Bodger.org

The most beautiful arrangement is a pile of things poured out at random. —Heraclitus of Ephesus, Fragment 57

I'd like to introduce you to: Charlie, Nick, Ryland, Joshua and Aria. My livejournal friends list is good as well.

You should go look at: E2, dict.org, The World Wide Web Commision, The Surrealist Compliment Generator, Groklaw, Inkling, my photos on Flickr, my link feed, and some recipes, partly mine.

My name is Chris Black. I spend my days studying plant biology at the University of Illinois. I'm a biology nerd all the time, a computer programmer in occasional bursts, and a mostly non-practicing bodger. I grew up in Wisconsin on the northern edge of the Driftless Area, went to school and climbed rocks and drank amazing amounts of coffee in Portland, Oregon, and I am now in Urbana, Illinois trying to remember which way the rain comes from and learning to live in the flatlands.

There's not much organization here. For the most part, I compose stuff that I think the world might enjoy seeing and then I chuck it into the mess. It's all there for your viewing pleasure, if you can find it.

The older parts of the site have no organizing scheme, but you can browse newer stuff by date. Highlights include: My undergraduate thesis, some well-considered prejudices, assorted photos, my résumé, a guide to HTML entities for those who aren't all that curious, an informal graphic design contest, graphics not from contests, screenshots mostly taken while debugging, the bugs I was chasing, A real-life illustration of why I distrust exclamation points, what I carry when I go backpacking, a speech given to a room full of homeschoolers, and some essays about trash recovery, the trouble with community-editable projects, the self-importance of a nonprofit, and a fastidious halophile.