Maurice Termeer

Hi! My name is Maurice Termeer and I am a 29 year young computing science engineer living in Eindhoven, the Netherland. My primary interests are computer graphics and visualization. In early 2009 the Technical University of Vienna granted me a doctorate degree for my work in the area of medical visualization. Head over to my resume page if you are interested in reading a copy of my thesis and for more detais of my technical skills. Since 2011 I work at the Interventional X-Ray department of Philips Healthcare developing software to assist imaging-guided interventions. After work I enjoy an ever growing multitude of hobbies. Besides the typical geek characteristics I also take interest in topics not related to the digital world, as I like variation and trying out new things. Some of my more constant hobbies are outlined below. Although you can find me on Facebook, I am not much of a social networking fan so you may be better off contacting me by old-fashioned email at (javascript required).

The Web

HTML5 and todays browsers' speedy javascript implementations have finally turned the browser into a decent graphical playground. I like to play around with the canvas element – see that spinning cube on the left? – and WebGL. Besides creating animated graphics, I also enjoy fiddling with CSS and the millions of javascript libraries and web tools out there. This simple site for example was made using HTML5 Boilerplate, LESS CSS, Haml, CoffeeScript, jQuery, FitText.js, and Middleman, just to name a few.

Go

Playing a game of go is one way for me to escape everyday business. While the rules of go are quite simple, the gameplay is far more complex than chess or draughts. What fascinates me about this game is that human players who can beat even the strongest computer program are (still) fairly common – although there have been major improvements in computer go the last couple of years. Every monday evening I play at my local go club, where I currently rank around 7 kyu. If you are lucky you may catch me on KGS, but I generally prefer to play on a physical board.

Electronics

Modern computers have become quite disconnected from the cute little, understandable chips they used to be. While I enjoy the massive computer power of today's systems, I also enjoy playing with microcontrollers. Besides those nostalgic low clock speeds and assembly code, designing and building custom hardware is pretty cool. Laying out components on a circuitboard and soldering them together is a very different experience than writing code. While I played a bit with PICs and LEDs during my studies, I became more serious when I bought my Arduino in 2009. Since then I've played with lots of different Atmel chips, mostly playing with LEDs in different forms. I draw a lot of inspiration from the Arduino community, the incredible LadyAda, and many random YouTube videos.

Plants

Growing plants started to fascinate me briefly after I moved to Austria late 2005. For the past couple of years I combine my love for flora with my preference for spicy food by growing my own chillis. I started out with a cardboard box with fluorescent lights, moved up to a one-square-meter growbox with high-pressure sodium light and automatic watering system, but switched to pots in my window sill after I my moved to my west-facing-window-rich, sunny apartment in Eindhoven. Besides chillis I have grown several other types of plants, but the Nightshade family remains my favorite. My favorite chilli is the Red Habanero, for its nice balance between rich flavor and spiciness. I have also grown other varieties, including the infamous Naga Morich and the 2011 record holder the Trinidad Scorpian Butch T. In 2012 I will likely be growing the current record holder the Trinidad Scorpion Moruga along with the Chocolate Habanero.

Mountainbiking

Moutainbiking is my preferred way of staying in shape. I like cycling in general – I cycle to work no matter what kind of weather – but the combined elements of the beauty of the forest, the roughness of the path, the excitement from the speed, and the touch of technology in the bike make mountainbiking the perfect sport for me. Moving from Austria to the Netherlands was however quite a shock in terms of available trails nearby – the term “all terrain bikeing” is more appropriate here.

Snowboarding

I’ve been enjoying annual holidays in the snow since I was about twelve. After skiing for several years and some snowblading after that, I finally settled for snowboarding about somewhere around 2006. Like most snowboarders, I prefer the soft, fresh snow beside the slopes. I’m not much into crazy tricks or jumps, but the snow, sun, and speed give me a perfect relaxing vacation. My favorite locations are scattered about the French Alps.

Demoscene

As I am interested in computer graphics it’s only natural I am a member of the demoscene, which can best be described as a digital art community. As a programmer I fancied the old-school habits of pushing hardware to its limits and using obscure programming techniques, but due to advances in technology, the demoscene nowadays focusses more on the creative and artistic aspects. There still is a strong Amiga, C64 and Atari scene, but I did not grow up with those machines. The focus on art makes things easier to appreciate for outsiders, but as I never excelled at graphical design I tend to be a more passive member nowadays. You can however still find me at the annual Outline demoparty in the Netherlands.

Reading

Every once in a while I enjoy reading a book, although it can take me quite a while to finish one. That's probably because I like reading technical books, which are not much use if you rush through them. Even though I’m Dutch, I almost exclusively read English books because I dislike reading translated books and most authors I like happen to write in English. Most of the fiction I read is written by Arthur C. Clarke, my favorite author. I also enjoy reading the short stories on tor.com and am a big fan of Kate Baker's podcast from Clarkesworld Magazine. Furthermore I like to read books on self-improvement or social sciences. Many of the books posted on Boing Boing meet my demands as well.