I'm a political activist and a science geek. I'm a short term pessimist and a long term optimist, someone with a wide circle of friends but difficulty translating that to lovers.

I love inner city Melbourne and have recently developed a passion for spoken word performance. I'm generous about big things, but can be pedantic about little ones. I love ideas and knowledge, even when its pretty trivial (I'm hotly desired as a tablemate at trivia nights).

I'm trying to save the world, mostly through parliamentary processes, while juggling three jobs and spending way too much time on the Internet.

I'm trying to promote my first book Forensics, Fossils and Fruitbats: A Field Guide to Australian Scientists (including on places more promising than a dating site) and considering my pitch to potential publishers about a second.

I'm also organising rather eccentric fundraisers for a variety of causes. None of these raise much money, but everyone praises their originality.

Seeing both sides to things. Often too good. I have huge problems selling myself because I always want to detail the bad with the good, and this can be true for anything else I'm talking about as well.

I hope I'm good at explaining science to non-scientists and analysing elections because if I'm not I'm both in the wrong career and have wasted the last 15 years of my life.

I'm good at not losing my temper, and I think I'm pretty good at compromise as well.

I'm great at baking cakes but not so good at the main course (that's not a metaphor - I hope).

That I know an awful lot about elections and politics generally and can talk about them for hours.

The Dispossessed in particular, but Ursula Le Guin in general. The Bone People, Harry Potter, Terry Pratchett, but these days I read more non-fiction. Stephen J Gould in particular. Currently reading The American Age of Unreason and being thoroughly depressed by it.

Milk, Mary and Max, Stand and Deliver, The Jane Austen Book Club, Dave, Remember the Titans, Local Hero, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (wasn't so keen on the other two).

I realised that the only TV I really watch regularly is Gruen Planet. Not because I don't like TV, but I've missed the start of a lot of dramas recently, and never caught up enough to get into them. Looking back nothing approached The West Wing, but I really liked The United States of Tara and discovered Buffy and House long after the rest of the world. Also Seachange just to show how long it is since I watched.

Music: Penelope Swales, Weddings Parties Anything, Ani diFranco, Michelle Shocked Monique Brumby (Yes I am male, and straight). Enda Kenny (the singer not the Irish Prime Minister, Kristina Olsen, After initially not taking to Amanda Palmer I am now increasingly in danger of joining the legions of obsessed fans.

I think Emilie Zoey Baker is a genius and want the world to see her perform.

Err, My central nervous system? (apologies to Kaz Cooke). The Internet, my telescope, the Single Transferable Voting system, Chocolate, The Green Party, my bicycle.

Politics, Science and AFL. How to improve my writing, which will probably in future include writing profiles like this one.

If there is a fundraiser for a good cause on there is a high chance I'll be there, but depressingly if not I may be in front of a computer screen. I'd like to get back to the time when the answer was attending live music.

I'm exceptionally bad at telling whether someone is interested in me or not, which may or may not explain why I've been single most of my adult life.

You like what's above. I don't bite and I'll almost certainly be interested in hearing from you unless you clearly haven't bothered reading my profile.

You like talking about science, or just hearing tales of the dishonesty of the slender crayfish and the possibility that one of the fundamental constants of the universe is changing.

I'd add that I absolutely swoon for women with serious writing talent, be it poetry or prose, but it's not a requirement.