About Jon Seymour

Last updated: 2nd March, 1996
Most people use their home pages to tell you what wild and whacky dudes they are. Well, if there is one thing I am not good at, it's lying! Here's my contribution anyway...

I live and work in Sydney, Australia. I like it here.

At work I do computer stuff. At home I do computer stuff. Mmmm.

I don't do much other than computer stuff. I like skiing when the opportunity arises. And the cinema. Favourite films include: "Withnail and I", "Bagdhad Cafe", "Pulp Fiction", "Nikita". Recent favourites include "Apollo 13", "Smoke". On TV I like "Seinfeld", "Mad about you", "Frontline". My all time favourite TV series is the British nuclear thriller "Edge of Darkness" starring Bob Peck and Joe Don Baker.

("Frontline" is an Australian-made parody about the production of current affairs program. It would not be incorrect to describe "Frontline" as the "Yes Minister" of the genre. Americans can catch it on Comedy Central I believe, though the name is different.)

I read periodicals like Wired, ACM journals (SIGPLAN, SIGOPS, SIGLINK), The Sciences (published by the New York Academy Of Sciences) and Scientific American. When I read books they are generally either about computing or science, particularly evolutionary biology. Richard Dawkins' books are favourites in this category.

My musical interests have a tendency towards female singers particularly Irish ones: Sinead O'Connor, Enya, The Cranberries, Max Sharam, The Kill Joys, Michelle Shocked. By way of contrast, I also like Ed Kuepper and the Violent Femmes. My favourite radio station is, of course, JJJ. How people listen to commerical radio, I do not know!

I maintain some Web pages: The Warp Pharmacy and the (Mainly) Australian SGML Resources page.

My current computing related interests include: the WWW, Java (of course), SGML, PGP, Workflow, Lotus Notes, electronic commerce, Design Patterns, the Relational-OO impedance mismatch.

I have been to Europe twice on holidays and the US several times for work. On my first trip to Europe I spent several weeks cycling around the Irish coastline. On my next trip to Europe I spent my time mainly in and around Mainz, Germany. In the US I spent most of my time in San Jose CA with a bunch of great people I met while I was working there. I have also been to Raleigh, NC and have had short trips to Dallas, Boston and New York.

A pretty simple life, but that's ok...I like it that way!


Some books I have read recently
I've been reading Simson L. Garfinkel's book on PGP, PGP: Pretty Good Privacy. An interesting read which details the history of PGP and related encryption technologies including discussions about the relevant US patent laws and export regulations.

Another book I dipped into recently was W. Richard Stevens' Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment - an excellent book that explains various UNIX programming techniques. The book is very readable for two reasons - it explains the differences between different flavours of UNIX (but not Linux, unfortunately) and also provides some rationale for their designs. The discussion of UNIX signals was enlightening - it is amazing that they were so broken for so long!


More films
The Brothers McMullen. Great film. Very much a "boys" view of romance but, nevertheless, quite entertaining.
Oh, dear...
March 2, 1996: Mardi Gras in the streets. Conservative landslide in the 'burbs. Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
Jon Seymour (jon@zeta.org.au)
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