The Geek Talk

Who is Jack Danger Canty?

Jack is an overprivileged urban male in Seattle who writes code and loves personal growth of all kinds. Danger is his middle name.

Where and when did you start programming?

I bought a book on ASP 4.0 and was amazed by how, in only 50-100 lines of code, I could perform simple commands. In only a few hundred lines more I could output html that was bad even by 1999 standards. I figured ASP 4 was the future of programming so it was worth learning. I may have chosen poorly. Like that guy who’s face melts at the end of the last Indiana Jones movie. Remember that? That was awesome.

You favorite Languages/Frameworks? And why?

I’ve been working full time with Rails since before version 0.9.6. I love it like it’s family and, like family, I’m trying to get some ‘me time’ away from it. So I’m spending nights and weekends with Javascript. What’s got me most excited lately is the combination of Node.js and Riak. It’s like a fresh, new family where I haven’t heard all the jokes and nobody’s going to make me the godparent of their ugly baby.
Riak has the best of Erlang and has a really interesting approach to scaling and storage (i.e. you can store anything and scaling is free).
And I like Node.js because Steve Yegge told me Javascript was gonna be huge and because Node moves even faster than the spread of bad advice on Hacker News.

What does your typical day look like?

I get up early and run two miles to the local CrossFit gym. After working out I run two miles back home and shower. Then I, like, save babies from burning buildings and cure cancer.
I have a policy to not open my computer until I’m out of the house and set up for the day at a cafe. Once I have a macchiato, a macbook pro, and my iphone sitting on a table at a local coffee shop I try to ignore how douchy that all looks and get some work done.
I break for dinner around 5:30 and try to spend some time with my better half. Then, if there isn’t some place I unquestionably, absolutely have to be (like happy hour or browsing facebook) I hang out on the couch working some more.
On Sundays I have a strict no-computer policy. My wife and I go out to breakfast, we come home, and I do shit-all until it’s bedtime. Sunday is my favorite.

What do you do in your free time?

I’m deeply interested in feminism and feminist theology. I recently published a re-translation of the bible where every gendered pronoun and name was swapped; male for female, female for male. It’s an illustration of the profound silence of women in the bible. I’ve long since stopped believing in the supernatural but I’m still banging around inside Christianity causing trouble.
I also love to learn new languages, both natural and computer. My degree is in Linguistics and I have a talent for quickly learning enough of a foreign tongue to be totally unintelligible in it. I’m practicing my Italian by having my phone, Gmail, and Facebook accounts all set to Italian. If I ever travel there I’ll be an expert at prompting waiters to ‘return to inbox’ or ‘select a file’.

Current favorite apps?

Thanks to the Kindle app I’m able to devour more bad sci-fi novels than I ever dreamed. Just yesterday I read a whole book about nanite-infested soldiers or some shit that totally saved the world from aliens. It’s my own personal library of awful man-fiction and no app could make me happier.

What OS do you prefer?

The command line. Somewhere behind my terminal is OS X but I think I need a mouse to use most of that crap.

Small picture for your Workplace?

This is my wife posing in my work-hammock. Weather permitting, I bike around Seattle finding places to set up my swinging mesh laboratory. You can get a surprising amount of code written while in a hammock. Bonus: everybody in the world envies you.

Name something that has inspired you recently?

I saw the 50-year-old founder of my CrossFit gym doing clapping pull-ups. Also, I saw my buddy @carlosdavis run a 5:37 mile. I used to be a slow fat guy and now I’m inspired by anybody who treats their body right.

What do you prefer (and why)? Freelance work or full time employment?

Founding companies. With the minimum necessary effort I want to make new products that cause people to scream with pleasure.
Total pleasure-screams to date: zero. But, still, that’s the goal.

What are your personal projects and goals for 2011?

The official list:
- Do 10 handstand pushups.
- have my bible retranslation denounced by at least one narcissist, male, heteronormative church pastor.
- Have $5 million in sales through http://cloops.com
- launch my side-project
- leave the country at least once