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Ryan

$music++;

About Me

I'm like a tree. Always growing, always changing, trying to make the most out of every minute of life. I branch out as much as possible while still maintaining strong roots. Every now and then a few leaves fall off, but it's all part of the process.
No matter how I adjust my lens, from living in the moment to visualizing a peaceful view of our planet's existence as a simple blip on the universal meter, I always make sure to remind myself of the point of it all:
42.
And then, I take a step back and realize: I don't have a clue what's going on either. But, I'm always doing my best to figure out another piece of this crazy puzzle called life; I just hope I'm not missing any.
Thinking about abstract ideas takes up way too much of my time, but I'm ok with that. I'm always able to approach things from any perspective and understand every point of view, but that doesn't mean I don't have my own strong opinions. I love to play devil's advocate. I believe that direct, open communication and a deep understanding of "the big picture" are two things sorely lacking in our culture.
My work is my passion, because it relates so much to everything in the blossoming world of technology that envelops us. As a result, it's also my favorite hobby and main obsession. I design .. experiences so that you don't realize they were designed in the first place; so that you don't have to think about how to use them. Borrowing someone else's catch phrase (shamelessly but appreciatively): "they just work."
One of my life goals is to break all misconceptions about technology being difficult to use. But for now, I focus on creating or fixing one little web app at a time, and hope that someday my good intentions will spread and we'll be able to improve things on a much larger scale.
my top musical influences
My life is guided by the concept of Existentialism: I choose the meaning and purpose of my life.
"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you to give [life] a meaning."
--Jean-Paul Sartre

Existentialism


100%

Hedonism


95%

Utilitarianism


80%

Strong Egoism


55%

Justice (Fairness)


55%

Kantianism


50%

Apathy


30%

Divine Command


25%

Nihilism


5% my top philosophical influences

My Interests

you
beer
water
music
violins
voices
guitars
cinema
creation
scrabble
pussy cats
backpacking
optimisticness
driving at night
mountain biking
reinterpretations
recording sounds
graphic/web design
shiny blinking things
barely not being a hippie
reflections in unlikely places

I'd like to meet:

    People in SF who are obsessive about music (playing it, dissecting it, rocking out to it, dancing like a retard to it at shows and in the street...) Innovative graphic/interactive design freaks and human interaction specialists. Slick user interfaces are rad and if you like to make them then you must be cool. Mountain bikists (because -ists are better that -ers at everything: codists are better at coding than coders, parkists are better at parallel parking than parkers, guitarists are better at shredding than guitarers, and so forth. It's an undeniable rule, for reals.) People into anything else that you think I'd be into too, which is a pretty long list-- I'm up for just about anything...

Music:

architecture in helsinki
thievery corporation
second chances lost
smashing pumpkins
death cab for cutie
the postal service
the refreshments
special goodness
badly drawn boy
the weakerthans
christine fellows
phantom planet
onelinedrawing
massive attack
a perfect circle
the mars volta
hellogoodbye
operation ivy
imogen heap
the thermals
jets to brazil
mark farina
alkaline trio
foo fighters
jawbreaker
13 and god
amon tobin
morcheeba
fall out boy
prefuse 73
the rentals
senses fail
portishead
mike relm
radiohead
antifreeze
azure ray
the prom
soulprint
rilo kiley
deftones
the faint
buck 65
placebo
incubus
weezer
metric
muse
björk
stars
finch
calla
tool
exo
311

Movies:

ronin
clerks
amelie
identity
hackers
mallrats
fight club
memento
italian job
waking life
high fidelity
office space
love actually
chasing amy
garden state
donnie darko
la confidential
v for vendetta
butterfly effect
empire records
the professional
boondock saints
american beauty
the usual suspects
a life less ordinary
the land before time
requiem for a dream
eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

Television:

i'm not a big fan in general
but i can often be spotted
watching project runway
(with my roommate
who is a designer)
fairly religiously.
And LOST is
awesome...
Oh, plus--
YouTube
rocks.
still.

Books:

diary
lullaby
the giver
microserfs
high fidelity
the stranger
neuromancer
hey, nostradamus!
pattern recognition
mona lisa overdrive
lord vishnu's love handles
perks of being a wallflower

Heroes:

i've tried to think of something
meaningful to put here
for a long time but
it's way too hard
to really define
a true hero
(yes, i am
lame)

My Blog

My life's soundtrack

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?So, here's how it works:1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)2. Put it on shuffle3. Press play4. For every question, typ...
Posted by Ryan on Mon, 09 Oct 2006 01:24:00 PST