About

I’m a geek of various areas, mostly computing, languages, and making and adapting things.  I probably spread my efforts too widely, because there are so many interesting things to do; so I tend towards “Jack of all trades and master of none”.  However, false modesty aside, I’m probably “master” at programming: there’s a figure going round that it takes 10000 hours of conscious practice to become expert at something, and I’ve probably got around 20000 hours experience of programming in C, and about 10000 hours of Lisp (mostly Emacs-Lisp), a few thousand hours of PostScript a good few years back, and quite a bit of shell, Perl, etc.  (Yes, I guess I’m middle-aged, and my beard is starting to go grey!)

As well as programming, I’m trying to learn several human languages at the same time, get fit by cycling, maintain my Land-Rover, carry on the obscure line of research I worked on in my PhD, write a novel, and improve my skills at ballroom dancing.  I also make sporadic attempts at growing vegetables, and at getting my house a bit tidier, and various other good habits.

I live in Cambridgeshire, UK, where I work as a programmer.