About Me

If you're interested in me, professionally or personally, this page is here to make you happy. If I've missed anything, you may either choose to not be happy or to contact me.

Personal Specifications

Me at WCKN a couple years ago

Computer Specifications

Picard (Desktop #1):

Bashir (Desktop #2):

LaForge (Laptop):

This KVM provides access to the following devices from both PCs:

Employment Specifications

Education Specifications

Interests & Hobbies

My primary interests lie in various areas of computer science. I am also, for all intents and purposes, a professional web developer. When I'm not doing projects for the benefit of other people, I am doing things for myself, and I've made a specific point to read up on some of the core specifications around which the "web" is based. Particularly, I have extensive experience with HTML 4.0, XHTML 1.1, CSS level 2, JavaScript, and Perl. As time permits, I actually enjoy reviewing the specifications and attempting to see what I can do with them. I consider myself a browser compatibility expert, and I am extremely effective at developing web content that is not only usable, but fully functional on multiple platforms. This is achieved through a combination of standards compliance and a fair amount of experience and experimentation (and patience).

As a software developer, I am intrigued by open source software. Not only do I enjoy the fact that it is free, but I find that there's a level of flexibility in the open source community that I have never seen elsewhere. It's refreshing. At this point I spend a small amount of my time maintaing open source software, including a plugin for Pidgin and an oft-neglected IRC bot.

Speaking a bit toward the area of my IRC bot, one area of computer science that has long fascinated me is artificial intelligence. I have been watching for various chances to gain a greater understanding of the science behind AI, but I really haven't had the time to delve head-first into the subject. Perhaps, I will take the opportunity to do so in the future.

I am also very interested in television production. From back to when I was little, every piece of television technology has always fascinated me. At Clarkson, I was the station manager of WCKN Television, a student television station on campus. I constantly toy with the idea of working in the field, but I don't really know what kind of jobs would really suit me well in media.

In my free time, I like to hang out with friends, especially on the weekends. Though I've never been a very "sportive" person, I do enjoy some sport-like activities from time to time. I also enjoy a number of computer and video games. Since leaving college, I have been nearly devoid of meaningful social activity. I'm hoping that now that I am in Chicago I will find some good new friends that get me back into leaving my apartment on a regular basis to have one-on-one interactions. I still keep in touch plently with friends of the past, but the interaction level of IMs and chats will always lack certain elements I definitely need to have some of the time.

Passions & Politics

I am without a doubt obsessed with implementation and technique above style and design. When someone's marveling about how beautiful or remarkable something is, I may instead be marveling at its unique means of assembly or what they did to hide the wires, or the groupings or pairings they chose for multiple objects. This is a rather unusual perspective to take on things. It sometimes makes it harder for me to appreciate the beauty or artistic sense of an object or entity, because I'm hung up on the technical aspects. This does not mean I don't see a form of beauty in many things, but it may well be a different perception than yours.

I take this view of things to many other topics, including politics, and it leads me to view policy, social issues, economic issues, moral issues, etc. with a strong sense of logic, rather than drawing on things such as religion to form my most basic ideals. I think this makes my stances far less cloudy, and I understand from a fundamental level the reasons to support the rights for those wanting abortions, gay marriage, legal access to marijuana, etc. As a consequence, though, I have a lot of difficulty understanding why anyone would want to prevent people from having these things because of "moral" grounds, because morality is a dynamic human construct which differs from person to person based on an overwhelming number of factors. Trying to nail it down to a representative set of restrictions is grossly unfair to anyone that doesn't fit the perceived "mold." Then again, nailing down the mold itself is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. This isn't what we ought to be wasting our time on.

It seems to me we'd be better off letting people do whatever pleases them as long as the only people being directly impacted are the ones that consented to the action. That means, allow gay marriage, abortions, marijuana, polygamy, physician assisted suicide, etc. just as long as the people doing these things aren't trying to force an objector to becoming directly involved or actually take part in one of them. In order to really believe in a free country, how can we justify opressing the legitimate morality of other people?

