Gormless Anecdotes

As you know, no doubt, I can ramble on a bit. Those of you who've been in receipt of the odd e-mail can testify to this. Even when I was working and, by necessity, supposedly terse, I did have a habit of producing these longish e-mails. And it's gotten even worse, now I've some time on my hands.

Anyhow, long story short, some of these e-mails contained parables and anecdotes. I found them amusing and some of you were polite enough to not say otherwise. So, with lashings of hubris I've decided to clean some of them up and publish them on the 'stuff' part of the ZOIS web-site. Of course, not all of them will appear, and some of the people involved have been, well, anonymised. And some things, it has to be said, will never appear. For instance that time I woke up on some strange floor with the word 'mine' lipsticked on my chest. Best leave the rest unsaid.

The Indole Chemistry of Bananas

Challenged by his daughter, Martin explores the Indole Chemistry of Bananas. He half remembered some Biochemistry he learnt as an undergraduate and later, while he was in hospital, he regurgitated this at a baffled clinician. It earned him some kind of reputation. But could he remember more; could he research this subject further on the Internet? Could he explain it simply? Cockermouth, 15th March 2011.

Helping With an Enquiry

A longish tale of Martin's adventures in police work; it details my somewhat peripheral role in a murder investigation. This all happened a long time ago in a Northern City that will obviously remain nameless. I'll try and keep the rest of it anonymous too. Cockermouth, 30 January, 2011

Volunteer Projectionist

Martin is not be able to do the mad-man contracting stuff that he used to, all that running around. He does help out with stuff around Cockermouth, though. One of the things that he does is be a Projectionist. Cockermouth, 5 December, 2010.

Hunting the Flush Bug

The Flush Bug, a periodic event that effected one of the machines that was worked on while at Shandon, had an career changing impact on Martin. That impact was not in the way that was expected at the time, though. Cockermouth, 7th September, 2010.

Pattern Matching Randomness

Martin writes a program and realises that he didn't do a particularly good job. Langå, 18th August 2010.

The Origami Artist

Martin Sullivan goes on a course to Llandudno to learn something useful and while there meets an origami artist of some renown. Well, somebody who was better at it than him, anyhow. Copenhagen, 18th August 2010.

Light From Under the Door

Martin had to get with the flow as far as the social aspects of his job went. This ment large to unfeasibly large amounts of fermented vegitable juice on several occassions. And from time-to-time it didn't go all that well. Langå, 21st August 2010.

I Write Like David Foster Wallace

It would appear that Martin Sullivan writes like David Foster Wallace, a man of immense and graceful prose. He's not sure that that's a good thing though, for he's read some of Wallaces's stuff. Langå, 22nd August 2010.

Chemi-Luminescent Vim

Apart from a relatively short detour, painting a toilet, Martin's first job after graduating was as Computer Programmer for Unilever Research. So much for all that Biology. While there he was peripheral to some interesting product development. Cockermouth, 28th August 2010.

~Z~

Navigation

This is some navigation, it should appear at the side if the page is wide, and at the bottom if it is not.

Also of Interest

Jucy morsels from the rest of the site:

• General papers on On-line Transaction Processing (OLTP). It's still the main topic of the web-site.
• Some site news; it's a sort of infrequently updated journal for Martin too.
• Rather specific Technical Notes, Martin can still bore people in the Third-person past tense.
• Of the little hacks that he's done recently, the Unofficial Jobcentre Plus Mirror is the one thing that seems to have gained traction.
• Other ephemeral, eclectic stuff. Mostly photographs.

About the Author

His name is Martin Sullivan. He's a fifty-something some-time computer programmer living in the quaintly named town of Cockermouth in north-west England.

The Company

ZOIS Limited is basically a vehicle for Martin and his OLTP work, he owns it. You can find out more about it elsewhere on the main site.

Pro-Bono Plug

Martin is currently on a health sabbatical, but is interested in the odd bit of pro-bono work by the way of therapeutic recovery. So, if you've anything that he can tackle on a non-commercial basis from his base in Cockermouth please let him know. Unsurprisingly, he's particularly interest in biology, again, and the application of computing to it.