05.30
Ah, so you wanted to read about the guy responsible for writing the stuff that is on this blog? Sure thing. But if you’re intolerant or otherwise easily offended, why not head back to the content or find something else, eh? Negative mail or messages about me will be ignored, because I don’t care what the religious argument of the day is.
In short; I’m in my late 20s. I am a pansexual, poly male and I live with two wonderful women and my son. I am (relatively) tolerant, though I am absolutely intolerant of purposeful ignorance of any form that I can imagine—in other words, people with closed minds and who refuse to learn new things, and are not open to the idea of learning new things. I am also absolutely intolerant of oppression and those who advocate its usage (often “for the greater good,” despite the fact that anything that is not freedom is not good). I like logical arguments, when the other party actually knows how to do it. I like to question everything. I like to learn. That’s the short of it, really.
History
I used to have a long, halfway decently-written history here. It was far too long and probably three whole individuals on the Earth read it, so I’ve decided that it wasn’t worth keeping around. Instead, here are the facts that were in that entire thing, somewhat tersely put together.
I was born in February 1983, in northwest Ohio. My parents purchased a computer when I was 4 years old, and I learned how to program on that system. Also learned a lot about computer hardware. Throughout childhood, I was extremely into technology, and that has persisted through to today. Today, I live in the metro Atlanta area.
In my teens, I spent lots of time chasing guys around. This of course stirred everything up, since society dictates that guys thou shalt not chase guys. I’ve dated several people over the years. I wound up with two wonderful women who I have been with for nearly five years as of the time I am writing this.
Today, I work on various projects and freelance, as well as take care of my 3 year old son. I also work on AllTray. I like free software and I like open standards. However, I am not blind towards anything else. I believe that the best tool for the job is always the right tool for the job, and if the tool does not yet exist, then it must be made. Largely, I do not use proprietary software because it is nearly always inferior. As with any sufficiently general statement, there are exceptions.
I use GNU/Linux because it runs on my hardware, because it is free software, because it works well, and because it can be tailored to suit my needs. Systems built around it are flexible, and one can replace components as they see fit in such a system. Since 2005 or so, I have been running my systems with Ubuntu, somewhat modified locally. Prior to that, from 1996 to 2005, I used Slackware to power my machines. I also like FreeBSD.
Beliefs
Human beings are human beings, regardless of which gender they are, where they were born or where their bloodline can be traced to, who their parents are or were, whether they’ll do “favors” for you, or who they’d rather kiss at night. The only reasons a person should be selected for anything is because they are the best choice; likewise, the only reasons a person should not be selected for anything are because they are the wrong choice, not because they are unliked or do not conform to some (usually arbitrary) societal standard.
Freedom is for everyone, everywhere. People are free to make their own choices, follow their own consciences. One person’s freedom ends where the next person’s freedom begins, naturally limiting freedom. While I do not advocate for anarchy, I don’t advocate for current systems of government, either.
Arbitrary is bad; making a restriction or limitation for the sake of doing so is arbitrary, and has no reason. Restrictions, limitations, whatever have to have reasons—sound, logical, non-emotional reasons—or they are just present for the sake of being present.
Censorship is wrong, even when it grows to be a convenient option. If you do not like something, do not listen to it; do not try to compel the originator to suppress it entirely.
Education is important, but not more important than freedom. Those who wish to be educated must choose for themselves whether or not to be educated. “Saving us from ourselves,” or “daddy government,” thinks it knows better, however, and wastes everyone’s time and effort in the process. While it is true that an educated person is more free than a non-educated person in that they have a better base of knowledge from which to grow and make more choices, one must first choose to become educated in order to receive that freedom. Freedom is not free.
Everything must have a reason, even if that reason cannot be found or understood at the time. Given enough time and sufficient resources and motivation, a reason can be found for everything. We just don’t always have the time or resources (or sometimes, motivation) to figure it all out.
People must take responsibility for their actions.
Honesty and truth are more important values than any other, for without them, everything else is obfuscated and made more complex and less navigable.
Tidbits of Info
I drink lots of coffee. Love coffee. My brain does not like it when I don’t have any.
I have an annoying habit of double-spacing after a full stop. In today’s world where text rendering is confused by this, my habit is a bit inconvenient.
I do not use word processing software for document preparation; I typeset using XeLaTeX.
I would really love to own the full suite of Adobe’s fonts. That will never happen, most likely; I simply do not have that much money, and even if I did, I can think of many things where it would be better spent. That said, I still really want them. Especially the Font Folio. Being that I know absolutely nobody who can afford that, the less expensive items from them that I wouldn’t mind having include the Adobe Type Basics OpenType Edition and the Adobe Value Pack OpenType Edition.
I love my ADP1.
I also love my trusty dot-matrix printer. It probably is the only piece of technology I own that would have to be pried from my cold, dead hands.
I like many programming languages, including Vala and C#. I actively dislike PHP, though I am proficient in it (yes, I know WordPress is written in PHP; oh, well, nothing is perfect) mostly because of the way it has grown to be a huge mess of inconsistency. I am at least semi-proficient in various other languages, including Python, C, and Java. I used to know two types of assembly language, but I have not touched any of that in quite a long time. Given time and motivation, I can pick up new languages with relative ease.
For the most part, I do not believe in single-purpose systems; however, I would absolutely not mind having a Mac Mini somewhere in the apartment simply for typesetting. XeLaTeX running on OS X is absolute awesomeness.
Things I Like Doing and Places I Can Be Found
You can find me on IRC, I am “mbt” on FreeNode. I like chatting on there, and can often be found in at least four chat rooms. You can also find me on both Twitter and Identi.ca as “mtrausch”. I prefer identi.ca over Twitter, for a small swarm of reasons—one of which is that identi.ca is powered by free software and is federated. This is also the same reason that I prefer using XMPP for instant messaging (I can be contacted via XMPP as “mike@trausch.us”, which also happens to be my Internet mail address).
When I have the time, I like to edit pages on Wikipedia. I try to correct information, revert vandalism, and copy edit pages when I have the chance.