About

me

I started off my life by resisting memorization of basic addition and multiplication. After deducing a way of adding / subtracting without memory,  I questioned everything, including teaching procedures, and non-expert authority.  I always resisted routine practice because of the joy I got from problem solving, as I can easily conceptualize, abstract, and synthesize. As such, I have historically resisted traditions, expectations, roles, rituals and other “illogical” activities that are not rooted in cause and effect relationships.

Now I design tier 1 provider class internet support systems.  Apparently programming since the age of 8 pays off well.  Telecom really caught my eye first I think when I was about 13 or 14.  My friends and I had been BBSing a lot, and had eventually stumbled on a zine called Phrack.   I remember reading and discussing a quote from one of the zines “Sometimes the best job one can get is with the local telco”.  Back then we thought it would be a good way to get to play with all the bleeding edge technology, stuff far more expensive than a small business can afford.  Well, we were right.  One of my more recent project involved design and implementation of a nation-wide geographically diverse DNS system.  This includes over 50 servers in 5 cities across Canada.

I’m not what you think of when you hear the word “Designer”.  You think of some artsy dude who can either build you a web page, or make your house look more expensive, though, I could actually apply my skills in those areas…if they interested me.  I am working in the language of abstraction.  My job is to ‘analyze’ large, complex systems (at the moment they are computer systems), and create in myself a deep understanding of how they work.  Then I abstract them, document them, and optimize them.  I find logical disconnections, places where there is duplication, and spots that can lead to failure.  Then, depending on the budget, redundancies are built in to cover those places.

Our world today makes this communication for me very easy.  Modeling languages (eg. UML 2) allow one to explicitly describe how things work, making the job of teaching people your thoughts much easier, as you don’t actually have to be there when they want to ‘look something up’.

My biggest private project was the development of a stock market analysis system (complete with state of the art technical charting), which is actually still in production today, satisfying hundreds of clients.  After getting bored of working all the time (as most business owners will tell you is their life) I decided to take my analysis and design skills back into the Big Business Industry.

Photography and digital art are some of my favorite past times. I have lots of pictures that are almost ready to go, lots that are up on many different sites.  I’m still trying to find my niche as far as that goes though, I’ve dabbled in a lot of different areas, but still have to find the thing that really captures my fascination.