Updated June 8, 2025

I am a programmer and researcher who wants to make computers more fun and empowering for students, researchers, and engineers. I thought the field was stuck, so I moved from computer science to neuroscience in search of ideas for making computers smarter. Then, to my surprise, the computers went and got smarter. Current project --------------- Can we make it more fun to explore the space of new AI models? Could exploring Deep Learning architectures and training regimes become more fun than playing Minecraft? Can we bring some game developer energy to scientific computing? So far, a few libraries have spun out from this project: * Vexpr: use Lisp-like code transformation to make models readable, fast, and visualizable * rows2prose: visualize models by rendering scalars into styled text * outerframe: a web without the “lowest common denominator” problem Blog ---- The web could use machine code 2025-06-08 Expressions are Pragmatic Model Visualizations 2024-01-10 What happens when you vectorize wide PyTorch expressions? 2023-10-19 Gaussian Processes Extrapolate, Sometimes in Goofy Ways 2023-03-28 Maybe Bayesian Optimization Should Be Harder, Not Easier 2022-11-30 Imagine A Deep Network That Performs Successive Cheap Queries On Its Input 2022-07-08 Bayesian Optimization Is More Basis-Dependent Than You Might Think 2022-06-26 Likely ≠ Typical: A Viewpoint On Why We Perturb Neural Networks 2022-01-28 Some “Causal Inference” intuition 2021-11-04 See all posts Select talks / presentations ---------------------------- Intro to Grid Cells + Quickly Forming Structured Memories 2021-06-07 Testing a possible explanation for grid cell distortions 2021-05-17 Journal Club: Hinton’s GLOM + Numenta’s TBT (after a year without a haircut) 2021-03-24 Using grid cells as a prediction-enabling basis 2020-12-22 The Minimum Description Length Principle, sparsity, and quantization 2020-04-01 Photo ----- _(Photo credit: Rosanne Liu, 2023)_ Papers ------ Other projects, big and small ----------------------------- More ---- Older posts | Google Scholar | LinkedIn | Mastodon

Updated June 7, 2025

Menu This page describes what I’m up to _now_. It is a written version of what I would say that I am doing if we met and you asked me what I am up. This page was inspired by Derek Siver’s now page movement. * Teaching * This summer I’m not teaching any courses. * Learning * I am reading various things. * Esperanto: working my way through the prose section of La Baza Legolisto. * Parenting * Mabel, our younger daughter, is doing well. * She is walking and running confidently. * She is just about to start talking. * Mira, our oldest daughter, is doing well. * She is enjoying junior kindergarten at Joseph Brant Public School. * Playing * I’ve got a plot with the UTSC Garden Club. This page is accurate as of April 2025. There are older photos that used to be on this page. You can see old versions of this page on the then list. * * * Published: Dec 4, 2023 @ 11:14. Last Modified: Jun 7, 2025 @ 07:57. ### Tags: #meta ### Backlinks: * Noweb ### Navigation Menu: Home / Now / Blog / Notes / Reading / Office Camera / Tags / Bookmarks / RSS Feeds / Top of Page Thanks for reading! If you have any comments or questions about the content, please let me know. Anyone can contact me by email.

Updated June 7, 2025

I live in Southbridge, Massachusetts since 2022, with my wife Sara and our three cats. We’re starting to get more integrated here. I’m about to start a new role, my third or fourth startup depending on how you count it. I’m active in a local church. I recently changed my mind about olives (I like them now). Goals ----- * Learn to love God and to love people. Simple but difficult, gradual. * Drive success at my new job. * Improve my back-end and infrastructure skills to eventually own the “full-stack” label. * Build a passive income stream. * Explore non-tech career skills, in case the world gets even wierder than it is today. * Participate in communities: * Initiate and maintain connections with people around me (local community, neighbors, etc). * Connect with other web and software developers.

Updated June 6, 2025

**Edward Frenkel** is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, and the winner of the Hermann Weyl Prize in mathematical physics. Frenkel’s research is on the interface of mathematics and quantum physics, with an emphasis on the Langlands Program, which he describes as a Grand Unified Theory of mathematics. He has authored three books and about 100 scholarly articles in academic journals, and he has lectured on his work around the world. His YouTube videos have garnered millions of views, and he has recently launched his own YouTube podcast, the AfterMath (see the video on the left). Frenkel’s latest book **_Love and Math_** was a _New York Times_ bestseller, has been named one of the Best Books of the year by both Amazon and iBooks, and won the Euler Book Prize from the Mathematical Association of America. It has been published in 20 languages with more translations in the pipeline.

Updated June 6, 2025

Still living in Germany, and running a small business in Norway (vasser.no). Lately I've been diving more into Midjourney again, and also try to get used to Cursor as my main editor. Still fall back to Sublime Text fairly often, and also have enjoyed experimenting with Zed, as I feel that is closer to Sublime Text in feel. But small things nag me and I keep falling back. Still, I more and more realize that I need to get used to using AI in a better way. Doing everything manually by hand for sure starts to feel a bit ancient. Also exploring more design-oriented tools lately. Really liking what Framer is onto. Last updated: 6. june 2025

