About Me
It’s true, I’m a nerd. My name is David Allen and I’m a thirty-ish year old boy, still pulling things apart to see how they work. If I learn anything useful, I apply it. The blog name is derived from the word ‘synthetase’. Synthetases are a class of enzyme that use energy to produce new compounds. It seemed apt. Although, it’s mostly just because I’ve always liked the sound of the word ;)
Personal philosophy: (1) Don’t be a dick. (2) Don’t learn what to think, learn how to think.
I studied science for years. I have a degree (with Honours! ;) in science (I studied molecular microbiology). I’ve worked as a research scientist, teacher, lab technician and general dogsbody. I have a few published peer-reviewed papers to my name. I even did most of a PhD. It’s funny, in a way, how pulling things apart for science just didn’t cut it for me any more. For various reasons, including an attempt to restore something of my sanity, I decided to leave science and shift my career to my other great love: computers.
I started this blog as something of a portfolio piece and as a way of recording milestones during my transition from academia into tech. Since I’m now employed as a software engineer, its focus has changed, and it’s now more about consolidating and recording helpful tidbits of information I’ve had difficulty finding elsewhere. I hope that others will find some of this useful.
About This Site
This site is powered by Jekyll, a free and open static site generator. Common layout elements (menu structure, header, footer, etc) are written in HTML; and individual pages are written in markdown and assembled with the layouts by Jekyll into what you see now. CSS styling and JS functionality is then applied as per usual.