Occasionally Asked Questions

...of, by or about Telsa Gwynne.

Introduction

If you are reading this, you probably found it through either my homepage or my diary. Why you are still checking pages that have not been updated in ages, I have no idea. But now I have updated a few answers and deleted the rest, you are at least likely to escape being misled.

Last updated: Midsummer 2011

The answers

Me

Q: That Telsa?

A: This is a bit tricky to answer. But probably, yes. Everyone who asks me this is referring to Telsa who is married to a well-known Linux hacker. So yes, I'm that.

Q: Are you sure? You have a different surname. That's not his machine address.

A: Yes, I am sure. There is no requirement that I take his surname. He has lots of machine addresses. This one is mine.

Q: No relation to Tesla?

A: No, no relation at all, despite some of the more optimistic (or merely misspelt) search engine queries that have shown up in my logs.

Q: Nice nickname. What's your real name?

A: Telsa is my real name. Yes. Really.

Q: I think I remember you, but you had a different name then..

A: Yes. My family use my middle name and I used it until I had finished university. I got fed up of everyone abbreviating and misspelling it so I switched to my first name. People still abbreviate and misspell it, just in different ways.

Q: You have dropped out of sight. Where have you gone?

A: I haven't dropped out of sight. I just haven't jumped onto every new advance in the web. I am still where I always was: physically in Swansea and virtually on the end of an email client. I'm just not on IRC, and Twitter, and planets, and aggregators, and gods know what. I'm getting a lot more done, and I'm a lot happier.

Q: What are you doing now?

A: On the net: bugger all. See above. Off the net: I went back to university. and am now hoping I have a degree in Welsh (this was written in that strange limbo between finishing finals and getting the results letter).

Q: Is the diary coming back?

A: It's still possible, but the internet is a different place now. I don't think it will return in the same form.

Him

Q: Alan's at Intel now?

A: Yes. He left Red Hat in early 2009 and started work for Intel shortly after that.

Q: So, how's Alan? Can you ask him or tell him...?

A: No. No, I can't. I hate to sound petty about this but I am not his relay service. If you want to get something to Alan, send it to him, not to me. By the same token, if you want me to know something, do not send it to him. He never remembers to tell me.

Q: Did Alan get my email? He didn't reply.

A: I have absolutely no idea.

Q: Alan didn't reply/I can't find his email address/I don't have his Intel address. So I am sending this to you instead: can you forward it?

A: No. Incidentally, I don't have his Intel address either. We live together and he works from home. Why would I need it?

Q: Please help persuade Alan to attend a particular show. We'd love to see you there, too.

A: Please don't think that my personal list of places I want to visit has any bearing on his speaking engagements. I can assure you they don't. Your chances of getting Alan to an event are best if it's a technical do; if you place few or no restrictions on reproduction of the information; if high-cost events are used to fund a cheap do for the local LUG; and if he can get there without flying. Unfortunately, he gets travelsick in coaches, so we're really talking about trains or ferries here. If you're on the European rail network, you have a good chance. If you're in the US, you're pretty much out of luck since the advent of the DMCA law and its use to hassle hackers.

Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!