Updated June 5, 2025

It is what it is, I suppose. Teabagging ---------- June 05, 2025 It’s morning. I need to take my morning dump. I also want tea. It takes about 60 seconds for the water to boil. The tea needs to steep for around 4 minutes. The plan is simple: boil the water. While it’s boiling, prepare the cups. Add the teabags. The water finishes boiling. I pour it into the cups. Now the next timer starts. Four minutes to take a dump. Obviously, I end up doomscrolling Instagram for more than four minutes, but that’s beside the point. My legs are asleep. My butthole is ready t… Continue reading → Pop --- May 14, 2025 It’s very easy to shit on modern pop music. It’s too vulgar. It’s too predictable. It’s quantized to perfection. And you’re not wrong. It’s all those things. Figuring that out does not make you the next Chomsky. And I ask you; so fucking what? The tension that builds in the verse and the relief that’s provided to you in the chorus is very real. Go ahead, fire up “…baby one more time” and try to listen with your heart. Let Britney’s voice riding the rhythm of the song take you away for a moment. … Continue reading → The Cheekiest of Pints ---------------------- May 09, 2025 I love a good pint. The cheekier the better. What makes a pint cheeky? I’m not one to tell you what makes a pint cheeky or not. Follow your heart. But let me tell you about my cheekiest one. A cataclysmic one. In 2022 my marriage was coming to an end. You know those books that start off really good? And then as you get halfway the writing gets stale and boring. You realize you’re not really enjoying the book anymore. But it was so good in the beginning, so maybe the next chapter is going to be b… Continue reading → Contingent on Chickens ---------------------- May 05, 2025 Another gloomy post. I’m not really sorry. I need to write about this to clear my mind. If you’ve read my blog, you know I recently lost my thyroid. Rather, it was surgically removed. But the end result is the same: no thyroid. No thyroid means no thyroid hormones. No thyroid hormones means hormone therapy is needed. Your body is generally amazing at regulating itself. The brain has a gland that secretes hormones (TSH) to tell the thyroid to make more hormones. That same gland has sensors for th… Continue reading → An Abstraction of Reality ------------------------- April 28, 2025 Chasing a nostalgia high, I recently installed Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (GTA VC or VC) on my computer. It’s a game set in 80s Miami, heavily influenced by movies such as Scarface. You could say it’s “Scarface: The Game” and it would be hard to disagree with you. GTA:VC was made in the early 2000s when compute power wasn’t anywhere near what it is right now. The PC requirements start at 128MiB RAM, which in this day and age is unthinkable. But back then it was used to create a rich game world … Continue reading → Cancer Part 4: Theatre In Use ----------------------------- April 21, 2025 What sparked the cancer diagnosis in December was thyrotoxicosis. A thyroid storm. A lil’ rave thrown by your thyroid, and your whole body is invited. That beautiful, butterfly-shaped organ wrapped around your trachea controls your metabolism, heart rate, body temperature, mood—among other things. Usually, it just does its job. But sometimes, it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t? Everything speeds up or shuts down. The end result is the same: you feel like shit. So in addition to cancer, which was Lo… Continue reading → A Choice of Languages --------------------- April 15, 2025 When my daughter, Megumi, was born in 2014 I made a conscious decision to speak to her in English. My reasoning was that the English language would get her a lot further than fluency in Dutch at an early age. I tried to talk Dutch with Megumi when she was four years old, but alas the proverbial ship had sailed and she resisted learning the language of (50% of) her home country. She now speaks English and Japanese fluently, however. She aced her Eiken not too long ago either. A small humble brag,… Continue reading → Spiced Cake ----------- April 12, 2025 Here’s my spiced cake recipe. No backstory. Ingredients: 250 g all-purpose flour 8 g baking powder 150 g dark brown sugar 8 g ground cinnamon 1 g ground cloves 1 g ground nutmeg 1 g salt 2 eggs (approx. 100 g total) 200 ml whole milk 100 ml neutral vegetable oil (e.g. sunflower) 50g of raisins Recipe: Turn on your oven, preheat it to 170~ degrees C or around there. Add the dry ingredients into one bowl, wet ingredients in the next. Mix together the dry ingredients. Make sure to use a sieve or … Continue reading → The 2025 Famichiki Great Server Move ------------------------------------ April 12, 2025 We recently moved our Mastodon server Famichiki to a Japanese VPS. It used to be hosted on servers of an American company, but given the state of the U.S. and the increasingly hostile rhetoric toward its allies, it felt inappropriate to continue to send money to U.S. companies. Also, being an instance for users in Japan, the very least we could do is spend our money on a Japanese company to provide us with hosting. So now we’re hosted on Conoha, a Japanese company whose parent, GMO, is arguably … Continue reading → Cancer Part 3: Don't worry, it's Cancer --------------------------------------- March 30, 2025 Last week the kind doctors at Hospital B performed a biopsy on my thyroid. I have never done a biopsy before, and I wish to never do one ever again. However, I don’t think I’ll escape that. And you’ll find out why in a bit. If you’ve been on the internet long enough, you’re probably familiar with these two phrases: You’re now breathing manually You’re now aware that you’re blinking And just like that, you have become aware of two parts of your nervous system that are highly automated and that … Continue reading → Older posts →

Updated June 4, 2025

Meet Sandee Jackson, CNP ------------------------ Founder & Principal Strategist With over 30 years in communications and 15+ years dedicated to the nonprofit sector, I’ve witnessed and guided organizations through every major shift in how we connect with audiences — from paste-up boards to digital campaigns, from direct mail dominance to multi-channel integration. As a former TV news producer and newsroom manager, professional services marketer, and nonprofit communications director, I don’t just understand the communication challenges nonprofits face — I’ve solved them from every angle. I’ve been in the newsroom deciding which stories get covered, in the marketing department crafting compelling campaigns, and in nonprofit offices stretching limited budgets across multiple urgent priorities. ### The Integration Advantage Most communications providers specialize in either digital or traditional channels. I’ve mastered both, and more importantly, I know how to make them work together strategically. Whether you need a rapid response crisis campaign, a year-end giving strategy that spans direct mail and social media, or brand consistency across six different platforms, I create solutions that honor both your mission and your reality. I founded The Nonprofit Template Shop after recognizing that mission-driven organizations need more than pretty graphics; they need strategic communication systems that work across every channel their supporters use, without overwhelming their already busy teams. ### How I Work with Nonprofits My approach combines three decades of communications evolution with nonprofit-specific insight: * **Strategic Integration**: I develop communication strategies that work seamlessly across print, digital, and in-person channels — because your donors and advocates don’t live in just one place. * **Newsroom-Tested Messaging**: Drawing on my television news background, I help you craft messages that not only resonate with your audience but also attract media attention when you need it most. * **Resource-Smart Solutions**: Having managed nonprofit budgets myself, I create template systems and frameworks that maximize impact while respecting your time and financial constraints. * **Crisis-Ready Communication**: From my experience guiding organizations through 30 years of political upheavals, natural disasters, and funding challenges, I ensure you’re prepared to respond with authority, not anxiety. * **Evolution-Proof Systems**: As someone who’s adapted through every major communications shift since the 1990s, I build frameworks that grow with changing technology and audience expectations. This comprehensive approach helps nonprofit teams communicate with clarity, confidence, and authenticity — whether you’re managing day-to-day operations or navigating unexpected challenges. ### Beyond the Templates When I’m not designing integrated campaign systems or building brand frameworks, you’ll find me enjoying coastal life in South Carolina, where I was born and raised. As a breast cancer survivor, I understand firsthand how clear, compassionate communication can transform difficult experiences. As a Black woman entrepreneur, I’m also passionate about creating space for diverse voices in the communications industry and supporting organizations that center equity and inclusion in their work. This perspective is integrated through my work, especially when helping organizations navigate sensitive or challenging communications. Whether developing brand messaging, creating template systems, or designing campaigns, I prioritize cultural sensitivity to ensure communications are inclusive, respectful, and effective across all the communities nonprofits serve. I’m passionate about supporting local community initiatives and sharing both professional expertise and personal perspective to help mission-driven organizations thrive in an increasingly complex communications landscape.

