In his recent post, Ron Coleman asked (among many other things discussed)Â who I am and why I’m not listed on the sidebar. Which reminds me that I neglected to introduce myself properly when I joined Dean’s World as a front-page contributor.
To answer the last question first, I don’t know for sure, but I suspect technical difficulties are making the sidebar difficult to edit. I haven’t inquired into it, as it doesn’t really bother me; I’m just happy to be here.
As for why I’m here (the implied second question), I know PunningPundit/Andrew Cory in real life and often debate political and philosophical issues with him in other forums. He suggested me to Dean as a potential front-page contributor after realizing that I am a long-time Dean’s World reader. Dean added me just after the WordPress conversion.
And now back to the original question. My name is Eric Rall (I’ve been meaning to drop the pseudonym for a while, and this seems an appropriate time), and I’m a 27-year old software engineer living in Mountain View, CA. I’ve never been married and have no children yet. I currently work as a tester for a group within Microsoft Windows. Previously, I’ve worked as a tester on the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Profiling Tools, as an embedded software developer for KOR Electronics, as a tester for Intrinsic Graphics, and as a tester for Be, Inc.
I was born in Texas, grew up in Maryland, and went to college in California, with stops in Indiana (a year in early childhood), Virginia (a year during High School), and Washington State (two years, up until a few months ago).
Politically, I’m a pragmatic small-l libertarian who usually aligns with the Republican Party. To oversimplify, my political philosophy is that government interference in the economy is often a necessary evil, but government interference in the personal lives of individuals is generally an unnecessary evil. It’s generally my view that there should be a strong but rebuttable presumption against using the coersive power of the government to address any particular problem.
I’m an avid reader of science fiction, alternate history, and several flavors of nonfiction. I occassionally play softball, very badly (I can almost hit the ball out of the infield). I’m a fan of the New York Yankees. I play board games and tabletop roleplaying games with my friends regularly, and I play single-player computer games (mainly RTS and civilization-style games) from time to time.
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Thanks for the intro, Eric! (Maniakes)Â
Wow. You are almost exactly as I imagined you to be, based on my impressions from your writing.Â
Except for your year in Indiana.Â
And the Yankee fan thing….
VSTS Profiling Tools?
Eric Maniakes, you’re my hero.
Jaymaster,
Glad to be predictable, but not completely so. Both of your surprises are connected with where my parents are from — the year in Indiana was because that’s where my mother grew up, and the Yankee fan thing is because my father grew up in northern New Jersey during the Casey Stengel dynasty and passed his love of the team on to me.
Martin,
You honor me beyond my desserts.
Well, I seem to be quoting movies a lot of late, and that quote just came to me. But seriously, VSTS rocks, so I’m happy to say "Great job!"
eric, its gonna be a lot harder to take righeous offense at what you write now that you’re a person and not a handle. I prefer it this way. Welcome aboard :)
Your real name, Eric Rall, was know to me because you used that name in an email when you did some test posting on my temporary WordPress blog. I almost threw that email away as spam before I seeing some of the text and realized that you were from Dean’s world.
To answer the last question first, I don’t know for sure, but I suspect technical difficulties are making the sidebar difficult to edit. I haven’t inquired into it, as it doesn’t really bother me; I’m just happy to be here.
Nothing too technical and takes but a moment to add. I do a bit of tweaking for Dean now and then, so I would be happy to add you to the list.
Just let me know what name you want posted, and where to point the link. Send to:
From conversations as long as I’ve known you (wow, it’s been 7-8 years now), our political differences have been obvious. This forum has been an interesting one in which to learn more about the details of those beliefs and even *gasp* find a point or two of agreement.
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