Who Am I?

My name is Craig Steiner and I live in a suburb of Denver, Colorado. | Liberals: Please click here.

Personal

Though I lived in California, Hawaii, and Washington as a child, I consider myself to be a "semi-native" of Colorado since this is where I grew up in my teen years, got my degree at the University of Colorado at Denver, and it's the only place I've lived in the U.S. as an adult (I lived in Mexico for 10 years).

Professional

I've been doing software development since 1980 and professionally since 1990. After starting my career as a full-time employee, I opted to go out on my own and became a self-employed consultant in 1999. I've been doing that ever since.

Although I originally did software development in DOS and then Visual Basic and C++, I started focusing on microcontroller/embedded development and that--combined with website development--has been my focus ever since. In 1997 I developed the 8052.com website which hosts a significant amount of information for the 8051 microcontroller and provides a community for thousands of other developers around the world working with the same technology. I then proceeded to develop a Windows-based assembler for the 8051 called Pinnacle which I released as shareware. I subsequently wrote and published a technical book about the 8051 microcontroller, "The 8051/8052 Microcontroller: Architecture, Assembly Language, and Hardware Interfacing".

Politics

I was a registered Republican all my life until Trump accepted the Republican nomination in July 2016. I left the Republican Party the next day as I did not believe Trump sufficiently represented the Republican Party platform.

I am a life-long conservative with a firm belief in conservative principles regarding the free market, social issues, and the limited role of government defined in the U.S. Constitution and well-restated in the Republican Party platform.

Why Do I Write Articles Here?

I find that the process of investigating a topic for an article allows me to better understand the issue and helps me question my own position. I try to apply the same logic and critical analysis I use in software development and electrical engineering in analyzing political and economic decisions. While there are some issues that are simply a matter of subjective opinion, I strongly feel that other issues are simply a matter of right and wrong, or what works and what doesn't work. I try to apply logic to find those answers.

By actually writing the articles (rather than just researching the topic) I find that I can better organize my thoughts on the topic in a more logical and coherent manner. Sometimes by writing an article I find myself asking even more related questions which leads me to investigate those issues as well. The result, I find, is a process in which I logically analyze each issue and arrive at a hopefully-logical conclusion. I feel that the entire process helps me better inform myself on the issues and also helps me be more conscious of the arguments of those that have different viewpoints.

As for why I actually publish my articles to this website, why not? I'm generally not motivated to do something that doesn't produce some kind of result. I suppose I could just write the articles and store them in a personal library. However, many of my articles end up requiring substantial research and it is my hope that by sharing them with the public I may be able to help others that may be researching the same topic. Additionally, by publishing my articles I open them to being challenged and critiqued by others... which is a good thing.

How The Website Is Organized: Articles and Observations

This website is organized into basically two sections: Articles and observations.

You may consider the observations section to be more or less a common blog. It will contain entries and quick commentary I submit given my first impressions of something I see in the news, thoughts I have, etc. Generally they won't be very in-depth or fully researched, they'll just be commentary on things of interest in politics and the economy. They may be on topics of the day that may or may not have any relevance a few months or years from now. Here you may find my random comments, criticisms, and praise of politicians. You might see a few new observations every day.

The articles section, however, generally represents much more researched and substantiated analysis. Most of the articles I write are heavily researched and will contain numerous embedded links to support my observations and conclusions. Articles will usually be on much more general topics--often issues of ideology--that probably will have significance not just in the current news cycle, but long into the future. For example, some criticism about a politician's idea to raise taxes would probably be in the other "observation" section while an in-depth analysis of the effects of raising taxes would probably be an article. Since articles require much more research it will be uncommon to see a new article more frequently than every week or two.

Why Should You Trust Me?

I encourage you not to trust me. The vast majority of my articles are heavily documented with embedded links and references. Check my links. Check my references. That's what they're there for. If you find an error, let me know so I can correct it.

Thanks for Reading!

I consider the fact that you've taken the time to read or link to my articles to be the highest compliment. I'm humbled to see my site linked to from so many discussion forums and websites. THANK YOU!

Contact Me

I invite your feedback and comments at any time. I do read all feedback and if your feedback invites or merits a response, you will usually receive one within a day. I really enjoy hearing from my readers. You may contact me by clicking on the contact link.