Updated June 4, 2025

I'm Matthias, a software engineer from Austria 🇦🇹 currently living in the Netherlands 🇳🇱. I'm working at CodSpeed building the next generation of performance benchmarking tools. I enjoy working on projects that challenge me and allow me to learn things, whether it's writing a kernel driver with Rust, reverse engineering and deobfuscating anticheats, or building a flashcard generator with LLMs. I also enjoy sharing that knowledge by writing blog posts and speaking at meetups and conferences. When I'm not coding, I spend my time running, cooking, reading about philosophy, tinkering with my home lab, and studying Chinese (哈哈哈哈没错).

Updated June 3, 2025

I’m at home in Dayton Ohio. Everything’s green, summer is here, and I’m trying to get outside as much as I can. At Work ------- I’ve just started a new role as a full-stack engineer at ClassDojo. I’ve been wanting to work in edtech for a long time and I’m excited to be working on a product that my family actively uses. I continue to tinker with AI as a development tool. Sometimes it’s incredibly helpful—other times, not so much. I find it most helpful for brainstorming ideas and tutoring me on technical topics that I’m less familiar with. At Home ------- I’ve continued to lift weights, recently hitting a new max bench press of 240lbs. Weightlifting has been fun but I really enjoyed going on a long run recently, so I’m considering doing more of that going forward. We’ll see. My early morning class is on hiatus for the summer and my extra time is all being funneled to some long-neglected house projects. So far I’ve done the toilet valve, bathroom fan, attic floor, painted door/trim, and concrete patch. I still need to fix some drywall and the tree/fence situation. I don’t really enjoy this stuff but I enjoy it more than living in a house that’s falling apart. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to MusicBoxFun and other coding projects soon. * * * _This page was inspired by Derek Sivers and his /now page._ _This page was last updated: Jun 3rd, 2025_ _Subscribe to future updates by adding the feed to your feed reader (more details here)_

Updated June 3, 2025

* **Baby Child No. 1** is a delight. Spending 3–4 hours per day with her at the moment, I believe, and it’s really something. * **Zettelkasten for Programmers.** A 3-day practice workshop, almost ready for launch in 2025. * **Pattern Language of Zettelkasten.** A book project to form a shared language (of patterns) so that enthusiasts and experts have an efficient way to communicate. * **Completing _The Archive_:** The app’s v1.9 shipped auto-completion for hashtags, ticking off the last milestone to feature completion. Adding more functionality, but easing development in favor of larger rewrites and changes for the future. * Improving **`md-babel`**, a tool to execute Markdown code blocks in your editor. * Working on a WordCounter upgrade for modern systems, looking into cross-platform development (Windows, Linux/GTK).

Updated June 3, 2025

* day job at Cars Commerce, working mostly on the Dealer Inspire platform * deploying with Kubernetes * continuious home improvement * exercising every morning * watching movies, my Letterboxd profile * watching TV, my serializd profile * playing video games, my Backloggd profile * spending time with family, friends, and my wife * * * Inspired by Derek Sivers and his Now project. _Updated on 2025-06-03._

Updated June 2, 2025

All Posts --------- * Building Industrial Strength Software without Unit Tests Jun 2, 2025 * 3 things other languages should steal from Unison Apr 24, 2025 * Building Type Search for Unison Aug 14, 2024 * Simpler and safer API design using GADTs Dec 10, 2020 * Virtual Record Fields Using Lenses Nov 26, 2020 * Composable filters using Witherable optics Oct 31, 2020 * Silly job interview questions in Haskell Oct 14, 2020 * Generalizing 'jq' and Traversal Systems using optics and standard monads Sep 27, 2020 * Intro to Kaleidoscopes: Optics for aggregating data through Applicatives Feb 2, 2020 * Algebraic lenses Dec 18, 2019 * Advent of Optics: Day 4 Dec 4, 2019 * Advent of Optics: Day 3 Dec 3, 2019 * Advent of Optics: Day 2 Dec 2, 2019 * Advent of Optics: Day 1 Dec 1, 2019 * Beating C with 80 lines of Haskell: wc Oct 15, 2019 * Optics + Regex: Greater than the sum of their parts Sep 20, 2019 * Slick 1.0 Release - Now with a quick and easy template! Sep 18, 2019 * Haskell IDE Support (hie-core lsp Sept. 2019) Sep 7, 2019 * Higher Kinded Option Parsing May 4, 2019 * Mocking Effects using Constraints and Phantom Data Kinds Sep 29, 2018 * Update Monads: Variation on State Monads Sep 3, 2018 * Typesafe Versioned APIs Aug 4, 2018 * Monoidal Sorting Jul 22, 2018 * A Practical Introduction to Finger Trees Jul 21, 2018 * Postman API Explorer: You've got mail! Jun 3, 2018 * Query a Google Sheets Spreadsheet from BigQuery Jun 2, 2018 * ASTs with Fix and Free Feb 24, 2018 * MonadIO Considered Harmful Sep 11, 2017 * Type Tac Toe: Advanced Type Safety Aug 25, 2017 * Conway's Game of Life using Representable and Comonads Aug 8, 2017 * Radix Sort, Trie Trees, and Maps from Representable Functors Jul 23, 2017 * Free and Forgetful Functors Jul 20, 2017 * Adjunctions and Battleship Jul 19, 2017 * Zippers using Representable and Cofree Jul 5, 2017 * Shipping Haskell via Homebrew Apr 24, 2017 * Kleisli Endomorphisms Apr 8, 2017 * Tail Recursion In Python Jul 26, 2016 * The Interface We Need Feb 15, 2016 * Let there be Truth Jan 2, 2016 * Autoenv Trick Sep 4, 2015 * Semantic Versioning Apr 2, 2015 * BoxKite: Open-Sourced Mar 25, 2015 * Getting Schooled Mar 19, 2015 * Gem: Duckling Feb 21, 2015 * Worth a Read #4 - Unix Tools Feb 13, 2015 * Vim vs. Emacs? Feb 6, 2015 * Gem: Font-Awesome Jan 21, 2015 * Worth a Read #3 - Typography Jan 13, 2015 * Gem: Git Jan 5, 2015 * Procedural Generation is the Future Jan 3, 2015 * Worth a Read #2 - CSS Nov 10, 2014 * Gem: Jekyll Nov 3, 2014 * Worth a Read #1 Oct 31, 2014 * Gem: Neovim Oct 15, 2014 * You Own Your Data Sep 26, 2014 * The Future of Software Sep 24, 2014 * Set the Data Free Aug 2, 2014 * Legacy in Design Jul 26, 2014 * Caps-lock May 25, 2014 * The Switch To Mac May 19, 2014

