I am a grumpy old man. In my second childhood I am going back to my roots, catching up on key developments in my major areas of academic interest, neuroscience, computer science, and economics that have appeared since I graduated from university.
This blog is a way to vent my spleen and witter on about things that interest me. The views I express are mine and do not necessarily accord with or reflect those of any organization I am or have been associated with. The small sign I saw in 1972 I posted over the door of a restaurant I loved, 235 Kings, at 235 Kings Road in London expresses my view well, “this establishment is run for the amusement of the management.”
As a young man, after learning all about developing large and complex computer operating systems and related software from IBM, I joined the staff of MIT (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology). There, along with several thousand other people across the U.S. in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I made a small contribution to the development of the Internet that you know and love. It was then known at the ARPA Net, because it was funded the US DoD ARPA ( Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, now called DARPA). I am even mentioned in RFC 89.
Following that I worked in consulting and management consulting developing and advising on software, computing, and information technology for many years, finally starting my own consulting company far too late in life.
More recently I was involved for over 16 years with the credit union movement in the UK, being a director of London Community Credit Union, a director of the Association of British Credit Unions, and a trustee of The Credit Union Foundation. I was involved for so long that I timed out of eligibility to continue in any of these roles.
Now I am an elected Governor of the East London NHS Foundation Trust (National Health Service), and I am also involved in several community action projects.