Paul Hsieh

This is a self-doodle from 1992. A larger ink version of it exists somewhere back at the University of Waterloo. I was born in 1969 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (so technically that makes me a sud'ner), but spent most of my youth growing up in Toronto, Ontario. I've spent most of my life thinking and doing art, math, chess and computer programming. Although I am not a prolific (or even very good) writer, articles that I've posted on the USENET have appeared in a couple magazines. One was an article was in praise of WATCOM C/C++ and another was an article with the most accurate prediction (before the match occurred obviously) of the first Deep Blue-Garry Kasparov match. I'm hoping I still get to cash in my remaining 14:55 minutes of fame some time in the future. :) I've taken up biking, but that's not to say I've become a serious bicyclist. My level of success is roughly equivalent to this. I am a big fan of the TV show "Babylon 5" (see more doodles below.) I was once a very avid Othello player. My life story includes a trip to europe. If you are at all interested in my religious beliefs follow this link. I am the quiet mathematical type so be nice to me. :o) In the past few years I've been reexercising my art skills.

My philosophy as a web author

Given the wonderful opportunity I have to address, basically the whole world I've decided to do a little more than have page of fluff with a list of my favorite music, or something similarly irrelevant. I am an opinionated person with lots of interesting knowledge in the areas of computer programming, graphics, and mathematics.

While I've entertained the idea of writing books or other similar nonsense, I think I'll stick to the web (and maybe magazine articles if anyone cares about what I have to say.) And I think I will make the most of my opportunity. As such I have tried to author my little space here to be very content rich and be very interesting to people with my kinds of inclinations.

I have so far won the recognition of Yahoo, Geocities, and the WebMaster's Ring. But unforunately, few of the other awards you see out there. I think it is very unfortunate, that web pages are being recognized almost purely on visual appeal and how much they abuse the latest HTML/Java/CGI technology and are given these awards irrespective of content.

In trying to make my site more appealing, I have in fact been glitzing it up a bit, playing with my layout, throwing an area map, or javascript around here and there. But I want to focus primarily on my content. I think if you explore it a bit, you will find some things here that you wont find anywhere else. I am also quite proud of my collection of links. No they are no links to AltaVista, CNN or other ridiculously over linked web pages. These links are serious. I've looked at all of them, and I have concluded that they are high quality and very worth while.

I also believe that URL space is public and global, in the same sense as you use a global in computer programming. So don't be surprised if I link directly to an external URL, applet or jpeg from my pages. If you are a web author with certain stipulations about such linking, be sure you make this clear on your host page. I don't think URL's can be copyrighted or trademarked (for the same reason Intel could not trademark "386".)

I am also always open to feedback, you can find a link to my email form on all of my pages if you want to send me a quick message. If you don't think this page is among the top 1% of the web pages for content please drop me a note telling me why you think so.

Now onto more frivalous things about me...

Who am I?

What do I want?

My Heros

• Krystof Kieslowski (June 27, 1941 - May 13, 1996)
  • - Truly awesome Polish director. Brings a reality and depth to movies, unseen in other movies. His style and choice of cinematography are also unique.

    I was first introduced to him in a Film class with the film "A short file about killing" which was heavy on style/realism and characters but weak on plot. It is about this time that my appreciation of films for more than just their plots grew. As an art, film is more than just clever story telling; but in the subsequent movies, "The Double Life of Veronnique", and "The Three Colors Trilogy" he shows the just right balance of story and pure cinematographic art.

• David Cronenberg (March 15, 1943 - )
  • - Director of incredible calibre. The only director in horror/sci fi films with serious credibility. He brings originality, if sometimes questionable taste to his movies.

• Joe Michael Straczynski
  • - Writer of the incredible TV show Babylon 5. Pulls off a soap opera in space, with some of the most brilliant writing, I've seen/read.

• Carl Sagan
  • - Ambassador to earth. A brilliant astronomer. Without him, space would be nothing to be but fantasy and boring news stories. He made the difference that made astronomy matter to me.

• Ramananujan
  • - A mathematician ahead of his time. Helped enrich the branch of mathematics that interested me the most (combinatorics.)

• Nigel Short
  • - Extremely strong modern chess player. Typically among the top ten players in the world, and one time challenger for the world championship. I admire him mostly because of his brash, almost barbaric style of play. He will always be trying to mate you and invariably come up with the right combinations to make the best possible run at your king. (You have to be a chess player to understand.)

• Eric Corely (aka Emmanuel Goldstein)
  • - A very out spoken and prolific writer and speaker who probably makes the best use of his right to free speech of anyone on earth. He is the host of a radio show and editor of a magazine about hacking. There are ideologists and there are ideologists, and I am happy that there are people like him in this world who understand what it is to be close to the truth about things.

Please note that I have no particular predisposition towards philosophy or anime (though I thought "AKIRA" was pretty cool.) I also know nothing about geological or hydrological matters. You're thinking of another Paul Hsieh.

• University of Waterloo (I got my bachelors there)
• University of Toronto (I got my masters there)

Who do I trust, and who do I serve?

First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house.

The Physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate.".
The Biologist's conclusion: "They have reproduced".
The Mathematician: "If now exactly 1 person enters the house then it will be empty again."