noogz.net

I am a 20 year-old (at the last time this was updated) Student of The University of Tasmania, and Computer Programmer, Residing in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

Academia etc

Schooling

I spent the entirety of my schooling at The Hutchins School in Hobart, from 1992-2006.

University

I started studying at UTAS in 2006 via their Advanced Placement Programme, the High Achiever Program, in which I studied first-year Computer Science. I am now in my final year of study for a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Computer Science and Pure Mathematics. I have studied the following units:

• 2006
• KXT101 Programming and Problem Solving
• KXT102 Programming with Data Structures
• 2007
• KMA152 Calculus and Applications 1A
• KMA154 Calculus and Applications 1B
• KRA113 Chemistry 1A
• KRA114 Chemistry 1B
• KXT103 Introduction to Systems
• KXT201 Algorithms
• KXT312 Advanced Algorithmic Problem Solving & Programming
• KXT203 Software Construction
• KXT206 Artificial Intelligence
• 2008
• KMA251 Algebra and Applications 2
• KMA255 Operations Research 2
• KMA252 Calculus and Applications 2
• KXT303 Concurrent Programming
• In Progress:
• KMA315 Real and Complex Analysis 3
• KMA357 Topics in Advanced Mathematics 3
• KXT304 Computer Graphics and Animation
• KXT314 Computing Research Project

Programming

I've been programming since I was 11 (in some form or another), my first language was Microsoft QBasic (I'm not ashamed of this at all). Since then, I've learned C, C++, PHP and Java (amongst others). My favourite language at the moment is Python, and this is unlikely to change for quite some time.

I enjoy Programming Competitions. At a school level, alongside my teammate Jet Holloway, did well in teams competitions, including twice reaching the finals of UNSW ProgComp, and twice winning our respective divisions in the Australian Computer Programming Competition, which led us to represent Australia in the SEARCC International Schools' Software Competition in both 2004 and 2005.

At university level, I have competed in the 2007 South Pacific Programming Contest, achieving equal 11th place with my team, in 2008, my team reached third place in the same competition.

Community

Since 2006, I have voluntarily taught introductory programming and computer science at Hutchins, with a particular emphasis on traning teams for programming competitions, in particular, using Python. Since 2008, I have been a tutor at The University of Sydney's National Computer Science School, a week-long summer school for high school students, that I attended in 2006.

I attended linux.conf.au 2008 at the University of Melbourne in Late January 2008. LCA is in Hobart in 2009, and strongly urge you to attend (if you're interested in Linux, Programming, or Free/Open Source Software in general..)

Interests

I believe in Free Software, thus I run Debian GNU/Linux on my computers, and license my personal projects under the GNU General Public License, or similar licenses.

I also contribute to Wikipedia and Wikibooks on a regular basis. A Wikibooks project that I adopted, and led, How To Build A Computer, has achieved Book of the Month and Collaboration of the Month status.

I have made the Slashdot Front Page, on September 8, 2005.

I am Registered Linux User #378353. If you use Linux, you should register yourself at The Linux Counter Project.

Press

Colophon

This site runs upon PyBlosxom, a lightweight blogging engine written in Python. The static (non-timely) parts of the site are controlled using the PyStaticFile plugin. For more info on what plugins I'm running, see my plugin_info page