Pictures of Portland
a philosopher, a Computer Systems Administrator,
a photographer, a geek, a world traveler...
My Career
I earn my living as a Computer Systems Administrator (SysAdmin). This is often an intellectually challenging though high-stress and high-pressure career, which heavily utilizes complex problem solving skills, requires continual learning, and demands constant diligence.
My positions entail a knowledge of operating systems and software applications, as well as hardware and software troubleshooting. My goals are to enable organizations to thrive, through effective use of electronic communication and task-automation tools.
While I'm often categorized as one, I'm not a software engineer or developer. Like most SysAdmins, I use my programming knowledge only to engineer scripting or automation of routine tasks. Designing or writing new application software, or just outright software engineering and development, is beyond my realm of true intrest.
For example, I run my own mail and web servers. While I've implemented extremely complex anti-spam controls, and utilize various bleeding-edge security tools and techniques in the server's regular administration, I didnt write the applications.
Contact me by emailing gregg@ the above domain.
My Ears
Known as Mondini Dysplasia, my profound congenital hearing loss borders on deafness. My condition is both sensorineural and conductive, though, see why I dont allow it to define me.
A sensorineural hearing loss profoundly differs from the conductive loss often experienced when fighting head colds. A sensorineural loss significantly impacts communications, as it involves a reduction in the ability to hear certian frequency ranges; which reduces speech comprehension accuracy, and extinguishes the ability to perceieve related sounds.
An excellent sensorineural hearing loss description.
Fiction & Science
According to an astronomy team lead by Dr Simon Driver of the Australian National University in Canberra, for every grain of sand on our planet there are 10 or more visible stars in this universe. Thats 70 sextillion - or 70 thousand million million million - observable stars. How can we possilby be alone?
Why I enjoy science fiction, is best summarized by a quote from Issac Asimov: "Science fiction is an existential metaphor that allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today. But the core of science fiction--its essence--has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."