A stranger once emailed me to tell me that my life resembled “a portrayal of the dangers of self immersion in pointless technology”, I’m pretty sure he was just being rude but to be honest, it’s not really that far from the truth.
Ever since I was a kid I have spent a lot of time playing with computers, electronics and technology in general. There are some things you just don’t grow out of and I’m now lucky enough to earn a living doing a lot of the same things and to still enjoy it.
I’m a big fan of open source software, I’ve even made some small contributions of my own in the past and have been a Linux user since 1995, using it extensively on the server side both at work and home and have used it as my sole operating system at home since 1999. I’m a pragmatist though so I will use whatever I think is best for the job at hand, my work laptop still runs Windows for example as I’m tied to a few critical applications there and it is still the best way to run them.
Whilst I am pretty much a full time tech geek I do have a few other interests, reading (mostly science and science fiction), real ale, single malt whisky and radio (broadcast and communication), I also enjoy many different kinds of music and love finding new stuff to listen to. I’ve never managed to learn to play an instrument though, I just enjoy listening.
I also love hot spicy food and am a fully fledged capsaicin addict, I have to have my daily fix to get the endorphins flowing and I can cook a mean curry! I’ve been vegetarian for over 25 years but not really for any ethical reasons, it’s just a natural preference – I just don’t like meat. I’ve recently started another blog with a growing collection of vegetarian recipes.
My first exposure to the online world was on a BBC Micro in the mid 80s when I used to sneak as much time as I could on a series of bulletin boards as well as Prestel, Micronet 800 and Telecom Gold. My first interaction with the internet was in the early 90s through various bulletin boards on an Amiga 500 and I had my first direct connection to the internet via Demon and the KA9Q software in 1993. I’ve been blogging since before that was what it was called and this web site has been evolving since 1995 under various guises, originally starting on Angelfire it moved to Demon Internet in 1996 and then to commercial hosting when I registered the domain zorg.org in December 1997. In the mid 2000s I finally migrated it from my custom built Perl and SSI system to WordPress and hosted it on a Debian server running off my ADSL line at home for several years. These days it is running on a Debian Virtual Private Server hosted with Linode in the Telecity Powergate data centre in London.
You can contact me here or follow me on Twitter. I usually use my full name on most services and I go by the nick nsc on Freenode.
According to Google Latitude I am currently in Warrington, UK.
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