About
Greetings! I’ll try to explain a couple of things about myself and the site here.
About Me: (Relatively Concise Edition)
My name is Glen Scott.
Disambiguation: or who-I’m not : Since I have noticed there are quite a few other people with my name out there on the google-net, I will use this space to briefly clarify which one is me and put some distance between myself and those-who-are-not. First, I am not a professional musician or actor. I am not a lawyer, politician, oceanographer or tattoo artist. I am not associated with a clothing label. I do not have an IMBD listing or a myspace, flickr, linkedin profile or the like, or any other type of social networking membership: this is the only public web presence I maintain. I do not have accounts under my name on ebay or public blogging services such as blogger.com or livejournal. I do not generally sign up for forums, mailing lists, and the like, so if you see my name in one of those places it probably isn’t me. If you think you might have found me somewhere else on the web, the only reliable way to confirm is by emailing me HERE (glen at glenscott.net, or via the contact page).
Job: I’m a systems/network administrator which is a fancy way of saying “IT Guy”. I have been studying and working in and around the field of network/systems administration and security for a few years now. I currently work for the Computer Science Dept at a University which specializes in these things, which is so far, for many reasons, the coolest place I’ve ever worked. Because of what I do, semi-regular technical blog / posts will appear, generally talking about some problem I’ve solved or a technical project I’m working on. (It should go without saying that nothing I write or any opinions I utter should be remotely connected with my employer or anyone else for that matter. I’ll say it anyway, just to be sure).
Reading: As I have a long and enjoyable reading list, I will be talking about and generally keeping track of it here. I was an early and prolific reader as a child, on a broad range of topics fiction and nonfiction, but by far the most influential genre for me would have to have been science fiction: my parents had a vast stockpile of it and other items for literary consumption around the house, and I read a lot of it. After high school and through the first university years reading took more of a back seat to other activities: the internet was gaining a popular foothold and I was fast developing my interest in computers, begun in childhood. A few years later I realized I was missing out on books, and compiled a list of must-read titles (sci fi and other) based on opinions and reviews on the web. As it happened, Snow Crash was the first one on that list I encountered. Snow Crash was quite simply an epiphany: I credit Stephenson without reservation as responsible for single handedly revitalising my passion for fiction.
Writing: I would go ahead and say I’m a writer as well, but I’m just getting started really. I used to love creative writing as a child almost as much as reading, and I’ve had pen to paper and fingers to keyboard to sate the need to create fiction several times in the intervening time: I’ve been writing privately and blogging on and off for years but its only recently I’ve decided to focus on the goal of getting published, as a framework in which to create and finish some readable material.
Outside of any aspirations for notoriety, I enjoy writing and creating fiction, and thats a good enough reason for me to continue making it. Writing is both cathartic and constructive: emptying the contents of ones head whilst simultaneously catalyzing new material. And at the end, looking at the created thing, if I am happy with it, there is always more than a little rush.
In the Words of Terry Pratchett, “Writing is the most fun anybody can have by themselves”.
Website: I will be publishing my creations here under a creative commons license in between experimenting with other vectors for publication: hopefully a good few people will get the chance to read and hopefully enjoy, what I do. I will also be tracking (via the nifti-ness of wordpress plugins) my library of current, future and past reading: more or less to keep track myself and for somewhere to point the occasional ‘what do you read/recommend?’ I get from others. If you like my stuff or have anything interesting to say, you can tell me about it via the site contact page: I dig feedback and since about 80% of my waking hours are spent online I usually reply to emails pretty damn fast.
Hope you enjoy
-Glen
