| About demongin.org | 2008-12-3 | |
| User hostile; made from scratch. | ||
Abstract: This is the personal blog of Timothy O'Connell. Since its inception in 2004, I have written (very nearly) all of the content and done (very nearly) all of the programming myself. There is no single focus, topic or format. The original plan for the project was to will into existence a public website that forced me to write an essay every day. The thinking was that I would commit loudly and publicly to a production schedule and that keeping up with my drunken boasts would improve my proficiency with expository composition. The project went on hiatus between April 2006 and April 2008. During this time I relocated to Chicago from an extended sojourn in New Haven, Connecticut and invented a new life for myself. In many of those earlier posts--the ones predating the hiatus--there is a surplus of the anxieties, outbursts and typographical errors one would expect from a fledgling author, a failing academic and a fish out of water. I don't mean to disclaim them, but I can't exactly misrepresent them as near or dear to me: I look at them now and I see the disorganized cries for attention of a vain, misguided and arrogant autodidact whose petty polemic, while occasionally hard-hitting, generally flies wide of its mark and redounds upon its author. In the posts from 2008 and beyond, I like to think that I demonstrate some growth, progress and, more importantly, an increased sense of focus and urgency, even if I post somewhat less frequently. Apologies: Matt Brent was the original inspiration for this project and for so many others; ironically, it is in these writings, however, that I know disappoint him most greviously. Artie Jordan, as always, deserves thanks for being the lynchpin of the social and information networks upon which these projects depend: one day, I'm going to make it a priority to somehow reward his great resourcefulness and charity. Perhaps by letting go of his coattails. (Probably not.) Martin Walsh and Trevor Turk taught me what precious little I know about programming an interface and indexing content: I could have learned so much from you both, the mess before you is a reflection of my personal failings as a student, not of theirs as teachers. Ancillary: Other projects include (but are not limited to):
The "demongin", as I like to call it, is based on a class project from high school. The setup is familiar enough: intro to graphic design culminates in a final project that requires the invention and development of a pretend company, its trademarks and logos. My company, 2000i, manufactured novelty rayguns for wealthy enthusiasts of classic science fiction. Their logo was the demongin. I also have a small demongin tattooed on the inside of my left arm, just above the elbow. All graphics/art were processed with the GIMP. Author: I am, like most of the hyper-active "-athon generation" to which I belong, an over-credentialed under-achiever who can hardly settle on a mood, let alone a career, a place of residence or a consistent set of orthographic conventions. I have a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a master's degree in religion and the arts from Yale University and have been everything from a produce clerk to a system administrator in my time. I have played various instruments in numerous Chicago bands, a partial list of which includes Children's Masterpiece Theatre, Dubious Moniker and The Proscriptions. I have produced recordings for Rusty Pipes, local bluesman Dan Patrevito and others. My preferred mode of musical expression and composition is percussion; I'm a capable sequencer of electronic drums and an avid player of acoustic drums. I occasionally do freelance proaudio and sound design work on a contract basis. Authorship: This is the sixth iteration of demongin.org. Like each previous generation, the entire site was written from scratch; I don't use anybody else's templating software, frameworks, etc. I did, however, crib (and slightly modify) a really excellent case-insensitive sort function by Michael Foord from ASPN. Check it out here. Foord has been known to kick it at voidspace.org.uk. Unlike previous iterations of demongin.org, which were a rat's nest of HTML and PHP, this sixth iteration was written entirely in python using vim. The best (not just my favorite, but the best) colorscheme is, without a doubt, elflord. What you're looking at is, finally, nothing more than a great, big python CGI program written on the commandline. Complete source code is, of course, available upon request. | ||
| A Shotglass of Lymph: |
| I told Tom that I had ditched my ergonomic mouse in favor of a non-ergonomic mouse and then placed that mouse to the left of my keyboard.
"You're right handed, right? You're supposed to use your left hand." "No--that can't be true: you're supposed to use your dominant hand. I mean, look around: why do you think all of these computers have the mouse to the right of the keys?" "Hey man: people still go to church."
Date: 2008-11-10 | |||||||||||||||||||
 Uploaded: 2008-03-17
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