IAmMarauder: Age: 27 (28 in February). Sex: I’m a man trapped in a male body (I’ll forgo the usual “Yes Please” Joke :P ). Career: Lotus Notes Administrator and all round Genious/Bastard (depending if I just fixed a problem or told someone that the video of someone crashing a motorbike into a cake is not business related).

IAmMarauder: Actually, since I was a testtube baby, that makes me a Pyrex. At least I had a womb with a view :P (Dunno where I stole that from… might look into it). Actually, I’m a Pisces. As for plans, I’m having a Tropical themed party… Hawaiian shirts are compulsory, and lots of nice cocktails to drink (and some Vodka laden Watermelon).

IamMarauder: My favourite is the B52… It’s a drink as potent as it aerial namesake. Of course, for this function I think Pina Coladas will be more the style. Although, by the end of the night I’m sure we will have invented a few new ones :P

IAmMarauder: I have taken up Fencing as a sport (that is sword fighting, not knocking up a nice little white picket number). I plan to start brewing beer again (unfortunately the weather where I live is wither too hot, too cold or too unstable).

IamMarauder: I’ve been fencing almost 10 years now. Picked it up when I was at Uni… Mainly because it was a sport where they gave you a 3foot piece of steel and said “Here, hit your opponent”. I meant, you have hockey, where they give you a perfectly serviceable weapon, and it’s illegal to hit people… What’s the go with that??

IamMarauder: I’m fairly competitive (and if someone upsets me they had better watch out, I’m deceptively agile for my size). But it is just a hobby for me, I could do a lot better than I do if I actually put some effort in. As for safety, the swords have tips, and are fairly benign. I do carry a scar from a blade that broke, one of those freak accident things. Also we wear a nice, thick Kevlar jacket (rated around 1000 Newton I think), and a solid metal cage on our head (which is a pain when you have an itchy nose or need to sneeze, it ain’t pretty).

IamMarauder: My favourite is Ginger Beer, but I also like a nice draught. As for how it turns out… My last batch of draught was tasteless, and extremely potent… It’s a shame I can’t keep the temperature stable (must invest in a kegerator – a refrigerator turned into a keg).

IAmMarauder: Well, About 10-15 years ago, I used to play a Board/Tabletop game called BattleTech (a sort of a tactical game with RPG elements). In it I decided to nickname my squad Madden’s Marauders. Skip to a few years ago, and I started really getting into the LAN gaming scene. Well, I used to run with my nickname at the time (Cheese, longer story), but it just didn’t seem right. So I decided to bring back the Marauder, and stuck with it at LAN days. When I signed up with the LWD forums, the name was taken, so in a streak of brilliance I added IAm to the front, and have used it ever since.

IAmMarauder: Not to be too exact, but it was Thursday the 13th of September, 2001. Around 23:39:06 (UTC Time). Not that I have the details on hand or anything (note to self, remove traces from proxy so that no one knows I peeked at the Berkeley site).

IAmMarauder: Here at the LWD forums.

IAmMarauder: The good ole Win2K boot logo article. I was most active in that thread, then spread out into other threads. Then I disappeared for a while, and here I am again!

IamMarauder: Well, for me I had to pull myself together and fix a few things with myself mentally. I’d hit rock-bottom with a severe case of depression, and just needed to get away from everything (the were a few incidences in the forums that didn’t help me). I used to check in and lurk occasionally, just to check up on everyone. But then I got better, and came back, and here I am, bigger than life (and twice as ugly I believe the saying goes :P ).

IAmMarauder: 4: I have 2 AMDs at home (both Athlon XP 2800+s). At work my laptop is a P3 Mobility <1.8GHz> (we may be getting P4’s soon), and the desktop is a P4 <2.4 GHz approx… cannot remember>.

IamMarauder: Personally, I’m not an AMD man or an Intel Man, I go for what’s best at the time (although AMDs do have an edge on Intel gaming-wise). My next machine will be a 64-bit machine, will have to see who has the edge when they are cheaper (although those nForce3 boards do look sweet).

IAmMarauder: Nope. These things are my babies. I prefer to tweak the OS to get a performance boost. Plus I have a habit of playing with settings until the whole thing breaks. Easier to reinstall the OS than to buy a new MoBo.

IAmMarauder: I use SETI Driver, but am going to set up a SETI Queue machine for my home machines.

IAmMarauder: Not much. I figure I’m not using the cycles, and I have it set so it won’t interfere with anything (even games when I forget its running). I’m just doing my part to help the cash strapped scientific community. The main reason I joined SETI was LWD, it was something we all do for fun, and the friendly rivalry (must increase position…).

IAmMarauder: Well, we have 2 machines at work I would love to use (they don’t trust me with the root password though). One is a 16 processor SGI Server, the other is a 24 processor IBM machine. Either of those for a week or two and I would be happy (and they didn’t like my idea of a processor burn in test either).

IAmMarauder: Definitely. All 4 boxes are belong to LWD (well, as far as SETI is concerned).

IAmMarauder: I’m aiming to knock KingKash off his post, but failing that I’ll settle for 2nd :P I have no aims to pass anyone in particular, but it would be nice to see the top 50…

IAmMarauder: I have no significant other, so I’m safe there. Family aren’t that computer savvy, so I don’t talk to them about. Same with most of my friends, but those that are seem to think it’s a waste of computing power.

IAmMarauder: Well, they don’t. They prefer to turn the machines off, or play games… It’s almost enough to make you cry, all those wasted cycles…

IAmMarauder: We had a few people join up when the LWD SETI News first started, but I’m not much of a recruiter.

IAmMarauder: A large cash reward for every WU I return. Or a reward scheme where I get given a new PC every 1000 WUs I crunch. Of course, these are for me only…

I don’t think too much should change. It is a nice, clean wholesome event for the whole family. I just wish there weren’t some people for whom the results they return are everything (they just take it waaaay too seriously).

IAmMarauder: ME! Actually, the forums are full of great dawgs who are willing to help with any- and everything, no matter if you have a problem with a computer, or with life in general. This place is like a family to me (albeit I am something of a prodigal son at the moment).

IAmMarauder: Well, I must say this is the hardest of all the questions. Final words, huh? Well, thanks first to Fido for the great site, and letting me have a piece of it for the SETI News. Thanks to FatherTyme for taking over and making the news what it is, and thanks to those who have kept it going. Thanks to Nattie for the interview, now you know me a bit better, and now I’m a bit more famous (look Ma, I’m on the ‘net!)…

You know what, this is the hardest question of them all! Give me free reign and I got nothin’ to say! Hmmm… I could give you all a nice recipe, or an inspirational quote, or even a nugget of wisdom that I have picked up in my time on this spherical ball of rock we call Earth (wonder what the Martians call it?). Of course, I could test the new site and see if there is a character limit on news posts… That could be fun… I think I shall finish up instead, and wish you all a fond adieu, and hope to see you all around the forums sometime.

Oh, give me a home,
Where the Buffalo roam,
And the Deer and the Antelope play.
And rarely is heard,
A discouraging word,
‘Cos the Antelope ain’t got much to say.
- Found in the Fortune file on my laptop.