strugee.net

Hi!

Heyo, I'm AJ Jordan, sometimes known as Alex. I'm 25, live in New York City, and write code - sometimes for open source/freedom-respecting software, sometimes for my employer January (we're hiring!).

Passions of mine

I like to write code. I primarily prefer to write projects in JavaScript, and consider myself pretty good at it. I'm a very big Unix fan and use the commandline for virtually everything (I frequently use GNU coreutils - stuff like ls, mv, cp, etc. - instead of a graphical file manager).

Along with the coding projects that I work on, I also do a lot of system administration work. I selfhost virtually every major online service I use, and I'm also interested in the userops movement as a way to empower less technically-inclined people to do the same. In a similar vein, I'm extremely interested in federated networks and spend a large portion of my free time contributing to pump.io in particular.

This is probably obvious by now, but I'm a vocal supporter of digital freedom. I believe in sticking to my values and I choose my digital products carefully with a lens towards whether they respect my fundamental rights to privacy, security, and software freedom.

Finally, I very much enjoy dance, poetry, and photography - I prefer traditional black and white film.

Stuff I'm good at

Like I said, I love code (though I have, as I suspect many others do too, a complicated relationship with it). So in that vein, here's some types of code that I'm good at writing:

  • HTML/CSS/JavaScript - I know these fairly well, but I could improve. (I could also get way better at website design, although I'm pretty happy with this site's weird style - try the buttons in the lower-right, maybe?)
  • node.js
  • POSIX sh
  • C
  • Java, mostly for Android development
  • Python

and some types of code that I sort of know but am not super good at:

  • Debian packaging
  • ELisp
  • Brainfuck
  • Common Lisp

and some types of code that I don't at all know how to write but would love to learn... someday:

  • Plan 9-style C
  • Rust
  • Haskell
  • Pony
  • Perl
  • Smalltalk
  • x86 assembly
  • Vala (and associated technologies)
  • GTK+

If I had unlimited time I would also be at the very least vaguely interested in learning Limbo, Crystal, Scheme and PHP (the last mostly to contribute to existing projects), but sadly I definitely do not have unlimited time. C'est la vie.

steevie

To run my selfhosted stuff, I run a server called steevie. steevie is supposed to be a traditional UNIX server (in addition to his duties as a server server), which isn't really relevant anymore - now that you can run Xorg on a laptop without swapping - but still fun. He has a longish history of installations, but he currently runs Debian Bullseye (with a mix of Buster and Bullseye LXD containers).

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