Introduction

Let me introduce myself, and explain what this blog is about. My name is "Libre Paul". I am a blind Unix and Linux geek who has a passion for open source and free culture, a strong adherence to the Unix principles of software design, usability, performance, security, privacy, and anonymity of the internet.

I am not a professional administrator, developer, engineer, scientist, or mathematician. I just enjoy learning new technologies and skills. I spend a lot of time testing new technologies and tools in my computer lab to find those that are fully accessible to me with my assistive technology stack.

My assistive technology stack consists of a keyboard, screen reader(s) with speech and braille output, and a refreshable braille display, so I can control and navigate my systems without sight. The screen readers I use on Linux are: Orca, BRLTTY, and speakup. Orca is a screen reader that provides access to the graphical desktop via user-customisable combinations of speech and/or braille. BRLTTY is a daemon that provides screen review and speech functionality via a refreshable braille display in the console. Speakup is a kernel-based speech synthesiser.

# Projects

At the time of writing I have four core projects that I am working on. The naming convention for all bar one of my projects centres around the Latin word "caecus", which literally means "blind", or "not seeing". I read that caecus is primarily an adjective, but it can also function as a noun in certain contexts, referring to a blind person.

To form a project name I have decided to add an acronym at the end of Caecus. So for my Information Technology (IT) projects it is CaecusIT. My Computer Science (CS) projects is named CaecusCS, and the High Performance Computing (HPC) project is CaecusHPC.

## The "CaecusIT" Project

The "CaecusIT" Project is my playground where I discover, investigate, experiment, and learn new technologies and tools within the world of Information Technology (IT). The core sudfields of interest are: Operations, Development, DevOps, Quality Assurance, and Cybersecurity.

The current focus of the CaecusIT project is to build an IT infrastructure using free/libre/open-source technologies and tools. The aim is to gain knowledge and skills with the hardware, software, networks, and facilities that support and manage the information technology services. In the first instance, it will be a simplified infrastructure, combining on-premises servers, computers, storage systems, and basic networking equipment. Over time the IT infrastructure will evolve, becoming more complex, as I learn new technologies. This will comprise of multiple data centres, networks, servers, storage systems, and extensive software applications. I also want to leverage cloud services and virtualisation technologies to optimise resource utilisation.

## The "CaecusCS" Project

The "CaecusCS" Project is my explorations into the world of Computer Science, in partiuclar: Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Computational Mathematics.

My currrent focus is on gaining a solid foundation in Machine Learning and Deep Learning with Python, scikit-learn, and TensorFlow 2, GANs, and reinforcement learning.

## The "CaecusHPC" Project

The "CaecusHPC" Project is my research into parallel computing that aims to employ the availability of inexpensive computing tools to achieve both the computing and processing power of supercomputers at a minimum cost.

My current project is to build a small-scale high performance computing cluster with four nodes to help me better understand how a system of disparate hardware runs parallel applications across physically different nodes. The first prototype will be built around Intel NUC units that I already have in my computer lab.

## The "Braillematician" Project

The "Braillematician" Project is my quest to decode the visual nature of specialist symbols, notation and language, and the layout of mathematics with the use of assistive technology, braille literacy, tactile diagrams and graphs, so a blind mathematician can engage with mathematic subjects on an equal footing with their sighted peers.

# What's Next

Over the years I've collected many thoughts, ideas, questions, etc ... that have never made their way into print, and I'd like to share them with whoever is interested in listening. I will try hard to make the posts worth your while to read.

At the end of the day, I hope that my blog will be informative, entertaining, or otherwise useful to anyone who runs into the same sort of problems that I do—to help other blind administrators, developers, engineers, scientists, and mathematicians—and show the world that all you need is determination and vision in life to make thing happen.