The Bastard Academic

Nice, long, big word there as a title. I'll shorten it for you: polymath. A person of wide knowledge or expertise. The desired human state. I have long been an advocate for something I call wide-spectrum literacy: competence in reading, writing, arithmetic, science, technology, politics, philosophy, economics, to say the least. I have what you could mildly call a vehement dislike of ignorance, particularly wilful ignorance: I find little to no excuse for it, especially in developed nations where access to technological marvels which act as gateways to endless learning and knowledge, most of it free, is commonplace to the point of being carried around in pockets. You can imagine, then, my sickening disgust at the state of the world, and the horror of facing an international society in which ignorance, bigotry, and mendacity don't just roam freely, but are actively pursued as if they were the highest virtues.  Now, I'm not going to lay the blame entirely at the feet of...

I could describe the surroundings for you perfectly, down to the way the grain went on each of the wood panels on the floor, I could talk to you at great length concerning the cobwebs knocking at my door or the baying crane flies attacking the windows, baying for the bleeding luminescence seeping from the screen. I could go so far as to describe each and every instrument playing on the track I was listening to, the perfectly clear Irish lung-pipes of Cara Dillon’s songbird vocals. But I won’t, because none of that matters, at least not in this context, or perspective. It all comes down to angles you see. Not the angles of everything around us, but our angles. The tilt of the head to listen more intently, the hunch, or straightening of the back to become comfortable. The adjustment of glasses to see an image properly, or in this instance, to see the image no-one else may have seen. It doesn’t take much to shift your physical perception of anything, but it opens up a myriad new worlds, ...

Roll-up! Roll-Up! Step right up, ladies, gentlemen and all manner of horrible creatures! Welcome to my domain, one and all. As you walk in, please check you haven't left your humour at the door, and that you have some idea why you are here! This is going to be a bit of an odd blog. That is because it isn't one blog, it is a weird amalgamation of several blogs: one large part Cyber Security (shared with my main CyberSec blog for CoderSource.io); one part technology review and tutorial; three shakes of writing, and a smattering of philosophy, politics (local and global), and anything else that takes my fancy. As for me? Well, I am a student, both auto-didactic and actual academic (kind-of, I'm taking a break) of many different domains, although primarily Cyber Security. While I won't feature all of my work for CoderSource (a coders recruitment agency) here, most of it will end up on these pages, as will all kinds of supplementary information and resources to keep i...