Eugenia Loli-Queru - Personal Web Page

Eugenia Loli-Queru's Home Page

About

Hi, my name is Eugenia. I was born in Athens, Greece, in 1973 but raised near the city of Preveza. I currently live in the 'Silicon Valley' Bay Area in California, USA, since 2001. I have also lived in UK for 4 years and Germany (a bit less than 1 year).

Education

I have a degree in "Programming and system analysis", learning mostly 4GL, C and Pascal (back then Pascal was popular) among other things. However, I finished college exactly at the time the internet was booming (1995) and so after a quick period on a futuristic AI project, I soon followed the web development route as it was paying well at the time and it was more fun. Later, I was involved in an product designing its UI and was responsible for usability matters.

Life

I got married to Jean-Baptiste Queru in a French castle (2001), a year after we discovered each other on the #bedev IRC channel talking (see: mostly arguing) about technical matters. JBQ is the most intelligent, caring and beautiful person I've ever known. Also, I have a brother whom I also love dearly, but I don't get to see him much as he lives in Greece. If you somehow still want to learn more about my everyday life and my rantings, you can check out my blog.

Personality

I believe that my best quality is my ability to say (and write) things the way they are. I am not sugar-coating my words, neither I lie. If I have to say something because it has to be said, or because I believe it is the right thing to do, I will say it and I will turn the world upside down until the truth will be uncovered or proved. Yes, I am as stubborn as a donkey is and I am strongly opinionated regarding most things. Because of this, many people online, who don't know me in person, think I am "rude" or a "bitch", but in reality it's just me writing or saying things the way I think about them in my head without adding the "politeness distortion field" that our society has come to require - it's raw data baby! Love me or hate me, there is no in-between. You have been warned.

Beliefs

Regarding software, I don't care if it's open source or not, as long as it works as it's supposed to (although I am more fond of the BSD license over the GPL). I believe in world peace, world unity, one single democratic world government (I am the direct opposite to being chauvinistic). I believe that we are destroying our planet and our ecosystem and we must drop our numbers below ~1 billion people as we are way more than this planet can handle efficiently (even in the expense of each family to only be allowed 1 child for the next 100 years). I believe in love, not war. I believe in forgiveness. I do not belong to any religion or cult and I don't go to church often (sometimes I do visit catholic or orthodox churches though). I was raised as a Christian Greek Orthodox, but in reality, while I do believe in "God", I do in my own way. God as a higher power who lives in heaven does not exist for me, "God" as a way of life full of love, does. Therefore, I classify myself as an agnostic/atheist. Finally, I believe in the existence of intelligent alien life too -- somewhere out there.

General Likes

I enjoy cold weather (I really dislike the hot Greek summer), sushi, cooking, good humor, Internet, programming, home-made smoothies, Sci-fi, Artificial Intelligence study, painting, "Lost", "Star Wars", "Star Trek: TNG". My hobbies include collecting recipes (I got several thousands of them) and videography. My favorite places on this planet is my parent's village in Greece, called Skiadas (think bald mountains and lots of goats) and Guildford, the most cool town in UK.

General Dislikes

I strongly dislike violence, pain (in general...), drugs, smoking, alcohol, idiotic people, gambling, online trolling and... Greek moussaka (I am not a huge pizza fan either). I dislike most modern art as I find it weird. I prefer 'classic' art (especially classic painters), which are easier to the eye and the mind. Simplicity is imperative for me, in all aspects in life.

Hobbies

In my free time I serve as an editor-in-chief at OSNews (update: I resigned in June 2005, now I contribute only occasionally). Actually, I am pretty proud of my work at OSNews: I brought it from 700 page views per day in August 2001, to 275,000 page views per day in April 2005, transforming it to one of the major tech news sites online of its day. And its mobile browser support rocks! As it does Gnomefiles.org's, my Gnome software repository. Back in the day, I used to serve as a news editor for the legendary BeNews.com too. I have ported a large number (more than 80) of Linux/Posix/DOS applications to the BeOS, doing my part on supporting the OS of my choice back then (mind you, I do not use BeOS anymore). Finally, I have met and spoke to Linus Torvalds (once) & Steve Jobs (three times) and have seen Bill Gates from up close. These days I don't do much journalism, I simply write some reviews here and there, and I mostly write random stuff on my personal blog instead. Since May 2007, my main hobby is videography. I own an HD camera (Canon HV20) and I often go out to shoot interesting places and people. My favorite part in videography is "color grading".

Computers

Ah, where to start about my machines... there are so many of them, as I am such a major geek... My main machine is a 3 GHz P4-630 with 3 GB RAM running WinXP PRO on a lovely triple-screen setup. Second machine is my 867 Mhz Powerbook G4 which runs Mac OS X Tiger. I also have a 1.67 Ghz CoreDuo laptop running Ubuntu, and a few more older PCs that I never really use anymore. I have about 15 cellphones, 3-4 PDAs, and of course an iPhone. I own an iPod mini 4 GB (first generation), a few more mp3 players and lots and lots of other gadgets overflowing my office. I have about half a dozen Bluetooth A2DP stereo headsets. We have even more machines (like a NeXTSTATION and a BeBox), but we don't get to use them much so we have them locked away. Not sure if they even work anymore.

Books

I read mostly technical books as I am getting bored with blah-blah literature easily. A few times I cave in and I read 'Harry Potter', but that's how far I go with literature. I used to read more in the past (including a bit of Agatha Christie, Edgar Alan Poe etc), but truth is, these days while I write a lot, I don't read much anymore. I am more of a visual person, being into video lately and all.

Favorite actors

- Leonard Nimoy ("Mr. Spock" - my first love in life, I was 5. He's the reason I got into computers)
- William Fichtner (super-hot in his role as the blind Dr Kent Clark in 'Contact'. This is a *great* actor!)
- Brent Spiner ("Mr Data" - every woman needs an android to fall in love with her ;-)
- Ewan McGregor ("Obi-Wan Kenobi" - hottest guy in a galaxy far far away...)
- Nathan Baesel (the guy seems to have a heart of gold)
- Kevin Spacey (what more could I add?)
- Nicolas Cage (cute, and he can act too!)
- Hugh Jackman (Wolverine rocks!)
- Scott Cohen (Sexiest. Werewolf. Ever. He could easily portray Robert De Niro too, they are so alike)
- Sigourney Weaver (strong woman, knows what she wants)
- Jackie Chan (funny, strong, cuddly - like a teddy bear).

Favorite music

Enya, classic music, rock, some hand-picked eurodance '90-'95 songs. My favorite rock band is Drist. I am a big supporter of Indie music. I dislike hip-hop/rap, jazz and midle-eastern-sounding music (and that includes most music from my own country, Greece).

Favorite movies

The Lord of the Rings (2001), The Matrix (1999), Wuthering Heights (1939), Equilibrium (2002, a must see!). As long as it's sci-fi or action, I will probably like it. I am bored to death with "dramas".

Contact

Please note that I don't do "casual chatting" with time-wasters, I only accept IM or email messages for serious discussions or comments. Now that we took this out of the way, here are my contact details. Oh, and my blog is here.