Name :- Toby Skinner DOB :- 21/01/1979 MSN :- globaloptima Mixi :- TBoy Education :- MRes ('00 - '01) in Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence BSc ('97 - '00) in Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Jobs :- Co-founded Global Fish Collective (2007 - Present) Trading As Global Optima (2005 - Present) Creative Director @ HC2 Limited (2003 - 2005) Programmer @ Sigmer Technologies (2001 - 2003) Trading As Global Optima (1999 - 2001) Personal Job History :- I suppose my biggest interest in life is learning, when I was younger I hated school and so my learning suffered, especially things like Math, Biology, Theology, Philosophy and various sciences. After my GCSEs I started working at the busiest Macdonalds in Brighton, I spent the whole summer working full time and living by myself whilst the rest of my family went on holiday to spain. I credit my hard-working nature and ability to take criticisms well to that summer. One of the only good things about those two years was after a saturday night, I always did late shifts so as to avoid the midday mayhem, but we would normally get out at about 2am (after clearing up the store), I would cycle home through brighton (never once had any trouble) and get back at about 2:30. Usually there would be a Manga film on, I remember 'Legend of the Four Kings' was showing and every saturday night I would get home and watch it knowing that I wouldn't have to work for another seven days. Halfway through my A-Levels I quit Macdonalds and started work at Sainsburys Homebase as a shelf-staker, I loved it, all I had to do was stack shelves for six hours, I was in heaven. Before at Macdonalds I was on 10 hour shifts with a 45 minute break, if I was tills (and I usually was) then that means you are constantly serving people for 10 hours, it's very difficult not to break down when you have to stay even another few minutes when you are psyked up for leaving. So Homebase was great, after six months I got trained up as a cashier, I spent about a year on the tills, not as bad a Macdonalds because we at least got to sit down and were only doing six hour shifts. Then I got trained up to do Paint Mixing, Board Cutting, Extra Choice and they gave me an internal mobile phone, woohoo. Anyway I suppose I became quite well trained, I got on with the other staff but as my time there got onto about a year and a half I started to get stressed with the job and so I quit. By then I was just starting the second year of my CSAI BSc, and just as I started I also got a new job as a KP (Kitchen Porter) at a local vegetarian (yes I was) restarant, Food for Friends (in Price Albert Street if you want good food). That was sort of a cross between Macdonalds and Homebase, the hours were long and it was hard manual tasks, washing loads of pots and pans, chopping buckets (literally) of vegetables, taking the rubbish out etc. But at the same time there were no uniforms, how coolwas that, I could turn up in trainers and jeans, ok so they got soaked but it was still cool. I met loads of people there, it was cash in hand so I'd meet other kids (young adults? I was 19) who where travelling around Europe. In fact I was usally the only british KP there, I met some great people, Erin, a mad lesbian canadian and Rachel, a really open-minded australian, I dont know why I remember those two specifically, I just do. My time there lasted about a year, on and off work really, by my third year at Uni I need the time for my project so I quit Food for Friends. After I had finished my BSc I had no idea what to do, I put up my CV in some agencies and got an interview with Sun Microsystems, unfortuanatly they were hiring for the sales dept. so I didn't do too well there, but it was very useful for me anyway. I saw what the real world was like, and didn't like it one little bit, the people were friendly enough but didn't have the passion for thier work like the university lecturers did. So I decided to stay on at Uni and to pay for the tuition fees I got a job at a local college teaching web programming. So what happened then? ... Well I thought I should update this page now it's been over a year since I started the Masters, that all went fine, it was pretty boring and I got a pass I think, I reeally couldn't be bothered to actually check the grade! More interestingly I started up Global Optima, a general development business, this basically means that I am registered as a Sole Trader and can legally invoice people for services rendered. That was about 6 months ago now and I have been working on and off ever since, to subsidise the self-employment thing I started a full time job at a software development company called Sigmer, it was probably the best thing I could have done since I am learning loads. It's been a while since I last updated this, at least 6 months, I'm still working at Sigmer (now Sigmer Technologies) and running Global Optima in my spare time. Youview has finally been signed off