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“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.

Samuel Penn
Samuel Penn, at Worldcon Helsinki

I’m Samuel Penn, a software development manager currently living in Hampshire, England, and currently working at Perforce Software. Previously I’ve been a Java/C developer and document management consultant working for a number of companies since the mid nineties. Prior to that I studied Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at Edinburgh University, and initially learned to program on a BBC Micro using Basic and assembler (6502 and later ARM).

Since 1996 or so I’ve managed a website which currently resides at https://www.notasnark.net/ and mostly contains RPG and Wargaming material. I’ve posted a lot of material (science, science fiction and gaming related) to Google+, but since the demise of that platform I decided to start my own blog rather than move to a different social media platform. Which is where you are now.

The title of the blog is Gaming Chronicles, and mostly contains write ups and notes from the various RPGs I play and run. I will also include other content as takes my fancy, but it will probably be limited to gaming, fantasy and science fiction material. This may include discussion about software products related to the above.

And the site name comes from the poem, for no reason other than it’s one of the few poems I like, and it’s a handle I used to use for online gaming many years ago when the name “Boojum” was already taken.

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away—
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

The Hunting of the Snark, by Lewis Carroll.

Contact

Other places in which I can be found on social media include:

  • samuelpenn@pluspora.com – maybe my main public social media presence, but it’s not as good as G+ was, so I don’t have much enthusiasm for it
  • https://mewe.com/i/samuelpenn – my other social media presence, but it’s a walled garden so I don’t post much there either
  • twitter.com/NotASnark – not used much, except to post links to here, and deleted after 30 days
  • Linked In – if you really want to see some work stuff, though I have all notifications disabled and rarely check it.
  • Steam – not really social media, but it’s another place I can be found.
  • Reddit – I’ve started using this recently.
  • DriveThruRPG – some RPG material I’ve published at DriveThruRPG, currently all Traveller related.