Why hello there. I'm James Pearson, Purveyor of Fine Linens. May I have the pleasure of making your acquaintance?

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While my official title at iFixit is "Code Frog", that's not incredibly descriptive - I split my time between system administration, tool programming, and backend work. The title does have some later-assigned meaning, though; like a frog,

• I eat bugs. Yum.

• I hop around a bit (in the codebase).

• You mostly hear from me at night.

Anyways.

I maintain (hmm, perhaps "maintain" is too strong of a word) a personal website at http://changedmy.name . It mostly contains my musings, so I doubt you'd actually want to go there. But then, you are reading this, so.

Find me on: GitHub | Reddit | Calendar About Nothing | Last.fm | Pinboard | Stack Overflow

Programming ¶ 

I'm currently ending my 5th year as a Software Engineering student at Cal Poly, the best university around. ;) I'm employed part-time at iFixit.

PHP was my first true programming language that I spent any time with, and it was my primary until the summer after my freshman year of university, when I started working for the College of Engineering on Django-powered websites. Python has been my primary language since then, although I'm finding myself writing more and more in Ruby, because it's so damn fun!

I am also acquainted in various degrees with HTML, CSS, Javascript (mostly with jQuery), Java, C, Lua and Scheme. I am learning Scala next, and possibly Haskell, D or Factor after that, but plans tend to get altered as time passes.

Other than the work that I did for Cal Poly, and most class assignments, all of my code is available on my GitHub account.

Personality ¶ 

On the DISC view of the universe, I have a natural ranking of 100 S and C, 23 D and 7 I, which puts me as a pure Coordinator. While not a natural leader in any way, I'm rebellious enough to tell the project lead (plainly) when I think they've made a poor choice, but passive enough to follow their final decisions.

While many people may find me a bit odd (I have a tendency to keep to myself, and have been known to go through a course without ever speaking a word), it is rare to find someone who dislikes me.

I maintain a list of books I've recently read.

Non-Computer Interests ¶ 

Hats ¶ 

I like them. I unfortunately haven't had the opportunity to go to a hat shop and get a nice one, but my cheapies have served me well.

The Greek fisherman's hat was the first I wore regularly, starting my senior year of high school. The first one I had was pretty beat up, though, so this is a replacement.

This trilby I bought off Amazon as part of my Inspector Clouseau Halloween costume. I just liked it so much that I decided to keep wearing it. :)

While my sister was in Europe, she bought this hat for me at a market.

I mostly wear it during the winter, because it has awesome fold-out ear flaps.

Lastly, my former housemate just gave me a new trilby:

Facial Hair ¶ 

In my not-so-humble opinion, I've gothad the best in the office; unfortunately, my Halloween costume required a full shave, and I haven't decided to what extent I'll grow it out again.

For several years, any facial hair I had was merely a result of being too lazy to shave. One day, though, I realized the truth:

Urban Dictionary says it best:

Unix beard: Facial hair that all Unix experts are mysteriously compelled to grow. The length, bushiness, and unkemptness of the Unix beard are all directly proportional to the owner's expertise. Having a Unix beard is a great way to ensure that you never get laid.

Um, we'll just ignore that last sentence, shall we?

Japanese Media ¶ 

A rather large collection of anime has made its way onto my fileserver. A smaller, but still respectable, group of manga takes up a bit of room one of our bookshelves.

I rarely finish shows, but between the small pieces of things I've watched and the conversations I've had with others in the subculture, I'm likely to know at least something about any anime you've seen. This also allows me to be a decent recommender, although I normally just point people towards Anime-Planet, which is a fantastic site for that sort of thing.

Ponies! ¶ 

Yes, my friend, I am an unashamed brony - a male follower of the best cartoon to air in the U.S. in quite some time.

I'm proud to say that I'm directly responsible for the conversion of three housemates and two coworkers.

Sure, most people don't understand - but haters gonna hate.