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BENJAMIN LUPTON


FOUNDED BEVRY, DOCPAD, AND STARTUP HOSTEL. ACCOMPLISHED IN JAVASCRIPT, NODE.JS,
WEB DEVELOPMENT AND OPEN-SOURCE. ENTHUSIAST OF QUANTITATIVE PSYCHOLOGY,
PHILOSOPHY AND TRADING. AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTING, TRAINING AND SPEAKING.
CONTACT. REFERRALS.

 * home
 * projects
 * blog


I RADICALLY EXPLORE THE KNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN.


I HELP MAKE THE WEB AWESOME.

Before I die, I wish to see everyone enabled to do what they love, share their
love with the entire world, and live well. This is a big calling, and I'm
chipping away at it steadily.

This has worked well for me so far; for several years I was the most active
Open-Source developer in Australia and one of the most prolific in the world; my
technical projects have been used in some of the world's biggest web-sites/apps
(Basecamp, Spotify, Ustream) and by some of the world's biggest companies
(Microsoft, Adobe, GitHub, Atlassian), touching their millions of users; my
non-technical projects have also seen adoption over the years.

The key skill set I've used to accomplish this is my natural ability to quickly
understand complex systems and simplify them in disruptive ways, a burning need
to do good in the world, and an instinctive tenacity for always finding a way
even in the most difficult of situations.

Happy to cultivate friendships and business opportunities. View my resume. Get
in contact.


I'M HUMAN TOO.

I'm absorbed in the art of simple and nomadic living, with a vegan life-style
and ahimsa values. The data cannot recommend this lifestyle more highly.

Through difficult and often traumatic times in my life, I've had the recurring
personal afflictions of skin picking, hair pulling, and panic attacks. Since
opening up about these aspects first to friends and then publicly in 2015 (at
age 26), the overwhelming burden of shame I carried dissipated, which allowed me
to move my attention from hating myself and hiding symptoms, to accepting myself
and fixing causes, with the surprising help of friends and other strugglers,
down the road to an ever more resilient life. If you ever want to talk about it,
feel free.

You may cast me as a privileged heterosexual white male born into a middle class
society. However (1) the practice of prejudice continues when people judge from
these inherited properties instead of from character, (2) generalising is innate
and correlations between identity and character exist, however the degree that
someone's identity has influenced their character fluctuates from person to
person (so while identity influences character, remember to assess your
judgements properly), and (3) due to the endeavours of my ancestors and society
I've been afforded more free time (but no less agency) to spend continuing the
tradition of increasing people's potential for self-actualisation (the
head-start is thanks to my identity, the choices of how to spend my time is a
matter of character).

I'm a big believer in ephemeral living. I've recently discovered that I'm my own
person. Coming up with great questions and answering them - staying true to
myself by discovering myself - enabling joy and reducing oppression through
education - are all passages deeply rooted in my soul.


I'VE DONE MANY THINGS.

In 1998 (age 8/9), I developed my first website for a Perth city council project
as part of an accelerated learning PEAC course, the project went on to win a
state award. A few years later I started developing in C# to interact with the
iTunes DLLs for the purpose of organising my music collection, I also started
programming in ECMAScript in the form of Flash ActionScript for the purpose of
creating a kickass full-fledged media player for my self, I also worked with
HTML and JavaScript on the side for fun and pleasure. Around this time, I was
diagnosed with Trichotillomania and until University, I would often be found
with large bald spots throughout my scalp. I saw many psychologists through my
childhood, all of which were useless.

In 2002 (age 12/13), I started Central TAFE night school earning my Certificates
1 to 4 in different programming concepts and languages, working with C, C#,
Pascal, COBOL, Perl, PHP, ASP and other languages. During the day I was at Como
Secondary College in the accelerated learning SSST program (a year ahead in
Science, Maths, and Technology subjects) as well as in the Hockey Academy (doing
25 hours a week of Field Hockey, I was fit). It placed me in an interesting
position of being a frat-boy and a nerd, the teachers worked with myself and
another boy to use our influence to squash the bullying of our peers, it worked
well. For fun, I rollerbladed, played Age of Empires endlessly, did sleep overs,
and hacked the school’s Windows network for fun with friends, earning us the
position of “intern advisors” for the school’s security and network systems.

