John Lines
This is not intended to be a formal CV, it is here so that anyone who
knows me and comes across this page can see if they are reading about the
right John Lines, and if so drop
me a line
Early years and Education
I was born in Edinburgh
and went to
George Heriot's School
and from there to
Southampton University to study
Physics
Work
After leaving university I went to work at
Harwell in the
Materials Physics Division
I was involved in some interesting projects which blended Physics with computing, including Ultrasonic inspection of the legs of an oil rig in the North Sea,
which involved flying out to the platform for a fortnight a couple of times
a year.
The proportion of my work which was devoted to computing increased, so when MPD
split into 3 parts, I went from being their departmental computer manager to
being part of the Harwell Computer Centre.
Internet
I was in charge of connecting the site to the Internet, and remember the heady
days of the World Wide Web being set up, when
there was a site which listed all the new web sites which had been established
that week!
Being in from an early stage I had to become the local expert on all aspects,
TCP/IP networking, DNS, SMTP email, HTTP and HTML, firewalls etc.
Security
Having to learn about security for the systems I was responsible for, I have
also provided consultancy to other organisations to help them review their security.
Linux and Free Software
When I was involved in scientific computing many of the programs we used were
free software - the source code was passed around between scientists so that
somebodys work could be reviewed and developed by others.
The concepts of Free Software seemed unsurprising to me, which is not dimish the credit due to
Richard Stallman for having the
foresight to encode the concepts into the
GNU Public Licence
When Linux came along I tried it out
on some old PCs, and found that, even in its early days, it was a useful and
stable operating system which ran software which had been written for other
Unix systems on a PC platform.
Interests
Computers
I have done recreational computing since the days when I had an Apple II at
home, and would work on a program to work out the meals for the week, as a
way to put off actually going and doing the weeks shopping.
Debian
These days I am a Debian Linux developer, as well as contributing minor improvements to a number of software packages.
I am the author of a personal time management program called
Taglog which is described
here, or
here
History. the landscape, conservation etc
I am a life member of The National Trust and of English Heritage
and enjoy visiting their historic buildings, gardens and walking on the
landscape they preserve.
PHAB
I have been a member of Oxford PHAB Club for a long
time and have met many wonderful people through it. I was treasurer of the
Oxfordshire PHAB Area Comittee for several years.
Reading, Art, Music
I also enjoy reading - anything from Scientific American to historical detective fiction, poetry, philosophy, backs of
cereal packets - anything.
I have similarly eclectic tastes in music and art and enjoy going to concerts,
plays, art galleries and would like to spend more time drawing and painting.
Other things
For several years I drove a Midas which
now needs quite a bit of work - and some spare time.
I ought to mention gardening, and skiing, Mary(!) and lots more, but this page
is getting long as it is.
Author: John Lines