Dave Stratford

A bit about me

My name is Dave Stratford, I'm a professional computer programmer, working mostly on ICL VME.
If you want/need to know more about my work and to see a CV, click here

Personal privacy and freedoms.

In the 2004 Queens speech in the Houses of Parliament, the Labour government announced plans to introduce compulsory ID cards for all UK citizens. As far as I am concerned, this is evil and wrong. The scope and extent of the mandatory data that is to be collected is frightening, harking back to Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany and similar regimes. The excuses used bear no relation to reality, and in some cases will actually make the life of the criminal, particularly the terrorist criminal, easier. Both the USA and Spain already have mandatory ID cards, neither stopped the tragic events of 11th September 2001 in New York, nor the train bombings of 11th March 2004 in Madrid. And nor could they have prevented the tragic occurences on 7^th and 21^st of July 2005 in London. It is vitally important for all our freedoms, as well as our security: both national and personal, that this offensive bill is struck down before it can become an act of parliament.

Hobbies

Books

I enjoy reading, mostly SCI FI such as Terry Pratchett, Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, Jean M. Auel and Julian May, Janny Wurts, Stephen Donaldson, and of course, the master, J R R Tolkien. I also read Tom Clancy, and similar such as Larry Bond, but also people like Paula Gosling and Ellis Peters. If you've never read any of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael books, then you are missing a rare(sic) treat. Try them, you'll get hooked very quickly. Unfortunately Ellis Peters, real name Edith Pargetter, died in 1996, so Brother Cadfaels Pennance is the last one. Watch out for the ITV series though with Derek Jacobi in the title role.

The Cinema Pages

I enjoy the cinema and at one time put up a review of every film I had seen at the cinema. However in recent years due to time constraints I have been unable to get to the cinema as much as I would have liked, and when I did I rarely then had the time to write a review. Sadly therefore I have decided to remove these pages entirely as they are now so out of date.

Reflections Photographic

Reflections is my new photography 'business'. At the moment it is little more than a few thousand photographs and a couple of cameras, though I hope to expand that a little. Here are some of the best, and a few more details. These pages are currently being revamped, so don't be too surprised if you find missing images, or links going nowhere. Do let me know though, just in case I've missed something.

Are you any good at logic puzzles? Well try this one then. It'll get you seriously confused, amused, frustrated, and puzzled. When you think you know the answers, email me, and if you're correct, I'll put your name up in lights.

I enjoy computers, naturally, and have two Acorn machines; A StrongArm RiscPC running RISCOS select 5i2, and a brand spanking new A9Home. I do have a wintel portable that I use for my photography when I'm away from home, but I've got VirtualRPC-SE Adjust and select5i2 on that as well. I also have a couple of fedora linux machines that I use for developing perl/MySQL/HTML::Template applications on, and as a file server for my RISCOS machines. (IMO Linux is seriously nasty. Nastier than w1ndoze and that's saying something!) I have a small amount of software which I have written, and you can download and use for free.

Some interesting pages

I'm fascinated by space and astronomy, so try these ones first:

The NASA home page.
And here for the International Space Station.
I use this one during and just before a shuttle flight.
But this one is probably a bit 'prettier'
How about The European space agency. A bit drier than Nasa's.
The British National Space Centre Here more for completeness than any other reason!
Fancy doing some real space science? Try Galaxy Zoo. And if you don't believe that you can do real science from here, have a look at Hanny's site.

More general science etc.

New Scientist magazine.

Finally ...

I have a number of items for sale, both computer related and non computer related. Click here for the list.

This site is content enhanced. For best results, you should read it in whichever browser you prefer. It is written in HTML, not some half-baked substitute guaranteed to foul up most browsers. It does not claim to know better than you how you like to view web documents, what fonts or sizes you like, or what text background you prefer. Enjoy. If your browser won't display any of this site, please let me know, and I will fix it.

Last updated 31^st March 2014