In 2005 (age 15/16), thanks to my night school studies of the previous years, I
was able to drop out of High School, went to Central TAFE and earned my Diploma
of Website Design & Development, which allowed me to start University only a
year later. At this time, I worked casually in a factory stacking fences from a
conveyer belt and developed my first long term relationship, it was a wonderful
maturing time, and brought a long-term end to my Trichotillomania. Around this
time I also started experimenting with cannabis and alcohol socially.
Interestingly, in this year I also got into a bit of trouble for hacking
Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger premium content services (winks and dynamic
profile pictures) as I had no money or debit card to buy them… I used my Flash
and JavaScript skills to bypass the Flash checkout process of the Blue Mountain
premium content service, then scraping their predictable premium content path
structures, then developing a C# installer for the content by reverse
engineering portions of the Messenger DLL install process. At the same time I
gained prestige at Central TAFE by discovering an exploit in their WebCT system
and working with staff to rectify the situation, which I later published as my
first white-hat security advisory a few years after. Later, I also discovered
that the same exploit worked on my university's system, however with the
university’s strict “hacking and your expelled” policy in place, I was too
afraid of being expelled for sharing the exploit with them, so I never mentioned
it… leaving their systems insecure and open to actually malicious people, good
work policy! 🙃

In 2006 (age 16/17), I commenced my Bachelor of Computer Science (Information
Technology) at Curtin University, while freelancing with PHP and JavaScript
development on the side. Around this time was also my foray into Open-Source
development with my plugins, freelancing, blogging, and core contributions to
the b2evolution blogging system (a powerful alternative to WordPress). I also
visited Switzerland for a month to visit my partner, started an
open-relationship upon my return to Perth, which resulted in a first heart break
6 months later, and also partied very hard throughout the year.

In 2007 (age 17/18), I moved out of home with 2 other university friends into a
house right next to the university, it was an amazing time, and an amazing
Bachelor Pad of alchohol, pool billiards tables, bars, and mattresses and
friends everywhere all the time, it was a non-stop study and work infused party,
and we loved it. It was also the time I published the jQuery Lightbox Plugin,
which went on to become one of the most popular jQuery plugins of the time.
Throughout these university/freelancing years I was stepped into the worlds of
Pickup Artistry, Personal Devleopment, Neuro-Linguistic Programming,
Hypnotherapy, Open Relationships, Sexual Positivity, Halo 3, Road Trips,
Open-Source, Simple Living, and other Extreme Lifestyle Experiments… it was all
packed full of confidence and experimenting, and it was wicked fun.

In 2008 (age 18/19), after an intense week of exams, daily alcohol, daily
marijuana, first-time LSD, and first-time MDMA, I ended up in a moment of pure
terror believing my lung had collapsed, ended up unconscious, woke up in
hospital via ambulance, and diagnosed with a panic attack… my Stress Bucket had
finally overflowed and it was terrifying… I left that night with
Depersonalisation Disorder, and over 6 months began hallucinating, hearing
voices, and having night terrors, afraid to sleep. Having one terrifying night
terror that left me questioning my safety, I had my family take me to the GP to
get help and eventually see a Clinical Psychiatrist who helped me through it,
with a further diagnosis of Generalised Anxiety Panic Disorder. After 6 months
of further recovery, I got through it to normality once again, and another 6
months later until I was able to have caffeine again.

In 2009 (age 19/20), I started feeling a lot of guilt for my fantastic life
while others were in poverty. In January 2010, I went to Bali for the first time
with my father and an Exchange Student, we had a fantastic time, but I was also
harrowed by the poverty I encountered… It would go on to increase my investment
to do good by the world.

In 2010 (age 20/21), my foray into kinder food choices began. I had watched this
talk and immediately stopped consuming fish. A while later, for some reason or
the other, I stopped using dairy for milk. I also developed a new relationship,
and my first closed-relationship, to a wonderful woman who helped me mature in
life and work very much so.

