(One of these days, I'll make myself a proper homepage again. Today is not that day.)
Childfree atheist introvert geek. Web developer. 80% conservative. Love anime, board games, books, cats, futurepop, guns, and science.
I'm quite introverted, but I don't shut up once you get me talking about a subject that interests me. I loathe political process in any form (e.g., elections, community moderation), and will quickly slip away from any venue or group where the vile practice surfaces. I turn into pliable mush in the presence of cats — something my own cats understand very well and ruthlessly exploit. I dislike human children and can't stand parents who have lost the ability to talk about anything else. I'm a thorough materialist and atheist, but discussions about atheism bore me to tears — it's a settled subject and holds no further interest for me. I intend to live long enough, in some incarnation or another, to see either heat death or the Big Crunch. I'm a grammar snoot, which leaves me wincing several times a day at others' poor writing.
Politically, you could say I'm 80% conservative, 20% liberal (in the American senses of those terms). I'm liberal regarding abortion, contraception, church-state separation, drug legalization, and same-sex marriage; I'm conservative on nearly everything else. I once called myself a libertarian, but that usually implies the worship of the sacred libertarian cow of "natural rights" — which is, as Jeremy Bentham put it, "nonsense on stilts" (or, more bluntly, fantasy bullshit). My most controversial position is that we should financially reward stupid people for getting sterilized; this enrages liberals (how dare I pick on the unfortunate!), conservatives (how dare I interfere with procreation!), and libertarians (how dare I spend other people's money!) equally.
I'm a web programmer by trade, working primarily with Python and Django. I once loved Python, but that's no longer the case. I'll readily grant that Python has admirable traits: wonderful documentation, powerful introspection, lucid syntax, and an extensive standard library. That's not enough to compensate for its flaws, though: an awful packaging system, a hostility to functional programming, a tendency to eschew Git in favor of Mercurial (which I attribute to NIH syndrome), weak support for concurrent programming, a poorly managed transition between incompatible language versions, a runtime that only sees mediocre improvements in speed ... and so on.
JavaScript, Node.js, and altJS are what I use for personal projects these days. They succeed in nearly every aspect that Python fails. JavaScript's syntax may be unwieldy, but altJS compilers are removing much of the pain involved. JavaScript is fast, ubiquitous, and plays host to a vibrant community. And most importantly, it's fun in a way Python hasn't been for a long time.
I have a love/hate relationship with Lisp: I love its power and elegance, but I hate how unreadable the syntax tends to be in practice. I've spent some time tinkering with other (non-Lisp) languages, and they all have their faults — e.g., data model changes in Haskell are a huge pain, Erlang's syntax is amazingly clunky, and Scala's documentation is practically nonexistent. But hey, I can explain both macros and monads to you. ;-)
I spend most of my day in various Zsh shells, Emacs, and Safari; I'm a fair hand with Emacs Lisp, which is probably why I'd spend my whole day in Emacs if I could. Unlike most developers, I dislike large screens, multiple displays, and multiple visible windows; I'm quite comfortable flipping rapidly between several full-screened applications via keyboard shortcuts. I adore Git and hate using any other VCS (and not for lack of experience). I've used OS X for the past several years, and can't wait to go back to Linux; I'm ready to jump on an Ivy Bridge ThinkPad the moment they come out.
I spend a good part of my day listening to electronic music, particularly from the genres of futurepop and synthpop. Among my favorite artists are And One, Assemblage 23, Ayria, Back and to the Left, Beborn Beton, Blaqk Audio, Boole, Bruderschaft, Code 64, Cosmicity, Covenant, Depeche Mode, De/Vision, Echo Image, Frozen Plasma, Imperative Reaction, Iris, Mesh, Mind in a Box, Necessary Response, Neuroactive, Neuroticfish, Project Pitchfork, Rotersand, Seabound, Stromkern, System Syn, Virtual Descent, VNV Nation, and Wolfsheim.
My other interests include anime, board games, books, Dance Dance Revolution, firearms (guns), hard science fiction, philosophy, science, and transhumanism.
I have three cats who I adore as my "furry children", although only one lives with me; my ex has the other two. I'm lucky to have an amazing girlfriend as my partner, even if she does call my cat "Cat". I suppose I'm not much better; I call my cat "Kitty". ^_^
I live in Harriman, NY, roughly 40 miles north of New York City.
If you want to contact me (and you are NOT a job recruiter), my email is tomxtobin@tomxtobin.com. I'm not on Facebook, so don't bother looking.
(Job recruiters: I only deal with principals. My dealings with your ilk have permanently soured me on the prospect. Please respect my wishes and do not contact me.)