If governments want to block some of these things, have them do it for the right reasons (e.g., ban polygamy because it complicates tax code too much to be managable, not because the major religious groups don't like it). The government is an administration. Its job is to keep the country going and to manage the day to day operations of the republic, not to figure out for the people what's right and wrong. We can't allow people to harm one another and we should certainly support educating them not to harm themselves, but beyond that, where is the harm in letting them otherwise live their lives in whatever way makes them comfortable?

More Depth on Abortion

Now on the subject of abortion, I understand the arguments on both sides quite well. There is a legitimate concern for at what point a developing child gains rights of his or her own not to be harmed. It is my firm belief that that cutoff point is the moment that it is able to demonstrate capacity for responses to stimuli beyond reflex. In other words, it needs to be able to think. Before that, it is my opinion that the parents should be given the full opportunity to abort. Once the cutoff is reached, abortions should then still be possible if the condition are such that the mother likely will not survive to bring the developing child to term, but these types of circumstances are quite rare.

In general, if you have reached the point your developing fetus can think and haven't decided to abort yet, you should go through with it and put the child up for adoption. The science appears to still be out on when a fetus is able to think, so the actual time frame is not clear, but I have come to conclude that aborting past the first trimester is reasonably safe to shun, as you really ought have figured out whether you should abort by then.

However, if the mother and/or father believe the baby is a fully-protected person in the first trimester, it is absolutely within their right to refuse abortion as an option. By the same token, I reject the notion that the interpretation of another person should be able to prevent another potential mother from making the difficult choice to abort.

More Depth on Gay Marriage

Some of the worst arguments in the history of debate are used in this subject. Often they're inane religious arguments. I've seen the passages most often cited as arguments against gay marriage in the Bible, and I'm just not convinced. Half of the passages cited are effectively invalidated by the coming of Jesus and are intermixed with other guidelines we'd be horrified to follow now. Read Leviticus. Even so, just like nearly every other passage contained in the vast collection of writings, the wording is far too vague to make a hard-line interpretation that says anything explicit on the subject. I refuse to buy into any religious arguments, because there's too much room to play with those words so they say approximately what you want them to.

Point number one in favor of gay marriage in keeping with my overall philosophy is you don't have to have one if you don't want one. No one sane is advocating that marriage to someone of the same-sex be compulsory. Anyone that claims it hurts the sanctity of their marriage or cheapens the definition of marriage doesn't really seem to have much confidence in the integrity of their marriage.

Marriage is "defined" in most states as being a union between a man and a woman, but modern dictionaries allow for the same-sex definition to also apply. Rarely do these dictionaries speak of the deeper meaning of marriage, which as most anyone gay or straight will tell you represents a life-long commitment in love and intimacy with someone else. The only thing that makes a gay marriage any different is that the "someone else" character shares the same gender.

Opponents regularly argue that gay marriage would cheapen the definition of marriage or that it would harm social fabric, using stereotypical perceptions of gay people as irresponsible, promiscuous, and often even diseased (mentally and phsyically). All the while, they are effectively telling these same people that want to commit to a monogamous, loving, dedicated relationship with another person that they're not worthy of such a commitment. These people are sending a message that discourages those who break those unfavorable stereotypes from doing so, and it's all in the guise of protecting marriage for male-female pairs that statistically don't honor and protect the commitment all that well as it is.

My parents are among a great number of people that are exceedingly lucky to have found the person they are prepared to commit to for the entire duration of their lives. In direct opposition to the standard conservative argument, I firmly believe that to turn away any person that has found the person with whom he or she is prepared to make an ultimate lifetime commitment is to dishonor the marriage of my parents, as well as every other loving marriage that has ever been, and to cheapen the powerful symbolism of the union down to the level of a turf war. This is the symbolic union whose sanctity gay marriage opponents in this country are working so hard to "protect." In my eyes, the irony is depressing.

