Staple Diet

About Me

Ey up jimbo, welcome to my corner on the web. This is intended to get you up to speed on who exactly these crazy ramblings are written by and why.

I’m Ian, a perpetual student based in the Computer Science department of Cardiff University in the UK. I came here to study for my undergrad degree back in 2000 and dabbled with working for a year at a place called Aerosystems International. I now carry out research as part of the PASOA project for which forms the work of my PhD. If you are here because you’ve seen me at a conference, or possibly even read a paper of mine, you’ll probably not actually give two hoots about what I talk about here and may prefer my more techie offering, webtyrant. Or maybe its just not techie enough for you.

This website was formed when I was away from Cardiff for the year working and for some reason was still permitted to have web space even though I wasn’t a student. I was’t really sure if such a type of website was acceptable under Uni rules, so crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. I even hosted the CU website here for a good 8 months.. I discovered the wonder of blogs, content managment systems etc, thought they were great and set up a few sites off the back of that as a result, some of which people are even still using…. My dissertation was based on an XML content management, which I would be using now and developing if I could be bothered.

I’m well into my music, which you might of guessed if you’ve had a look about at some of the stuff here. I’m also a bit of a closet DJ, owning somewhere in the region of 1200 records. As a child I was into some right cheesy dance, but have since evolved to encompass everything I should’ve been listening to at that time too (and perhaps stuff I never should). I DJ out and about (very) occasionally under the pseudonym ‘Scrumpy Jack’, if you’re interested you should join my mail list for details of anything happening.

Things I do:

• Sit unanimated for prolonged amounts of time whilst staring into the internal abyss that is my computer screen.
• Sit slightly more animated for prolonged amounts of time whilst nodding to repetitive beats and staring at aforementioned abyss.
• Push circular bits of plastic back and forth on rotating steel wheels.
• Quote lots of Simon Pegg related programmes/films.
• Trawl the web in search of the most obscure records known to man.
• Go out partying on my own.
• Ponder what I’ve really achieved in the last 245 years…

Things I say:

• ‘You moron’
• ‘I can’t cook that’
• ‘Your website sucks’
• ‘You muppet’
• ‘It’s green’
• ‘I’ve never eaten that before’
• ‘I’ve never been there before’
• ‘I’m scared of them’
• ‘I can’t be arsed’
• ‘Where’s [insert well known Cardiff street name here]?’
• [Whilst driving] ‘What sign?’

This page is a living document, I shall update it as and when I see fit, feel free to add your own comments!