Updated June 2, 2025

This is my now page where I give semi-regular updates on what is going on in my life. I started the year with the intention of keeping up the habit of blogging once a week. However, early April brought a “perfect storm” of other activities. Among them were several large garden projects, including building a green house. Work has presented a lot of interesting problems to solve during this spring, and I might have spent the mental energy that I had left on those. I’m also trying to reestablish a habit of working out, either at the local powerlifting club or at home. All in all it’s been a lot of fun, but I simply haven’t had the time or energy to keep up with blogging. Other than that, I somewhat permanently: * Live in Varberg with a wife and two kids, trying to juggle the everyday life planning. * Work at Omda as senior software developer, developing a medical emergency triage system. (Triage basically means “what patient needs to see the doctor first?”)

Updated June 2, 2025

##### Last updated on June 2, 2025 Hello! My name is Rishikesh . My pronouns are he/him/his and you can call me either Rishi (_ree-shee_) or Rishikesh (_ri-shee-kay-sh_). I currently live in Abu Dhabi with my wife. My journey began in a small village in Southern India, precisely at `9.754` latitude and `76.363` longitude, on a national strike day, when the atmosphere held 358 ppm of carbon. Most of my childhood was spent in Kerala, India, where I was born. To know more about my life as a whole, timeline is a great place. ### What I do I hold a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a postgraduate degree in Renewable Energy. Most of my previous experiences have been in the field of renewable energy specifically on energy policy, energy system modelling and mini-grids. My interests are ever-evolving, but my passion lies in addressing the greatest threat humanity faces: climate change. I am deeply committed to solving this issue and believe it is imperative for our future. I discovered the joy and the fascinating world of coding late in my life. So I’m currently on a quest to figure out a way to combine programming and my expertise in energy to become a specialist and contribute my part in energy transition of the world and eventually climate change. I’m actively looking for opportunities in energy system modelling (which I have some experience) or computational social science. While I am currently looking for new opportunities, I am actively working on side projects to learn how to write, code, build, and ship things while growing my audience on my newsletter . Apart from these I mainly love to run, cycle, swim, lift, travel, read , watch and spend time with my wife. I have this sense of curiosity about this world and that drives me everyday. I’m so grateful to be alive this point of history where everyone with a access to internet and a computer, can literally learn anything in this world. I’m so excited about the sheer amount of things that are out there to discover and learn, and excited about the fact that it is an infinite game. I find the most joy when I discover something, learn more about it and figure out how it works. > _I thrive at those ‘ahaa’ moments where I understand how things work._ ### How I see the world I identify as an INTP-T , explorer , omnivore , atheist , and skeptic . I’m a curious and skeptical person who questions everything around me. While my philosophies are still evolving and I’m still learning, I closely associate with Absurdist Existentialism , if that makes sense. I believe in an absurd, meaningless universe, where randomness is the dominant force. I accept that there’s no inherent meaning or purpose, but I still navigate life by creating my own meaning in the face of this absurdity. I don’t believe in any inherent meaning or creator - the universe’s existence doesn’t require a supernatural explanation, regardless of whether it had a beginning or has always existed in some form. I also reject concepts like karma, rebirth, afterlife, or spirit. As a skeptic, I doubt things and reject all forms of pseudoscience , including practices like yoga (in its spiritual aspects), homeopathy , Ayurveda , naturopathy , etc. I believe in spreading scientific temper and fighting misinformation, seeing it as a civic duty. While I acknowledge that scientific understanding changes and contradicts itself over time, I see this as progress. I think finding the meaning of the universe is a never-ending quest we should pursue, but it’s not a finite game. I believe in physics and its laws, and that all human actions are driven by our evolutionary needs and chemical reactions in our bodies. Despite this, I believe in moral values that keep our society functioning, recognizing our evolution beyond just another organism. I’m not spiritual, and I don’t believe in a larger or shared conscience. I like to meditate, but I view it purely as a mental exercise to refocus, calm myself down, and process my thoughts. I slightly align with longtermism and care about the future of humanity, including the possibility of becoming a space-faring, interplanetary species. I deeply value relationships and friendships; the probability of forming these connections in such a vast, absurd universe makes them extraordinarily special, highlighting the beauty that can emerge from randomness. While we perceive direction and time in the universe, I believe these are human constructs – the universe simply exists as a series of random events, without inherent beginning or end. While my philosophies are evolving and overlap with each other, they resonate more with something like “Skeptical Scientific Absurdism”. > _“I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.”_ > > _― Ann Druyan_ ### Why this blog? This blog is nicheless and is my digital home where I share my thoughts and experiences. For a long time, I struggled to become a specialist. Be it career, life, or hobbies, I have always had multiple passions and interests that evolve over time. I’ve come to realize that being a generalist is not a bad thing, and this blog reflects that. I think of this blog itself as an art piece , something that evolves over time. It’s inspired by numerous blogs and sites out there in the wild west corner of the internet. Like any art piece, each inch of this website is crafted with clear vision, attention, and reason. You can read more about how this blog is built on the colophon page. ### Some more info To know more about my life, visit my timeline . The dream has a list of stuff I want to do, the Lifestack page lists the things I use, and the now page shows what I’m currently up to. If you’re curious, the library has a list of books I’ve read recently, and the watch page lists movies and shows I’ve seen. This website is designed to be explored with no end goal in mind, featuring various interesting pages and easter eggs(ping me, if you find any!). Useless Button and The Pixel Mosaic are good starting points, feel free to wander as you wish. I also host an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) on this blog. If you enjoy the content, please sign my guestbook .