In 2011 (age 21/22), I was invited to speak in Austria by Gentics for their
Aloha Editor Dev Con of which I was a lead developer, it was a fantastic insight
to get to meet other great JavaScript developers at the time, especially for a
small-town syndrome Australian! Upon returning, I moved to Sydney from Perth for
better work opportunities and to be with my partner, who was fighting for
custody of her children. I worked with miscellaneous startups earning street
cred and an increasing hourly rate, due to my years of Open-Source experience
and commitment to quality. I went from the $10/hour newcomer to the goto
JavaScript expert within the year. Eventually, I obtained a full-time $60/hour
contract with Sydney company Acid Green developing long-term JavaScript
solutions for their medical and government clients.

In 2012 (age 22/23), I left the amazing Acid Green who where running out of work
for me, to consult for the Melbourne startup BugHerd, earning my highest hourly
rate so far. I developed their first Client-Side Web Application solution along
with other innovations like Live Collections and a Cross-Browser Screenshot
Extension. Once that ended, I burnt through my savings going all in with
attempting to transform Bevry's loss-leader DocPad into a profitable income
stream. At one point I ran out of money, and a person called Kasper Tidemann out
of nowhere, a History.js user, bailed me out with some cash and sound advice for
finding new clients, which I did, thanks to him.

In 2013 (age 23/24), I was invited to Meta Refresh in Bangalore to speak to 400
people about finding your way despite competition. I then flew to Bali with my
partner to setup the first full-time Startup Hostel. I didn't enjoy the setting
up procedure much, however fortunately enough other people did. There are now
more than 30 hostels for startup folk around the world. In June I also received
salvation for my gamble in DocPad with a full-time income to work on it from
Toronto company Myplanet (and got to visit them twice!). I also visited Berlin
to train students in JavaScript. This year also marked my introduction to
Mindfulness via Eckhart Tolle's works, and started reading Paulo Coelho.

In 2014 (age 24/25), the funding ended and I burned out from 10 years of
professional programming and of life in general, after a while I embraced
Moneyless Living and became a volunteer at a donation-based vegan soup kitchen
in Sydney. It was perhaps the most rewarding work I've ever done in my life. I
actually got to smile, laugh, and interact with people, solving a real need -
joyous food and great company - without discrimination (even financial). I also
was unable to find enough paying work that allowed me to continue my Open-Source
endeavours and lived homeless in the streets of Sydney for a few months.

In 2015 (age 25/26), I hitchhiked 10,000KM throughout Australia, notably between
Perth, Uluru, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Nullabor, and back to Perth. It was
an adventure of a life-time. At some point, I desire to commence foot on the
Bibbulmum Track, a 1,000KM walk from Perth to Albany in Western Australia — I
plan on doing this alone to discover what doors it opens and closes for me. I
also wrote my first book.

In 2016 (age 26/27), I completed the last unit of my degree after a 6 year
hiatus, becoming a Bachelor of Computer Science (Information Technology)
graduate enabling global employment. I also gave the talk Elegantly Produce &
Consume Compiled Packages at Node.js Interactive Europe 2016 and worked through
some private matters. I also started (co-)hosting the Jordan B Peterson
Community, including a weekly podcast.

In 2017 (age 27/28), I resumed then paused my lucrative freelancing, to
experiment with automated/algorithmic stock and cryptocurrency trading, a field
where I hypothesize that eventually data science, machine learning, and
artificial intelligence will intersect with trading markets to the extent of
economic terrorism. My intent was merely to gain understanding to fill in my
major blind spots, and to see how much profits my aptitudes will get me before
it became too late. This proved somewhat successful, it allowed me to grow
personally and make some money outside of the tech world's autocratic political
delusions, and was the catalyst for my move from Australia to Asia.

