Hi everyone, my background is initially in music, fine arts and philosophy. Subsequently, I became passionate with computers and coding. Today I use coding to achieve artistic goals and/or realise artistic ideas.
I would not define myself as a real coder though. I simply use code to the extent of what I need. In that regard, I do not specialise in any particular programming language although probably C and C++ are the ones I "enjoy" the most. Currently I am a university lecturer (University of Limerick - Ireland) teaching several subjects in the digital arts domain such as computer music and creative coding (e.g. openFrameworks ...for which creating a NUPIC Addon would be great...I might give it a try, time and patience permitting :) ). As a researcher I am involved in the development of new interfaces for live audiovisual performance. In particular and more recently, I am investigating how to implement AI computational methods for the purposes of controlling live audio and visual material. In short, mapping sensor inputs from the performer to audiovisual content through cognitive AI methods. It is from this research activity that I landed (or google landed me) on Numenta and Nupic. Glad it happened and glad it has a community of such interesting people! Ciao! /G On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 3:35 PM, David Wood <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi NuPIC, > > My background is eclectic if you are polite, and serially unfocused if you > aren’t. > > I started programming BASIC on a Radio Shack TRS-80 in grade school in the > 1970s, and was later able to take a high school class in FORTRAN 4. I > interned in a oil refinery coding FORTRAN 4 and 77 during two summers. I > studied Mechanical Engineering as an undergraduate and later completed a > masters and engineers degree (a US-only post-masters study) in aerospace > engineering. I was in the US Navy, working as an aerospace engineer and was > cross-trained for deep-sea salvage. My primary languages during those years > were FORTRAN 77, Ada, C, C++, and Matlab. So, mostly procedural and OO > coding, with a lot of math modeling of physical systems. > > I left the Navy at 30, and transitioned to software full time. I’ve > founded four software startups from 1995 to 2011. The languages in those > companies were mostly Java, JavaScript, Bash, Perl, Python. I taught Java > for Sun Microsystems for a while in the 1990s when it first came out. > > Management took me away from coding from about 1999 to 2005, but I > returned to it to complete a PhD in Software Engineering in 2008 and to be > able to better track advancements in the field. I’ve since been exploring > more functional languages including various Logos, Common LISP, and more > recently, Clojure. I like Clojure a lot, but am not very good at it yet. > > The Open Source projects I am involved with (primarily Persistent URLs and > Callimachus) are mostly in Java and JavaScript. One of them, the Mulgara > Semantic Store, has started a port to Clojure, but I’ve only been involved > with that at the talking level. > > I’ve been involved in a fair bit of protocol and format development at the > World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), especially around the Resource Description > Framework and Linked Data. I co-chaired the most recent updates to the RDF > standards from 2011-2014. > > My interest in AI systems stems from a belief that traditional machine > learning approaches are very limited due to their reliance on carefully > constructed training sets. I discovered Jeff’s book a couple of years ago, > and became very intrigued by what NuPIC could offer. My hope is that NuPIC > continues to develop in response to new neuroscience. > > Regards, > Dave > -- > http://about.me/david_wood > > > > > On Apr 11, 2015, at 14:08, Matthew Taylor <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I'm seeing many new faces in our community, and I keep wondering about > > the skill sets you folks have. Does anyone want to describe their > > technical programming prowess? Here is your chance to brag about your > > history. I'll go first ;)... > > > > > > I started seriously programming around 2002 in PHP and FORTRAN77, > > believe it or not. I had taken no college classes at all at the time, > > but I was an analyst at a company that was doing lots of complex > > military defense simulations in FORTRAN. I was doing PHP as a hobby > > and learning relational databases in MySQL (when it was free as in > > beer). > > > > I finally went to school and learned Java while I was working on Java > > wrappers to our FORTRAN applications so scientists, engineers, and > > pilots could actually use the simulations without intense technical > > help. This involved a lot of Swing GUI work, so I started getting more > > into front-end technology at that time. > > > > I quit my job and moved to St. Louis to work as a freelance software > > contractor, landing almost entirely Java jobs for several years, but > > getting a breadth of experience in some diverse fields, but always > > supporting scientific research in some way. Jobs working for banks are > > boring. ;) > > > > Then I got into Groovy, a functional and dynamically typed JVM > > language with very tight integration with Java. This really piqued my > > interested in functional programming, and I got involved in the Lambda > > Lounge group that was just starting up [1]. We were mostly disgruntled > > Java programmers who wanted to work in more interesting language > > paradigms, and I believe we changed the programming landscape in St. > > Louis to be much more polyglot. > > > > Somehow I networked with the right people and got a job for G2One, a > > startup that included the founders of the Groovy language and the > > Grails web framework. At this time, I was working a bit on Grails > > itself, and implementing a GUI plugin that integrated Javascript as a > > collection of server-side pages, so backend programmers didn't have to > > mess around with the JS (this was before Javascript was considered a > > "serious" programming language to most people). > > > > Then SpringSource bought G2One (I was a contractor, so I didn't get a > > payoff), and I was laid off after 6 months. Eventually VMWare bought > > SpringSource, Pivotal took over all the Groovy Grails stuff, and then > > dropped it all and it moved to the Apache Foundation. Anyway I still > > have a good relationship with all the Groovy/Grails folks, and I still > > have a deep-seeded love for the elegant Groovy language. > > > > During my time working on GrailsUI (the Grails Javascript plugin), I > > worked extensively with YUI, the Yahoo! User Interface Javascript > > library. So I emailed the YUI time a bit and got to know them, which > > was great because David Glass helped me get a job at Yahoo! and I > > moved my entire family from St. Louis to Cupertino. > > > > I worked at Yahoo! for 2 years maintaining and building Javascript > > frameworks. I learned a lot about Javascript, and that helped me get a > > job as a Frontend Engineer at Numenta. When Numenta approached me, I > > was really surprised, because I'd been a follower for a long time > > (since reading On Intelligence), and I had always dreamed of working > > on something I thought was so important. > > > > So I went from F2E at Numenta to Manager of Web Services, helping > > build out REST APIs and such. Then when Numenta got the open source > > bug, I jumped at the chance to help make open source NuPIC a reality. > > And here I am. :) > > > > [1] http://lambdalounge.org/ > > > > Who's next? > > > > --------- > > Matt Taylor > > OS Community Flag-Bearer > > Numenta > > > > >