and I should get the final money in a month or so, all going well that is. I have helped setup The Anything Box with a friend of mine who is running his own design business, it's looking pretty funky now and we just need to populate it with artists work to show them off. I've been doing a lot of Access development at Sigmer which is doing my head in, I dont really have any serious interest in the job any more, I mean I'm more than content to work there but it doesn't interest me, I guess the people dont do what they are interested in but what keeps them content. So it's January 2005, I've just turned 26 and I'm guessing it's been about 2 years since I updated this little page, what happened? Well I quite my job at Sigmer, it was the right thing to do, I went straight into the role of Creative Director at a little company called HC2:Hybrid Children. Now HC2 was the trading name of one Paul Winterhalder, a very talented graphic designer, no, artist, well, both. We had been talking about setting up our own company for a good few years and finally went ahead and did it, there we were, Art and Creative Director, our own office out in the middle of nowhere, no work, millions of ideas and money to keep us going for about a year. It's been almost two years since that day, two very hard, very long, very eye-opening years, we probably went through every emotion under the sun, we spent at least 16 hours a day in that office working on the strangest of things. We did photo-shoots, we wrote our own software, we wrote our website 6 times, I spent £600 on 40 dupion silk straps that were never used, I brought Adobe Acrobat for £400 (which has one of the most useful pieces of software I own), we spent well over 6 grand on advertising, produced albumn artwork for friends and did everything we knew how to do. But it wasn't enough. On December 1st 2004 it was agreed that Paul should stand down as Director and Company Secretary (oh my god, now I have to do the accounts!) and try to stabilise every aspect of his life. 5 years of HC2 for Paul was somewhat of a chronicle, and I'm happy to say that 2 months down the line he's doing just fine, back to his old self. The decision was terribly difficult but as directors we had to do what was in the best interest of the company, I was lucky that we had enough work on the tech side to keep at least me and the company going. The past two months have been strange, working from home by myself is a bizzarely relaxing situation, I concentrate on two projects at once, give myself time to learn new skills (like after effects and flash) and make sure I take time out, if just to smoke, stand outside or go to the pub. HC2 will exist as long as I can continue to pull in work and produce excellent results, my clients are brilliant, no really they are, they are understanding, they pay on time and in return I give them all my efforts whenever they need them. Expect the next update in 2 years :) Well it's now 2007, May the 23rd to be precise. I'm currently living in Marseille with my friends Pat, Edith, Anne and of course Amos, the best QA tester I know. I shut down HC2 at the 2004/2005 year end, since then I've been freelancing under my Global Optima alias, and it's been good! I've built up a couple of excellent business relationships, worked on some really interesting projects and more importantly, managed to keep the contracts I had from HC2, although as I type I know of a couple that will soon break free, it's good to finally see. Most of my time is now spent working with my friends Poisson Rouge (and the new Global Fish Collective) on some really excellent projects, we're curerently build a virtual science park, a virtual festival and I'm learning how to speak french and Japanese. I'm not sure how long I'll be here but I'm making the most of it, work is blending into play and down here, being with driven people makes the world of difference, I genuinely hope that this part of my life continues for at least a few more years! Personal Development :- October 2002: Most of my personal development over the past 6 months has been internal-exploration driven rather than external-goal driven, I have been studying methods of meditation and have been specifically encouraged by the Zen approach which I have carefully extended to a very personal, introspective form which I can only describe as allowing oneself to become conciously aware of ones subconcious. Reading has also started taking up more of my time, but I would say that I am aware of the path of the fool, that is, the path that leads to other peoples realities and not to ones own, I am careful not to open my mind too fast or too much at this early stage. It is interesting to be alive at the moment, it is strage to look back over diarys and essays to see how much my mind had ceased up, the conciousness had fooled the intellect into thinking that it was beyond the concept of being closed, but of course only a closed intellect would think that. Now