About Me

I am a geek who became a manager when I stopped being able to do useful work.  I like to pretend that I am not technically clueless.

In my "day job" I manage FIS GT.M which is an industrial strength, enterprise scale, "NoSQL" transaction processing database engine and application development platform.  It is the database of record for some of the world's very largest real time core banking systems in daily production use.  GT.M is also increasingly used in other applications, such as health care, where it is a popular platform for the VistA software.  I co-founded WorldVistA in 2002 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit chariable organization and volunteered until 2009 in various capacities including as a member of the Board of Directors.

I am interested in all things technical, but mostly technology as it relates to computers and software, and especially free & open source software (FOSS), databases, operating systems (I first used UNIX in 1981; GNU/Linux has been my computing platform since 1999), security and algorithms.  I am passionate about highly robust systems which must continue to be available in the face of failure - even their own flaws - and about efficiency, which in practice often translates into performance and benchmarking.

I spent many years of my early career in the electronics test and measurement industry, including a stint as the software lead for an instrument used to test the radio altimeters of two widely used commercial jets, and another stint as the engineering manager of a company whose software included the first Fast Fourier Transform on a PC.

Outside of my technical interests, I am an adult leader in boy scouts.  After many years as an Assistant Scoutmaster, I now help scouts with merit badges and rank advancement, and mentor them as they complete requirements for the rank of Eagle.  From time to time, my busman's holiday is leading Computer Merit Badge at our local council's Science Camp.  We install GNU/Linux on donated computers to use in class, and scouts without their own PCs get to take them home at the end of the week.  I have published the requirements for completing the Computer Merit Badge with FOSS; please contact me if you want lesson plans or to discuss teaching the Computer Merit Badge.

My other interests are food - especially locally grown without the use of artificial chemicals, spicy food (I love bhut jolokia), beer (especially a good gueuze or tripel), coffee and chocolate; freedom - as in free speech and free society; and travel.

I can be reached at bhaskar at bhaskars dot com.