http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~astelsd/ (Einblicke ins Internet, ~06/1995)

Dave Astels' Home Page

This page under heavy construction.

Hi! Welcome to my homepage... This page is very new and as such is under heavy construction. I've only been using the web for a few weeks... so bear with me. This is actually quite ironic since I was until recently a computer science grad student, and am currently a software developer, that and being a hacker for over 10 years. Just never had the equipment/hookup that would let me surf.

OK, enough rambling... On this page I plan to provide information on my various interests, some with more information on other pages. Also, I'll provide links to related material.

Homebrewing

I am an avid homebrewer, and I just plain like BEER. Note that I said BEER.. not the "almost, but not completely unlike beer" stuff that the big breweries sell to folks who don't know any better.

Not only do I enjoy my own concoctions, but also the output of microbreweries and brewpubs. In the Calgary area this means (most notably) Big Rock and Brewsters.

As I find homepages of other homebrewers I'll add them to my list of homebrewers. Also, I'll make some of my best recipes available.

Natural Language Processing

My work in natural language processing has centered around a parsing formalism called Register Vector.

My Honor's thesis at Acadia University was centered around a C++ implimentation of Glenn Blank's Register Vector Grammar language processor.

My Master's thesis work at the University of Calgary was titled RV-TOOLS: Tools for Developing Register Vector Parsers and involved the design and implimentation of a Smalltalk RV processor and an interactive development environment for building RV parsers. The tools can be downloaded by clicking here.

Robotics

I am currently reviving my interest in robotics and hardware tinkering in general. My goal is to design and build a 6 or 8 legged robot (i.e. an ant or spider), controlled by an onboard Z80 based computer, running a custom version of FORTH, which will be responsible for hardware level control. This will be tethered to a Mac which will provide high level control (by way of a Scheme program).

The current state of the project is documented on a separate page.

Some places to get information relating to Robotics:

Science Fiction

I am an avid hardcore sci-fi fan. I especially enjoy Issac Asimov, Pohl Anderson, and A. C. Clarke.

As well, I enjoy softer stuff as well. Here are some sci-fi related pages that I have found:

North American First Nations

I am developing a serious interest in the culture and history of North America's First Nations.

I am especially interested at the moment in the Plains region. Most of the information I have come across so far focuses on the plains tribes in the present-day US. I would like more information on the peoples of the northern plains, noteably the Plains Cree, Blackfoot and Sarsi. If you have pointers (WWW and otherwise) I would appreciate it. Information regarding the Micmac of Nova Scotia would also be of interest.

Here are some interesting pages I have found relating to the First Nations:

Other Information

My gratitude goes to CUUG for the Internet facilities that they provide their members. Keep up the good work, folks! You can find out more about the Calgary Unix Users' Group by visiting the CUUG Home Page anytime you like!

For those that are interested/curious, here is some biographical information.

My resume is available for your perusal, even though I am happily employed.

DRA