"Frequently" Asked Questions

Yes. I'm really me. This website used to have an encrypted validation tag, but it was abused by some sad soul to send me spam so I removed it and now you'll just have to take my word for it. Well, that and the publications, talks, interviews, patents, endorsements, &c..

Mostly. I own all work on this site and any site wherein I share "content" (All rights reserved. CC BY-SA 4.0 © 2024) —unless I attribute it to someone else, in which case then they would (conceivably) hold the copyrights.

I do my best to capture the source of other people's ideas or creations but sometimes I can't find a source (or, admittedly, I forget to follow up afterwards and lose the thread to be able to credit it later) and then all I have is the content itself without any trackback for attribution. This does not mean that I imply ownership. If you feel that I have posted something without permission, please let me know and I’ll correct it.

Copyright is at once a simple and a complicated matter. Most of the 📜 legal framework around copyright was set into place before the Internet came onto the scene and is biased towards large corporations rather than creative individuals. No matter what my opinion on the matter is, the current copyright regime is the law and affects almost all usage of creative materials. Wikipedia’s copyright page has a lot of good information. Basically, none of the content here can be reprinted without letting folks know where you got it; I'd appreciate it if you asked first though.

(As an aside, please donate to Wikimedia and support efforts to keep Wikipedia complete, if you can.) 

No. I could not have built this site without lots of help. I'd like to first give credit 😘 to Strikingly and S. Czajkowski (author of the underwater background loop video I borrowed). My lifestyle today is only possible because we live in a universe that included, but was not limited to (again, in no particular order): Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, Ada Lovelace, Emmy Noether, my mom and dad, my kids, my soulmate, my friends and advocates, and all of you exactly as you are. ✨

No. I also don't keep any information about you. That’s a policy, I guess. Voilà.

For what it's worth, if you have not been careful about your browsing habits and setup, I 🕵 can probably see a lot of "anonymized" information about you. It's 😱 pretty scary when you think about it. You can use Tor if you want to keep your connection information anonymous and protect your privacy. You can also opt out of many of these services. Please also note that I use many intermediary services to make this page possible, and accept no responsibility for any liability attributable to any of them. As far as I'm aware, all services I knowingly use have a privacy and protection compliant data retention policy. There are also services I could use but do not (such as Google Analytics) because they are bundled with other services I use to build and host this page. There are no affiliate links and I do not make (even fractional) money from anything you click on this website.

I ask for your 📮 email in the contact form on this site. To be clear, I have no interest in spamming you: I will neither sell nor share your data with anyone for any reason without your express and explicit consent, unless required by law. To date, I have never been asked to send (or sent) any communications to anyone who's given me their info except in order to answer their request when appropriate.

All mine. Any views or opinions presented herein are solely mine and do not necessarily represent those of any company I have been, currently am, or will ever be associated with. The postings on this site and any site wherein I share content, including but not limited to Bluesky, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Medium, &c., are my own and don't represent my employer's (or anyone else's) positions, strategies, or opinions.

In short: my opinions are mine alone. I'm not online to represent anyone or anything other than myself as mindfully as I know how. I am grateful for my job in particular, I appreciate gainful employment in general, and 🦄 unicorns; please do not endanger any of them.

Carefully. When I talk about 💰 monetary quantities, please note that they are discussed in original year indices, and do not account for price-index, capital market, or inflation adjustments.

Sometimes. We can't escape the matter of semantic and semiotic instabilities, which are only compounded by the fallibility of our sensory mechanisms in objectively describing reality.

I like to think of how modern people communicate through the framework that Werner Herzog has described as the "ecstatic truth” — the kind of truth that is the enemy of the merely factual and that make some essence of us visible. Also it turns out that objective reality might not even be a thing, so who knows really. 🤷‍♀️

Frankly, in the grand scheme of things (with regards to the vast majority of human knowledge), most of the time 🤠 I have no idea what I'm talking about. As a mathematician, a recovering individually contributing data scientist, and an executive at a publicly-traded company, I tend to simplify things in order to be able to understand them. I may also be bound here and there by non-disclosure, non-disparagement, and other negotiated and non-negotiated agreements.

For instance, I may have agreed at times not to make any disparaging statements 🤐, oral or written (including, without limitation, internet postings) concerning a given company or any of its affiliates or current or former officers, directors, shareholders, employees or agents. I may have further agreed not to take any actions 🫥 or conduct myself in any way that would reasonably be expected to affect adversely the reputation or goodwill of a given company or any of its affiliates or any of its current or former officers, directors, shareholders, employees or agents. These non-disparagement obligations would, obviously, never in any way affect my obligations to testify truthfully in any legal proceeding.

Ergo... grains of salt and all that.

Please keep in mind at all times that I am not a lawyer ⚖, a doctor 💉, a journalist 🗞, or an engineer 🛠; I also don't have a math license. There are more things that I am not an expert in than there are things in which I am an expert. Don’t blame me if you lack common sense.

I make no guarantees as to the accuracy, relevance, or quality of the content herein. I make no guarantees as to anything else herein either. I accept no liability for issues with the content of links (due to reasons including but not limited to deprecation, machine error, human error, human success, or meteor impact), or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. Risks are inherent in the use of the Internet 🛰. Contact your vendors for additional information.

Maybe. Not everything I share publicly happened exactly as I said it did. There are many reasons why this could be true 🫢, not least of which are that my memory is imperfect; sometimes I'm sharing a composite anecdote; sometimes I may be trying to protect the innocent (and the guilty for reasons that may be none of your business); and sometimes I'll say something hyperbolically or in jest and you can't take everything you read or see on the internet at face value. 

