About

Gongoozler, n. (dial. and slang). Gongoozlers are people who enjoy watching activity on the canals in the United Kingdom. I dream of being a canal boat, a motorised log floating in the morning sun.

Note to readers: this page may be out of date. Updating it compares unfavourably to many a different activity. And hey, it's my website, I can do what I like here!

I'm Sam, and I like arguments. Not aimless ones, and not mere contradictions, but preferably written arguments based upon evidence.

Several friends have said that I should have been a lawyer. Such is the subjective nature of should, they were probably right. I am interested in the law - one who is interested in evidence-based argumentation could hardly not be - but I have tended to be more engrossed by scientific arguments, which I find are usually more profound and more universal than legal ones. Both domains, however, suffer from a large degree of normativity. Reliance upon normativity promotes disregard for explicit arguments, resulting in a lack of clarity, much as in daily human life.

Daily life, then, can be used as a testing ground for tactics designed to skewer normativity. I make a mild hobby of noting, and producing when appropriate, counterexamples to common fallacies. I am compiling my own informal anthology of false antitheses.

Ultimately, I'd rather like to devote myself to creating - and then using - a computational framework for assisting in the analysis of the quality of written arguments (their consistency, their use of deduction rules, the bases on which they might be sound, and so forth). I think this sort of activity could be immensely valuable for many disciplines, not only law and the sciences, but also the humanities, education, the voluntary sector, the public sector, and business.

When I hear or read an assertion, my first thought is usually, Based upon the information I'm already aware of, is that assertion plausible? If it isn't, I immediately think, Then is it true? It is at such points that my store of counterexamples comes into play, as I sort through them for one that is applicable to the problem at hand.

As I said, I like arguments.

Work

Present

Surely one of the best jobs in the world: I help transcribe, annotate and publish all the known letters to and from Charles Darwin. Yes, the Charles Darwin. I also assist in the production of educational material, such as dramatisations and videos, about his correspondence. Not only are the letters' contents historically, philosophically and scientifically fascinating, but the project also relies upon a substantial informatics infrastructure supported by three separate divisions within Cambridge University (the University Library, the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technology, and the Computing Service). This infrastructure is a topic of great interest to me all by itself. It relies on the following software technologies (among others), some of which I use on a daily basis:

  • Adobe Premiere
  • The GIMP
  • GNU-Emacs
  • Image Magick
  • Java
  • JIRA
  • Joomla (PHP/MySQL/HTML/CSS/JavaScript)
  • LaTeX
  • Linux (RedHat & Debian)
  • Lucene
  • MS Office
  • oXygen
  • Perl
  • PuTTY
  • Sakai/CamTools
  • Subversion
  • Windows
  • WinSCP
  • XML

Links

Past

My more interesting paid work has included writing help pages for the historical database of the Sao Paolo telephone network, editing videos for the Science Museum … and feeding chicken satay sticks to Halle Berry ♥♥♥.

Links

Academic associations

University of Cambridge

As well as being a member of staff at the University of Cambridge, where the Darwin Correspondence Project (see above) is headquartered, I'm an affiliated member of the Emmanuel College MCR. When I have time, I attend the seminars and classes that interest me, which tend to be ones held by:

I'm also a big fan of the various museums in the University (at least, those I've had a chance to visit!).

Links

UCL

I'm an alumnus of University College London, where I studied under the Physical Sciences MSci program for a time before my interests caused me to switch to the History and Philosophy of Science BSc program. My main interest as an undergraduate was the history and philosophy of the infinitesimal calculus. In addition to the core courses, I took as much logic as I could, and some entry-level French, mechanical engineering and computer science classes.

I was also elected President (and before that, Treasurer) of the UCL Union Human Powered Flight Club, which built its own working human-powered hovercraft, and a human-powered-flight simulator. Some time after I left, the club was disaffiliated from the Union (not on my watch!), which is a great pity, but it remains active.

Links

Royal Institution

I am an Associate Member of the Royal Institution. (Wondered what the AMRI after my name stood for? Now you know.) The membership sadly isn't as useful to me now as it was when I was living in London and able to attend RI events regularly, but I travel to see as many RI lectures as I can. I think everybody likes the RI, don't they? The Christmas Lectures and so on. It's a place that's accessible to all, informative and helpful. It's the institutional equivalent of David Attenborough's TV programmes.

Links

London History of Science Society

I'm the Secretary of the London History of Science Society, a fairly informal group of friendly and learned folks, um, interested in the history of science and based in London... If you are such a one, then join us!

As well as going to HOS-related events in and around London, the LHOSS produces the wonderful magazine Phaeton, which gives Nature a run for its money.

Links

Hobbies

Interpreader

I currently own and maintain the Interpreader - a project memorably described by Prof Steve Miller of University College London as "A very bad idea." He was right, of course. The Interpreader is vapourware at the moment, but the aim is that it will:

  • Provide an interface for users to register with that instance;
  • Provide an interface for users to upload documents to annotate (documents will be restricted to certain file formats, e.g. jpeg, ascii, html);
  • Provide an interface wherein users can select documents hosted on existing web pages (from the wider web) to annotate;
  • Store these annotations along with the user's profile so that they continue to be available to that user (and other users if desired);
  • When a user is annotating a document previously annotated by another, provide suggested annotations based on previous annotations for the page;
  • Assist users in providing specifically syntactic annotations (e.g. parts of speech; case; gender; etc.);
  • Learn from the syntactic annotations of users and;
  • Provide an interface to with tools and suggestions to assist users in translating their annotations, or their viewed documents directly, into formal languages;
  • Provide an interface wherein logical (semantic) analysis of these translations may be carried out according to a variety of logics.

Interpreader is intended to be trialled on philosophers of science, but is likely to be of use to scholars/professionals in any discipline that requires careful analysis of texts, including linguistics, law, theology. It may also be useful to scientists/engineers carrying out literature reviews.

Links

  • Try it out (to come)

Music

I play guitar, drums, bass, keys, vocal chords ... whatever it takes to get the song down. These days I don't really have the spare time to play live (booking shows, carting equipment around, hiring vans: what a hassle!), but I still compose and record a bit at home.

I cut my teeth in a band called Abjure, best known for a split release with Kneejerk (one of Frank Turner's former bands) on Skipworth Records called don't clap it startles me .

Links

Family history

With the help of the excellent family tree prepared by my cousins Ruth Kuper and Elaine Katz in Johannesburg, I want to begin putting together a family history database online. Mannie de Saxe has already been very helpful too.

Links

Lindy hopping

Not that I spend enough time doing it to be any good, but I enjoy lindy hopping with the Cambridge Lindy Hoppers whenever I can.

Links

Cycling

I'm in love with a Dahon Piccolo D3. Miniature chromoly diamond frame, 16-inch wheels and better acceleration than half the bikes at the traffic lights. Plus I can take it home on the bus if I get a puncture. Until I can afford something as compact, robust and modular as a Brompton, this is the next best thing.

Links

Software development

interpreader-core

The software that runs Interpreader. Co-developers are very welcome to contribute.

Links

  • View SourceForge page (to come)