The Obligatory Home Page stuff
Who
What
When
Where
Why
How
The Less Obligatory Home Page stuff
Interests
Links
Who am I?
Well, I'm nothing to do with the famous outlaw or the less famous Speedway
rider. (Goodbye to 95% of the audience at this point.) If you're looking for an
Internet user that goes by this name though, there's a good chance it's me: I
haven't encountered another Bill Longley on the net apart from my father, who's
not too keen on computer stuff. If you're looking for the one from a particular
newsgroup (probably
alt.callahans
,
uk.people.sf-fans
or
uk.rec.sheds
) then you're in the right place. Although just why you're looking for me I
don't know: if it's a good reason, please let me know.
What
... am I?
A human male SF fan and newsgroup junkie, who plays with computer hardware in
his spare time and computer software during his working hours. Which is more
productive is open to question, but whatever I earn from software seems to go
on an increasingly large amount of obsolete hardware. Whether this is better or
worse than spending it on books is debatable.
... do I look like?
I don't have any recent photographs of myself, so click
here
for a recent picture or
here
for an older one.
When was this page last updated?
Saturday, 9th December, 2000. Though not as much as it should have been.
Where...
...am I?
I live in Luton, Bedfordshire, England.
...do I work?
I'm employed by a company based in Reading, Berkshire, but I'm currently on an
assignment in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.
Why the webpage?
It seems to be expected these days, doesn't it? I don't particularly want to
tell the world every little detail about myself: a few people want to know a
little bit more about me, and that little bit more is all you'll find here. The
rest is really for MY benefit: think of it as a "Bookmarks" list for when I'm
not at my own computer. Feel free to peruse those bits though.
How should you contact me?
If you're trying to sell me something, you shouldn't. Otherwise, you can email
me at BL (at) Callahans (dot) Demon (dot) Co (dot) UK.
Interests
Newsgroups
alt.callahans
Not so much a newsgroup, more a major part of my social life. This virtual
bar occupies at least ten hours of my time each week: thankfully, I can read it
offline. I'll explain more on a future update of this page, but in the meantime
anyone interested can read all about it at
www.callahans.org
.
uk.people.sf-fans
A low-traffic newsgroup that allows me to keep vaguely in touch with UK
fandom. I don't get to SF conventions as often as I used to (I think the record
was six in one year) but this allows me to hear some of the news. Well, quite a
lot actually, but I usually get my email copy of Ansible before it appears on
the group.
uk.rec.sheds
A rather high-traffic group (unfortunately) based around a particular state of
mind - Sheddiness. A very nice bunch of people that I wish I got to spend more
time with.
Building PCs
Being a bit of a packrat, the upgrading of my main PC led to my reusing the
obsolete parts to rebuild the original PC. As did the next set of upgrades, and
the next: I finally stopped waiting for the next upgrade on the main machine
and just bought spare bits to allow me to build other machines. The main
machine, Finn, is based around an AMD K6-3 400 processor: the other seven (Lady
Sally, Eddie, Mike, Doc, Jake, Ralph and Long Drink) range from a 100 MHz 486
processor through AMD, Intel and Cyrix Pentium-class processors up to a couple
of Pentium 2 class machines. In a future change to this site I'll be adding
more details because it's got to the stage that I can't remember what's in each
case. There's parts for almost another two machines lying around too, along
with some old 486 equipment that's waiting for a good home somewhere.
Distributed Computing
Well, I have to find some use for the other machines, don't I? The spare seven
get fed on RC5-64 blocks regularly. The main machine does some too, but is
also involved in the SETI@Home project. If you'd like to know exactly what
Distributed Computing is, then the
distributed.net website
or the main
SETI@home website
is a better place to learn from than here.
I actually manage to combine three of my four interests by working with fellow
newsgroup members. The alt.callahans team is called "Solace" and the RC5-64
stats can be seen
here
. The Solace stats for SETI@Home are
here
: but I split my time between them and The Disorder of Sheddi group, whose
stats are
here
.
Books
I'm beginning to cut down on buying books. For instance, I'm only averaging ten
a month so far this year. If it wasn't for the lack of money (caused by my
other hobbies), and the lack of space (mostly caused by the other hobbies)
there'd be more than the current ten bookcases-worth. Beware: the entire
booklist will probably appear on this site eventually, so I don't have to carry
notebooks around with me all the time.
Links
Expect this section to grow more rapidly than the rest of the page.
Luton, Beds
: a site that tells you about the town I live in.
FCC ID Search
: for when I need to find out what card I'm trying to put into the latest PC.
Network Tools
: various Internet-based tools.
Demon Internet
: my main ISP.
Turnpike
: the company that makes my newsreader.
Jump
: one of my favourite bands.
The Mutual.Net
: an ISP that I might actually own a bit of.
: Blue Carrots: an Internet Portal that I might actually own a bit of.
Arachnophilia: the tool that finally persuaded me to update these pages. I like it.
Net Mechanic: for checking how bad this site actually is once published.
Solace is team 464: The Disorder of Sheddi are team 1497.
Solace is team 136.