This is where Ben's profile will be.

Raised in Dunedin. Tallest baby at Queen Mary Hospital.

Learnt to program in BASIC on a Commodore 64 when I was 6

Always had a passion for mathematics and problem solving.

Continued with BASIC on an IBM compatible until someone gave me a handful of hand written notes and some Linux distributions on 3 1/2 inch floppy disks. In 2001 I was still running Linux on a 486.

I've always been interested in computer hardware and hardware in general. Much of my childhood was spent pulling apart broken stereo players and VHS units, pulling out the motors and LEDs and trying to build robots.

When I was in high school I had no idea that it was possible to make a career out of playing around on computers. For me it was just a hobby. In fact my high school dropped Computing by the time I reached the final year. I continued learning mostly by teaching myself through textbooks and practice, learning Java, C, Perl, and eventually PHP and JavaScript.

I remember being in awe seeing Rasmus Lerdorf present at linux.conf.au in 2006, taking URL suggestions from the audience and running exploits on them. It was around this time that JavaScript started getting interesting for me. New frameworks were coming out which made it a lot easier to build complex frontend interactions. My fascination with JavaScript grew and never really stopped growing.

Spent 5 years working migrating from IT tech support, through system administration, database administration, hardware and network infrastructure and eventually BI and solving business problems with web based solutions. Eventually my passion for web placed me in a design and development agency (Firebrand), and then onto Hail.

Other thing I like doing:
Traveling around New Zealand and abroad - I can get enough of seeing new and interesting places, cultures and people.
Climbing things - I enjoy climbing all of the things.
Listening to and playing music.

More stuff...