About
Greetings! Since you’re here, you may be curious about something related to the site, or me. Perhaps you think I’m someone you know in real life: if so, read on and find out!
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, twitter, flickr, linkedin profile or the like, or any other type of social networking membership: this is the only public web presence I maintain. Accordingly, neither do I do have accounts under my name on ebay or public shake-and-bake blogging services (I prefer to run my own). I very rarely 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).
Day Job: I’m a systems administrator for an Australian University, which is easily the most interesting and engaging place I’ve ever worked. Experiences at work are the source of most of the technical blog postings on the site, which are generally intended to provide some useful and simple technical solutions to a problem I’ve encountered. (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: I have a long and enjoyable reading list, which I keep track of here. Books run deep for me: Thanks to my parents and a vast collection of in-house literature, I was an early and prolific reader on a broad range of topics and genres, but by far the most influential for me was and is science fiction: my dad had a vast stockpile of it, and I consumed a lot of it at a young age.
After finishing high school and through the first university years reading took more of a back seat to engrossment in computers and the fledgling internet, until realising a few years later I that I was missing out, resolved to action the situation, and compiled a list of must-read titles to start the process of getting up to speed – based on opinions and reviews, and recommended lists on the web. As it happened, Snow Crash was the first one on that list I encountered, picked up and read, and it hit me like a line of exhilarating, illicit mind-expansion: Snow Crash was quite simply an epiphany: I credit Neal Stephenson without reservation with the responsibility for single handedly revitalising my passion for fiction.
Writing: From time to time, I have committed fiction. I used to love creative writing as a child almost as much as I loved reading, and I’ve had pen to paper and fingers to keyboard to sate the need to write ever since. If I stop writing for too long it feels like something important is missing: I take this is a positive sign it is one of the things I’m supposed to be doing. Outside of any aspirations for publication, I really need and enjoy writing, and that’s a good enough reason for me to continue. I find candid writing is fundamentally both cathartic and constructive: emptying the contents of ones head whilst simultaneously catalysing 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 some of my creations here under a creative commons license. 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 email (glen at glenscott dot net) or the site contact page if-its-working: I dig feedback and since I’m online rather a lot in this connected future we find ourself in, chances are good you’ll hear back from me without much lag.
Hope you enjoy
-Glen
