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Eric Postpischil's Personal Page
The authorized source for information about Eric.

Contents

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To contact me, use one of the methods on my calling card. To not contact me, follow the missing link. This page is just about me, but there is lots of other stuff on my site.

Favorites

Here are my favorite jokes, my favorite disaster, and my favorite color.

Hobbies

Science Fiction

I read lots of science fiction. My favorite authors include Robert Forward and Charles Sheffield, both of whom are physicists who write hard science fiction. For me, the best SF speculates about exciting things that just might be possible in our universe. But I also read some soft science fiction and occasional light fantasy.

Chocolate

I like good chocolate. I bake chocolate, I eat chocolate, and I review chocolate stores. I did not set out to develop a hobby of reviewing chocolate stores. I just listed a few stores I liked on a web page, and the list grew, and the page got popular, and I added stores I found in my travels and stores that people emailed me to recommend. In 2003, I worked in Germany, and I was able to visit and add stores in Brussels, Paris, and other European cities. Sometimes chocolatiers send me email asking to be listed or reviewed. Now my hobby is sometimes work!

With lots of practice, I've learned to bake some scrumptious chocolate desserts. (As far as I am concerned, that is redundant, because, if it does not have chocolate, it is not dessert.) My most asked-for recipes are the raspberry chocolate-chip macadamia brownies and the chocolate cheesecake.

Those recipes originate in Death by Chocolate by Marcel Desaulniers, which I highly recommend. I got hooked by the companion 1997 calendar, which starts with "Simply the Best Chocolate Brownie." Begin with that and work your way through the other recipes. The six-layer rich chocolate cake with mocha mousse and macadamia-chocolate ganache was the most ambitious recipe I had ever tried, but Desaulniers' instructions worked out well.

Games

My favorite games these days are mostly board games. Some of the board games I like are abstract strategy games such as Abalone and Terrace. Another excellent board game is Tigris & Euphrates. In Tigris & Euphrates, kingdoms are both built up and separated in intriguing ways. Its rules offer complex actions that would be a mess in many games, but they weave together nicely in Tigris & Euphrates.

I liked computer games when they were fun, but now few publishers are making good adventure, puzzle, or strategy computer games. There are still some good video games in those genres. Today's computer games devote billions of bytes to graphics but not enough design to game structure or playability. Some (now old) computer games I liked include Death Gate (a well-paced adventure), Heaven and Earth (very original neat puzzles), Incredible Machine (amusing puzzles with machine parts), and X-Wing (an excellent space-fighting game).

Once upon a time, it was amusing that a machine could tell the day of the week of your birthdate. Later came the excitement of Star Trek played with character-cell graphics. The first adventure game, Adventure (Colossal Cavern), could understand two-word commands! Here is a good history of computer and video games.

Here are the rules for a wild and challenging card game called Grand Uno that coworkers and I developed during lunch times, using Uno cards.

Mathematics

Mathematics is my life-long interest; it has been my constant primary interest in spite of professional diversions such as software engineering. I have a master's degree in mathematics from Rivier College, and my first paper, "There Are No New Homometric Golomb Ruler Pairs With 12 Marks or Less," co-authored with Peter Gilbert, was published in the Journal of Experimental Mathematics 3 (1994), Number 2: 147-152. In 1980, I was the top scorer in the Prince George's County math league.

I like these quotes about mathematics and these goofy math jokes.

Here is an explanation of how pi appears in the answer of a simple probability question about flipping coins. You can have three dice such that, when rolled, the first probably has a higher number than the second, the second probably has a higher number than the third, and the third probably has a higher number than the first. Did you know that cutting a supporting rope can make weights go upward? And here is a page about the Monty Hall three-door or three-card problem.

Mensa

I am active in Mensa, a social organization for intelligent people. A lot of people are qualified for Mensa, about one in fifty, and members are often able to find people in Mensa with common experiences or interests that are less often shared with the general population. Currently, I host a monthly games night in the San Francisco chapter. I will probably host a few more events in times to come. In the past, I served as a local chapter officer, edited the calendar for several years, and hosted events in the Boston and New Hampshire chapters. From 1992 to 1994, I helped throw a five-day party and convention for 1500 people by working as the Games Chair for the 1994 Annual Gathering.

Miscellaneous

I usually do not travel much but worked in Germany for nine months and took the opportunity to see some of Europe. I had limited access to English entertainment but had some Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs and became a big fan of the show. I do a lot of baking with chocolate.

I went skydiving once and wrote about it immediately afterward. I collected these interesting quotations and these quotes related to atheism. A gruesome lesson is behind the aphorism I used as a motto for a long time, "Always mount a scratch monkey." My guide to investing tries to explain why you should not look for good deals in the stock market. I used to make pin-on buttons with interesting sayings.

The quiz What Poetry Form Are You? tells me:

I am heroic couplets; most precise
And fond of order. Planned and structured. Nice.
I know, of course, just what I want; I know,
As well, what I will do to make it so.
This doesn't mean that I attempt to shun
Excitement, entertainment, pleasure, fun;
But they must keep their place, like all the rest;
They might be good, but ordered life is best.

Politics

Some years ago, I was active in the Libertarian Party in New Hampshire and twice sought office in the state legislature. In 1993, I earned 21% of the vote in a three-way race for special election to the General Court, and in 1994 I earned 16%.

I have not been active in politics lately. When I am active, it is often individual pursuits such as researching government activities, commenting during rule-making and legislative processes, and occasionally writing. My article, "Bill of Rights Status Report," was published in The Whole Earth Review 70 (Spring 1991): 28-32 as "Attacks on the Bill of Rights." In 1994, I tried to obtain Information Practices Act reports from the New Hampshire Department of Safety, which were 20 years overdue, but they refused to provide them. I sued them to force compliance, and they eventually settled by providing the required information.

Learning more about law and government can be entertaining, and you do not need to go to law school to participate. You can be an active citizen by following your interests wherever they lead and learning as you go. There are all sorts of ways to learn and get involved.

Profession

I have been programming since 1975, when I was 13 and wrote a program to print prime numbers. My career since then is described in my résumé. Here are some samples of my work.

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© Copyright 1996 by Eric Postpischil.