Giuseppe, That’s the coolest thing I have heard all week.
Regards, Dave -- http://about.me/david_wood > On Apr 13, 2015, at 15:48, Giuseppe Torre <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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] > <mailto:[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 <http://about.me/david_wood> > > > > > On Apr 11, 2015, at 14:08, Matthew Taylor <[email protected] > > <mailto:[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/ <http://lambdalounge.org/> > > > > Who's next? > > > > --------- > > Matt Taylor > > OS Community Flag-Bearer > > Numenta > > > > >
