About Halfgaar

So, who is this Halfgaar? In real life, I go by the name of Wiebe Cazemier. I reside in a relatively small village in the north of The Netherlands.

Professionally, I occupy my time as a software engineer. I do this with backup from a Bachelors degree in Information Technology, although I am of the opinion that a degree is only a small part required in being a competent professional in this field. Personal interest, a desire to find eloquent solutions to problems and to want to understand how stuff works, make for a much bigger part. As an example, my colleague, and very good friend, Bigsmoke, has no degree whatsoever (not even highschool...), yet is much more skilled in several fields of information technology than most "professionals".

My spare time is filled with several things. Mostly they are: electronics (DIY audio for the most part), 3D graphics, movies, music, maintaining my Gentoo Linux system (while learning new Linux stuff all the time) and wushu. Some of these go hand in hand very nicely; watching a movie and listening to music is much more fun when using audio equipment you made yourself. A lot of thanks must go to Rod Elliott for providing the wealth of information for making this possible.

As for watching movies and listening to music, this must be done in the best possible manner. It's important for music obviously, but also for movies, that the sound is of high quality. I put great care in the creation and placement of my sound system to make this possible. Watching a movie on the integrated sound system of a TV, or a standard home cinema set (the one bass module and 5 satelites stuff) takes away all the experience. And yes, this is true even for non-action movies. The less you are aware of the equipment being used to reproduce the material, the more you are aware of the movie.

Finally, I suppose some pictures of me are expected. These two pictures, courtesy of Jeroen Dekker, are shot in May 2008.