George Flanagin

I design and build end-to-end professional software systems that are written in Python for Linux and UNIX.

110 Word Biography

George has served on Boards of Directors, managed multi-location, international software development, and written software as recently as earlier today (assuming it is after 7AM US Eastern Time when you read this).

George has proven skills in wheel reinvention, digital forensics, and software archeology. He is currently a computer scientist at University of Richmond.

Projects, previous employers, and publications are listed in an 'easy to find what you are looking for' format. Many of the projects and employers are hyperlinked. Note: The logos shown below belong to, and copyrights of them are asserted by the associated organizations.

Contact Information

Professional interests

Active interests:

CAPS: Confidentiality, Anonymity, Privacy and Security.
Software components, and building software systems from components.
Natural Language Processing using NLTK (see examples)
Python 3
git
Raspberry Pi, because everyone should run Linux.
High reliability software, designing for testability and quality.
Teaching programming, at university and in the workplace.
LaTeX and XeTeX, beautiful typography, excellent documentation.

Research interests:

Improving (and measuring) usability by experimental methods.
Alternate and self-optimizing user interfaces for the disabled.
Unusual uses of conventional compiler technology.
Flaws in password based security.
Languages and translations: English to Spanish as well as PHP to python.
Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, particularly Volume 2 and Volume 4A.

No interest at all:

Website design where which color blue to use is a concern.
Facebook.
Buzzword oriented programming using strongly hyped languages.
Social methodologies like Agile, and especially Pair Programming, Extreme Programming.

As Zed Shaw says, we just need to be better at programming.

	Employer	Dates	Description / Line of Business	Environment / Tools, etc.
	University of Richmond, Richmond, VA	2013-present	Computer Scientist: Higher education. Computer Science, Software Development	Linux, Python 3, pandas, XML, Oracle 12, Banner, OnBase, Amazon AWS
In 2013 I designed, evangelized, wrote and integrated the replacement system for University of Richmond's authentication infrastructure. As of EOY 2014, over 4,000,000 authentication requests had been served with zero failures or compromises of the system. UR's systems include Banner, OnBase, Raiser's Edge, and over 300 servers for 4200 students, 600 faculty, and 300 non-teaching professional staff. In 2014 I began the automation of the FERPA and HIPAA data feeds for our 30+ external vendors. The new ETL system allows ad hoc and scheduled operation, and provides internal stakeholders and our vendors with immediate reports of trouble and confirmation of success through email, Nagios, and phone. Each transfer is fully audited and audit-able, and the results are stored in a database for statistical analyses by the MicroStrategy data warehouse. In 2016, University of Richmond began to use this system to interchange data between internal systems as well as the external vendors. The system, known as Canøe, is written entirely in Python 3.6. Deliveries are made securely to BOX, S3, ShareFile by Citrix, and Hyland's OnBase software as well as remote file systems and Oracle databases. Completed in early 2017, Canøe performs 9,000 operations per week and assures correct transfer for over 200 integrations. In 2018, I began to standardize the system using conventional compiler technology to handle a pure job description language that expresses the work to be done. Now that it is 2020, we have migrated to fully compiled integrations written in the full featured language we call IJKL: Integration Job Kontrol Language.
	Digital Gaslight, Inc., Richmond, VA	2002/12	Owner/CEO: Fee-for-service software design, development, documentation and deployment. Of special interest: US Postal address parser. A point-of-service locator for cable TV. An alternative secure login method for web-services; US Patent 7,725,712 A performance evaluation system atop Oracle HR. Database and presentation system for museum art.	Linux/UNIX; Oracle, MySQL and SQLite; C, C++, Javascript, PHP
	Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA	2000, 2003/4	Instructor: Higher education. 2003/4: Taught undergraduate computer science classes in the Electrical Engineering program. 2000: Advised and sponsored research project for MBA Honors class.	C++, Java, Linux/UNIX
	Capital One Bank, Richmond, VA	1998/2001	Manager, Program Office for eCommerce: Vendor selection and evaluation, project management of international contracts.	Vendor relations and outsourced (India) software development.
	KLA-Tencor, Milpitas, CA	1997/8	Principal Engineer: developed patented visual pattern recognition algorithms (and the software to support them) for detecting defects in silicon during manufacture.	C, C++, UNIX and Windows NT
	Thuridion, Santa Cruz, CA	1995/7	Engineering Manager: Proposals, new business, employee hiring.	Third party software development in C and C++ for Windows
	Hewlett-Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA	1992/5	Software Engineer: Simulator design, Product research.	C, C++, UNIX and Windows NT; simulators for LaserJet printers.
	Boeing Military Aircraft, Seattle, WA	1985/92	Software Engineer Techonlogy feasibility studies for projects over 5 million USD, Language migration, Simulators.	DEC, HP, CDC, Cray using FORTRAN, C, and C++

Boards

	University of Sydney, Board of External Advisors for Information Technology Program, 2005.
	Triton-Elics, Inc. S.A. Watsonville, CA and Paris, France, Board of Directors 1996/7, elected to represent the interests of the plurality shareholder during the merger between Triton USA and Elics of France.

Patents

User authentication system and method, US 7,725,712 issued 25 May 2010. [[Note: This patent is for an algorithm that improves the usefulness of one-time-pad cryptography in authentication systems. OTP encryption for authentication is weakened because OTP cryptography relies on both the pad's lack of reuse, and the lack of a repeated message. This algorithm injects noise into the encryption process to mitigate this weakness. ]]

Representative Publications

"When Data Integrations Fail -- A Case Study of Causes and Repairs," MABUG 2017, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
"Corral: Bringing non-Oracle applications into the fold," Southeast Oracle User Conference, Charlotte, USA, Feb 2010.
"Doing Active Harm, Patterns of Process, Chaos, and Anti-process in IT," University of Sydney, March 2005. PDF
"Patterns of Creativity in Software Development, Music and Film," OOPSLA, Seattle, USA, November 2002.
Keynote address for Software Methods and Tools, 2000 "Methodologies versus Madness, Project Management in the 21st Century", Sydney Australia, 2000.
"Finding the Hidden Assumptions: Analyzing Psychologically Based Requirements for Software Engineering," Australasian Conference on Requirements Engineering Sydney, Australia, September 1999.
"Of Windows, Widgets, and Wings, The Search for Cross Platform UI Devices," First International Conference on Visual Information Systems, Melbourne, Australia, 1996.
"Human Factors in the Design of the LaserJet 4," CHI 93, Canberra, Australia, 1993.
Cover Story "Doing It: A Safe Software Reuse Project in C++," C++ Report, January 1995, cover, and pp. 22-26. Scanned image.

PyRVA Richmond, Virginia	2016 -- present	Organizer (August 2016 - April 2019), Member (May 2019 - present)	Python
Try-me Art Space, Richmond, VA	2009-present	Technology advisor: Photography of the museum, and maintenance of the art database shared between Try-me, Émilie Charmy and Oscar Bach collections.
Cat's Cradle of Greater Richmond, Ashland, VA	2010-present	Technology advisor.
Diogenes Club, London, UK	1899-present	Member in Good Standing: Unus Inter Pares (One Among Equals)	Coffee, Tea, Alcohol, & Silence

Gist