About Matt
My name's Matt, and I'm 29(ish) years old. I work in London for a small internet company that mostly builds web sites, but sometimes does other stuff too. Most of my job is planning or programming, and what I enjoy most about it is coming up with nice simple ways to solve technical or interface problems. We've got enough clients that I get plenty of variety, but they stick around, so that keeps me honest (knowing you'll have to face your code 3 years later is a good incentive to keep it clear and simple).
Before that, I studied BSc Software Systems for the Arts and Media at the University of Hertfordshire, and BA Interactive Multimedia at the University of Staffordshire. I also worked for Agilent Technologies in Germany for about a year, writing a reporting system for their global server-security monitoring platform. Before that, things get a little hazy.
I'm half French, on my mother's side. I was born and raised in Welwyn Garden City, and after living in the midlands and southern Germany, now live in north London, less than 20 miles from where I started. I live with Chris, Ollie, and another Matt (who, outrageously, doesn't have a web site).
I like to read - mostly wonderful, mad fiction stuff like Perdido Street Station, and Snow Crash. I also enjoy reading Bill Bryson, New Scientist magazine, Charlie Brooker's columns in the Guardian, and a whole bunch of webcomics like 8-bit Theatre, VG Cats, Married to the Sea, Goats, Ozy and Millie, Penny Arcade, and Beaver and Steve. I've mostly given up boozing now, but I still like to go to the pub and natter with friends.
About laziness, and being a cat
It has been pointed out to me on numerous occasions that I'm neither lazy, nor a cat. Both statements are correct. In fact I've been accused of having a protestant work-ethic, and no tail or even any whiskers. Nevertheless, I've been online since 1994 and owned Lazycat.org since about 2000. It's just one of those things - I've had this place so long that it'd feel weird to move now. I mean, 8 years? That's 0.5 interwebs
Accessibility and privacy
Ho ho, look, an even more boring bit than usual! This is where I admit that I have no idea if this site is accessible. I mean, I ran it through Cynthia Says, and nothing stood out, and it seemed okay in Lynx. I used to claim this place met the double-A standard of the web content accessibility guidelines, but now that I've had to actually do some accessibility stuff at work, I know that much of that is actually meaningless. If you have any trouble using this site, please let me know and I'll be happy to tell you what you're missing out on, or (if it's in my power) fix the site.
As for privacy, you're pretty safe here. I'm not going to try to find out who you are, and there's nowhere on the site for you to give me personal information, so you don't need to worry that I might sell it or, I don't know, set up a creepy shrine or stalk you. Like nearly all web sites though, the software that runs on this server (and gives your computer pages when you ask for them by clicking on things) keeps a record of each request. Your web browser hands over some information when it asks for a page; things like the computer-address you're using and the page you're asking for. Now, the computer address (known as an IP address) might not actually be your computer's address - sometimes computers on the same network share a single address when they talk to the internet - and depending on the kind of connection you have to the internet, it might change too. It has little connection with who you are as a person. Sometimes I run a program on my request-logs which gathers all kinds of statistics about the visits to my site. That lets me see how many people visit my site, which bits they're most interested in (hint: it's not this bit), and how many pages they visit. Rest assured that these statistics are based on what is known as 'aggregate data' - that is, I don't look at single visits like yours, but at all of them grouped together in different ways.
So be reassured that I won't share your IP (computer address) with anyone, neither will I single you out from amongst the millions (all right, dozens) of other people who visit my site and personally compromise your privacy with an implement of personal-space-invasion. If your browser gives me cookies, I will not eat them. If your browser tells me what site you were at before you got to mine (a so-called 'Referrer header'), and dozens of others tell me the same thing, I may check it out, but it's unlikely — this isn't called Lazycat.org for nothing, after all. So relax, chill out, enjoy your visit.