Stochastic Geometry

http://stochasticgeometry.wordpress.com

This is a journal for myself for random thoughts on system admin, development and things linked directly or tangentially to those areas. Obviously, the opinions on this blog are mine, not theirs. (I don’t even speak for my cat, let alone a company, blah blah blah).

These days I mostly work in C and C++ doing low-level cross-platform networking stuff, mucking about with RADIUS modules and client-server stuff and so on, and doing a bit of Python scripting and some PHP webpages ; previously I’ve worked in PHP for a few years doing LAMP-based website stuff, in C writing Linux device drivers, in VB and ASP while really wishing I wasn’t, I’ve taught C++ and Java and electronics and assembly code and numerical methods in university courses for computer engineers (and C and Unix in industry courses) and I’ve spent a lot of the last decade chasing after a PhD in robotics, mainly because of having to restart from scratch halfway through. Being beaten to publication isn’t pleasant, even if is the German nuclear emergency response team that beats you to it). So I changed the topic to applications of some slightly esoteric nonlinear mathematics to robotics. Oddly, doing a PhD in your spare time leads to slow progress…

I’ve worked with MySQL, Postgres, MSSQL, Jet and Access, Perl, Shell scripting, and dabbled in a dozen other areas. I’ve been a sysadmin at one level or another for a decade, and if you asked me to choose, I’d find it hard to decide whether systems administration of large clustered sites was more or less interesting than writing the code that ran on them.

Outside of work, I like to cook (especially desserts and baking in general), I’ve been looking to go back to training in Aikido for ages but never seem to get round to it, and I’m very involved in Olympic target shooting. I’m currently both the Training Coordinator and the International Coordinator for the National Target Shooting Association (both of which are basicly staff-type roles better described by the word “dogsbody”), I’m the secretary for the Wilkinstown Target Shooting Club, I’m a Range Officer for the Dublin University Rifle Club and I’m an ISSF qualified Class B Judge. And very occasionally, I actually get to shoot as well (if there aren’t more than four other jobs that have to be done – did I mention my pet hate is the 2% rule?).

• Added on: Sep 8th, 2009
• Country: Ireland
• Language: English

• Author: Mark Dennehy
• Listed in: Computers Education & Learning
• Tags: programming Computers College Ireland Academia mathematics