This is my little corner of the web which holds things I find interesting or useful. Following the finest Reithian principles I hope it will inform, educate and entertain. One out of three would be quite acceptable.
I put together my first personal web site in 1994 which has evolved over the years into what you see here. I try to observe the spirit of the web by not removing things or moving them around. In reality some things do become obsolete and don't even have historical interest. The site also accretes more and more stuff as the years go by so sometimes a re-organisation is unavoidable.
I try to note major changes although, to be honest, they happen pretty infrequently.
I have been a computer geek for a long time, possibly longer than the term has existed in common usage. It's not surprising, therefore, that I have a section of this site given over to computing.
Related to this I used to maintain a couple of FAQs concerning Risc OS computers. They have been superceded by wikis and the shrinking of the market but I archive them here for posterity.
Another staple of the geek lifestyle is roleplaying games. I've been playing them for a while so have collected together a few odds and ends related to gaming.
The world is full of marvels. Many are the result of random nature but others are artifacts of human ingenuity. Here, then, may be found my tribute to some of this cool kit.
Of course what constitutes cool kit is partially a matter of opinion and like ever human with a pulse I have opinions. You are probably not interested in them but it is a cathartic process writting them down.
Although I am not a fully buzzword compliant web 2.0 self stimulating media node, I do have a blog which I use to talk about things which are interesting or important to me. I also have a photo album in which you can find photos of things I have done, or otherwise found worth pointing a camera at.
Sometimes I am taken by the muse and I draw things. Some times the drawings don't make the viewer go blind.
Rather than waste your time and the Internet's bandwidth by putting conformity icons on the bottom of each page I have collected them together here. Part of my Content Enhanced ideology is to conform to good standards. Luckily the WWW is blessed with two good standards, XHTML and CSS. I always endeavor to make sure that both my pages and my style sheets are strictly conformant.
As your consciousness returns to your still aching body you get a brief snatch of the dimensional cross-rip. You see a whirling kaleidoscope of flavours and a vague whiff of yellow. But that lasts only briefly and much too soon you are snapped back to the real world.
Well, as real as a vast chunk of rock spinning slowly through a shimmering, rippling void of purple and orange plasma can manage. You have passed through the reality barrier and arrived in the Realm.
Quite how this spinning lump of rock came to be in the space between realities is a mystery which is unlikely to be solved any time soon. Certainly it was already old when it was discovered and some have suggested that there are signs of previous habitation however the evidence for that is slight.
Since its discovery by a group of theoretical physicists in the late 60s the Realm has slowly built up a population of genius' and crackpots, artisans and wanderers, scientists and mystics. Many people escape the horrors and mundanity of the safe everyday life on Earth to live on the edge of reality where ideas flow freely and there is the suggestion of magic.
Unfortunately the finer points of this history are lost on you at the moment due to the splitting headache pounding at the inside of your skull and the distinct feeling that someone has systematically hit every nerve in your body with a welding mallet. They say the jump becomes easier every time, but you've seen no evidence of that.
You are standing in one of the transference receivers of the aether
port. This large complex is the only way to and from the Realm. It
contains a number of similar transference receivers allowing people to
travel from the real world
to this slightly unreal one. It also
houses a couple of the gigantic, power hungry transference transmitters
so you can get back again.
Startling though a technology which can cause all the atoms of a living creature to phase through the reality barrier is, these devices are not the most striking thing about the aether port. Nor are they the source of its name. The port itself is built on a piece of rock which juts out from the roughly ovoid shape of the rest of the Realm. It extends this jutting rock further into the aether with gleaming lattice work spires. Each such spire is a mooring point for aether ships of all shapes and sizes.