Hello :)
I'm Ellie, a completely normal woman occasionally spotted online under the name of nycto or nyctomanica.
It seems you've landed on my site, on a page all about me, so I should probably tell you a bit about who I am!
I live in Wales with my wife, our stinky ex-street cat, and a cosy old house full of enough vintage tat that it could be a museum. It's pretty nice.
For work, I make machines talk to other machines (usually computers, occasionally cooler stuff), where other folks haven't been able to before.
Networking, with a side helping of funky radios, legacy shenanigans, and tiny budgets.
When I'm not doing that, I enjoy spending time on my many, MANY hobbies.
Traditional film or analogue photography (especially Polaroids).
Building my own or modifying electronic gubbins.
Nosing around cool places where I probably shouldn't be.
Messing with both old and new technology.
Listening to and going to see cool and interesting music.
Home automation, self hosting all the things to escape the grip of Big Tech, and so, SO many other kinds of tinkering, DIY, or whatever else takes my fancy.
You could probably say I'm a bit of a nerd.
That would be fair.
All of that means I have quite a lot of interesting stuff to potentially show off and write about, and what better place to do that than here!
So, why don't you go and have a look around!
I promise you'll find something interesting :)
Fun facts!
- I've had a site on the Internet in some form or another since 2008
It was a simple page to let my friends play blocked Flash games in school, hosted on a slow ISDN line with a PC I nicked from the tip.
Here's a later incarnation on Wayback, this one was to watch youtube in class! - I still have my first Polaroid camera, given to me in 2004
It's a Polaroid One600 in blue, and I broke it by putting an early Impossible Project film pack in it in 2010.
Ended up getting a Model 250 instead and started shooting packfilm, which is WAY better! (if a bit spenny these days) - I got busted setting up for a mini rave on an abandoned farm
Thought it would be a sweet way to host a party, ended up getting a telling off for nicking electricity and got kicked out.
Ironically, I'd brought my own generator with me... - I ran a solar-powered pirate radio station from a tent
I provided the tunes for a Scout jamboree with a hand-built 5W FM transmitter, a netbook, and a modified rabbit-ear TV antenna stuck on top of a 1940s tent.
It had station and song name text over RDS, FM stereo, and a range of around 15 miles!