Updated June 1, 2025

now --- Réécriture complète de mon générateur de site _Mantra_. Toute la mécanique logicielle est basée sur des micromodules appelés **cog\_xxx** (rouages en anglais), à l'instar de mon système de gestion de connaissances **Nemo**... Sortes de "boites noires" avec un comportement connu et exempts d'effets de bord... **Avril 2025** Intégration de mon site lié au développement logiciel dans la partie _Dev_ . Partie gérée par mon automate **Runes**. Les pages Web étant autosuffisantes par l'intégration des fichiers multimédias et de styles en codage **base64** ! **Juin 2025** Suppression de la partie **Blog et 365** Simplification de _Mantra_ et accent mis sur l'orthogonalité des fonctions logicielles... A suivre...

Updated June 1, 2025

Things that i’m probably busy with _right now_. Last updated June 2025. * I work as a freelance creative coder with a focus on projects in the art, heritage and media sector. * I’m very close to releasing my debut album. * I’m working on a paper magazine to celebrate the ten years of my newsletter, to be released later this year. * I’ve launched something that i don’t think existed before: an open world generative world podcast called DRIFT. * I’m building a neverending story generator for the Cinekid festival. * I’m working as a general consultant on developing the new NADD platform, linking together digital culture and design institutes in the Netherlands. * I write a biweekly newsletter (in Dutch) called _De Circulaire_ which features links, cat gifs and anything else that amuses and interests me. Also see the about section and some of my work. For more people with a `/now` page, see nownownow.com.

Updated June 1, 2025

What I’m doing now  Updated June 2025, Brighton (I update this every few months, when I have time)  This is a /now page, inspired by Derek Sivers. If you have a website, I recommend making one too. **Songwriting** --------------- I have a handful of new queer pop songs in the works right now. Finding time to get into the booth and record vocals is the challenge. I can't record vocals on ships when I'm away doing my concerts, there's just too much noise and distraction everywhere, so when I have a few uninterupted days at home, I'll get those done. **My best music work so far is coming along**  ---------------------------------------------- I am working with choreographer Joseph Poulton on a ballet adaptation of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady. Collaborative dance work is a deliciously slow process (mostly because all the workshop performers and creatives are on national tours with other fantastic shows) but I’m enjoying the revelation of each section being created, workshopped and filmed. It’s by far the biggest thing I’ve ever written and it’s very different than anything I've done before. **Lemonade - The Musical** -------------------------- I teamed up with NYC composer and performer Jesse Corbin as the orchestrator and music producer for Lemonade - The Musical. It had a table read at Florida Rep in 2025 which led to a fully commissioned off-Broadway production in 2026. Get involved here: www.instagram.com/lemonadethemusical **Piano Legends** ----------------- I travel the world performing my piano-vocal show Piano Legends on stunning ships and venues across the world, thanks to having the best agent in the world, who not only signed me mid-pandemic, but filled my diary with incredible gigs through 2026. I worked hard to get to here, but it taught me that everything happens at the right time and not before. I love seeing the show evolve and how it brings joy to so many people. www.instagram.com/king\_jamsheed **My music arranging business**  -------------------------------- I'm seeing some fairly big names in my inbox these days, all requesting charts and music production for their shows. The feeling I get from hearing other people perform my work is unbelievable. I have started to charge more closely to industry standard prices, now that I've gained a lot of confidence in what I do, but I still wait for payment until the performer has used the music in a show for the first time. It's a team effort and we get there together. Details: www.jamsheedmaster.com/arranger **A new concert work**  ----------------------- I’ve been chipping away at a song-cycle work that’s been in my head for months. It’s an artistic response to the climate emergency and involves a lot of musical forces. I have a few funding applications on the juggle, but the path will reveal itself when the time is right. **The Queery** -------------- I sit on the board of The Queery - a bookstore, cafe and queer community space in Brighton. It’s a beautiful little place and I handle all the grants and funding applications. It’s hard work but the importance of this place is huge. When I was young, spaces like The Queery simply didn’t exist and that’s why I’m determined to see it thrive. If you'd liek to make a donation or social investment, contact me. **Living in Brighton**  ----------------------- 27 years in Brighton and I still adore the place. Ten years ago, I bought a gigantic doer-upper right in town, which I share with two wonderful friends and an elderly cat. It's fantastic, but I want a house with my partner now, plus a bigger studio space and room to expand my other creative endevours. The flat is up for sale currently, so things are up in the air as to when anything will happen. **Love**  --------- My logical family and I follow a druidic pagan calendar. Currently, Summer Solstice takes us into Autumn. This is the time when I shine the most - the harvest is massive this year and I'm proud of everything I've acomplished. As ever, each project bigger than the last, each endeavour more exciting and new.

