About fwagglechop
I was born in 1981 in a historic coal mining town in rural Australia, and grew up with computers from a very young age (you could almost say my parents were “early adopters” of technology), and also from a young age developed a passion for programming – from the moment I learned to move the balloon sprites on my C64 I became obsessed with learning to crash them into each other.
I wasn’t even in high school and I was cracking software, which eventually spread to [h|cr]acking computer networks. This lead to some difficult times in school, being banned from the computer labs thrice and my penchant for skipping homework making maintaining good grades rather tricky. For reasons unrelated, I wound up dropping out and joining the workforce early.
Somewhere around this point my overinflated ego and the enjoyment I got from knowing I was better than most of them led me to participate in IRC warfare on MSN’s chat network (now defunct, or at least they don’t let IRC clients on any more), some collateral damage of which was a small obscure chatroom which belonged to a girl named Sabriena. By some weird twist, I ended up moving to the USA and marrying her several years later and we’re now coming up on 9 years of marriage.
I’m now in my late 20s, trying to put the vast wealth of experience I’ve collected over two decades to work in the form of an internet services company.
I can surf, skateboard (at least, I can “surf skate”) as well as do a few tricks on 20″ BMX. I currently have a rank of 9th Kyu in Shotokan Karate-do and once held a belt of some color or another in Judo with the Judo Federation of Australia.
I’m not only opinionated, I’m at times downright arrogant. I try to maintain a neutral stance on most disagreements, having the ability to see both sides of an argument that I don’t have a stance in – but when I’m right, I’m right. It is because of this arrogance and condescending tone that I frequently begin writing forum responses only to delete them un-posted.
Politically I’d be a slightly right-leaning moderate, which makes me detest the two party system in the USA and the obligation to vote is probably the major thing keeping me from taking the plunge to be naturalized. I believe the government which governs least governs best, and it’s the government’s sole job to keep us from treading on each other’s freedoms while allowing us to enjoy as many as this primary rule allows. I believe in minimalist social welfare programs, though one could fairly easily convince me to believe in public healthcare.
I’m spiritually agnostic, though I enjoy reading religious texts merely to point out the hypocrisy in modern organized religion. There’s a King James Bible on my desk. Somewhere.
I am a borderline pig, though not because I’m comfortable with it. I find that more often maintaining a clean desk gets in the way of intellectual pursuits, however that there is a definite bell curve and when I reach the other side and my messiness gets in the way of learning something new, I am compelled to clean. For this reason I try not to post pictures of my work area.
I am an animal welfarist, and will not be a part of any organized religion that refuses to acknowledge that dogs have souls. I abhor PETA for being an organization that many well-meaning pet owners send their money to, when they should be sending it to an organization that actually has their interests in mind, such as the RSPCA.
In terms of most online activities I have a bizarre like for cows, my IRC script was called ilikecows, my gaming group has gone by the names “MooWorldOrder” and currently “Moodoo” and I have five SourceForge projects of varying degrees of decay all of which are cow-related in name. Cows also taste delicious.
I feel race is as irrelevant as eye color, and judge people solely by their merits. I believe that other people’s sex lives is none of my business, and that separation of church and state mandates the ability for a federally recognized union between any two consenting adults.
I’m a firm believer in the right of a free people to keep and bear arms, and dismiss gun control of any sort as wholly ineffective (as evidenced by escalating violence in Australia, a nation with heavy firearms restrictions) as well as being unconstitutional.
I’ve been zapped by 240v (Australian) exactly 3 times and by 110v (US) at least 10 times, and I still stick forks in the toaster.
