When I first used this site it was wonderful. Professional programmers helping each other while learning. Now I cannot ask a question without "showing what I have done" because "people aren't here to do free work". I used to do "free work" and I enjoyed it - see my old answers below - but these days all people seem to care about is whether you are cheating at homework. So I no longer participate here.

I work on projects that mix computing and physics - I have a pile of experience as a software engineer, but my education, way back in the day, was as an astronomer. It was research in astronomy that first took me to Chile, where I now live. So I telecommute from Santiago, working with companies in the USA and UK. Currently I'm part of a small team developing software related to geophysics - I guess you could call it a consultancy, but really we're just people that understand what you need and then - importantly! - make it.

Some of my favourite answers:

• Exploring constraint programming
• Converting recursion to iteration with Python generators
• Tiling pipes
• Correlated random numbers
• Matching integer ranges with regexps

In every case I learnt something new, which iswas what's so good about this site :)