Beezly Real Name:  Andrew Age:  25 Resides:  Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, UK Occupation:  Sysadmin

Favorite website:
flickr.com, slashdot.org

Favorite book, movie, or TV show:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (book/film - I love the film version just for the way it was produced)

Favorite game, application, or program of all time:
A tough one - I've become quite enamoured with amarok (amarok.kde.org) recently - but that's only an MP3 Player. Gaim (gaim.sf.net) and XChat (xchat.org) make my life more interesting - enabling me to talk to friends and colleagues all the time, no matter where they are, so I guess it has to be those.
 
What are you playing and working on right now:
I'm working on some tools to synchronise code changes across the two clusters that I run. It's written in Python.

What is your current screensaver, background, or wallpaper:
I have a photo that I took when walking up Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh with a friend: (http://flickr.com/photos/beezly/18349216/)

What's so special about your computer:
The computer I mostly use has around 160 Opteron 248 and 848 CPUs in a cluster. I don't have a clue what it does most of the time - Scientists run code on it, I keep it going and add new stuff to it.

How many computers do you have:
Personally mine? I think about ten dotted around the country. I don't really know.

What was your first computer:
Spectrum ZX-81 with a little rubbery keyboard - I can only just remember it.

Do you remember the first program you ran on it:
I suspect the first computer I programmed was an Oric 1 (http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=180) - I seem to remember it had some neat commands on it like "BANG" (which would make a gunshot sound) - we got rid of this machine when I was about 3, for an Oric Atmos (http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=79).

Geekiest moment of your life:
Actually, I think my geekiest moment was realising that I had surrounded myself with geeks. Like the time when a friend dumped his girlfriend by e-mail and I had to explain to him that that was not "normal".

When did you first realize you were a geek:
I don't think I ever did - it was just a normal part of my life from such a tender age!

Have you ever said anything geeky that someone else did not understand:
HAHAHA! I do that EVERY SINGLE DAY!

What is the funniest/most bizarre computer/Internet/geeky experience you have ever had:
I used a regular expression to answer a phone-in quiz question once - They were asking what the only word    (+permutations) in the english dictionary was that had 3 consecutive double letters (ie. xyzAAFFWWpqr) - egrep '(.)\1(.)\2(.)\3)' /usr/share/dict/words told me the answer - bookkeep (+ er, ing etc etc)

What is your favourite quote:
ASCII Character 34

What do you do when you are (heaven forbid) not at your computer(s):
I play bass guitar with a few different bands, and I've recently got more interested in photography.

You have a time machine that can only be used once. If you use it you will not come back. What date would you set it to, and what ONE thing would you take with you (not a computer):
Andrew saw what happened in that Simpsons episode where Homer and his toaster travelled through time, and was too afraid to answer this question.

Andrew, who has an undying adoration for all things computery, is very proud of  www.beezly.org.uk - and somewhere on that site is the boot output of his very own 14-CPU sparc machine! Andrew can type and talk to people at the same time (a very rare male skill), and is trying to learn how to do the same while playing bass guitar.