As I answered above, there are very few oaths I've taken in my life, and those I take very very seriously; anything else might just be a shitpost. If you want to 💬 quote me, could you please grant me the courtesy to ask me for confirmation first before alleging 🤥 I said something and meant it? Thank you!

No. But I live in and love the greater Boston area and, in case you weren’t aware, there may be NSFW words here and there. They are part of the charm 💩. Expletives also have analgesic effects, so: FUCK, yeah!

I also end sentences with prepositions; it's grammatically fine, and it's just something you'll have to learn to deal with. I do this to entertain me, not you. Remember, and this is important: you came to this site, this site did not go to you.

Yes. Even though I work with 🤖 computers, data, and machinery, I am not one myself. Like all humans, I'm complex and I contain multitudes.

When I talk about the life I'm balancing with (or building around) my career, it helps break down stereotypes. I agree with Katie Mack that it can be an especially good opportunity for women or minorities in STEM to become role models 💁 for young people hoping to follow the same path.

No. I come across a large amount of content every day; this content may contain objectionable material, even stuff I don’t agree with. For instance, sometimes I feel it's important to call attention to the absurd, bizarre, fanciful, fantastic, foolish, nonsensical, preposterous, unreal, and/or wild.

This site and any site wherein I share content, including but not limited to Bluesky, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Medium, &c., are merely a collection of thoughts upon which I choose to impose categorization and archival. Essentially:

• 🔄 shares, reposts, and reskeets are not endorsements; they could be 😒 ironic re-readings with ambivalent undertones intended to 🤔 confuse and 😲 amaze
• ❤️ faves, hearts, and likes are not concurrence; they are my way of saying "thank you for sharing your views in a polite and civil way" unless they aren't
• 📌 pins, stars, and bookmarks are meant as personal reminder to return later for a more in-depth examination; these are often aspirational at best

Who knows? But just so you know, if you choose to comment or tweet at me about stuff I'm not interested in or in an aggressive, sea-lioning manner, then I’ll just mute you. 😏 You won't even know. Or I'll block you. If you have an opinion, good for you — you don’t necessarily need to tell me about it. You do you.

Fun fact: that’s not censorship. I know because I took a test and everything.

I also do not reply to 🗑 cold emails from vendors or service providers. If you're looking for a surefire way of getting on my "mute" list, this would be it.

I've seriously no idea. I use a few block/mute lists to keep things sane. I'm liberal with the use of the mute button because I don't want to engage with anyone who's displayed seemingly unnecessary aggression 🤬 to someone else—so I mute them before they get seemingly unnecessarily aggressive with me.

If I have blocked you, it is very unlikely that it is intended to imply that I believe that you are some combination of ignorant or evil; it might simply mean that I don’t want to hear from you anymore and I want "the algorithm" to know about it. I don’t mean to censure you or to curtail your ability to talk to others. I just, for whatever reason, at some point, thought that I would likely rather not want to risk a bad interaction. You could even take it as a compliment; maybe I’m scared of you and I want to make sure we don’t ever cross paths because I can’t be trusted not to say something stupid that’ll get me in trouble.

It might have been a misunderstanding on my part. Oh well, we'll live 😑

Again, no idea. I reserve the right to evolve my opinions and to change my mind altogether on any topic at any time with no notice. Listening and learning and thinking and growing 🤓 are inherently good things and I refuse to steadfastly hold onto an idea simply because it's the way it's always been idea'ed. Consequently, I delete my bad posts. I delete good ones too, in case they didn't land quite right or if I want to rephrase them. I may have had a social media presence in other platforms but have decided to remove my "content" from those which I do not believe can continue to host it responsibly. And I will unceremoniously delete my entire presence off any platform that, in my view, crosses my personal threshold on the paradox of tolerance. For instance, once PayPalpatine™ took over the birdsite I left it.

I also delete ✂️ conversations that are no longer relevant, especially if I've tried to have a constructive dialog only to realize that I am not actually having a conversation in good faith but rather my counterpart is demonstrating a willful and pervasive form of aggressive cluelessness masquerading as a sincere desire to understand. No, thank you.

If you're curious why it's also a bit difficult to find random public information about me on the web, may I recommend the services of the fine folks of DeleteMe. Importantly, while I may not be proud of every thing I've ever done, I am proud that I am here and that I survived–even if I don't want to talk about some of it anymore.

You can use the contact form. But I'm zen 😌 about it: the formatting is just going to be crap sometimes. Call it personal growth: I'm allowing it to stay crap and not obsessing over it. Really, I'm not secretly obsessing 😳 over each and every broken carriage return.

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You betcha. By loading and continuing to use this webpage and any platform wherein I share content, including but not limited to Bluesky, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Medium, &c., you agree to comply with my terms, as such may be revised from time to time without notice.

You agree to 🔓 release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all non-negotiated agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete, and acceptable use policies that I have entered into with you or your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity and throughout the universe, in any timeline, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges.

You further represent that you have the authority ✍️ to release me from any such agreements on behalf of your past, current, and future employers. You also agree to release me from all arbitration and/or moderation dispute clauses, even those which I may have previously agreed to in non-negotiated contracts.

And since I'm on a roll 🎲, I'd also like to take this opportunity to notify all service providers involved in the creation, distribution, and storage of this site and any platform wherein I share content of my decision to opt out of arbitration with them too. 😏

Not really, unless we've collaborated before. Basically, if it'd feel inappropriate for me to ask you a professional favor, or if it'd be awkward if I did you a favor just because... then it's unlikely.

Nope. There is no advertising on my site. In fact, I pay someone to host this, so you are actually costing me money being here. You should feel bad 😞 for doubting my integrity. 🧐

I also do not pay for marketing. 🙅 Please do not inquire.