Gary J. Shannon
Created: Mar. 2, 2003
Last updated: Mar. 25, 2003
Some of my Assorted Hobbies and Interests
In Case You're Interested...
... which you are probably not, My name is Gary Shannon. I'm a retired video game programmer. You probably haven't heard of any of the video games I worked on: Astro Blaster (Coin-Op game manufactured by Sega). Cyberstorm I and II. Trophy Bass 3D, and Pro Pilot, to name a few.
From time to time I like to dabble in composing music, usually in a classical style, or contemporary soundtrack music style. In fact, Here is a soundtrack I'm working on for a movie that doesn't even exist, because I'm writing the script as I write the music.
I have just recently taken up learning animation. It occured to me that if I really want to write a soundtrack score for a movie, I will have to create my own movie! So animation seems like the way to go.
Since I also like do-it-yourself projects of all kinds, here is where I collect and review my favorite projects.
Other topics being prepared for upload
My other hobbies include Linguistics, Cryptography, Number Theory, Cellular Automata, and Puzzles. I have some old web pages on these subjects which I am in the process of updating. They will appear here soon. (1/21/2008)
Some of my OLDER Projects
Gary J. Shannon
Subject list
Programming Projects | Linguistics | Artificial Intelligence | Cryptography | Number Theory | Cellular Automata | Interactive Fiction | Book selling
Linguistics and Constructed Languages
Some people enjoy building model railroads, model cars, or model airplanes. I enjoy constructing model languages. Not only is it interesting in its own right, but it is also a good way to learn more about lingusitics in general, and my native English language in particular.
By way of background, I am a software engineer with no formal training in linguistics. My first constructed language (or conlang) project was around 1954 or 1955 when I invented something I called Igpaya Ussianruski, which worked like Pig Latin except that there were several different word endings instead of just the "-ay" of Pig Latin. Somewhere around 1957 or 1958 I began learning Esperanto, but while I was excited about the idea behind it, I was never very happy with the language itself.
In high school, circa 1960-1963, I took two semesters of Latin followed by 4 semesters of German. Circa 1980 or so I took two semesters of American Sign Language at the local community college. While taking that class I also drew a pictographic glyph for each new ASL word I learned and developed, thereby, a written pictographic language in which I became very fluent. I lost my documents for that language in an apartment building fire and have never gotten around to reconstructing the language.
My currently active conlang projects include these:
Some Conlang Resources
A collection of graded sentences. Section One. The first 285 sentences from a collection of 1200 Graded Sentences for Analysis by Mary B. Rossman and Mary W. Mills, first published in 1922. A translation of all 1200 of these sentences would constitute a fairly complete documentation of the grammar of any language, constructed or natural. Section Two 269 more senetences from the same collection.
McGuffeys Eclectic Reader. - An interesting corpus of simple sentences for translation into any conlang.
Glyphs and Writing Systems
Tinker Font multi-purpose font for displaying and printing any kind of writing system
A Writing System for a Silent Language - a partial attempt to reconstruct my lost pictographic language.
Tazhu Corpus Project - Another of my invented languages
SoaLoa - A conlang with a very peculiar grammar
Miscellaneous
NEW! Systematic compilation of the ways two words can be related
A boring meeting lead to this conlang designed in less than an hour
Computerized Linguistics and Machine Translation
Just some fun pages about cryptograms, codes and ciphers.
The Game Tile Cipher Using Scrabble(tm) Tiles
| Random Explorations in Automata Theory Gary J. Shannon Created: Mar. 2, 2003 Last updated: Mar. 25, 2003 |
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Random Explorations in Automata Theory
This set of pages represents my informal and decidely non-academic explorations with cellular automata and matrix automata over a number of years. These pages are perpetually under construction so check back frequently for new additions.
There is no particular order in which to view the pages. Each one stands alone, more or less, and clickable links are provided that will launch you into related topics as well as providing definitions and more detailed examples.
Please feel free to email me with any comments, criticisms or suggestions.
Thanks, and enjoy.
--Gary J. Shannon
Where to begin?
Since all the pages are linked together no matter where you start you will be able to reach every other page eventually so you might just start with the definitions and go from there.
Or if you already know what you're looking for here's a list of the pages that have been completed so far: