Some things about me

I always thought my interests were really random, but there might be a common theme to some of them. I am frequently offended by systems that seem to be imprisoning people, needlessly, and I'm only happy when they're fixed.

I used "To improve people's lives through software" as my goal on my resume. Another formulation might be "Make ordinary people dangerous through well-designed software." I feel that danger is the right word. Almost any service can be said to improve people's lives. But the gold standard is when the users are so powerful they might do things the designers never intended, and this might pose a threat to some other established industry or interest.

I'm also fascinated by maps, visual data, certain sorts of art, or any other way of experiencing a reality larger than yourself through the senses.

Why "brevity"?

It's been my nickname on most every computer system since the mid-90s. It is not descriptive: I ramble a lot. My hope is that through editing, I can present you with a delicious frozen concentrate of my brain.

As an IRC buddy once said: 'brevity is heterologous'.

Sometimes I also tell people that it's a distillation of Orwell's classic essay Politics and the English Language. It would be a fine thing if this essay were included in the purchase of every computer keyboard.

For a web guy, this site really sucks.

My idea of a reasonable website involves writing my own Apache modules. But I have to draw the line somewhere. This hurts me more than it does you.

Things I'm interested in

Web-based interfaces
Programming languages
Art and computation
REST APIs, done right
Visualizing data

I'd like to do more

travelling
functional programming
photography
right-brained work
martial arts

Causes I'd support

literacy
government transparency
proportional representation

Almost always seen wearing: