Hello, I am Sean otherwise known as Donno. I am a Software engineer working in Adelaide, South Australia.

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Table of Contents

Past

I started with QBASIC before moving on to Visual Basic 6, and later on in 2003/2004 I started writing Python scripts for XBMC (Xbox Media Center) at the time before learning some C++ for working with XBMC.

XBMC

I worked on and with XBMC (formerly Xbox Media Center and now known as Kodi). I stopped working on it around 2008 due to not having time between study and because at the time I wasn’t using XBMC as much as I once did.

A few things I worked on:

  • Enabled Python scripts to define their user interface using the same system as native features (i.e using the XML skinning engine).
  • Original YouTube Python script
  • Game save manager - The motivation was to remove the need for switching to another dashboard as meant you could basically stick to XBMC and games.

University Project

  • Using LLVM with QEMU. The basic idea was to take basic blocks of ARM code and generate translations to AMD64 using LLVM and using that code instead of TCG when it was smaller (by copying the code over the TCG code).

Gaming

My go to video game is first person shooter in a multilayer setting where the typical match times are around 10 to 15 minutes. I typically avoid role playing gamings and thus games with long stories and open worlds.

More details are listed on [Gaming][/gaming.html].

Books

  • Jack Reacher series - Lee Child.
    I started with One Shot which is the book the first feature film is based on but the ninth book in the series. I read forward from there before jumping back to the first novel. I think I stopped at A Wanted Man and thus never got to Never Go Back which the second feature film is based on.
  • Imperial Radch / Ancillary Justice series - by Ann Leckie
    An ancillary is humanoid that has been augmented to become part of a spaceship and carrying out the command of hte spaceship to maintain and look after it. It is reminiscent of Rommie (ship’s avatar) from Andromeda but rather than being androids they are human turned cyborg.
  • Vorkosigan Saga (2021 to 2022) - by Lois McMaster Bujold
    I started with “The Warrior’s Apprentice” and went forward following chronological, taking a break to read “Falling Free” after “Mirror Dance” and later reading the two Cordelia. This worked well as “Falling Free” covers the history needed for a book late in the serious. I was hooked on these novels and found myself reading multiple chapters a a night. Once I was invested in Mile’s story I just had to read more about the history of the galaxy (“Falling Free”) and his parents.
  • Night Watch - 2022 - by Terry Pratchett and part of the Discworld series.
    I went into it not knowing what to expect as I did no prior research on the series or the book. The introduction was slow to the universe and as a result started off reading slowly and often putting it down. However, that changed once the massive plot device came along and turned it into a story I could not put down. I am however undecided if I will continue the series as while this forms part of the “Watch Novels” it is very late in that timeline.
  • Codex Alera series - Jim Butcher.
    Starts with slowly introducing the world and starts off unclear who the protagonist of the series is. It took me a while to read through the first book, bit quicker on the next, but then from about the third book onwards I picked up the pace and wouldn’t put it down. It follows multiple characters which reminded me of the later Vorkosigan books and it means you aren’t only experience the world from one perspective. I did find it difficult to follow the time of time in the series as it was unclear to me what was happening at the same time as well as naturally getting sense of how long certain travel takes. Overall, the conclusion of the series is satisfying and a very natural place to end.

Other books I’ve read in 2020s were:

  • City of Bones by Cassandra Clare - The first in the Shadow Hunter series and after the show finished decided to watch the first episode again and read the book to compare.
  • How to Avoid a Climate Disaster - Bill Gates
  • Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson.

During High school:

  • The Alchemist’s Key by Traci Harding
  • The Ancient Future by Traci Harding - Didn’t hold my interest as much as The Alchemist’s Key and I didn’t continue with the series. I may have read some of An Echo in Time, the second book in the series. The above list of high school excludes any course work.

Music

The following is based on my music listening habits of the period. For a more complete history of artists I listened to broken down by months and number of plays see [Music][/music.html].

I may follow this up with select songs at some point.

Top artists - 2020s

  • The Wombats (Love Fame Tragedy)
  • Death Cab for Cutie
  • Gang of Youths
  • San Cisco

An honorable mention for Say Hi, who first heard during a Death Cab for Cutie show. His Wikipedia page lead me to watching four seasons of Shameless in four weeks.

Top artists - 2010s

  • Death Cab for Cutie
  • Coldplay
  • R.E.M
  • Illy
  • Daft Punk

Honourable mentions to Freelance Whales, OK Go and Cobra Starship.

