And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.
Interests
Learning
I believe in lifelong learning. The ability to gain new skills in the age of the internet is limited only by your imagination. This site is a small example.
Cooking
In addition to cooking at home, I enjoy writing software that can help organize and find recipes as well as facilitate the cooking process in a natural way. You can view my latest work at recipes.grantharper.org.
Meditation
I have been practicing mindfulness meditation since late 2018. The exploration of consciousness has been interesting and helpful in providing perspective on how to approach life experiences.
Software
The craft of building well-designed software continues to fascinate me. I love playing with programming concepts and trying to keep up with the quick pace of technological innovation.
Organizations
These are the organizations I support on a monthly basis
Though Northern Virginia is affluent, poverty is all too present. The Communities in Schools organization surrounds students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life.
I believe that education should be available to all. Khan Academy's global mission to further democratize education is invaluable. Every child deserves the chance to learn.
Give Directly gives cash directly to the world's poorest because "people living in poverty deserve the dignity to choose for themselves how best to improve their lives — cash enables that choice."
Humanity forward is dedicated to furthering the ideas of universal basic income, human-centered capitalism, and data as a property right.
Latest Blog Posts
I would like to use what little social capital I have to address a major problem emerging in our society: a lack of reasoning, a willingness to follow others blindly, and then most dangerously, a willingness to shame anyone who doesn't believe as you do.
Yes, I'm talking about you. I'm talking to myself too. We must all step up, because...
Setting up a database server is the kind of infrequent operation you seldom do as an application developer, so you always forget. Yes, I know you can read the documentation to figure this out, but that takes longer than having a quick reference guide on what you need to do to get up and running quickly.
OS: Ubuntu 18
Install Postgres
This will...
Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind, written by Annaka Harris is quite the mind bender, especially if you haven't been exposed to thinking about consciousness before. Consciousness is how we experience the world and all that is happening around us. I'm excited to share some of the main takeaways I had from reading this book.
Harris...
More posts can be found in the blog.
Connect With Me