Internet People are Real People

There's a curious feeling in non-geeks that "internet people" (as in, people you're only ever likely to meet in a virtual sense, on forums, in chatrooms, and if you're really tech-savvy, some sort of VOIP) aren't "real people". They know this isn't true of course, they're not quite like the characters you meet in single player games, all scripted dialogue and simple action-response AI. But somehow the impression they're less than real persists, they seem to be 2D in some way.

Thats a rather long-winded introduction to the following links, a pair of my favourite recent discoveries: Merlin Mann - how can you not like a guy called Merlin? - who runs 43Folders.com a blog-cum-productivity advice site; and Jonathan Coulton a ex-coder musician who releases his work under a creative commons license, and whose excellent catalogue includes Code Monkey and the credits song for Valve's Portal, you probably have to play the game - and you really should - to fully appreciate the genius of the song though. So here's the guys, (and this is the link) being entirely too human and interesting for "internet people".

Part 1
Part 2