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Location: Portland, Oregon USA

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Let's get to know each other first!

Technologies: AngularJS, Arduino, Autodesk EAGLE, C, C++, e-Paper, embedded, ESP32, FreeRTOS, JavaScript, Node.JS, Objective-C, OpenGL, Python React, SQL, Three.js, TypeScript, WebGL, Webpack

Résumé/CV: http://zacharcher.com

Email: zkarcher [at] gmail [dot] com

Developer of interactive experiences, graphics, and embedded software. I've worked as a freelancer for 13 years. I'm looking for a full-time opportunity with unique challenges, and a culture where I can always be learning, as well as mentoring.

Some of my work involves graphics and visuals, here's a video reel: http://controlzinc.com/

To download, Scribd demands Facebook authentication, or that new users create an account.

Then they demand payment, or that you "give back to the community" by "uploading something of your own".

Is this document available for free, with no strings attached?

My attempt at Level 1:

  class Player
    def play_turn(warrior)
      warrior.walk!(:right)
    end
  end
The warrior keeps bumping in to a wall, and the code fails.

This is counter-intuitive, because the exit is to the right of the warrior. I can't endure another N levels of nonintuitive frustration, sorry.

I can't compile this. What am I doing wrong? Here is the output:

$ gcc -o donut donut.c -lm

donut.c:1: warning: data definition has no type or storage class

donut.c: In function ‘main’:

donut.c:4: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of built-in function ‘printf’

donut.c:5: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of built-in function ‘memset’

Good to know. A fast internet connection would be nice, but 3G is acceptable.

What amenities should a hacker colony have? I'm thinking: fast internet, quiet cabins, food delivered to your door, remote area that is good for walking & exploring, easy access to a nearby town (maybe via shuttle).

[dead] 15 years ago

I perceived the second 'the'. Does this mean I have a non-human brain?

Perhaps aleatoric is the wrong word... I imagine that you could overlay the ghost diagrams on grids, follow the tiles (as if traversing land on a map), and your paths would produce melodies. There are hex-based musical keyboards (search for "hex keys" on Google or YouTube), so every position would be assigned a specific pitch. You could expand this concept to generate note lengths, rests, key changes, timbral effects, etc.

That's one way to implement it. All of the generative music algorithms I've seen have been very limited, and have produced one specific flavor of music. Seeing all these amazing patterns in the ghost diagrams, I wonder if there's a clue to generating more diverse/expressive music lurking within this system. (Emergent behavior?)

I suddenly feel less alone in the world.

Does anyone know if such a group exists in Portland, Oregon? If not, I might have to start one. I do all of my creative hacking between 10pm and 4am, I've always been this way, and I'm starting to believe that I will never break this habit. (I'm 35 years old.)

Maybe it's time to dabble in something new?

I've developed many interests over the years -- programming, game design, interactive development, music theory, soundtracks, cooking, martial arts, hiking, circuit bending ... I may not have mastered any of these, but my mind feels limber. I've stopped feeling guilty about putting down a project, and revisiting it later. That's how I get around mental blocks and ruts. It's always nice to revisit something with a clear head; old roadblocks tend to sort themselves out.

Also, your interests can be combined in clever ways. I just finished a new iPhone app, which combines many of the aforementioned. (Shameless plug: Twang is an expressive handheld guitar: http://tinyurl.com/twangapp).

To me, this is success -- not making scads of money (necessarily), but rather having a job I love, and the freedom to pursue new interests.

That deleted comment was mine, the text was: "You get what you pay for ;)"

I admire your attitude, nopassrecover. And you're right, even as contractors we can shape the outcome of our projects. Software development seems linked with cynicism (see: http://thedailywtf.com and others) but it's better to be proactive and help guide projects to completion.

Books: Powell's Technical Books

Tech meetups: http://calagator.org/

Retro arcade: Ground Kontrol

Nature: 10 zillion wonderful beautiful waterfalls and hikes nearby, I recommend a place called Angel's Rest for starters.

Coffee: Crema, Extracto, Stumptown

Tea: Townshend's Tea House, Tea Zone, Tao of Tea

Food: Pambiche, Pine State Biscuits, Tin Shed, Screen Door, ... there are too many to list, really. Epic food all over.

Dessert: Sahagun Chocolates, Cacao, Rimsky-Korsakoffee, Pambiche again

Employment: GOOD LUCK... Portland is already oversaturated with talent.

[dead] 17 years ago

For those without Facebook:

10. Ask them what languages they know. You can tell the programmer by the way he names numerous langauges but forgets to include 'English'.

9. Whenever they write the phrase "go to" in normal email, they make it one word. (Example: New hires should goto the Black Swan room for orientation.) And then they consider restructuring the flow of the whole email so they don't have to use goto.

8. When they introduce their son as JSON and their daughter as Ruby.

7. When they end a random sentence with a semi-colon;

6. If they laugh at the classic "there are 10 types of people who understand binary; those who do, and those who don't" shirt, they are... :-)

5. If they follow conditional logic in the real life, too. For example, check out this "joke":

A woman asks her husband, a programmer, to go shopping: - Dear, please, go to the nearby grocery store to buy some bread. Also, if they have eggs, buy 6. - O.K., hun. Twenty minutes later the husband comes back bringing 6 loaves of bread. His wife is flabbergasted: - Dear, why on earth did you buy 6 loaves of bread? - They had eggs.

4. They complain that Google doesn't have regular expressions support.

3. They use slashed zero to distinguish the digit 0 from the letter O.

2. They use nested parentheses in normal writing (at least I do (sometimes)).

1. You ask them "do you want A or B" and they answer "yes".

and the number 0 way to tell if a person is a programmer is:

0. They number lists starting with 0.

If something feels like a massive waste of time, then it probably is. Find a way out.

California had a "general competency exam", that supposedly proved you were sufficiently educated. You could take the exam in your Junior year and exit school early. I really wish I had done this. Some of my friends passed the exam (supposedly it was easy; "Which of these shapes is a triangle?" etc.) and started college and/or working earlier. They ended up quite successful.

You need 6 flavors of sound (1 for each color) and a mechanism for distinguishing the colors on 9 squares on each face, I think? This is assuming we're only listening to 1 face at a time.

Perhaps I'm thinking about this too linearly. You could touch one square to hear its color, and its immediate neighbors would sound as well, with stereo/spatial effects to indicate their relative position.