Updated June 1, 2025

Bio --- check My NOW page I Defended my thesis in June 2025. This is the announcement. HERE For a more detailed CV ask me for my CV in pdf. My ORCID 0000-0003-3485-0874 I have just defended my PhD at Tampere University, Finland, I specialized in sleep monitoring and signal processing. I develop algorithms for unobtrusive sensors—like mattress sensors and wearables—to detect physiological signals such as snoring, breathing patterns, and heart rate. With a background in telecommunications and biomedical engineering, I bring a multidisciplinary approach to my work. I’m passionate about simple, effective solutions and am currently seeking opportunities in AI development, wearable technologies, or related fields. I’m open to remote work (or on-site roles in Finland) and enjoy collaborating with teams or working independently. Outside research, I play piano and explore how music and technology intersect, often inspiring my signal processing projects. ### Research The topic of my doctoral thesis is centered on sleep, unobtrusive sensors and mattress sensors (such as Beddit, Emfit (electromechanical film transducer) mattress , Fitbit, Firstbeat, raw accelerometers like traxmeet). The thesis proposes several state-of-the-art methods for detecting snoring, breathing efforts, breathing patterns, and heart rate detection algorithms. ### Research Lines * Snoring detection in Emfit mattress sensor * Breathing disorders - Breathing efforts using Emfit mattress sensor * Heart beat detection in Emfit matress sensor * Breathing detection using video and other signals * Intensive Care Unit (ICU) EEG trends I wrote software to analyze EEG trends in intensive care patients, an ongoing project I was supporting (2021) - When the time comes I share the Git Project. ### Community projects * locally-informed, this is the only community project I have participated back in 2020. Updating information from Finland. ### Hobby Audio / Sound projects * Spatial sound and Sound Synthesis using Csound: This is a super old project done in Csound about Spatial Sound and sound synthesis, from an old course of "Sound and Wave Engineering back in 2003/2004, with my super-cool classmate Ariana. It is funny to see how much interest I still have in Sound, Biosignals...1D signals/timeseries. Still remember Richard Boulanger!! The project was about using Csound, documenting it. And finally we created two examples made by ourselves. The original site is still on! but does not work properly in modern html... so I made some changes and put it here. Old page... it is in this link from the Image Processing Laboratory (LPI-UVa) here. * Sound localization: **Here is the link to the Github Project**. In short the project is about sound source Localization using an eight-microphone Array (UMA-8 from MiniDSP). Resources --------- Publications ------------ ### PhD Thesis (2025) * **Methods for Snoring and Heart Pulse Detection Using Unobtrusive Mattress Sensor (2025)**, Doctoral Dissertation, Tampere University, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering, Tampere University, 2025. ISBN 978-952-03-2952-0 (print), ISBN 978-952-03-2953-7 (pdf), URN: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-2953-7 **Related news:** //www.tuni.fi/en/news/jose-maria-perez-macias-bed-mattress-wearables-enable-early-detection-sleep-disorders ### Journals 1. Nokelainen P, Perez-Macias JM, Himanen SL, Hakala A, Tenhunen M. **Methods for Detecting Abnormal Ventilation in Children - the Case Study of 13-Years old Pitt-Hopkins Girl.**,Child Neurol Open. 2023 Feb 20;10:2329048X231151361. doi: 10.1177/2329048X231151361. PMID: 36844470; PMCID: PMC9944179 2. S. Friman, A. Vehkaoja and J. M. Perez-Macias. **The Use of Wrist EMG Increases the PPG Heart Rate Accuracy in Smartwatches**, in IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 22, no. 24, pp. 24197-24204, 15 Dec.15, 2022, doi: 10.1109/JSEN.2022.3219297 3. **Detection of snores using source separation on an Emfit signal** JM Perez-Macias, M Tenhunen, A Värri, SL Himanen, J Viik. IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics 4. **Spectral analysis of snoring events from an Emfit mattress**. JM Perez-Macias, J Viik, A Varri, SL Himanen, M TenhunenPhysiological measurement 37 (12), 2130 3 2016 5. Snoring detection with emfit sleep mattress. JM Perez-Macias, SL Himanen, J Viik, M Tenhunen. JOURNAL OF SLEEP RESEARCH 25, 159-160 2016 6. **The use of crowdsourcing for dietary self-monitoring: crowdsourced ratings of food pictures are comparable to ratings by trained observers**. GM Turner-McGrievy, EE Helander, K Kaipainen, JM Perez-Macias, ...Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 22 (e1), e112-e119 9 2014 7. **Spectral changes in spontaneous MEG activity across the lifespan**. C Gómez, JM Pérez-Macías, J Poza, A Fernández, R HorneroJournal of neural engineering 10 (6), 066006 10 2013 ### Conferences 1. **Heart pulse demodulation from Emfit mattress sensor using spectral and source separation techniques.**. JM Perez-Macias, M Tenhunen, A Värri, SL Himanen, J Viik. 2022 Computing in Cardiology (CinC) 2. **Time characteristics of prolonged partial obstruction periods using an Emfit mattress**. JM Perez-Macias, J Viik, A Värri, SL Himanen, M Tenhunen EMBEC & NBC 2017, 775-778 2017 3. **Detection and Assessment of Sleep-Disordered Breathing with Emfit Mattress**. M Tenhunen, J Hyttinen, J Viik, JM Perez-Macias, SL HimanenEMBEC & NBC 2017, 173-176 2017 4. **Assessment of support vector machines and convolutional neural networks to detect snoring using Emfit mattress** Jose M. Perez-Macias, Sharath Adavanne, Jari Viik, Alpo Värri, Sari-Leena Himanen, and Mirja Tenhunen, The Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (EMBC 2017) (old draft here) 5. **Comparative assessment of sleep quality estimates using home monitoring technology.** JM Perez-Macias, H Jimison, I Korhonen, M PavelEngineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2014 Annual ... 9 2014 6. **Sleep monitoring data validation using a linear discriminant classifier**. JM Perez-Macias, M Pavel, I Korhonen, H Jimison7th annual Canadian Student Conference on Biomedical Computing and ... 2014 ### Honors & Awards * Award 2017 * Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Scholarship awards 2015, 2016, 2017 * University of Valladolid Fellowship 2011–2015 * Erasmus Scholarship award for studying at Chalmers School of Technology (2007) ### Patents * Apparatus, system and method for determining whether a person is asleep ### Membership * IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (Member) * European Sleep Research Society (Member) * IEEE Signal Processing Society (Member and Secretary (2020 to 2024)) ### Research Grants * Nokia Award 2017 * Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Scholarship awards 2015 * Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Scholarship awards 2016 * Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Scholarship awards 2017 ### Organizing scientific activities * Best MSc and PhD thesis 2024 Ceremony (event organizer) * Best MSc and PhD thesis 2023 Ceremony (event organizer) ### Invited Journal reviewer * NPJ digital Medicine - Nature (since 2020) * IEEE sensors Journal - IEEE (since 2023) * Biomedical physics & engineering express - IOP Publishing (since 2024) * Measurement Science and Technology - IOP Publishing (since 2024) ### Invited Conference reviewer * EMBEC17, NBC17 ### Teaching * Have not taught besides private lessons. Research Projects ----------------- Heart pulse demodulation from Emfit mattress sensor using spectral and source separation techniques. 2022 Computing in Cardiology (CinC) Detection of snores using source separation on an Emfit signal. JM Perez-Macias, M Tenhunen, A Värri, SL Himanen, J Viik. IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics Spectral analysis of snoring events from an Emfit mattress JM Perez-Macias, J Viik, A Varri, SL Himanen, M Tenhunen Physiological measurement 37 (12), 2130 3 2016 Comparative assessment of sleep quality estimates using home monitoring technology JM Perez-Macias, H Jimison, I Korhonen, M Pavel The Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (EMBC 2014) Heart pulse demodulation from Emfit mattress sensor using spectral and source separation techniques. JM Perez-Macias, M Tenhunen, A Värri, SL Himanen, J Viik. 2022 Computing in Cardiology (CinC) Project Title 1 Best Paper Award Author One, Author Two, Author Three Conference/Journal Name 2023 Random Projects --------------- #### Comsol Simulation of a Neuron This project was part of a course I took in TUT where I simulated a neuron using the FitzHugh-Naguno model #### TimeLapse with a Raspberry Pi Project Title 1 Best Paper Award Author One, Author Two, Author Three Conference/Journal Name 2023 This is a timelapse from my house. Note how everything is already dark (winter in Finland), but also, how the goods are arriving to Sale (a supermarket). Gym (GoGo), is opening a bit before 6:00am. It was fun to set it up... I might put the code up (it is rather simple) when I find some time.You can see the super-dupper simple code in my Github. What can I say, sometimes things are that simple. The video was put together using Photoshop. #### RaspFX A great project using a Raspberry Pi (link). This is my personal webserver, hosting this project where you can upload music and add effects from PureData. The server is at home, so it might not always work (for now). This was part of a project from MediaServices with members Carita Logrén, Enrico Manuzzato, Jose Maria Perez-Macias, and Ugur Kar. I also leave some .wav files for testing since I remember they needed to have an specific sampling rate. File1, File2, File3 #### Watering my plants when I am away Hoping to stop killing my plants when I go on holiday (soon to be uploaded). I basically have a basic script in a RaspBerry Pi for the lights. I bought some special medical pumps to water them and control the doses, but has proven a bit more complicated than that. #### Animals This is a game for kids. Developed in Meteor. It can be used on the phone, or iPad, as long it is not a very old iPad (iPad 1) because it becomes very slow (soon to be uploaded on a server). #### Microcontroller House alarm with Keypad Project from back in 2006 usign an Intel Microcontroller Github Link #### Bus ticket Project My first program in C++ (with my classmate Alberto Leon), we got an awesome grade! It is a bus ticket software to buy tickets to different destinations. Using Linked Lists and OO programing. Github Link #### Wireless sensor monitor Me and a colleage developed a wireless sensor monitor that is deployed in TUT, pretty cool honestly (soon to be uploaded, well maybe not so soon). Programmed in C. These were the same guys as #### Real Time Control This is a realtime control using a realtime operating system (Xenomai) me and my classmate developed (Github Link). In Chalmers, they were developing leading research to solve a problem of control over networks (nowadays everything is a network). #### Csound 2003/2004 This is a super old project done in Csound about Sound of Localization, from an old course of "Sound and Wave Engineering back in 2003/2004. It is funny to see how much interest I still have in Sound, Biosignals...1D signals/timeseries. Still remember Richard Boulanger!! The project was about using Csound, documenting it. And finally we created two examples made by ourselves. The original site is still on! but does not work properly in moder html... so I made a some changes and put it here. Old page... it is here. #### Sound localization Project from Advanced Audio Processing GitHub #### Other projects I have been working on different projects as a copywriter, and also another one more dedicated to divulation. This one is about sensors and promoting sensors. There is also a project of educating and reference material for the public based on research. Sensor Salud This other was meant to promote what it another, but a bit abbandoned at the moment. Sleep Coaching and Research

