I'm a nerd from Wisconsin, currently working for Epic Systems Corporation as a developer for their electronic medical records software.

I consider decisionmaking to be of supreme importance and interest. I am interested in understanding and optimizing the processes by which entities (humans, computers, and the coupling of the two) decide. It follows that I am interested in things like psychology, artificial intelligence, computer programming, and role-playing games, but the scope of that previous sentence is broader than those. In fact, to say that I am interested in decisionmaking is not so much a statement of what specific things I am interested in, but a statement of what lens I see almost every other interest of mine through.

I love creativity. I don't believe in the distinction that American commercial society has foisted on us between "producer" and "consumer". Everyone has the potential to be an artist. Every motion made in the execution of every strategy has the potential to reflect the artist's goals or outlook. With this mindset, everything in our lives that has some freedom to vary can be an outlet for artistic expression.

I don't have a "dominant hemisphere". I don't believe in the false distinction between "logical people" and "creative people". (Incidentally, the Western concept of the romantic, volatile "artistic type" represents a constellation of character traits that some other cultures do not recognize as especially likely to co-occur). I think instead that a person's self-image (partially guided by culture) can shape the aspects of their potential that are realized, as they conceive of themselves as "not a math person", etc.

As interested in computers as I am, I am not interested in the development of technology that can't in some way answer to the immense human need and suffering in the world. I get great satisfaction out of helping others- especially teaching.

Here are media that I think are awesome:

Websites:

• The Wikipedia
• The Inter-Press Service: a news service not centered on any one location
• GMail

Books:

• Making Sense: Exploring Semantics and Critical Thinking, Robert Potter
• Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas Hofstadter
• Being Peace, Thich Nhat Hanh
• Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu

Music:

• Hail to the Thief, Radiohead
• Richard D. James Album, Aphex Twin
• All That You Can't Leave Behind, U2
• Peter Gabriel, in general
• James Horner, in general

Television:

• Firefly
• Cowboy Bebop
• Escaflowne
• Futurama
• Mr. Show
• Um... Star Trek:TNG. I know, I know, I'm a big nerd.

Movies:

• Serenity
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Even-numbered Star Trek movies, and Insurrection
• The Station Agent
• I Heart Huckabees