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Hi there, I’m Dave, a software guy. University of Illinois class of 2003, finished my PhD thesis at Penn State in 2009. Lived in Blacksburg, Virginia from 2009 - 2014, and the Bay Area from 2014 - 2021. I currently live in Durham, North Carolina.

I’m a long-time programmer - I learned to spell from Sierra’s King’s Quest, began writing text adventures in GWBASIC on my school’s computer when I was 11, and wrote a lot of QBASIC in junior high. In high school I wrote some RPG frameworks in Visual Basic (just the framework, I never finished any games). Nowadays I work from home for Atlassian. It often feels like a bit of a cosmic joke that all these trivial childhood obsessions led me to a career and a pretty good life beyond that.

When I have some time outside of work, I learn number theory, futz with cryptopals, and hack on a chess engine. I’m a Dinosaur Jr. superfan. I’m a sometimes runner, a sometimes backpacker, and an all-time father. Life is busy but it’s always kind of wonderful.

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