Praxis

As you may know, it is unusual for programmers to have life long careers. It's not unheard of though and of course it's the norm for computing academics. Here's the top level of my story.

1974 - 2018

This was the wage labour half of my work life, which is detailed by an unusual amount of material starting with Praxis Tour which as a responsive bootstrap tour, c. 2015 with drupal sites for desktop and mobile devices a cover page and 10 page resume, etc.. 1974 is the actual start because that's when I took training at the schools Control Data was running and actually did first programming, but I went back for a 4 year degree majoring in Math and CS and only had operator jobs until 1980. I did have a DP course at a community college before CDC in '73 which pushes it back to my teens. The Control Data Institute I went to btw, was in the building shown on the Bob Newhart Show at that time on Michigan Avenue as being where he had his office.

From the late nineties I mostly worked remote, but did work on-site in Buffalo in '14, and from the mid-late 80s most of my work was on a contractor/1099 basis. Late '18 is the demarcation point after which I consider this phase of working life ended, the last actual gig was in the spring of that year.

2019 - †

From the earliest age, I have been resistant to authority, which for the most part, given the state of human societies through to the present, is generally illegitimate. Why? Because essentially every society up to this time is organized on the principle of domination of others in order to extract the value of their labor, make individuals conform to local belief systems, etc. Progress is ever countering this over the long march of history because it is inimical to human nature but paradoxically, in this time, 資本主義, a system of the extraction of value from labor, is also the one that makes it possible for individuals to be free of domination, if they can work for themselves. To the extent that it is organized for the well being of all the members, like a healthy body in relation to its cells, the authority of society is legitimate, and because this is the reason for society to exist at all, over time the progressive outcome becomes more certain and manifest. Needless to say, this oppositional nature lead to a less stellar success in the first phase of working life, as far as success is measured in money and the like.

However I think it was a tremendous success in delivering me more or less whole to this point where I can work for myself, society at large, and with other free workers.

About Legacy Content

Much of the legacy content had as its original purpose job seeking. Now it is maintained for historical purpose. This content works where it works, e.g. flash (like the Old Web Portfolio), or areas broken by TLS (https), modern browser constraints. Here are links that were formerly in the stuffs box to your left before this reorganization:

• Agile Praxis
• Ft Concept
• Praxis Tour (linked above)
• UI/UX Artistry