Updated June 1, 2025

_What is this?_ June 2025 --------- * Still learning to navigate COVID-safe life in a world that stopped caring a long time ago. * Still learning to navigate life with health challenges in the family. * Trying indoor rowing for fitness. * Said goodbye to Artemis in December—it left a void in our home for sure. * Got a tattoo, so I’m no longer unique in LA by virtue of not having one. * Still riding the startup rollercoaster at Reach Security. April 2024 ---------- * Was doing great with cycling (type 1 fun), but just started going to the gym (type 2 fun) as primary exercise instead, with cycling taking on a more fun role. * Reading fell back off rather quickly. * Learning that time away from the computer is incredibly good for me. * Put PyBeach 2024 ideas to rest. January 2024 ------------ * Actually cycling a lot and really enjoying it. * Getting back into reading via Akira. * Attempting to get PyBeach back up and running. * Just started at Reach Security. August 2023 ----------- * We adopted a new cat. He’s great. * I stopped motorcycling and sold my bike. * Katie’s health isn’t great. * Got laid off from Instil. * Finding some time and energy for software projects. * Getting a little into photography, very tentatively. * Kind of a downer of an update, but sometimes that’s reality. March 2023 ---------- * Nearing the first wedding anniversary with Katie—time flies! * We lost one of the cats, and miss her every day. * Settled on self-hosting my own sites but not services. It’s just too time consuming otherwise. * Shifted roles from individual contributor engineer to squad lead at Instil. It’s been a wild ride so far, learning a new type of role for the first time in my career. * Feeling like 2023 ought to be the year of health. Treating my sleep apnea and foot issues, cooking to eat healthier, and actually rebuilding that cycling habit—solid start. August 2022 ----------- * Got married (again) a few months ago, to a lovely lady. <3 * Co-parenting a zoo—three cats + two dogs. * Getting back into self-hosting, both externally facing websites and personally used services. * Started a newsletter. * Trying to rebuild the cycling habit. * Also trying to rebuild the reading habit. * Still working at Instil.

