User:JordanSamuels

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[edit] About me

en This user is a native speaker of English.	This user lives in the USA.
A, B, and C This user prefers the serial comma.	its & it’s This user understands the difference between its and it’s. So should you.
This user does not appreciate tobacco smoke.	This user drinks. Period.
voc-3 This user is an advanced vocalist.	pno-2 This user is an intermediate pianist.
This user is a Go player.	This user enjoys the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.
This user is a mathematician.	gk This user is a geek.
This user enjoys photography.

My name is Jordan Samuels. Born 1970, I lived in West Lafayette, Indiana through high school. I grew up sure that I was going to be an academic, since my parents were both professors at Purdue University. They were in statistics, but I was more interested in pure mathematics.

I attended Washington University in St. Louis, majoring in math and minoring in computer science, and then went on to grad school in math at University of Chicago. However, at that point I lost the will to complete start a Ph.D thesis and I decided to go into software development for a living.

I studied classical piano through college, and then had classical training in voice during grad school and several years afterwards. I was a member of the Chicago Chorale.

I have two children, ages 7 and 15 months, and they are the greatest kids in the world.

I used to play Go quite a bit, then I quit for a while, and now I'm back. For a while I was fiercely studying Joseki but it's hard to keep up the momentum.

[edit] Computer stuff

c#-2 This user is an intermediate C# programmer.	Java-2 This user is an intermediate Java programmer.
C++-4 This user is an expert C++ programmer.	Perl-1 This user is a beginning Perl programmer.
This user contributes using Microsoft Windows XP.	vb-0 This person does not understand Visual Basic (or understands it with considerable difficulties, or does not want to program in it).
This user contributes using Mozilla Firefox.
This user hacks happily with Emacs.	This user has a dual monitor configuration.

I tried to learn the Dvorak, and I actually got up to around 40 wpm. But since I do a lot of pair programming, I got tired of reconfiguring keyboards all the time and I gave it up. Also, I type around 100 wpm in qwerty, and it was going to take a while to get up that fast in Dvorak.

I work in the finance industry as a software developer. My company, DRW Trading, trades options on interest rate instruments and commodities.

I was a C++ guy for a long time. Now I prefer C# or Java, because I think the complexity of the C++ language prevents developers from being agile.

[edit] Wikipedia

This editor is a WikiGnome.	This user believes that a user's edit count does not necessarily reflect on the value of their contributions to Wikipedia.
This user reserves the right to completely screw up his or her edits.	del This editor is a deletionist.
This user tries to do the right thing. If they make a mistake, please let him or her know.	This user assumes good faith.
This user is a member of WikiProject Middle-earth.

Although I hang out on Wikipedia a lot for a guy with two kids and a full-time job, I think I'm a beginner- or maybe an intermediate-level user. I spend time browsing and correcting minor mistakes like spelling and grammer, and I try to add links and tweak pages to make them more useful.

Believing that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, I have stolen most of the wikitext for this page from others, including User:Crazycomputers, who seems to be an expert at this sort of thing.