In 2018 (age 28/29), to facilitate my trading efforts, I studied devops,
economics, and decision making. This made me realise: (1) there would be a major
downturn in the crypto market, (2) one man alone cannot build everything by
himself, and (3) that the tech industry is marching towards suicide from its
severe gaps of knowledge in philosophy, psychology, and economics. This caused
me to rethink my direction, and to spend the last half of the year wrapping up
all my various projects, so that I could focus only on my most meaningful
initiatives: (1) a platform to revivify speakable knowledge, and (2) to enrol
into University of Melbourne to refine my understandings of philosophy,
psychology, and economics.

In 2019 (age 30/31), I will be studying a Graduate Diploma in Arts (Philosophy)
at the University of Melbourne.


REACH OUT.

Happy to cultivate friendships and business opportunities. View my resume. Get
in contact.

You can support me by donating to me via my open-company and community, using my
referral links, or having a chat with me.

You should follow me on Twitter to keep up to date.


RESOURCES


I WRITE, SOME OF MY FAVOURITES ARE:

 * Surviving Free Culture
 * A different way to see Google
 * What vegans and non-vegans alike don’t get about veganism, and why dialogue
   between two sides often results in unnecessary confrontation
 * More.


I TALK, SOME OF MY FAVOURITES ARE:

 * Crime & Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky @ Jordan B Peterson Community 2018
 * Elegantly Produce and Consume Compiled Packages @ Node Interactive Europe
   2016
 * Why the next big thing sucks @ Meta Refresh India 2013
 * More.


I TEACH, SOME OF MY FAVOURITES ARE:

 * Organiser and Trainer @ Node School Berlin 2014
 * JavaScript Expert @ Hacker & Data-Science Retreat Germany 2013 & 2014
 * DocPad & WebRTC Trainer @ Myplanet Digital Canada 2013 & 2014
 * More.


I CODE, SOME OF MY FAVOURITES ARE:

 * DocPad: A static-site generator with dynamic abilities.
 * History.js: Cross-browser stateful web applications.
 * TaskGroup: Intuitive JavaScript flow control that actually makes sense.
 * More.


I READ, SOME OF MY FAVOURITES ARE:

 * Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
 * Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
 * Walden by Henry David Thoreau
 * More.


AWARDS


TOP 10% FOR JAVASCRIPT, NODE.JS, JQUERY, HTML5 AND AJAX VIA STACKOVERFLOW

With 20,000 reputation on StackOverflow I’ve been able to help approximately 3
million web developers with my shared knowledge and expertise.


THE 12TH MOST ACTIVE OPEN-SOURCE DEVELOPER IN AUSTRALIA VIA GITHUB
THE 14TH MOST ACTIVE OPEN-SOURCE DEVELOPER IN THE WORLD VIA GITHUB
CREATED 306 OPEN-SOURCE PROJECTS VIA GITHUB

Working with open-source every day, I'm serious about open-collaboration. I've
made over 4,500 contributions to the open-source scene in the past year and had
my work starred by over 22,400 fellow developers.


THE 2ND MOST WATCHED JAVASCRIPT DEVELOPER IN AUSTRALIA VIA GITHUB
THE 4TH MOST WATCHED DEVELOPER IN AUSTRALIA VIA GITHUB

By following someone on GitHub, you are indicating that you love their work
enough to be notified of every single piece of code they publish, big or small.
Having 945 followers is a fantastic testimonial of my professional taste and
impact on the web development community.


INTERNATIONAL SPEAKER AND TRAINER

The opportunity of speaking and training people around the world is one that I'm
so humbled to have. I can think of nothing better than inspiring, empowering,
and connecting with amazing individuals all across the globe.


CREATED DOCPAD
ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR COFFEESCRIPT PROJECTS IN THE WORLD VIA GITHUB

DocPad rethought web development and was the first big static site generator for
Node.js gaining over 2000 stars, hundreds of daily users, 200 plugins, and 100
contributors.


CREATED HISTORY.JS
ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR JAVASCRIPT PROJECTS IN THE WORLD VIA GITHUB

History.js became one of the most game changing and popular utilities for web
developers. Freelancers all the way to enterprise used it to lead the way into
stateful web applications. It was huge.

This website was created with Bevry’s DocPad and is open-source

Unless stated otherwise; all works are Copyright © 2011+ Benjamin Lupton and
licensed permissively under the MIT License for code and the Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Unported License for everything else (including content, media
and design), enjoy!


