User:FrankP

I studied originally as a mathematician, and worked as a programmer and data scientist. I still retain interests in these fields, as well as general scientific topics.

I'm interested in many kinds of historical topics but especially in the early modern era (16th - 17th centuries), also the politics of the 1930s and World War 2 especially the intelligence war.

I have studied philosophy, in particular political philosophy, where my focus was on the difficulties of engaging with extremist views within liberal democratic societies.

I am an atheist with a fascination for the study of religion and myth. I've been self-studying koine Greek to the point where I can have a reasonable bash at reading New Testament passages and other contemporary writings. I have in the past conducted funeral ceremonies as a celebrant for the British Humanist Association as a service for people who wish a non-religious ceremony. Due to incompatibility with family commitments I'm not offering this publicly right now, but I do occasionally perform a ceremony or provide advice for close friends or family.

Politically I have generally been a left-liberal, although in recent years I have tended more and more towards cynicism. I am passionate about sustainability and was involved in environmental education and activism for a substantial part of my career (going back to the early 1990s). I am concerned about threats to civil liberties. In the UK, for example, there are restrictions on demonstrations in Parliament Square and the continued growth of surveillance of many kinds. I also support the abolition of the British monarchy, in order to make Britain a republic.

For political and technical reasons, I use free software, such as pelican, apache and zim. My preferred operating system has for the last couple of decades been debian, and for the past few years I've been running it in a nosystemd configuration.