Hi internet visitor! I’m Ross Chapman. A software engineer, kung fu instructor, activist, and writer. 👋🏻
As a source coder, I have a decade of experience writing commercial software across industries and sectors: a scientific research outsourcing marketplace, popular event management ticketing software, industrial pharmacy warehouse software, a fledgling community-driven CMS. That’s on purpose. The the freedom of choice and drift toward compelling socio-technical problems were big attractions for building a livelihood as a coder. (Well, mixed with a dash of retrograde desire to join alternative hacker fantasies. )
Let’s build something! I’m seeking connection with people and organizations that learn together, are competent in or working toward shared theory building, and have repositories accumulating code on the boring side. I’m drive to show up for customers while also facilitating joyful, trust-based development and collaboration amongst peers. I’m eager to leverage training in feminist and human-rights centered technology design, nonviolent communication, and facilitation toward those goals.
Software is my profession, but I also find the phenomenon of software development philosophically tantalizing on its own. When we collaborate you’ll find I have a natural wonder and curiosity about the socio-technical software system that fills my cup through our trade’s exasperations moments of outages, bug fixing, and problem solving. Here I’m thinking about how Federica Frabetti describes what we do in her 2015 book Software Theory. Tracing the ontological crisis of software which constantly “undoes itself”, she offers:
There is no general approach to software than can establish once and forever how software works.
Wild! There’s more.
When I’m not writing software, I’m trying to move as much as possible. For over 15 years I’ve been practicing and teaching an Indonesian-based White Crane Kung Fu. I’m fascinated by these ancient forms of natural movement and the benefit they offer to contemporary bodies that don’t get much chance to flex, stretch, balance, roll, slide, and fill deeply with oxygen. (Although the deepest secrets are only revealed by my true master, my tuxedo cat-son Banzo.) Let’s move!
Let’s be radical! I feel shattered by imperialist white supremacist heteropatriarchy’s choke hold on our freedoms and self-determination. I’m seeking connection with folks that are involved in social justice work, particularly folks interested in resourcing burgeoning transition and solidarity economies and prison abolition. I’m buying ☕️ 🍵🧉. I want to hear about your fantastical vision of a healthy, happy, abundant world. How you’re conspiring toward collective liberation led by directly impacted BIPOC and LGBTQ+ movements. I’ll share about my background in donor organizing with Resource Generation, funding work with the Leadership Circle of the Circle For Justice Innovations, democratic workspaces like Zinc Coop where I sling some code and peer mentorship, and Breaking the Mold - a growing community of white guys becoming better partners for collective liberation.