Greeting from nil

[nil]

Greetings people.

I've started feeling a little uncomfortable posting to these forums without first introducing myself, and it's finally got the better of my shyness so here goes.

I'm from Perth, Western Australia, 30 something, and currently casually employed in a non-IT industry. While I've had formal IT training (back in the days when the "user first" principles of coding were still being taught) I've got no real interest in playing that game for a living any longer and now use computers mainly as hobby tools to exercise (and abuse ) my mind.

There's little I currently do on my 1100MHz PC that I can't do just as well on my 7.16MHz A500 (bought in the days when talk of cross-assemblers, "Electric Dreams", and snickering at young Billy's pathetic efforts were all the rage), which helps explain why Linux vs. XP (and open source vs. corporate coding) arguments make me laugh.

I think people, not possessions, are all that really matter, and believe that unrestrained capitalism is ultimately the greatest cause of misery on this earth. (I realise that may be considered way too political, especially for an "intro" post, but those comments more than anything else here best help define who I am.)

My computer related interests include system building, commandline scripting, and beta testing/reviewing software, and other interests include game theory, writing and cycling. And I'll read anything I can lay my hands on (hell, I even read a Jackie Collins novel once).

My best computer stuffup was when I tried to install an AGP card while the system was powered up (no, it didn't...), and my most embarrassing moment was when I stood on a rake (yes, it did!!!). [@idee - OK bro, "can you grab my but?" came a close second. ]

My favorite quote is from Fred Fish, one time compiler and maintainer of an Amiga freely distributable software library (20-Aug-92 - d720\DrawMap\ReadMe.fnf):

It seemed better for me to spend a couple hours doing this merging once, instead of 10,000 people around the world spending 20,000 hours doing the same thing.

Nicely sums up the purpose and general spirit of these forums.

Well, that's a brief of me and my views. Hope to catch up with more of you in the future.

Enjoy yourselves.

Nick (nil)