I have too many interests for my own good and usually end up splitting my time inadequately between them. Lately my most active interests have swung from more technical subjects to art but that could change at any moment. A list that at least scratches the surface must include robots, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, music, photography, art, philosophy, science, free / libre / open source software (FLOSS), utopian writings, green and futuristic city and dwelling designs, alternative energy, space travel, science fiction, and social entrepreneurialism.
Photography
I’ve been an amateur photographer since my high school days. For many years I shot 35mm film on a Canon A1 and later a Canon T90. I still use my trusty T90 occasionally but migrated to digital photography by way of the Fuji S5200FD and Fuji S6000FD digital bridge cameras. Then I purchased a shiny new Canon 40D to replace the Fujis. The Canon 40D is great and it’s my primary DSLR now.
I also have a camera phone which spews forth my phone camera stream, a visual blog of my life. I haven’t forgotten film either. I shoot with a variety of vintage film cameras including my favorite, the Italian Bencini Comet S 127.
Robots
I build robots, talk about robots, write about robots, and photograph robots. I’m the editor of the robot news blog robots.net, contributing editor to Servo Magazine, as well as a contributor to Robot Magazine, The Robotics Practitioner Journal, and the Robot Explorer Newsletter. I’ve written robot articles for internal corporate publications too. If you’d like me consider a writing project that involves robotics, please send me an email
My robot ramblings have been quoted with varying accuracy in Forbes, USA Today, the New York Times, and other assorted non-technical publications. I’ve also done numerous interviews on the subject of robots. I’ve been interviewed multiple times for the well-known Robots Podcast. I’ve also been on KZSC radio’s Timothy Jordon show to talk about the future of robots and on local Dallas radio talk shows. If you need an interview subject on robotics, please send me an email
I’m a long time member off the Dallas Personal Robotics Group, which is a convergence point for several of my other interests including AI, software, music, and art. The DPRG also does educational demonstrations at schools, museums, and local science fiction conventions.
Software
I’ve been writing software for more than 25 years in programming languages such as C, C++, Perl, Pascal, Modula-2, REXX, Python, PHP, JavaScript, even stuff like COBOL and Forth. I wrote and released a few long-forgotten shareware programs back in the early 80′s before I discovered the concept of Free Software (and the overlapping concept of Open Source Software, together known as FLOSS). Since then I have ported FLOSS software to new platforms, written assorted small patches for major FLOSS packages such as Apache and GNOME, and release my own software under free software licenses such as the GNU GPL.
These days I run GNU/Linux on just about everything. I’ve created or contributed patches to a number of free software projects. For years, I maintained a fork of mod_virgule for robots.net. In 2006, I took over Advogato and moved it to the same codebase. I write other web-related server-based software in my day job at NCC, a Dallas based company that does website design and software development.