Reason for Being

I think that everything, every action, every thought and interaction should have a reason for being. This reason can be completely made up; a total self proclaimed indepedent reason that may even be untethered from reality, but a reason nonetheless. Any evidence of thinking or deliberation that spurred the reaction to whatever environmental change spawned that thing.

This site is no different except here I will outline, more for myself than the reader, for the site, a reason for being. Now maybe it is obvious, maybe not. The fundamental idea here is thought excercise through sharing. My thesis is that by forcing myself to share content consistently, I can better ensure the quality of that content (embarrassing to say: yes I am driven and thrive on the validation of others) and my prolificity. Now be as this may the core of my motivations there is also a slighter and more subtle reason which isn't shaped so much by desire as it is by necessity. That is the need to capture process; thought process. This need is probably self-prescribed. I don't know, I just hate the idea of leaving nothing of substance behind. I need a guarantee that the machinations of my mind are made accessible, not for any specific someone, but more for my own comfort. This is not based on the assumption that I produce ideas of supreme value. They are most likely average. No, it is my opinion, that any thought is valuable. It is the act of thinking itself which is of supreme value and not the content of that thought.

Now let me break down the individual subsections of the site and layout individual purposes.

The Resume is for professional purposes only and provides the quickest snapshot of my tangible accomplishments and responsibilities. Kind of boring.

The Publications section, rather bare, holds publications. Self explanatory. This section is not meant as some ego boost (it might actually serve the opposite purpose), but really just a way to track personal mentions of relative significance. These aren't just solo works, but really any thing I have remotely touched that ended up being published or posted. I try to be candid with the weight of my contributions when it is not already obvious.

The Projects is a quick overview of each project that is actively being worked on. These, for the most part, will be projects of considerable scale. On average, I would surmise projects with multi-year life spans. They will mostly be all projects where I am the lead although there may be a few projects, if I judge them reflective of my mission enough, where I am not lead.

The Reading List is probably my favorite part. Think of it as my personal library and it will consist of every book I ever purchased/own. The books I have read will be a smaller subsection of that library maybe around 50% (so I lie somewhere in the middle of a Umberto Eco's anti library spectrum). I might even give reviews... although we shall see. That is a lot of work.

And then of course the Blog section. This section is where the most detailed and expressive sharing gets done. Where I elaborate on interesting subjects, where I journal, where I maybe even walk through step by step how I build some feature. The writing is meant to be an authentic out pouring of my thoughts, minimally altered for readability and grammatical correctness (no guarantee on either). You will find my writing style overly verbose, unneccesarily complex, misleading as well as distracting, wandering and just plain old poor. But I like it so sucks for you. Conclude from it what you will.

Ok enjoy!