I speak English, French (with steadily decreasing proficiency), and a number of programming languages, most prominently C and Java.
I've worked as a (both "a member of a" and "an entire") maintenance crew, flower delivery guy, art librarian, resident hacker, programmer/engineer/analyst, team lead, and a project/engineering manager I'm not afraid to take anything apart, and can often get everything put back together again.
I attended high school at Kalamazoo Central and the Kalamazoo Area Math and Science Center. My undergraduate college career found me at Kalamazoo College; after graduating in 1997 with a B.A. in Computer Science, I moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I continued my studies at the University of Michigan. I received my M.S. in Computer Science in 2000. While attending the University, I was fortunate enough to join the Highly Interactive Computing in Education (hi-ce) research group. I left the school in the summer of 2000 to pursue a career with a newly-founded firm in Chicago. After following the chat-software bubble through an odd series of twists, turns, and eventual an acquisition, I escaped. I spent the next two years working for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the Electronic Trading Systems group. After picking up some background on finance and financial services, I decided to head to San Francisco to work for a wealth management start-up named Finaplex. I spent a year and a half as manager of the Trading and Portfolio Management engineering team, then decided to go independent. I am currently working as an independent consultant in electronic collaboration, financial services, and anything that catches my attention at the junction of technology, networking, and finance.
My interests include literature of all varieties, cyberpunk, hacking (of most varieties), sketch art, unusual techniques in electronic music, 3-d modeling and immersive visualization, programming as a science and as an art form, education, and geek culture. Lately I've been spending a lot of time on the WiGLE wireless networking logging and mapping system, writing clients for network geolocation/description and re-skinning the website. This and other projects are reachable from my hacks page. I have started two businesses, which I maintain in my spare time (in addition to my consulting practice), notably RAQZ networks, a company that provides colocation services for smart users who want high bandwidth/reliability but prefer to admin their own servers. I also enjoy cooking, live music, touring small breweries and wineries, running (even when not being chased), philosophy, and being a bit of a movie and trivia buff.
I don't keep a "friends" page, because it's rude to everyone not on the page as well as being difficult to maintain. I don't put many pictures of myself online because it's vain (where the rest of this site is unpretentious?). I don't believe in "shocked" sites, and I think that content on the web should be content as well as presentation. I think that most modern interface designers are crap artists, myself included (at least a little). I think that "Ajax," "blogging," "TabletPCs," and "mashups" are bloody annoying, because they're all names that got applied to existing, interesting things at the point that they got coopted by people who seem to think that they invented them. I'm tired of people who use XML without a good reason, or use "enterprise" to mean shoddy software with shifting requirements.
My tech fetishes include all old computers, tablet- and pen-based systems (see my article in pen computing magazine), wireless networking/netstumbling, and VR headsets. I have (roughly) 20 computers on my home network. I've recently been exploring a long-time interest in computerized cartography (especially as it relates to wireless networking) and OpenGL.
My favorite movie of all time is likely Casablanca, Star Wars, The Graduate, or Strange Days depending upon when you ask me. I like my cheeseburgers very rare or well done. I'm strongly opposed to industrial and religious lobbies in government, national ID cards, and people willing to trade freedom for the perception of security. I might be listening to Depeche Mode, Storm Large and the Balls, Thomas Dolby, or Smash-up Derby right now... or maybe just covers of old Information Society songs.