitter, on GitHub, or via email.
Until then, I hope you find something here worth your time.
