This is the personal website of Dashiell Dunn, a South Australian student with an interest in technology, design, words, music, and serial commas.
Technology
I have an interest in technology. Technology is awesome. That’s not to say nature doesn’t have its charms, but it’s just not as good.
I like computer programming, for the both the end result and the journey along the way. It can be difficult or tedious, but that just makes the end result more satisfying. My preferred language for general purposes is Python; I also do a lot of work in PHP, and some C/C++.
Design
I like designing things and looking at things that are well designed (the latter is a lot easier). Computers are my thing, so one of my main design outlets is web design; the latest version of this website, “Novus”, is an example.
I usually do my initial web design mockups on paper and then on Adobe Photoshop. I do all my HTML and CSS editing in ConTEXT and use WAMP5 or XAMPP for offline PHP testing. Mozilla Firefox is my main web browser; I test in various browsers, including Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer.
Words
I like reading and writing. When I was younger I read a lot of non-fiction, then I got into reading novels, and these days I don’t read many books at all. However, Wikipedia has rekindled my love of non-fiction.
Politics
Politically, I’m centre-left. Of particular interest to me are intellectual property rights and similar; software patents shouldn’t be granted, copyright terms are far too long, (slightly tangentially) DRM only hurts legitimate consumers, etc.
Music
I like listening to, owning, and composing music.
Serial commas
The serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma or Harvard comma) is the comma used immediately before a grammatical conjunction (nearly always and or or; sometimes nor) that precedes the last item in a list of three or more items. The phrase “Portugal, Spain, and France”, for example, is written with the serial comma, while “Portugal, Spain and France”, identical in meaning, is written without it.
That’s what Wikipedia has to say about the serial comma. I use it because it reduces ambiguity (more often than not) and generally improves sentence flow. Mentioning it in the summary sentence was a bit of a joke. I AM SUCH A JOKER