About Me, NetLogo, and TurtleZero

A Photo of James.

The Legend

I am James Steiner.

I'm just a senior corporate computer support development guy with a host of geeky hobbies. I have over 20 years of various experience with programming and helping people use computers. I'm also an information dabbler, and student of life. This makes me well-qualified to talk to people who want to create a model, but who do not know how to write computer programs. Asking the right questions to turn an idea into a working model is an important part of the development process.

HOW I got Involved in NetLogo

A few years ago I fondly remembered LOGO. A sympathetic friend bought me a copy of "Mindstorms" by Seymour Papert. That inspired me to start looking for a LOGO implementation to play with, and that's when I stumbled upon NetLogo.

It was easy to use, and applied to many of my diverse interests: programming, AI, algorithmicly driven displays, physics, computer programming education, social science, and many others.

Having joined the users support group for NetLogo, I discovered that even with limited NetLogo experience but with all my other support, programming, and general knowledge background I could answer some, than many, of the questions on the users list, and became very interested in emergent behavior, and all that... and it became another hobby.

The NetLogo Users Group

photo of james

James "Fixing" the network

It amuses and facinates me to be able to help and talk to all the highly educated people I meet through NetLogo and the users list. I enjoy the paradoxical juxtoposition of myself--a "some college" guy-- and the "lots of college" folks that I get to work with. Not besides, the praise is very, very, nice for my ego.

That facination has brought me to a place where I have been invited to staff NetLogo workshops, and strongly encouraged to write a NetLogo text book or reference work. I've met lots of really interesting, smart, people, and been made to feel something like a minor celebrity within the community.

I'm also beginning to expand my view beyond the little NetLogo community of the netlogo-users list.

What I want

So, I think it would be great to actually get paid for, or even make my living, doing something I really love to do. Toward that end, I've found a snappy name, designed a logo, put up this ever-improving website, and begun learning PHP to make it do what I want. Now, I am quietly advertising my "official" availability as a NetLogo hired gun...err "consultant."

And it is working. My list of clients is growing, one by one!

Why "TurtleZERO?"

The name "turtlezero" relates to the NetLogo implementation of multi-agent modeling, where mobile agent objects are "turtles", and where the first (possibly the only) turtle created always has an identifcation number of zero, and can be addressed as "turtle 0" in code. Every model with turtles starts with turtle zero. Every NetLogo modeler should visit TurtleZERO.com. (And as far as names go, I think it's quirky and fun, and pretty cool.)

Thanks for visiting!