The Hilton FAQ

In an attempt to head off at the pass the hordes of people who email me asking intelligent questions (insert smilies anywhere you like in that clause) I've created the following. Any suggestions for additions are, of course, most welcome.

Quick Reference

1. What do you look like?
2. Are you attached?
3. What's your Geek Code?
4. Aren't you the Adrian who...?
5. Are you related to Conrad / Paris Hilton?
6. What are your computing preferences?
7. What the -expletive- is a suslik?
8. What's your job?
9. Do you want a new job?
10. What do you do in your spare time?
11. MAKE MONEY FAST!!!
12. VIRUS WARNING!!!

The Hilton FAQ v. 0.06

What do you look like?

A picture is worth a thousand words, or 38 Kb in this particular case. I'm the ugly one on the left; the devastatingly cute lady on the right is Jie, my then fiancée and now wife. You can see a photo of me with my brothers here (230Kb JPEG). Left to right are Olly, me and Laurence.

For those using Lynx for an enhanced Web experience, I'm about 182cm tall, 81 Kg, with black hair (and quite a number of white ones too) and green eyes. I'm fairly heavily built around my shoulders and hips from Tae Kwon Do, hillwalking and running, and I carry some "emergency calorie storage" around my middle.

I now have a distinguishing scar, but you really don't want to see where it is.

In 1992 an uncanny number of Romanians compared me to Kyle Maclachlan in his role as Agent Cooper in "Twin Peaks". Mr. Maclachlan is reported to be considering legal action.

More recently I've been compared to Kashyk, aka Mark Harelik, in the "Counterpoint" episode of Series 5 Voyager. You can see the possible resemblance here (JPEG, 48Kb) courtesy of Jie.

Are you attached?

Attached to what?

This planet? Don't be silly. I bob gently about fifty metres above the ground, tethered by a length of 10-mil climbing rope.

Attached to life? Very much so, not that you'd guess it from some of my past hobbies.

Romantically attached? Yep, I'm spoken for. My wife is Jie, a Canadian-Filipina BOFHlet. Cute, clever, Christian, and occasionally totally evil. We were married in Toronto on May 3rd 2003.

What's your Geek Code?

As follows:

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GM/CS/MD d- s+: a- C+ UL++(+++) P+++(--) L++ E W++ N++ o-- K++
w--- O- M- V- PS+ PE- Y+ PGP+ t+ 5 X+ R- tv+ b++++ DI++ D++
G e+++(++++) h r y-
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Get the translation here.

Aren't you the Adrian who...

Probably not. Here are a few of the other Adrian Hiltons of whom I am aware. If you know of any more, or have links to homepages, let me know!

Adrian Hilton:

Lecturer at the University of Surrey. Involved with computer graphics research, visual capture of 3D models. Our published papers are hopefully very different. To make further distinction, I've started to publish under "Adrian J. Hilton"; to date, I've nearly always co-authored with Jon Hall so you should be clear on which Adrian Hilton has written what you're reading.

Adrian Hilton:

An actor, involved with Christian advocacy issues. He holds the Guinness World Record for reciting the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

He performed the "Bardathon" on the site of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre at the International Shakespeare Festival in 1987. He took 110 hours 46 minutes to complete the recital. See the photo of him with Prince Philip here (65Kb JPEG).

He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1989, and has directed classics, musicals, variety and opera.

Adrian Hilton:

Stood for the Referendum Party in Stratford at the 1997 UK General Election, getting 2064 votes. Also wrote "The Principality and Power of Europe", which sounds like a damn good read from what people keep telling me. One of these days I'll actually buy it.

Are you related to Conrad Hilton?

I wish. Not as far as our family's research has been able to show.

Are you related to Paris Hilton?

Dear Lord, I can only hope not.

What are your computing preferences?

Come on, no-one sane would ask this question. But since you're reading this, we run two Linux PCs (Ajax and Jericho) with SuSE Linux 8.1, and a PowerBook with OS X. We can dual-boot Ajax to Win2K or WinXP if we need to, but that's about it.

My PDA is a Palm m515 (Aíne), replacing my venerable Psion 5mx. It's rather nice.

What the -expletive- is a suslik?

It's a European ground (tunnelling) squirrel (Citellus suslicus) known as "Perlziesel" in German. Appropriate, really, given my Perl coding habits. You can pictures here.

Oh, of course. Silly me.

What's your job?

I'm a senior software engineer with Praxis Critical Systems in Bath. My main expertise is in embedded software development (C, J2ME, Ada) for mobile telecomms and safety-critical aviation systems. My speciality is the development of high-integrity systems using programmable logic devices.

Do you want a new job?

Pimps who mail me on the basis of a web search on CV keywords, without bothering to find out anything about me, can be expected to receive a swift LART. If I wanted a job programming VAXen in Ada, I'd have already impaled my head on a spike.
If you've checked out some of my site, have a reasonable idea of what I'm like and what I want, and are willing to talk details, then drop me a line.

What do you do in your spare time?

I have a daughter. What is this "spare time" of which you speak?

MAKE MONEY FAST!!!

No thanks. Anyone spamming me will encounter SpamAssassin which I am continually training. What's that? I can't hear you!

VIRUS WARNING!!!

Any net myths like this which are sent in my direction will be returned to you with a standard rebuttal, which will be cc'd to everyone else on the list to which you emailed the data. This will make you look like a right pillock, so kindly check your facts before sending on something like this. In particular I do not wish to hear about any cookie receipes, free phones, virus warnings (what do I care about Windoze viruses anyway?) or chain letters.

And for the love of Mike, protect your systems from worms willya? I suggest reformatting your hard drive and putting a chisel through your Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP install CD.