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# Introduction: Jef Allbright

Well, last time I formally studied math was what they called Analysis and pre-Calculus in High School in the late 1970s, so I may need to run hard to catch up with the group here. I've been a science and tech geek all my life, and first heard of category theory in conversation with a stranger at the first Singularity Summit in 2006. I was fascinated to learn of what appeared to be a tool for better conceptualizing.

I was a technical support and field service manager in scientific instruments for over twenty five years--various spectroscopy and microscopy for materials analysis--and then spent ten years running my own business, mining data of value to business owners using leading-edge software for natural language processing and web-automation. About two years ago I decided I'd prefer a steadier income and got a job with the county as an Information Technology Analyst responsible for the various county-wide radio systems.

I'm very comfortable with Python (sometimes with C extensions), and my code is strongly functional rather than procedural in style. I've dabbled in Haskell and expect some crossover between that and learning category theory, but my main motivation for learning category theory is the hope that it will provide me with a more concise, expressive, extensible tool for thinking about just about everything.

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Hi! You posted your self-introduction twice for some reason, so I deleted the second copy. New systems always take a while to get used to.

Category theory is very much lurking at the heart of functional programming, but yeah - the great thing about category theory is that it rewires your brain. If you let it. So watch out, but it could be really fun.

Comment Source:Hi! You posted your self-introduction twice for some reason, so I deleted the second copy. New systems always take a while to get used to. Category theory is very much lurking at the heart of functional programming, but yeah - the great thing about category theory is that it rewires your brain. If you let it. <img src = "http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/emoticons/tongue2.gif" alt = ""/> So watch out, but it could be really fun.
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..That's partly what I want: some brain rewiring! (Long ago, linear algebra and abstract algebra did a good job of rewiring my brain.)

Comment Source:..That's partly what I want: some brain rewiring! (Long ago, linear algebra and abstract algebra did a good job of rewiring my brain.)
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Pretty sure I was born with my brain wired a bit differently. Suspect that's not unusual for this forum.

Comment Source:Pretty sure I was born with my brain wired a bit differently. Suspect that's not unusual for this forum.