FEEDLY


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LINKEDIN


ANGEL LIST


GOODREADS


KEYBASE


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SOUNDCLOUD


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TUMBLR


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RUNKEEPER


PATREON


FLATTR


PAYPAL


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WISHLIST


USE SETAPP TO GAIN ACCESS TO DOZENS OF HIGH QUALITY MAC APPS FOR A LOW MONTHLY
PRICE


USE AIRTABLE TO CREATE POWERFUL DATA RICH SPREADSHEETS


USE SAFETYWING FOR WORLDWIDE TRAVEL INSURANCE


USE MINDS AS AN UNCENSORED FACEBOOK


USE ALLPLANTS TO GET VEGAN MEALS DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR


USE EARN.COM TO SETUP A PAID EMAIL INBOX, WHERE PEOPLE PAY TO EMAIL YOU


USE QUAD LOCK CASES TO PROTECT YOUR PHONE AND MOUNT IT TO ANYTHING


USE BRAVE BROWSER AS A SECURE AND PRIVACY FOCUSED REPLACEMENT FOR GOOGLE CHROME


USE PATREON TO EARN MONEY FROM YOUR FANBASE


USE EARTH RUNNERS AS SANDALS THAT YOU CAN RUN, HIKE, AND SWIM IN


USE BACKBLAZE FOR UNLIMITED AND AUTOMATED CLOUD BACKUPS OF YOUR COMPUTER AND
DRIVES


USE BONSAI FOR ALL YOUR INVOICING, TIME TRACKING, AND FREELANCING NEEDS


USE AFTERSHIP TO TRACK YOUR DELIVERIES


USE DOWNPOUR FOR YOUR AUDIOBOOK NEEDS


USE FREEDOM TO BLOCK DISTRACTIONS ON YOUR COMPUTER AND PHONE


USE HIRED TO GET OFFERS FROM THE BEST COMPANIES AROUND THE WORLD


USE EBAY TO BUY AND SELL ONLINE


USE AMAZON TO BUY BOOKS


USE PURSE TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON WITH CRYPTOCURRENCY AT A 15% DISCOUNT


USE HONEY TO AUTOMATICALLY APPLY DISCOUNT COUPONS WHEN YOU SHOP ONLINE


USE AIRBNB TO BOOK ACCOMODATION WHEN TRAVELING


USE BOOKING.COM TO BOOK ACCOMODATION WHEN TRAVELING


USE AWAY TRAVEL FOR YOUR LUGGAGE


USE RAIZ TO OPEN AN AUSTRALIAN INVESTMENT ACCOUNT


USE N26 BANK FOR EUROPEAN AND INTERNATIONAL BANKING


USE TRANSFERWISE TO SEND MONEY AROUND THE WORLD AS QUICKLY AND CHEAPLY AS
POSSIBLE


USE TRANSFERWISE BORDERLESS TO HAVE MULTICURRENCY BANK ACCOUNTS ALL AROUND THE
WORLD


USE TRADINGVIEW FOR ALL YOUR TRADING INSIGHTS


USE SIGNALS TO SHARE TRADING STRATEGIES


USE DRIVEWEALTH TO INVEST IN USA COMPANIES (USA ONLY)


USE STAKE TO INVEST IN USA COMPANIES (AUSTRALIA ONLY)


