ShootMyMonkey
New Member
Nice to find a board like this one.
I go by ShootMyMonkey... it's one of a few handles I've used on various forums, and I'm a software engineer in the movie industry (previously in gaming) and atheist with strong anti-theist leanings. I basically grew up around academic publications, so even in spite of being raised in a staunchly Vaishnavite Hindu Brahmin household, I had enough books on science, engineering, mathematics, music theory and so on that this was what I found interesting all my life. It was also something that many of my relatives wanted to push into me in addition to religion, due to their pride in being the same family blood that produced the likes of Ramanujan. Although my grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. are all deeply religious and very rooted in tradition to a point of bigotry, my father and mother were much milder on the matter... my father at least, has long since declared himself an atheist, though my mother does not go so far. Frankly, I think she is, but she subscribes to a somewhat flawed impression of what atheism actually is. My wife declares herself atheist as well, though I'd actually consider her more of a deist if we were to nitpick. I go into a lengthy treatise on my site at -- http://www.thepolygoners.com/tutorials/Beliefs.html Though I think that really only encompasses about 1/10th of what I'd like to say given the kinds of debates I've gotten myself into.
My background is in Computer Science and Music Theory, the former of which I've probably studied for about 25 years or so, and the latter about 15 years. I'm originally trained in South Indian Classical (Carnatic) music, which is largely what dominates my Youtube channel. More or less, though, my real field of expertise is really computer graphics, and part of that work tends to entail a dabbling in a lot of formal sciences, and putting it to practical use and being able to see the results.
I go by ShootMyMonkey... it's one of a few handles I've used on various forums, and I'm a software engineer in the movie industry (previously in gaming) and atheist with strong anti-theist leanings. I basically grew up around academic publications, so even in spite of being raised in a staunchly Vaishnavite Hindu Brahmin household, I had enough books on science, engineering, mathematics, music theory and so on that this was what I found interesting all my life. It was also something that many of my relatives wanted to push into me in addition to religion, due to their pride in being the same family blood that produced the likes of Ramanujan. Although my grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. are all deeply religious and very rooted in tradition to a point of bigotry, my father and mother were much milder on the matter... my father at least, has long since declared himself an atheist, though my mother does not go so far. Frankly, I think she is, but she subscribes to a somewhat flawed impression of what atheism actually is. My wife declares herself atheist as well, though I'd actually consider her more of a deist if we were to nitpick. I go into a lengthy treatise on my site at -- http://www.thepolygoners.com/tutorials/Beliefs.html Though I think that really only encompasses about 1/10th of what I'd like to say given the kinds of debates I've gotten myself into.
My background is in Computer Science and Music Theory, the former of which I've probably studied for about 25 years or so, and the latter about 15 years. I'm originally trained in South Indian Classical (Carnatic) music, which is largely what dominates my Youtube channel. More or less, though, my real field of expertise is really computer graphics, and part of that work tends to entail a dabbling in a lot of formal sciences, and putting it to practical use and being able to see the results.
