About Me

Bio stuff

My name is Ryan Davidson. This is my blog. I grew up in central Pennsylvania, and was homeschooled through highschool. I graduated from Covenant College in December of 2003 (that's one semester early, not one semester late), majoring in Philosophy and History. After an abortive exploration of the medical field atColumbia University, where I enrolled in their Post-Bac Pre-Med program, I found myself back in PA. I tought part-time at Covenant Christian Academy and covered a municipal government beat for the Elizabethtown Chronicle during 2005-2006.

I enrolled in Notre Dame Law School in the fall of 2006 and expect to graduate in the spring of 2009. During the summer of 2007, I worked for the United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Email

My email address is: ryan[dot]davidson(at)gmail{dot}com.

Beliefs

I am a Christian. I am orthodox and fairly serious about that. I grew up in the EFCA at the Evangelical Free Church of Hershey. That didn't last very long. I had always been dissatisfied there, and left the EFCA for the PCA at my first opportunity, which was my freshman year in college.

I am historically Reformed, but increasingly find myself drawn to a broader, confessional/orthodox tradition. At this point stage in the church's development, being orthodox can place you on the left of center in some areas. I find myself both more concerned with theological issues than most of the PCA, as well as being rather more liberal than most of the PCA. When I was in New York, I attended All Angels' Church, an Episcopalian congregation on the Upper West Side. I miss it sorely. I attended City's Gate PCA in Harrisburg last year, and am now a member at Michiana Covenant Church, PCA in Granger, IN, near Notre Dame.

Interests

I maintain interests in theology, philosophy, history, technology, current events, and the occasional computer-related diversionary software program. I can be expected to hold forth on any of these or other topics with little notice. lately I blog mostly about law, particularly law related to the development and growth of the Internet and its related cultures.

What is /dev/null?

I've been asked that numerous times. It's a reference to the *nix family of operating systems: Unix, Linux, BSD, and their varients. The directory structure is logical rather than mapping location on a physical drive. The dev directory is the place where the operating system interacts with devices: /dev/mouse, /dev/modem, /dev/usb, etc. /dev/null is the void device, the place where you send output you don't want.

Why /dev/null then? Because this is the Internet, and this space is as much for my use as anyone else's, if not more so. It's a place for me to get out in text what I'm thinking about. If you're interested in that, you're welcome to read along as I think about things out loud. Otherwise, find something better to do. I'm not assumming anyone actually reads this page.

About the blog

I started this blog in the summer of 2003. I was living in Chattanooga, TN for the summer (right about here, actually), and my friend Josiah had caught the blogging bug and launched Chattablogs. Who was I to say no to a free blog on a custom blog-site maintained by people I know with only theoretical bandwidth limits? So I started blogging. Haven't really stopped.

Recurring themes

If you read back through my archives, you'll find several things I return to with some regularity. I've an interest in intellectual property theory and laws. I'll periodically try to be thoughtful about certain aspects of geek culture. I used to write about politics a good deal, but find this less and less interesting as time goes on. Now it's mostly copyright, freedom of speech, and privacy, especially as they relate to the Internet.