Close to the Machine

Welcome to Close to the Machine.

I'm a software engineer based in the New York City area, and here I post a few things I've learned over the years.

Here are a few of the topics covered here:

• NLP (Natural Language Processing)
• Python
• Urubu

This is the latest version of Close to the Machine. Some of the topics covered in the old website, but which were not migrated here, include the following:

• Java programming tips
• An intro to some of Google's Guava libraries
• Using the ConceptNet semantic network
• Using HTTrack for web scraping

I borrow the title of this site from Ellen Ullman's Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents. That and her novel, The Bug, are worth a read—whether or not you write code for a living. See the sidebar for a link. (If you're using a small-ish device, the sidebar doesn't appear—you'll have to google the book yourself.)