User:Paul.w.bennett

Originally from the UK, I have been living in North Carolina since 8/8/2000, first in Smithfield, and then on the Raleigh/Garner border.

I suffer from a cluster of incompletely-diagnosed mental symptoms, including some attention / focus problems, a set of motor and verbal tics, and some occasional ideas of reference and paranoia. I sometimes have depressive episodes, and very occasionally something that might be mild mania. I used to have incredibly severe anger-management issues, but I'm much better now, though I do still tend to get frustrated at my own failures. I consistently score exceptionally well on standardized IQ tests (including a 200, and an "off the chart", both in professionally-administered tests), and on exams in general, though I am terrible at completing homework / coursework / projects / etc. Most of my schooling was therefore carried out in "Special Education" for kids with problems in their behavior and in getting work done. I suspect it helped tremendously in making me more well-balanced emotionally, but I also suspect it held back my academic achievements significantly -- kids at that school were mainly expected to get just one or two GCSEs, or in American terms to only graduate with a passing grade in one or two subjects.

I'm 5'8", with red hair down to my shoulder blades (which almost always stays in a pony tail), and a beard that varies in shape and length, usually seasonally, unless I get bored with it. As of February 2007, I'm sporting a full set, up to around 3 inches long (though I keep the moustache trimmed enough that my mouth isn't obscured). I am neither Lithuanian nor Left-Handed. I do not wear glasses, contacts, a monocle, or other sight aids.

My politics are of the Minarchist persuasion.

I have been a shameless computer geek since about the age of 4.

I'm an IT contractor by trade, and I've turned my hand to a fair selection of projects over the years. Right now, I'm on a contract for a major IT company, with offices throughout the local area. I'm doing infosec admin, analysis and systems programming. I'm directly responsible for around 50 Windows, Unix and Linux systems on x86 and PPC.

I also custom-build workstation-grade high-performance PCs for fun and profit. My personal machine is a Core2 Duo E6300 with 2GB of DDR2-533 and a 320GB hard drive.

Linguistically, I'm a descriptivist. I speak English and rusty German, and can read enough French and Spanish to fix most things that Babelfish breaks.

I'm given to starting many projects and finishing few of them. On deck right now are a PIE reference book (to be published by lulu.com), a set of additional glyphs for SIL Gentium (trying to find the right license to let anyone and everyone edit my source, but allow SIL to incorporate the new glyphs into the main font, which is SIL OFL), the Terzemian language, and parts of an MMORPG engine.