BHUGA WOOGA!

I’m a 27-year old coder/sysadmin/network engineer/systems designer/whatever; the order of the list is fluid and changes depending on what I’ve been up to in the last few months. I’m from New Orleans, but I’ve been on walkabout for nigh on 4 years now and don’t see that stopping soon. I like to live in interesting places.

I’ve got a few names. In real life I’m Ben Lavender and Spiderpig, and online I’m Ben and Bhuga. Ben is the first name I had, and I still use it out of habit. Bhuga is my online alias, which I use for most of my online names these days, for reasons that I’ve explained to the world. Spiderpig is what I go by in real life sometimes, a moniker I earned after eating 2.5 kilos of junk food to win a 100-euro bet. Easy money.

My life is either the story of a post-state visionary or a dangerous drifter, depending on how you look at it, and I’d recommend not taking the time to look at it. Nonetheless, the internet is full of people who have nothing better to do than not follow good advice, so here comes some information.

The way I eat my way through life is proof enough that I really am a caveman, bhuga, at heart, and that Ben is an alias I use when dealing with the so-called civilized world. When I’m not spearing bears, clubbing females, or protecting my luxurious cave from jealous outsiders, a few long-term interests brighten my soot-soiled cave. They are listed here, so that the kind reader need not enter my cave, which would further spur my cavemen rivals’ jealousy. Mind you, bhuga is generally too lazy to start a project he can’t imagine finishing, but interest remains high.

• Declarative Programming. This is too narrow a term for what I think of when I think of declarative programming. Remember that the ideal programming language is declarative, and it has one program: “Do what I mean;”
• RDF. Tying closely in to enabling a declarative world, my only mourn with RDF is that SPARQL is going to get abstracted away by glossy interfaces with curved corners. It’s not a bad thing, I guess, and for now I can write my little one-line declarative programs and enjoy myself doing it.
• Behavioral Genetics. Not a topic I’ll ever be more than an armchair quarterback in, but one I keep coming back to. I’ll never cease to be fascinated by the competition for primacy in natural selection by memes and genes, and it’s a field with easily-grokkable new information coming out all the time.
• International Relations. I almost went to grad school for this. I’m glad I didn’t, but I still maintain a high interest level here. In a very serious tone, sans the usual US-bashing, why is it that stupid people keep ending up being important people?
• Martial arts. I trained in Taekwondo for several years, and wouldn’t you know it, I accidently became a bit competent at it. Nice. Lately I’ve forgone further training to study the ancient art of being lazy and getting fat.
• Food. I eat like crazy, but I’m not big on fancy stuff. I’m a connoisseur of shady street food.