User:Luke Maurits

A bit about myself
Most of what's below is mirrored on my personal website, where you can find a lot of other stuff about/by me, including free software and tutorials/rants on Unix and programing.

I am a life-long resident of South Australia and a proud geek. In 2005 I graduated from the University of Adelaide with a Bachelor of Mathematical and Computer sciences (B Ma & Comp Sc), majoring in pure and applied mathematics. In 2006 I obtained an Honours degree from the same institution in pure maths. My thesis was on the discrete logarithm problem, reflecting the fact that abstract algebra and cryptography are among my primary mathematical interests (though analysis is pretty nifty too).

Despite the name of my degree, I've received no formal training in computer sicence (Adelaide didn't offer a plain Bachelor of Mathematics until after I graduated, so I enrolled in their maths and CS degree and just did the maths). I have, however, self-taught myself to a reasonable degree in this area, having been fascinated with everything computer related since an early age, cutting my proverbial teeth (as most geeks my age seem to have) on a Commodore 64. I am a huge fan of UNIX based operating systems, my favourite thus far being NetBSD. I have reasonable experience writing code in C, Java and Python, Python being my favourite language. I have some experience with PHP and Perl, but not as much as the other languages.

In the way of non-technical interests: I am a fan of anime and manga, and to a lesser extent most things to do with Japan. I studied iaido for a few years, but am not currently continuing my training. I play Dungeons and Dragons (3rd edition) rather less frequently than I'd like to. I read books of the science fiction genre and particularly the cyberpunk subgenre - favourite authors include William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson. Practically all the music I listen to could be considered metal, although I'm fairly choosy within that wide genre. I abhor pretty much all metal in which singing is replaced with attempts to imitate the snarling and screeching of the demonically possessed. Bands I particularly approve of include Anathema*, Andromeda, Blind Guardian, Dragonforce, Hammerfall, Katatonia*, Iced Earth, Lacrimosa, Rammstein, Rhapsody and Sonata Arctica *(in both cases, their present, "clean vocals" work rather than their early stuff). I've seen Dragonforce live twice, one in Sydney and once in Adelaide. I bought a ticket to see Blind Guardian play in Melbourne, but sadly couldn't afford to fly there when the date came around!

I intend to do postgraduate study in cryptography related mathematics in the relatively near future, but have taken some time off studying so that I can marry my fiancée Kirsty (in December 2007) and spend the beginning of our marriage in something other than the abject poverty associated with being a student. I currently work for m.Net Corporation Limited, doing a mix of mathematical research and software development.

A bit about Wiki and I
I've been a regular user of Wikipedia, mainly as a mathematics resource, since shortly after I started university in 2003, but have not made any serious contributions until early 2006. I think Wikipedia is a truly fantastic and important project, and intend to keep contributing when I can. I suspect most work I may do for Wikipedia will relate to mathematics and/or crypto.