I'm M Taylor or "mctaylor" and this is my personal web site. It contains the usual collection of links and a few written doodles about my thoughts and interests.

I find it hard to describe myself, so here is a brief history as a starting point.

I was born and raised in rural Nova Scotia, Canada. I graduated from high school in 1992, and completed a BA (Math CS Phil) from university in 1996. I worked in New Brunswick for two years, and then made a go of being self-employed but that was not profitable, so that was a part time business until 2001. A friend from university who was already working in the UK, suggested moving to the United Kingdom, and since I had nothing better planned, I went. I arrived in England in February 2000 - just at the hint of a beginning to the dot.com bomb - and worked for an e-commerce company in Cambridge, then moved to a information systems company also in Cambridge. In 2002 I moved back to Canada, I spent a year plus in Nova Scotia, and at the end of 2003 I moved to Eastern Ontario. Did a few grown up things like buy a house, and am now getting use to the scary (and expensive) world of home improvement.

From a vocation point of view, I am a programmer and system administrator, both as a professional and as an amateur. I have been using computer since I was about 8. The first computer I had a lot of access to was the Commodore Vic-20 (1 MHz, 3.5KB of usable RAM) designed to be the first affordable home computer. Since it included like any home computer of its time a built in BASIC interpreter that what I first learn to program in. Now I am convinced that BASIC is bad, evil, should be left in the past. I'll write a proper mini-essay about that some other time.

Since then I've learnt and used a various different computer systems, and oddly find myself working with people almost twice my age that have been using computers about as half as long as I have. It is weird but not uncommon; age is not the best indication of experience in computing and IT.

I am/was also a civil liberties and privacy advocate. I believe that just because we as individuals, groups, corporations, or as a government possess the technical means of "clamping down" does not mean that they should or that it is the best solution to the real problems. This becomes increasingly difficult in light of "intellectual property" rights and management. I'll write about intellectual property elsewhere, but in short I think some serious though needs to be given to the current direction of "intellectual property" laws.

I am supportive of the EFC, CIPPIC, PrivacyInfo.ca, and in general am supportive of the activities of CCLA, CPSR, EFF (US), and FIPR (UK).

My hobbies including playing with computers, Linux, photography (non-digital), and amateur radio. I enjoy foreign and independent cinema, a wide range of photography exhibits, solving cryptograms, and sometime an eclectic reading habit.

In my first year of university in 1993 I went to Computing Service to get my computer account, a more senior student with had the username mtaylor, so my account included my middle initial in additional to the usual first initial and surname, forming 'mctaylor'. I keep this username throughout my time with the university across several computer systems.

Being a true geek, I was very active online, writing email, Usenet Netnews, and my personal web pages as well as additional pages I did for various student groups. Along the way I realized that more people had read my writings written under my username, "mctaylor," then before in my life, so I became fond of the username. Friends and coworkers jokely used my name to address me, pronouncing as you expect if it was McTaylor.

When vanity domain name became common in 1999, I registered mctaylor.com, publicly declaring myself a geek, as if that wasn't already clear.