the bizzare thing is that I simply cannot communicate in the same way I used to, Toby has become concerned about using words like 'I', 'me', 'think', 'exist', 'thought', 'real' and many more that seem to imply a seperation between himself and 'everything else' or as he likes to call it, the 'stuff that cannot be absolutely measured'. However at the same time I am aware that humans need to communicate and the current form of verbal & written symbols we use are no where near accurate enough but they have to be used for the time being, whilst biting my lip everytime I talk to someone I am almost aware that this many-branched path of research and development may indeed take Toby to some space-time-whatever state that he cannot return from, but I will. January 2005: Err, right you are then, and what drugs are you on? No but seriously, I just re-read that paragraph and as crass and possibly drug-fueled as it sounds, it pretty much accuratly describes my state of mind at that time. It was an amazing experience, but I have no idea why, just life in general was so much more fluid and exciting than the years to follow. It's not surprising, when HC2 was setup I had no time for personal development, well not every day anyway, I did the odd wierd thing here and there (see the 'thoughts' section for some genious sessions of obscurity) but generally I worked. I can't say where I am is better or worse, I smoke a lot now, I don't get out much and I've certainly returned to that 19 year old mentality I had of being quite introverted. However I'm also a lot more stable, I no longer engage in acts of severe self deprecation and I make sure my friends know who am I am. July 2006: Back again, over a year since the last update on this section, that's better than a 3 year gap like before though :) The past 18 months have been tough but rewarding, In Jan '05 I had just taken on HC2 by myself as we split the company, not that there was much time to think about it but as that entry demonstrates, it was all quite confusing. I no longer smoke (gave up November 1st 2005) which is great, I still get cravings and am on dangerous territory replacing nicotine with coffee and beer but I do tend towards addictive substances so it's an ongoing fun=packed journey of internal organ punishment. I have lifted myself from that intraveted mentality and ended up doing some very cool things, went to Japan on holiday (and did Dolly Parton's 9-5 karaoke style, sweet), been going out a lot more and even started to book myself on further-ed type courses to see what I Can do about getting out of L.A.M.P hell. HC2 has finally been shut down and I now run Global Optima full time, I've started to sub-contract work which I genuinley hope may be the start of things going well, but I'm not going to hold my breath, we'll wait and see what happens, sayonara! May 2007: Bon soir mon ami! Aha, another year, another change, this time I'm living in Marseille (see above) and working with my friends, it's tough going, the challenges are fast and brutal but the pay off is huge. I've started writing short stories, forming what might be called artwork from photo/video/traces etc, learning french and japanese, and I had a damn good dance the other day to the Time Warp, rock on! Toby in a nutshell Films :- LA Story Strange Days Books :- Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas Cosmic Trigger 1 The Soul of the White Ant 'puter Games :- FlyFF (PC) Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers (PC) Dungeon Master 1 (Atari) Street Fighter 2 (SNES) Lyrics :- If man is five, if man is five, if man is five, then the devil is six, then the devil is six, then the devil is six, the devil is six, and if the devil is six, then god is seven, then god is seven, then god is seven, this monkeys gone to heaven... (from Monkey gone to heaven) I got soul but I'm not a soldier The Killers Songs :- Orbital - Belfast & Speed Freak Suzanne Vega - My Name is Luka Gypsy & The queen and the soldier The venus in furs - Tumbling Down Toni Basil - Hey Mickey King Crimson - Cat Food Leftfield - Release the pressure Marilyn Manson - The Whole of the 'Portait of an american family' album Aphex Twin - Heliosphan & Polynomial C Nena - 99 Red Balloons Steve Harley - Come up and see me (Make me smile) Tangerine Dream - Underwater Sunlight albumn Pink Floyd - The Gunners Dream Prodigy - Poison Lynyrd Skynyrd - Tuesdays Gone & Free Bird & All I can do is write about it Pixies - Where is my mind & Manta Ray & Monkey gone to heaven Underworld Live - Rez/Cowgirl Laurie Anderson - Monkeys Paw Rufus Wainright - Go or Go Ahead Bands :- Tangerine Dream Kraftwerk The Mars Volta Pink Floyd King Crimson Janes Addiction Orbital Massive Attack Leftfield Aphex Twin Marilyn Manson Toni Basil Bonzo Dog Cyndi Lauper Apollo 440 Kylie Cardiacs The Cure The Pixies Prodigy ELP Underworld Talvin Singn Lynyrd Skynyrd Rufus Wainright The Flaming Lips The Knife Websites I look at daily:- BBC News Slashdot