USE COINSTATS TO TRACK YOUR CRYPTOCURRENCY PORTFOLIO


USE WIREX FOR YOUR VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL CRYPTOCURRENCY CARDS


USE COINBASE TO EXCHANGE, SEND AND RECEIVE CRYPTOCURRENCY


USE COINJAR TO EXCHANGE, SEND AND RECEIVE CRYPTOCURRENCY IN AUSTRALIA


USE BEN AS YOUR CRYPTOCURRENCY WALLET


USE STRONGCOIN AS YOUR CRYPTOCURRENCY WALLET


USE CHANGELLY TO CONVERT YOUR CRYPTOCURRENCIES


USE CHANGENOW TO CONVERT YOUR CRYPTOCURRENCIES


USE COINEX TO CONVERT YOUR CRYPTOCURRENCIES


USE BESTRATE TO CONVERT YOUR CRYPTOCURRENCIES


USE CIRCLE TO EXCHANGE, SEND AND RECEIVE CRYPTOCURRENCY


USE COINSEED TO DIVERSIFY YOUR CRYPTOCURRENCY INVESTMENTS


USE HELEUM TO AUTOINVEST IN CRYPTOCURRENCIES


USE LUNO TO EXCHANGE, SEND AND RECEIVE CRYPTOCURRENCY


USE BITMEX TO TRADE CRYPTOCURRENCY


USE EXMO TO TRADE CRYPTOCURRENCY


USE COINFALCON TO TRADE CRYPTOCURRENCY


USE COBINHOOD TO TRADE CRYPTOCURRENCY


USE CEX TO TRADE CRYPTOCURRENCY


USE XS2 TO TRADE CRYPTOCURRENCY


USE LIQUID TO TRADE CRYPTOCURRENCY


USE SURFEASY AS YOUR SECURE ANONYMOUS VPN (USED BY OPERA)


USE WINDSCRIBE AS YOUR SECURE ANONYMOUS VPN


USE WORKFROM TO FIND PLACES YOU CAN WORK FROM WITH YOUR LAPTOP


USE NAME.COM TO PURCHASE DOMAIN NAMES


USE GOOGLE APPS FOR WORK TO SETUP GOOGLE ACCOUNTS FOR YOUR OWN WEBSITE


USE TRELLO TO ORGANISE YOUR PROJECTS VIA COLLABORATING VIA VIRTUAL TODO NOTES


USE IHERB TO BUY SUPPLEMENTS


USE KODING TO CODE IN THE CLOUD


USE UPDOWN FOR WEBSITE STATUS ALERTS


USE DIGITALOCEAN TO HOST YOUR APPS IN THE CLOUD


USE VULTR TO HOST YOUR APPS ON VIRTUAL MACHINES IN THE CLOUD


USE HYPER.SH TO HOST DOCKER APPS IN THE CLOUD


USE RESCUE TIME TO TRACK YOUR COMPUTER ACTIVITY TO FIGURE OUT WHERE YOU TIME
GOES


USE DROPBOX TO SYNC YOUR LOCAL FILES WITH THE CLOUD


USE ONEDRIVE TOSYNC YOUR LOCAL FILES WITH THE CLOUD


USE SCREENFLOW TO DO SCREENCASTS


USE AIRTASKER TO DELEGATE PHYSICAL TASKS TO MINIONS


USE FANCY HANDS TO DELEGATE INFORMATION TASKS TO MINIONS


USE ZAPIER TO AUTOMATE YOUR DIGITAL WORKFLOWS


USE OVO FOR YOUR PHONE PLAN IN AUSTRALIA (TELSTRA NETWORK)


USE AMAYSIM FOR YOUR PHONE PLAN IN AUSTRALIA (OPTUS NETWORK)


USE YOODO FOR YOUR PHONE PLAN IN MALAYSIA


USE FLEXIROAM FOR YOUR GLOBAL ROAMING NEEDS


USE AUDIO JUNGLE TO PURCHASE AUDIO FOR VIDEOS


USE THEME FOREST TO PURCHASE THEMES FOR WEBSITES


USE CIRCLE TO TRACK AND LIMIT YOUR INTERNET USAGE OVER ANY DEVICE


SUPPORT

Free support is provided through StackOverflow. Paid support is provided through
my company.


CONSULTING

Consulting services are available through my company.


CONTACT

For all other purposes; mention me on twitter, ask me questions on quora,
converse with me over a meeting, or email me via my personal email and work
email that I check once a week every Monday.


EXPECTATION

I cannot legally sign contracts that may risk contaminating the intellectual
rights of my open-source projects. If you are unsure if your contract may, then
most likely it does, as most likely your company will or already does use
something I've touched. However if we can collaborate on this point to ensure it
is not a problem, then great.


DONATE

Consider donating and using my referral links.