Work In Progress

I am currently working on launching the following online periodicals:

  • The Mysterious Engine, a semi-weekly review of published source code in a Literate Programming format.
  • The Archivist, a weekly summary of interesting papers on arXiv.org and CiteSeerX.
  • RFC Commentary, a slowly-growing history of the Internet, via a close reading of published RFCs.
  • TOC Puzzles, a semi-weekly post of puzzles using Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints. Like chess puzzles, but tackling product mix, inventory control, line balancing, and so forth.

I am also working on pilot episodes for the following Web dramas:

  • NOC Knock, differential network diagnostics (ie, House with systems administrators).
  • IRS: Forensic Force, a CSI-style show focusing on forensic accountants.

When I have time, I’ll start writing the following books:

  • A Primer for Interstellar Navigation, a sort of how-to book on travelling through the depths of space, dealing with planetary debris and the like, side-effects of faster-than-light movement, and so forth.
  • Ptolemaic Astroharmonics, an analysis of Ptolemy’s musical theory and its connections to his masterwork on astronomy. This was initially scoped as my senior thesis, but my insufficient grasp of ancient Greek killed that idea.

And the following web applications:

  • Virtual Croquet, a simulation of tournament croquet. Might make a Facebook app out of this as well, to provide entertainment for my fellow St. John’s College alumni.
  • The Ptolemy Simulator, allowing a user to configure cycles, epicycles, revolution speeds, equant offsets, etc. Useful for understanding the motions of the heavenly bodies within Ptolemy’s astronomical system.