Hello.  After months of preparation, I’m pleased to welcome you to a completely overhauled website, launched on 25 September 2022. The site covers various endeavours past and present, offering an unusual east-west approach to the intersection of society and technology.  Faced with the increasing pervasiveness of digital systems encroaching ever deeper on our lives, I wish to apply my background in mathematics, computer science and religious studies to safeguarding and promoting human autonomy and independent living — in body, speech and mind.

Accordingly, this site, and these posts in particular, will be my primary vehicle for dissemination, to serve as a launchpad for projects, current ideas and news for reducing dis-ease and increasing ease. Much of it is interdisciplinary in nature, but the integration comes not from external connections, but wells up naturally as I seek to solve problems, often from first principles, drawing on existing knowledge.

The main goal is the creation of Sigala, a new kind of social networking service, based on the Buddha’s teachings on how to cultivate wholesome relationships. For this, a team will be needed. So, whilst this site is a solo effort at the outset, I hope it will gradually morph to a team site with multiple contributors.

Wytham Woods

The banner image, from a video still on a lush, rainy day, displays the following note:

In Wytham,

Exploring far and wide
inner and outer worlds,
for knowledge and vision
therein …

The view looks eastwards from Wytham Woods, a haven which I have frequently visited over many years for fresh air, exercise and reflection.

Today the woods are best-known as an ecological laboratory. However, it is said that many centuries ago, monastics on pilgrimage from Cirencester to Canterbury, when making their way along the ridge towards Oxford, would break into song on seeing the emergence of the city of Oxford and hence it came to be called the ‘Singing Way’. Not only Christian monastics have been in the woods, but more recently, in the 1970s, a Buddhist centre was established on the edge of the wood at Oakenholt, which witnessed historic gatherings of monastics from many traditions.

Many of the ideas expressed on this site arose in embryonic form whilst I was wandering through these woods. Some ideas, already existing, were distilled. Occasionally, I would stop mid-track to make some notes, and then move on.

Orientation

I’m hoping that the site’s structure and navigation makes it fairly straightforward to learn what it’s about, but here’s a quick overview.

• About Background information covering the origins of this site and the domain name; my professional experience, mainly in higher education and non-profits; and, looking forward, my business intentions and how you can help.
• Research Investigations usually start with a problem that we consider important for its impact in well-being, with quality of awareness a central concern. Drawing on many disciplines, one of the first tasks is to clarify the nature of the problem and, in particular, the definitions.
• Projects The quest for a solution takes the theoretical analysis and extends it with experience of technological innovation gained from the ground up. For example, when we consider designs that address cognitive problems, we have the foundations of considerable hands-on knowledge of software and hardware used in the field of personalised learning. As evidenced in my portfolio, I’ve undertaken many bespoke projects, particularly at Oxford University, often addressing recurrent problems and requiring familiarity with relevant research themes.

Process

As a software developer tackling a well-known problem, I may re-invent the wheel and not very well! However, I sometimes come up with original code or provide a more complete solution. This is reflected in this site, where I have tried to embody the paradigm of autonomy and self-sufficiency in the creation of MakeStaticSite, a tool for generating and deploying static websites with the goal of improving performance and security.

Archival is a common task, epitomised in the WayBack machine, whilst some software developers already have a process for creating and deploying static sites, but I did not find a process that supported convenient authoring in WordPress together with other features I was looking for in static publication — such as the inclusion of a search facility, a more complete snapshot that took account of non-standard HTML attributes, support for HTML Tidy, and so on.

It seems a lot of effort just to get to the starting line. But now that process is in place, I hope blog content and project development will start to flow!

Hello.  I’m Paul Trafford. I live in Oxford, UK; my ancestors on my father’s side lived in this region from the 17th to 19th centuries, and probably for a long time before then.  

This website covers my work-related activities, both formal and informal, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary research and the origination of novel systems. In creating this knowledge base, I’ll try to show how my activities are inter-related.

I prioritise projects that are rooted in the humane design and use of technology, principally through the application of Buddhist ethics to those systems that have a strong impact on human behaviour. I have a strong interest in improving the quality of awareness and in healthy cognitive functioning; to remedy the generally detrimental designs that exist currently. Hence, I have conceived the Sigala project, aiming to realize these goals in developing new kinds of online social networking sites. Allied to this is an ongoing interest in independent and personalised learning.   

My portfolio gives evidence of my professional work; there’s also some further background information about the places where I’ve worked. This experience provides the basis for the consultancy I offer.

Thank you for visiting.  Please feel free to get in touch via the contact form.