Kim's Dull biographical info shards!

Since October 2003 I have worked for NVIDIA. I manage the Signal Integrity Engineering group in the VLSI department. Our job is to make shit go faster than anybody else on earth. I think the results prove we are doing a pretty good job, and I'm proud of my group's accomplishments. I'm involved in pretty much every NVIDIA product, the work is super intense, and I love it.

And by they way, if you are an NVIDIA fan, that's great! but please don't bother asking me anything, I can't answer your questions.

I tried taking a year sabbatical in 2003. After many years of working very hard as an engineer, I felt it was a good time to take a break and focus on some other interests for a while. I played a lot of jazz guitar, studied electro-magnetic theory and signal integrity concepts that I didn't have time to study while I was working all the time, tried to build a theremin with my friend, spent time with friends and family, read a lot, and excercised more. Sadly, my one year only lasted 4 months before Nvidia talked me out of it, but I'm quite happy I did this.
Between November 2000 and June 2003, I worked for Inkra Networks, a networking hardware startup in Fremont, CA founded in May of 2000. I was the Board Development Manager and Signal Integrity Engineer there. (Inkra was a startup company so everybody wore many hats.) Inkra created a "Virtual Service" switch, which allows one box to provide many different networking service applications for different users, all easily configurable. Inkra ultimately died the usual startup death a short while after I left. (money ran out before profits appeared.)
Up until November 2000 I worked for ATI in the "ATI Research Silicon Valley" division, which used to be Chromatic Research before ATI bought us. I was manager of the Systems Engineering group where we designed debugging and reference design platforms for next generation system-on-chip, graphics, and processor products.
When we were still Chromatic, I worked on the Mpact media processors. Basically, I got to work with the media technologies that were to be in pc's a year or three after that. Pretty fun, I guess.
I used to work for Gibson Guitar, as an electronics engineer in the now defunct G-WIZ Labs R&D division. I enjoyed that a lot. It was in the "dream job" category, even though the pay could have been a bit better. At G-WIZ I designed new products for Gibson and its assorted divisions. I've had the pleasure of working on many cutting edge musical instrument technologies, many of which will sadly never see the light of day. I've also met and worked with some wonderful and talented people, such as the folks at CNMAT, the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at U.C. Berkeley.
G-WIZ was the stunningly creative and entirely coincidental acronym for the Gibson Western Innovation Zone. Many have whimsically retitled it G-WAS, but that is a story better left untold. Unless of course I'm offered a lucrative book deal. Hell, I'll even take a mediocre book deal. It's a good story....
One of my favorite projects at Gibson was the Echoplex Digital Pro, a product of Gibson's Oberheim Division. I worked with the brilliant Matthias Grob and Eric Obermuhlner on this sublime idea. We later formed our own side company, Aurisis Research, to keep working on these crazy loop things. We put out the LoopIV software for the Echoplex, and helped Gibson develop the Echoplex Digital Pro Plus. These products completely revolutionized the concept of real time looping and sampling in music performance. Also, check out my Looper's Delight web site for more details on the Echoplex and looping.
I also maintain Looper's Delight, a popular web page and mailing list devoted to loop based music.

I may be available for employment and contracting, depending on the offer. Check my resume.

So what else?

I live in Oakland, in a big live-work warehouse.

I've played guitar since I was 7. I mostly play jazz now.

Yes, my haircut is that crazy, and it really has been all those different colors.

I drive up and down interstate 880 a lot. If you are ever in the fast lane and you see me behind you, please move out of the way. I'm tired of having to pass all you slow people on the right.

I got a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley. I lived in the dorms on south side during my first year, and then in a big house on north side 1 block from campus for the rest of my time there. We sued our landlord and won.

I mostly grew up in Danville, CA, where I went to San Ramon Valley High School, Charlotte Wood Junior High School, and Montair Elementary School. I had a nice childhood there, but Danville taught me everything that is wrong with being nouveau riche and I'm never going back to a place like that.

Before that I lived in Pleasant Hill, CA, until I was 7.

I was born in Berkeley, CA, and lived in Oakland until I was 2.

My Dad and I recently got back the Porsche 912 Targa he owned when I was born. It's a neat story, you can read about it here.



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kim@kimflint.com