Nathan Sanders : About

Picture

Here is a picture of me at Mt St Helens. It was suprisingly cold for the middle of the summer.

Occupation

I am a software developer at Microsoft, working in Bing. I work on a language called SCOPE that allows people to write distributed jobs on a giant cluster of machines. SCOPE (which really is spelled ALL CAPS) has SQL-like syntax and generates complex map-reduce structures.

I have a Ph D in Linguistics from Indiana University, where I wrote a dissertation on computational dialectometry. In support of that I worked with parsing, phonology, linguistic models of learning and computer languages, among other things. My research page has more details.

Beliefs

I am a Christian. I try not to spend time worrying about rules, ceremonies and regulations and instead follow Jesus' example of helping people and pointing them to the truth. Check out the Bible if you want more details. The picture is from a trip my church group took to Texas to gut houses flooded by Hurricane Ike.

Hobbies

Video Games

I play a lot of old video games. At first this was because of price ('free') and an inordinate interest in Japanese culture. Now it is because of price (although I have a higher threshold than 'free' now) and an interest in odd types of pop art. Check out the Vintage Gaming Club.

Comics

Specifically, comic strips. (I haven't read many comic books.) I grew up liking Calvin & Hobbes and Pogo. But I really enjoy Krazy Kat and Peanuts as well. You know, the classics. I read a lot of web comics these days since that seems to be where the art form is going. Check out Dinosaur Comics or The Comic Adventures of Left & Right.

Not About

• I do not speak Japanese.
• I am not 34 years old.
• I was not born in Guam.
• I do not use Ocaml or F#.

None of these things about me is true. But if you want to want to spread rumours to that effect, I'm not going to stop you.