I didn't join SDF until 2017 after it had turned 30.
In fact I didn't even know it existed before then...
although I have been a user and supporter of Linux since
the late 1990s. My relationship with technology has
always been a bit hit-and-miss and I would probably be
equally happy if it all vanished...although it does help
to fill otherwise boring moments when you should be
working on even more tedious things.
I have spent quite a bit of 2017 using only my mobile
phone as the single computer in my life and it worked out
OK for a bit, I have found that I can do a lot of writing
with a bluetooth keyboard and it works fine for the amount
of Internetworking that I do...which by modern standards
is very little indeed! I find the Gopherspace and general
minimalistic feeling of using SDF fits very much with my
personality. It is 2017 now, and I am considering buying
a 486 laptop (built in 1993) as my main writing computer!
Speaking of writing...that is primarily how I see myself
as a "writer". I have had poetry published (although it
was under a different name) but yet to get anything of any
length into print. I still work away at it though and
have lots of ideas so maybe one day it will happen...or
I'm entirely talentless and deluded, but I guess time will
tell.
The other side of me does revolve heavily around
technology and I earn a good living working as a
programmer (or "Embedded Firmware Engineer" as I am
currently called). I plan to put these skills to use for
various personal projects as well, and will hopefully keep
this site updated with my work.
I also care deeply about the environment and in particular
natural fibres or fabric, and believe that there is a
strong case for being entirely clad in such garments.
Unfortunately much of the world is focussed on synthetic
material and it is very difficult or very expensive to
find good natural fibres so I will at some point be
conducting my own research into this. I think nettle and
hemp based fabric have a lot to offer and would love to
have my own patch of land to grow some experimental crops.
I'm sure you have long since stopped reading, but to those
die-hard fans out there (it does my ego a load of good to
assume I have a fan club) here is a short summary of my
life thus far:
I was born in the middle of the 1980s and grew up in
Southern Scotland and have not really moved away far from
my old family. After school I attempted to learn about
Biogeochemistry at Glasgow University, then dropped the
chemistry in favour of archaeology. Since Biogeo-
archaeology is not really a thing I dropped out completely
and found myself in an art college for 3 years whereupon
I graduated with a BSc.
Since art degrees are not useful to most capitalists I
ended up driving a bus for a living and did so for about a
year before enrolling in a training programme with a local
nuclear facility. A few years passed and I came away with
another degree (this time an engineering one), a lot more
knowledge and still less of an idea what I wanted to do so
I wandered into a position as a Technical Writer for a
subsea engineering firm and stayed put for a while before
moving into software and then into embedded software and
hardware design. Now I think I have found something I can
settle into.
In between some of these events I met my wonderful wife
and we had two amazing children who shall remain nameless
but are always in my heart and thoughts. I also did a lot
of writing and quite a bit of blasting around the
countryside on a motorbike both of which are enjoyable but
so far not very useful.
