ahahaaha! thanks David! /G On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 10:59 PM, David Wood <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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]> > 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 >> > >> >> >> > >
