The Blogger
I currently work as a software developer. I develop mainly in the Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (LAMP) environment but I’m also interested in FreeBSD, Ruby, and other software development tools. I’ve also worked as a (Linux) system administrator for an Internet Service Provider.
Before working as a geek, I was a “community cultural development practitioner” (a.k.a. “community artist”), specifically interested in work based on Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. I was also a songwriter and musician, inspired by the New Song Movement of my native Philippines and also of Latin America. I’ve been trying to be a good poet for decades.
My forays into geekhood were facilitated partly by: a New Media Arts grant from the Australia Council for the Arts in 1999, for exploring “collaboration on the Internet and dialogical artmaking”; then, through a two-year Fellowship (2000-2002) from the Australia Council for the Arts, for exploring “community cultural developement and new technologies.”
After exploring the relationship of arts and new technologies over the years, I may have gone too far in looking at the new technologies stuff and may have neglected the arts stuff. Or it may simply be that there are more jobs in new technologies than there are in the arts right now — one has to pay the rent, buy the rice, raise the kids, etc. No matter: I hope to give the arts more attention some day (if I don’t go off in a totally different direction).
I live in Darwin, Australia, with my wife Diday and our three children Bing, Bugoy, and Adie.
Bong Ramilo
Christmas 2004
Playing bass with the Darwin Rondalla
Playing guitar in 2001
Many Years Ago
Image for Australia Council Fellowship, 2000-2002.