Updated June 1, 2025

  **_june 2025_** **Opportunities for Collaboration!** ------------------------------------ **2025 Global Entrepreneurship Congress (and beyond)** Academy of Management Research Workshop \[July, Copenhagen\] ICSB (November, Cairo) e-list of ecosystem scholars (add yourself!) A+ Journal article on entrep support \[building on LINK\] Other top conferences and journal special issues \[link\] Ecosystem Teaching Cases \[Elgar\] Systematic literature reviews New project on superconnctors (network analysis+psychometrics) Comments also welcome on: \[available\] --------------------------------------- \* Essay for UN Global MSME Day (June 27) \* OECD report on supporting green startups \* EDII/Niti Aayog (India) report on incubators/accelerators \* White paper on AFWERX/Open Topic SBIR **CURRENT FUNDING UNDERWAY!** ----------------------------- (more education than ecosystem but...) K-12 entrepreneurship design project (bring together most of the top 10-20 experts) \[almost funded before but Covid intervened\] Cross-national assessments of impact of entrepreneurship education/training \[including mindset facets, skills; appears very fundable!\]

Updated June 1, 2025

Unsharpen.com is a website about pens, pencils, paper, and all manner of related things. The site has reviews of every manner of stationery as well as a vast database of pens, pencils, paper, ink, refills, and accessories. Unsharpen.com was launched in February 2019 and is based in New York, New York. The site is brought to you by the same team as the Unsharpen YouTube channel. The site has access to a full catalog of pens and other items, which are used for testing and comparison purposes. These items have been accrued over the past 20+ years, long before the site was created, though they have been an critical part of our hands-on testing and product recommendation process. As luck would have it, “Unsharpen.com” was a cool domain name we happened upon. It was (sort of) related to writing and literally has the word “pen” in it, so it seemed like a fit. It doesn’t mean anything past that, it’s just a cool, fun word. Unsharpen can also be read as being the result of using a wooden pencil — you are, in a sense, _unsharpening_ it. While this isn’t how the site got its name, it still works out quite well. Why Read Unsharpen? ------------------- There is a lot of great information about office supplies online, but almost all of it comes from manufacturers and resellers. Unsharpen.com is an **independent** source of information with access to a **portfolio of many pens and pencils**, a library of review videos, thousands of hours of **hands-on testing** time… and more paper than anyone would be comfortable admitting. Contact Us ---------- You can contact us via email, but please note we receive more pen help/advice questions than we could possibly answer. Unsharpen members receive **priority support** for their questions. So please support the site and we’ll do our best to support you!

Updated May 31, 2025

This page is a quick way to check what I'm up to these days (more information on _"Now"_ pages here ). If you want more information about myself, you can go here . _Last updated: May 31, 2025_ ### What am I doing? 1. My main project I work on is **Project Absence** , a security tool for domain reconnaissance with an OSINT-only approach, written in Rust. Working a lot on it to get the core and features done. Still lots of work to do though. 2. My second main project I work on is **OverScry** , designed to simplify the process of generating Overpass queries from a YML structure file. 3. Working on **tinz** as well; it is a new project I won't unveil at the moment as I'm not sure how the development will be and how much time I can give to it because it's a **side project** I work on when I need to take my mind off other things. ### What am I watching, listening & reading? #### Watching _At the moment nothing, soon to change._ #### Listening _My playlists are publicly available here_ #### Reading _At the moment nothing, soon to change._

Updated May 30, 2025

Check out my new movie! ----------------------- _White Meat: Appetizer_ just finished shooting. * Visit the website Let’s Chat ---------- Need a speaker for your next event? I’ve given standing-room-only presentations at TEDNYC, SXSW, Confab, LavaCon, UX Copenhagen, Artifact, and the Wharton Web Conference (and my webinar game is pretty tight). My talks focus on how decision-makers can design can understand bias (and use it for good), how to help people talk to each other more clearly and treat each other more equitably, and how to advocate for change in your organization. I offer an inclusive design workshop for a deeper dive here. My newest talk offers a blunt look at how pursuing engagement for its own sake can be harmful and offers more human approaches for our work in tech. Get In Touch Quote ----- ### A History of Black Horror: From Victims to Creators 7:30 pm EDT ### TEDNYC: Three Rules of Productive Discourse 09/27/2022 ### beyond tellerand 2022: The Content Design of Civil Discourse ### Confab: Fight Bias with Content Strategy 09/26/2022 ### “Lately, I’ve been thinking about…” ### The Cognitive Bias Podcast ### Webinar: Turning Conflict into Collaboration with Content Strategy ### Webinar: Design for Cognitive Bias ### Cui Bono? (on police violence) ### Developing Philly ### Dunk Donuts with Dave ### The Dawn of Woke Tech ### The Painfully Obvious Intersectionality of the United States of America ### The Revolution Will Have Structured Content ### Why the Poor Deserve Good UX ### The Least Dangerous Game ### SXSW: A Million Medicis – Funding the Content Revolution ### Agile Living * ### Atlantic article about fighting online harassment (quoted) * ### Engadget article about bias in tech (quoted) * ### Guest on Presentable Podcast * ### Guest on Mike Monteiro’s Voice of Design podcast * ### Adobe blog post about bias in AI (quoted) * ### Article about my work on the Abstract blog * ### Guest on the ShopTalk podcast * ### Q&A in The Splash * ### Guest on The Iowa Idea Podcast * ### Guest on the Tech for Good Live podcast * ### One of the speakers at this excellent Content Teatime session * ### I appear throughout this podcast series on equality in tech

Updated May 30, 2025

Here’s what I do now, when this page was updated on May 30, 2025. This page is inspired by a good idea from Derek Sivers. Life ---- I am now 40 years old. Not doing too badly. I’d even say I’ve never been this strong! I’m trying to exercise more and can now easily run 15 km! You can connect with me on Strava. Gardening more because it helps me clear my mind. Work ---- Working on various open-source projects, mainly on Vulnerability-Lookup and on Newspipe. You should have a look at Vulnerability-Lookup! Learning “AI”. I am trying to write more papers and attend more conferences. Music ----- Having fun playing piano. Reading ------- Haunted Houses Creak, by M. H. Altis.