Top artists - 2000s

  • Death Cab for Cutie (and the Postal Service)
  • Coldplay
  • American Hi-Fi
  • Stereophonics
  • The All-American Rejects
  • Powderfinger

Others include, End of Fashion, Counting Crows, Plain White T’s, We Are Scientists and Finger Eleven.

Television

The following are select shows that I watched and would recommend.

90s & 00s

  • Stargate SG1 & Atlantis
  • Smallville
  • Lost
  • One Tree Hill
  • Bablyon 5
  • Farscape

2010s

  • Shameless - I accidentally watched the first four seasons in four weeks.
  • Westworld - First two seasons.
  • 12 Monkeys - Time travel
  • Continuum - Time travel
  • Travelers - Time travel
  • Video Game High School
  • Grim - Police procedural / Fantasy

2020

  • Stranger Things
  • Resident Alien
  • Peacemaker
  • Lucifer
  • Crash Landing on You - Korean
  • Falling Into Your Smile - Chinese - About a fictional E-sport team.
  • Rurouni Kenshin - The anime series then the live action movies.

YouTube

Since about 2018, I regularly watch YouTube, specially with more media outlets producing YouTube content or simply sharing their content.

The channels I initially followed were:

  • CinemaSins
  • How It Should have Ended
  • Geek & Sundry
  • minutephysics
  • SCiShow
  • Vihart

Completed series

  • Space Janitors
  • NerdHQ which was renamed to Wyldwood in 2020. The conversation for a cause were great. Unfortunately, once I had caught up on past ones they were giving that year a miss and seeing how things go the year after.

Past channels:

  • The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon - this was mostly around the time he just took over. So rarely seen clips since 2010. I would also often watch the Seth Myers clips too.*
  • Savjz - When he started streaming Magic the Gathering: Arena rather than Heartstone. By the time I completed his back catalogue on MTG, he had stopped playing and moved to auto-chess before going back to Hearthstone. Overall it was understable as while his MTG content was good it was not getting him the views.

Others

  • Vihart - Mathematics and hexaflexagon
  • The Command Zone - For Magic the Gathering, Commander. I don’t watch the podcasts or talking heads.
  • triple j for Like a Versions.
  • Mark Rober - Squirrel Maze was the introduction I had for this channel.
  • Jimmy Rees - “Meanwhile in Australia” series. Once border closures and lock downs stopped for COVID-19 he moved on. The former series is very topical and worked best knowing the current events at the time, I would suggest the “Guy who Decides” series.
  • Mattias Krantz - Piano modifications.
  • Rob Landes / Marcus Veltri - Violinist and Pianist - Omegle song requests.
  • Jolly
  • Tingman - Twisty Puzzles - This channel convinced me to order a 3x3 puzzle (Rubik Cube) and learn to solve it.
  • HarvardTHUD - Boomwhackers
  • Taskmaster (UK) - With the number of clips I watched it would have been better if I started watching full episodes on local free-to-air. I did however watch a full episode of the Denmark version as that was available on the official YouTube channel. It was great getting to see different people doing the same tasks as the UK series.

Hobbies

  • Magic the Gathering.
    • Commander - My main commander is Gishath, Sun’s Avatar.
    • Draft
      • Drafted GRN, RNA, WAR, M20, ELD and IKO. Lockdowns due to COVID-19 made it difficult to play paper.
    • Sealed
  • Twisty Puzzles - Rubix Cubes
    • Due to YouTube’s algorithm, it suggested a video on twisty puzzles, and one video turned into more until it often would show multiple videos each time. Eventually, decided that it was time to purchase some so ordered a 3x3, Pyraminx and Megaminx. Next order a Square-1 and Skweb.
    • For 3x3, my solve time is about 65 seconds average on a good day, and 90 seconds to 120 seconds on a bad and during a blunder.
    • For 4x4, my first attempt took an hour or two, and second took about 30 minutes, still needed help for some of it.
    • For Pyraminx, I haven’t tried speed solving and after many months without solving one, I probably would struggle. Likewise for the Skewb.
    • I haven’t learnt to solve the Square-1 or Megaminx yet (2022).
    • I hope to at least participate in a World Cube Association (WCA) event when one is in my city.

Education

  • Studied at the University of Adelaide 2007 to 2010 (inclusive). Bachelour of Engineering (Software Engineering).

Sports

  • Hockey - 1995 to 2005
  • Basketball - 1998, 1999, 2002 I broke my arm playing basketball in 1999 and stopped playing after that. I played for one season in 2002 with the same group of people.
  • Tennis
    • Wilson PeeWee Tennis
    • Started playing again as part of rehabilitation after my broken arm had healed.