It's true that I am gay and perhaps you might think my opinion is biased, but I don't think so. I felt this way long before I knew I was gay, and you'd be surprised how many straight people feel the same way. Eventually, I am confident, that opponents to freedom of marriage will be a small minority, and this nonsense will go away. Until then, I can only urge gay people to stand up and fight against stereotypes that paint you as mentally unstable, unfit, promiscuous parents unable to make lifelong commitments.

Unpopularly, I actually feel strongly that the government should get its hands out of marriage entirely, and to pass a constitutional amendment that requires that no law in the United States may pass any law which restricts the rights of consenting adults to enter into contracts which govern child custody, inheritance, and other marriage-like benefits. Then, the term marriage would become a private institution and the government would know nothing beyond the establishment of a "civil partnership" contract. This would allow everyone to define marriage according to their own ideas and keep the government out of it. It's fair for everyone, but you can be sure it's not popular with conservatives, the people who are supposed to be crying for less government involvement in our lives.

General Convictions

I feel very strongly about things I've listed in this section, and I have taken as much information in as I have been able to in the process of forming my opinions. It is distinctly possible that I have made an error or taken a position based upon invalid information. Then again, the same can be said of you, no matter how confident you may feel. Just as you should, I will stand by my convictions until you can prove to me that they are for some reason misguided. Yelling, threats, derision, or bribes will not change what I think, only what I think of you. If you come after me with a level head and some good, solid, well supported facts, I will happily engage you in discussion and look for ways to correct my position, resolve the conflict, or reinforce my stance. If you hope for me to take you seriously, though, you'd best enter the discussion with the same open mind.

Pet Peeves

My biggest pet peeves involve grammar. Most specifically, the use of the words "your" and "you're." Maybe it's just that people don't care enough to check, but the difference is incredibly important, and there's no excuse not to recognize that they mean different things and use them accordingly. Every single time I am IMed or read a forum post online in which someone says, "Your cool" I cringe and get cranky. The same goes for other mixups, like "there," "their," and "they're." I admit I sometimes type the wrong one when my brain derails, but the first thing I do is realize my mistake and correct it. I realize that it's rare for these mistakes to make a sentence any more difficult to understand in normal cases, but I have seriously seen sentences that were riddled enough with word swaps and typos that I was no longer to recognize their meaning at all. Having the simple forethought to maintain the most basic grammatical syntax can help steer even a damaged sentence into the realm of clarity. Please choose your words carefully and keep them in the right order, and everything will be fine!

My only other major pet peeve is bigotry. If you can't seem to get past your irrational dislike for some group of people, or a particular person by stereotypical associations of some kind, I can't have a conversation with you. If I'm on the phone with you, I might just hang up right then and there. If it's in person, I'm going to end the conversation at my first chance. There's no excuse—ever to not give every person the benefit of the doubt and treat them like a human being with just as many rights and feelings as you have.

Workspace Specifications

At long last I have my own condo. I now live alone, and though I hope this is not permanent (in the sense that I'd eventually like to live with someone I love), it is a refreshing change. I am no longer subject to the schedule and habits of roommates, I own all of my living space, and I feel comfortable disbursing everything I have into all corners of the place!

My primary computer desk is no longer situated in my bedroom. My condo is not large, and I have chosen to keep the computer close to the television so that I can watch it (or at least hear it well) when I am sitting at my computers. It's also noteworthy that my computers would not comfortably fit in my bedroom with any other furniture there.

Since this place does not have much storage space, several Ikea shelving units and bookcases are set around in different areas, leaving me room for games, books, CDs, DVDs, and other random objects. Since all of the storage space I do have belongs to me, I have given each thing its own place and I am able to keep track of where all of my things are, and not have to sort through large boxes of junk to find anything. This is quite comforting to me and in sharp contrast to past organization.

I have been making increased effort to keep papers I am not in need of filed away in my file cabinet so that I have them organized and my desk is not cluttered. This has been a reasonable success and I'm happy with the results. I think you'll find that my entire place is generally more orderly than any place I ever lived with anyone else.