Things I do for Fun

Akkadian

I am learning Akkadian, the main language of Mesopotamia from around 2500BC to 500BC (though it continued to be used as a scholarly language until around 100AD). It's challenging, as I don't speak any other languages (due to hating the way they were taught in school), but fun!

I picked it up because I've always had a casual interest in ancient history (and ancient Mesopotamia specifically), and finally decided to make something of it.

Coming soon: there will be a separate page covering the basics of the language, how I am learning it (including pointers to resources I have found useful), and translations I have done.

Books

I have an extensive book collection (tracked in a tool I wrote myself) and have something on the go more-or-less always. I mostly read fiction, specifically sci-fi and fantasy, but I also have a fair amount of manga and light novels, and a small nonfiction section (mostly ancient history).

Some of my favourite books and series are (list subject to change at a whim):

• The Book of the New Sun — Gene Wolfe
• The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever — Stephen Donaldson
• Discworld — Terry Pratchett
• The Great God Pan — Arthur Machen
• Helliconia — Brian Aldiss
• The Lord of the Rings — J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Malazan Book of the Fallen — Steven Erikson
• Nana — Ai Yazawa
• Star Maker — Olaf Stapledon

I am vehemently against annual reading targets, as I find they make me prioritise books by their length, rather than how interested I am in them.

Programming

I like programming and tinkering with DevOps in my spare time. My go-to languages are Haskell, Python, and Rust. I run NixOS on all my machines. I like Configuration as Code and Infrastructure as Code.

You can see all my projects on GitHub. Some favourites are:

• Déjà Fu, a library for testing concurrent Haskell programs, which came out of my Ph.D.
• resolved, a DNS server and adblocker designed for home networks.
• thing-doer, a simple container orchestrator written to learn how those things work.
• My NixOS configuration, an endless source of tweaking.

In the past I've also served as project leader for Arch Hurd, a GNU/Hurd distribution based on Arch Linux; and worked as one of the first few developers for Uzbl, a Webkit-based web browser.

Roleplaying Games

My current games of choice are Call of Cthulhu (7th edition), Traveller (Mongoose 2nd edition), and Old School Essentials. I also greatly enjoy Dolmenwood, Delta Green, and ALIEN. I'm not really a fan of storygames, being pretty firmly in the "traditional" and "OSR" camps.

Right now I'm running one regular game, a campaign of The Halls of Arden Vul: the greatest megadungeon ever written.

I also run a TTRPG blog, updated infrequently.