Ok, why is this site called Quantum Gypsies and what is it all for?

I worked with web based applications for years. Oracle Financials, SAP and many associated financial reporting systems, all of which allowed me to work productively from various points of the compass, but none of which could be described as fun.

Everyone I knew was having a web ball: Downloading music, watching videos, shopping for shoes, chatting with each other on social networking sites and killing each other on World of Warcraft, whereas I was in web mud up to my knees: rooting around government sites looking for the EU regulations on revenue recognition and trying to get a server in Ireland to print to a PC in France.

So when I retired I decided to try the web as a playground rather than a coalface tool and this web site is one small part of that trial. For most of the time, it has been an enjoyable experience. If it stops being enjoyable, then I shall stop developing.

As to the Quantum Gypsies name, you need to know a couple of things about me. Firstly, I have the attention span of a gnat. I love change and thrive on uncertainty. I make todo lists and then completely ignore them, I have to be reading at least three books at once, otherwise I won't finish one of them and I have been known to change my complete life plan twice on the same day. Some years ago the production director of a newspaper was telling me how he would soon be able to tailor a newspaper to my individual needs and tastes and deliver it direct to my email inbox. I think he was somewhat disappointed when I told him that the only reason I read a newspaper was because I had no idea what I would find in it.

So I see my my life as a series of random events, controlled by a life sized version of quantum mechanics. I can either tell where I am, but not how fast or in what direction I am moving, or measure how fast I am moving, but not where I am in the process.

Secondly, like many people I think, I have always seen myself as an outsider; a gypsy who only touches the earth lightly. You wont find anything important here, just whatever whimsy catches my attention for a short while. That is not to say that I won't approach serious topics or that I will avoid serious research, just that things may well flit on and off the pages with little sense of reason.

Ok, that's enough about me to bore even the most inquisitive of you. I hope you find something on the site that is mildly interesting.