About

Andy and Toby are STACS, the confusingly-titled duo within the Systems Team of Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton University.

STACS stands for “Student Teaching And Computing Support”. It fits on the signs better than “Service-Desk-Academic-Support-Systems-Administration-Software-Development-Teaching-Laboratory-Managers”. We used to be called “helpdesk”, but people kept asking us to fix their printers for them.

Both of them are alumni of the School who love it here so much they’re determined not to leave. Toby studied as a Computer Scientist at Southampton. Andy also studied as a Software Engineer in ECS, then temporarily defected to a More Different Organisation (or two). He has now regained his senses (at the expense of some sanity) and returned.

Toby likes ARM assembler, table-top roleplay and baking heavy cakes. Andy likes Perl, anagrams and eating heavy steaks.

Both of them are sysprogs (see also “sysadmin”), and so they have a keen sense of irony and a strange sense of humour.