[extropy-chat] Amara's Wavelet Pages Turns Nine Years Old

[Amara Graps]

Dear Folks,

In the last days I made a large maintenance of my wavelet pages. I
have finally an Internet connection in my home this week after almost
two years in Italy, so I could finish such a task without my real job
being impacted.

This summer marks nine years of these pages. I needed to stop and
reflect on that, as well, so I wrote some paragraphs, seen below. At
my web site you'll see a pic of a sign to the "Lake of wavelets" that
I found by accident when I was bicycling around Pantelleria last
summer too.

Ciao ...
Amara



Amara's Wavelet Page
http://www.amara.com/current/wavelet.html

Contents

	Wavelet Overview
		My Tutorial
		http://www.amara.com/IEEEwave/IEEEwavelet.html
	Wavelet Forum
	Wavelet Digest
	Fourier Trivia
	Sound Fun
	IDR Center
	NuHAG Gabor Server
	Discovering Wavelets
	Software
	Beginners Bibliography
	WWW Introductions
	WWW Sites
		Meta-Sites
		Research Institutions, Groups, and Programs
		Some Companies
		Individuals (Specialties)
		Some Demonstrations
	Correspondence

	Recent Modifications
	http://www.amara.com/current/wavemod.html



Retrospective
July 2004: Amara's Wavelet Page Turns Nine Years Old

In July 1995, my wavelet pages were officially released. The page of
links to books, papers, tutorials, software, research groups, and
people emerged naturally from teaching myself about wavelets as
I performed a wavelet software contract in 1994-1995. From the
bottom-up, I learned wavelet algorithm details. From the top-down,
I wrote a paper: "Introduction to Wavelets". The collection of the
Internet resources I met as I performed these tasks emerged from the
middle as "Amara's Wavelet Page".

Amara's Wavelet Page then grew naturally as a site for beginners to
learn about wavelets. My "Introduction to Wavelets" paper was my way
of understanding with minimal math the main wavelet ideas. When the
journal: IEEE Computational Sciences and Engineering published it in
1995, they gave me permission to place an HTML and postscript version
of the paper at Amara's Wavelet Page. Since then, more people
(>100,000) have downloaded the paper than many times the circulation
number of journal. The Internet is really an incredible medium.

On this anniversary, I cannot help but note that these pages were born
several of my lifetimes ago. In my professional life, they endured the
transition from scientific programmer to professional astronomer. The
pages endured the initiation of the World Wide Web from starry
expectations, through jaded disappointments into the WWW standard
toaster-oven-appliance tool, now present in many people's homes.
I rode along with these phase changes, at one point becoming so
distressed from the Internet personalities that I encountered, that
I wiped clean my web site and took a nap from the WWW for a few months.

The phase changes of the WWW were not the only changes that my wavelet
pages have endured. Adventures abound. In 1996, the Introduction to
Wavelets paper was plagiarized by an engineering graduate student,
whose lawyer attempted to convince IEEE, that Amara and his client,
'like Leibnitz and Newton with the invention of the calculus invented
the paper at the same time' (he said). My wavelet pages have endured
three country changes, a disabling repetitive strain injury, a large
money debt, a divorce and later huge heartbreak, and an astrophysics
PhD and postdoc experiences. Now lifetimes later, Amara the person,
has emerged changed and better (she thinks) with the wavelet pages as
a faint reflection.

Sometimes others notice the niche that these wavelet pages serve.
Since the later 1990s, digital signal processing online and print
books and trade magazines have pointed their readers to my wavelet
pages as a good introduction. A peak was reached in 2004, however,
when the creme of the creme of the computer / technology magazines,
c't, gave a link to my wavelet pages for their readers to learn more.
I suppose I am somebody now, or, more likely, my name will be forever
linked to the word "wavelet", no matter what Nobel Prizes I will
receive in astrophysics ;-).

I hope you've enjoyed my nine-year romp.

Amara Graps

My Introductory Seminars
  (A Post-script) If your hunger for beginner's wavelet information is
  not satiated, I sometimes give introductory wavelet seminars, now to
  hundreds of people over the years (see my resume for details). The
  duration of my seminars have ranged from thirty minutes to five
  hours. My audiences up to now have been astronomers, atmospheric
  scientists, seismologists, engineers, and computer scientists. My
  fees are negotiable and flexible; I've been known to give a seminar
  for the cost of a weekend attendance at Munich hackbrett festival,
  for example. Locations are similarly flexible; I've given them in
  computer scientist's homes (Ted Kaehler: to Alan Kay and his Squeak
  team) to distant Italian islands (Pantelleria). Please contact me if
  you are interested.




-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it