This is a simple page to point out some of the other projects I am working on and a bit of my background. To send me an email, note that I use gmail with a user name of jostylr, of course. My real name is James Taylor.
Click on the headings below for their promised information.
A brief description of my professional background
A brief pertinent background is that I obtained a PhD from Rutgers University in mathematics on the topic of Bohmian mechanics, a theory of quantum mechanics. I also dabble in differential geometry. On pleasant occasions, I get to dabble in both simultaneously. This is my advisor's page. As for my professional work, the list below contains my papers.
After a couple of years in academia (Iowa State University, Marymount University), I ended up in a distance education program (Center for Talented Youth, Johns Hopkins University) teaching very bright and gifted K-12 students who are eager to learn mathematics. And after a few years of that, I helped manage that program. It was very enjoyable and educational. But all good things come to an end. On August 14, 2009, four years to the business day from when I started and it being Bugbear Day, I left CTY. Sadly, the first Monday afterwards, I was offered a part-time teaching job. I am not very good at being unemployed! But I am now primarily a freelance programmer plus other interests.
As for computers, when I was young I had extensive interactions with them and was a natural programmer. But during my college and graduate years, I lacked a computer (portable computers were not too good in those days and I hate clunky desk ones). But once I obtained one again, I learned Perl followed by Javascript and PHP and then Python and now Objective-C for iPhone development. Programming is exciting!
A variety of projects I am pursuing.
My current projects (Release dates):
This national holiday, every August 14, is the opposite of Valentine's Day. Instead of celebrating your loved ones, we celebrate our enemies, our bugbears if you will. To do so, give them a lovely gift that is inappropriate in some way. This originated with Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Goodloe Poker is a poker variant that involves no betting, but a lot of lying. Essentially, one person gets a hand. They make a call, pass the hand along. If accepted, the next person must call something higher and the cycle repeats. If not accepted, then the hand is revealed. If it is lower than the called value, the player passing loses. Otherwise, the other player loses. After three losses, a player is out. Twos are wild.
To play this game well, you need to know the poker hands, their ordering, and get a feeling for what is easy to improve and what is not. To train people to the necessary level, I created Goodloe Solitaire. This is a game whose sole purpose is to maximize one's score by improving the hand. The end of the game is when you decide to end it or one runs out of cards. It is simple, fast, and effective.
A collection of what I have found useful.
A collection of what I have found useful.