What I actually do all day

A fairly common question I get is what I do for a living. This is a rather difficult question to answer, because what I actually do is create a specialized set of plugins for applications used by the computer-animation and computer-aided manufacturing industries. Got that? To be specific, I write software for calculating curved surfaces, which surfaces are second-derivative continuous, allow for mid-surface termination of their isoparms, and form a superset of both subdivision surfaces and NURBS surfaces.

Basically, unless you have a fairly decent background in engineering or 3D modeling, it's very difficult to explain what I do. I was digging through some old pictures wondering what might be a good idea to post on my blog, and I ran across a photograph I took of a whiteboard. The whiteboard is on the wall of the company I visited in Seattle a few months ago, and I wrote myself a lot of notes on how something worked. Since I was leaving Seattle in a day or so, I just took a bunch of photos of the whiteboard so that I could hang onto the notes. Clear? Anyway, the stuff I work with looks pretty much like what you see on the whiteboard. If it makes sense to you, perhaps you should contact me so that we can offer you a job.

Someone else has made a more coherent attempt at explaining what I do. Feel free to flip through that if you actually care. Most people don't, really.

My dad's in Chicago right now. Peter, who writes a far more interesting blog, also lives in Chicago, so I got him to call my dad and help him find the tourist traps. Dad's at a conference and hasn't got very much to do, so tourist traps are a welcome distraction.

It's late and I'm supposed to be asleep, but I'm not tired. I will make a half-hearted attempt in a few minutes anyway, so wish me luck.