The Algorithmist is the personal web
space of Jim Armstrong,
mathematician, algorithmist, and
programmer ... although not
necessarily in that order :)
I enjoy applied mathematics,
and currently work on mostly
Flash and Flex applications.
Although my formal training is
in numerical analysis and
computational geometry, much of
my previous experience is in the
area of business decision
analytics, including operations
research, AI, game programming,
and predictive analysis.
Companies use such algorithms
for computer games, analyzing
geo-coded data, competitive
analysis, increasing revenue,
up-sell and cross-sell
predictions, make-vs.-buy,
general forecasting and a
variety of other business
decisions.
If you saw any episodes of the
television show Numb3rs,
then you have a good idea of
what I do, although I'm not a
geeky college professor ... just
a geeky guy with a notebook
computer :)
The TechNotes
series provides Flash (and
any other ECMA-Script literate
programmer) with a repository of
technical papers on numerous
topics in applied mathematics.
Bio
Mr. Armstrong did his
undergraduate work in Math and
Aerospace Engineering with some
graduate studies in Operations
Research. Much of his
undergraduate time was devoted
to studying numerical analysis
and computational geometry.
After graduating, he moved into
the high-performance computing
industry and spent the majority
of that time writing
assembly-language math libraries
for supercomputers. At the end
of his HPC career, he became
interested in operations
research and business decision
analytics. This interest
eventually led him to become
market development manager for
Finance and OR at Silicon
Graphics. His tour of duty in
the operations research arena
included writing low-level
solvers for multi-objective
decision analysis and planning
under uncertainty. He then moved
onto freelance work where a
career writing plugins in C++
for high-end 3D software
eventually migrated to custom
application development. About
70% of his time is devoted to
application development with the
remainder split among applied
math consulting and background
projects.
His past programming experience
includes assembler, Basic, Fortran 77,
Fortran 90, HTML/JS, C, C++, C#, and AS. He speaks OOP and design patterns just as comfortably as numerical analysis and computational geometry. His favorite saying is that programming languages come and go, but math is eternal. So, if you are looking for someone to add to your programming team to help with a math, business, science, or engineering problem, look no futher.
Have Equations. Will Travel.
Visit Mr.
Armstrong's personal blog.
Publications
White papers
Recursive
Taylor Series
Managing
Supply-Chain Risk
Multi-Objective
Programming
Lagrangian
Relaxation
Post-Graduate Publications
Armstrong, J., Mulvey, J., and
Rothberg, E., TIRM: Total
Integrated Risk Management,
RISK Magazine, special
supplement on controlling risk -
June 1995, pp. 28-30.
Armstrong, J., LARGE:
Lagrangian Relaxation with
Genetic Enhancement: Part I:
Mathematical Preliminaries,
working draft Dec. 1995, Silicon
Graphics Advanced Systems
Division. Updated version available here.
Armstrong, J., Implementing
a 3D, Explicit Finite
Difference Operator on a
Massively Parallel Machine,
MASPAR technical report
TR003.0692, June 1992.
Armstrong, J., Algorithm and
Performance Notes for Block LU
Factorization, proceedings
of 1988 International Conference
on Parallel Processing, Penn
State University Press,
University Park, PA.
Armstrong, J., A
Multi-Algorithm Approach to
Very High Performance
One-Dimensional FFT's,
Journal of Supercomputing,
Volume 2, No. 4, Dec. 1988.
Armstrong, J., Optimization
of Householder
Transformations, Part I:
Linear Least Squares,
proceedings of 1987
International Conference on
Parallel Processing, Penn State
University Press, University
Park, PA.
Undergraduate
Physics and Mathematical
Modeling - placed 1st in
Southwest Regional Mathematical
Sciences Competition, 1981
Advanced Transformation
Techniques for Special
Relativity - placed 2nd in
Southwest Regional Mathematical
Sciences Competition, 1982
PHASER: A CADCAM Program
- placed 1st in Southwest
Regional Mathematical Sciences
Competition, 1983
A Variable Order Taylor
Series Method for Nonlinear,
Six-Degree-of-Freedom,
Stability and Control Problems
- placed 1st (oral presentation
category) in Southwest Region
AIAA Student Paper Competition,
1984.
Awards
2112fx.com (no longer online) -
International Web Page Awards,
Best Personal Site, 2000. Best
Audio/Video, 2000. Best Personal
Site, 2001.
Finalist in Best Use of Video at
South by Southwest Interactive
Festival, 1999. Blog was a
finalist in Developer's Resource
Category, 2004. Finalist in
Video category at 2002 New York
Flash Film Festival. Finalist in
NetFestival 2002, Broadband
category.
Moderator in 3D and UltraMath
forums at Ultrashock.com
Conferences: Invited
speaker at FITC Toronto 2007
(Dynamic Skeletal Animation),
FlashForward 2004 NY (GIS
applications in Flash),
FlashForward 2000 NY (3D Flash)
and Promax/BDA 2001 (Flash for
Visual FX in Video).
Books: Contributing
author to 'Fresh Flash: New
Design Ideas with Flash MX' by
Friends of Ed. Member of beta
review team for 'Essential
Actionscript 3' by Colin Moock.
Clients
Mr. Armstrong provides applied
math and custom programming
services to a variety of
companies. A small sample
includes DVD PowerTools, J.C.
Penney, Origin Designs
(ExpressJet, Neuhaus), Pursuant
Group, ShoutStream Inc.,
Slingshot (Jack Daniels,
ThyssenKrupp), Travelocity,
Ultrashock.com, and Voyager
Learning.
News
AS3 Parametric curve
library
This library is not longer supported and most of the development has been moved to the Orign branch of Degrafa (degrafa.org)
Freehand Drawing Library
The freehand drawing library is now in beta - check my blog for regular updates. There will be a library section on the blog after the V1 release.
Blog
My blog
- The Algorithmist - now has a post category completely devoted to portfolio samples.
Projects
This section is reserved
primarily for ongoing background
projects that may be of interest
in the Flash/Flex community.
Degrafa
I've enjoyed contributing computational geometry capability to the Degrafa project. Check out the Origin
branch of the project for the code I contributed.
Online Demos
These demos, written primarily in Flex, cover a wide range of topics in computational geometry. Check it out
here!
Twitter - What am I doing now?
Contact
Legitimate business inquiries
are welcome. For jokers who
think it's cool to submit trash
or a completely blank form, the
server-side script filters all
these out and never forwards the
form data. Have fun wasting your
time, not mine.
