Drmadskills

About me

Official website and blog: http://philipobrien.wordpress.com

My greatest loves are my fiance, Shotokan karate, and computer science. Aside from that, I just read a lot, travel, go camping, and stay generally busy.

Karate

http://dailykarate.wordpress.com

Karate

This user practices
Shotokan karate.

This user is a
1st dan Shotokan karateka.

This user is a participant in WikiProject Martial arts.

My second greatest love in the world (second only to my fiance), is Shotokan karate. I've been in karate since January 2006 and its become my greatest passion.

Although I don't put great emphasis on karate competitions and winning medals, I believe in trying my hardest when I do take part. To date, I've won:

Provincials (in Nova Scotia)

6 Gold in men's brown belt category
2 Silver in men's brown belt category
1 Silver in men's brown belt category

Nationals (in Canada)

1 Silver in men's brown belt category
1 Bronze in men's brown belt category

Computer Science Research

Programming Skills

Java-4

This user is an expert Java programmer.

py-4

This user is an expert Python programmer.

XML-3

This user is an advanced XML coder.

prog-3

This user is an advanced programmer.

-3

This user is an advanced LaTeX user.

cpp-2

This user is an intermediate C++ programmer.

bash-2

This user is an intermediate Bash programmer.

PHP-1

This user is a beginning PHP programmer.

I'm an avid programming competitor and general programming enthusiast. I've attending programming competitions such as the CS Games and the ACM ICPC. I've been teaching python programming at St. Mary's University in Halifax, Canada since January 2008 and hope to be teaching an introductory Java course in fall 2008.

I am a research scientist with GenieKnows in Halifax, Canada. I specialize in the area of information retrieval and semantic web theory, but I have great interest in mobile computing, machine learning, and software engineering. (I even own a beautiful iPhone).

Miscellaneous

I try to give back as much as I can to the world. I donate blood regularly, I teach computer science (as mentioned above) as well as assist in teaching a parent and youth karate class, and I volunteer whenever possible.

I've recently gotten back into painting Warhammer 40,000 models. Finding time to play the game, and people to play it with, will be impossible. My love for painting the models was always greater than my love for playing with them. Perhaps I'll post a gallery of some of my paintings at some point.

Miscellaneous

This user eats sushi.

This user has donated blood 25+ times.

This user comes from Canada.

Userboxes

I've created a Userbox to designate people's rank in karate, specifically, Shotokan karate. If these are popular, I could generalize them to belt colours for any karate style (not specific to Shotokan). Talk to me if you're interested in using these, but don't practice Shotokan specifically.

I'll be working on dan rank userboxes soon, and hope to post them here eventually.

Current Projects

Article	Status	Goal	Why/how?
Shotokan	Start Class	A-Class	Using Aikido as a model would seem to be a logical choice
Gichin Funakoshi	B-class	A-Class	Very prominent and interesting person
Teruyuki Okazaki	Start class	A-Class	great master, of whom there is much material to collect
Web search engines	B-Class	A-Class	Add citations to make it more verifiable
Search engine ranking	Not categorized	B-Class	Personal interest of mine