Welcome to  Peter's Homepage, Pilgrim!

The concept of a personal website is the ultimate expression of one's vanity. It is a noise, a confusion, an agony in egotistical fits. This page is no different. I'd like to think that anybody who pokes around will learn a bit about what makes me tick. Of course, I'm much more than a bunch of HTML and picture files; you can't really sum a person up on paper...but at least you'll have some idea of who Peter Jay Salzman is.

Finance

I'm now working on Wall street, programming and implementing algorithms for quantitative finance. When I made the transition from professor to finance, my salary literally doubled. I'm making more than I ever though I'd be worth, and having the time of my life to boot. Work is filled with crazy brilliant people who are good at what they do. It's extremely challenging work, which keeps my interest piqued. I never feel bored or like my time is wasted. My company, Fitch Ratings, is a very worker-friendly company. The atmosphere is relaxed and collegiate.

Physics and Science

I received my Ph.D. in theoretical physics from University of California at Davis. My thesis advisor, Steven Carlip, is well known in quantum gravity circles. My dissertation research involved looking at the time dependent Schrodinger-Newton equation as a possible:

1. explanation of why macroscopic objects are not observed to be be in quantum superpositions.
2. test of the semi-classical theory of quantum gravity.

Sometimes I believe that physics will be able to answer the how and why nature works. Othertimes I think that being able to describe nature with man made tools is an act of hubris, and that physics will be a never ending quest for more advanced models which give us nothing but predictive powers.

Linux and Computers

I'm a staunch Linux user, and am the founder and many time past president of The Linux Users' Group of Davis, LUGOD. I've written extensive Linux pages. If you use Linux (or are Linux curious), there'll be enough there for you to kill many, many hours.

I use LaTeX (link broken) quite a bit. I should probably be better considering how long I've been using it (since 1995), but I enjoy it nevertheless. In my defense, I don't know many people (in person) who know it better than I do (although it seems that all of comp.lang.tex knows it better). I also use Mathematica quite a bit. Hackers (both good and bad). I am addicted to computer games.

Meat Space

Actually, you're seeing a very small portion of my website. There's another main index devoted to the more personal part of my website. It's more about me, my friends and my family. Guarenteed to not have (m)any references to things like linux, computers or physics. I know... I know... Work in progress. I'm learning how to dance Salsa in the style of Eddie Torres. I am an atheist. Eating meatless in the financial district. I've been keeping a dream diary ever since I was a little kid.

Blogging

I used to keep a "blog" back in 1998. I called it a "journal" since there was no word "blog" back then. In fact, I don't really know anybody who was keeping a public diary that long ago. Not that I was the first blogger, but there certainly weren't many people doing it back then. I eventually lost interest, and since then, blogging has become popular. I recently took an interest in it again, mainly in an attempt to become proficient at PHP and SQL. But it's fun to keep one too. My blog, Peetblog, is here. Please use it; I need to stress test the code. If anyone wants to use Peetblog, please let me know. I also wrote large portions of a very good blogger called Wheatblog.

Motorcycles and Cars

One of my primary joys in life is to ride my motorcycle, a Honda Magna V-65 named Bad Bones. It's an 1100cc V4 cylinder gargantuan whose its motto is "Brute force has an elegance all its own". If you're interested in my bike or some of my longer bike trips, you can peruse my motorcycle pages. I used to be active in a group of Magna/Sabre ryders, called SabMag, but took a hiatus to finish my dissertation and find a job.
I used to have a gorgeous Datsun 280ZX, and wrote some web pages about it, but got rid of it when the reality of east coast winter set in: it's a completely impractical car for the east coast. I now drive a Hyundai Santa Fe, a very practical car, and somewhat fun to drive to boot.

Music

My life revolves around music. If rhythm is the soul of jazz, then I've got rhythm. I'm proud of my CD collection and devoted a page to my CD collection with little anecdotes about what a particular CD, band or song means to me. Unfortunately, it's about 4 years out of date. Also, I wrote the page when I first started learning HTML, so please excuse the Paleolithic design of the page.

Mystery!

I'm a detective/spy story junkie and tear through mysteries. I'm absolutely enthralled by David Suchet's Hercule Poirot. I've watched every single James Bond movie, although my friend Richard Garavuso has been trying to get me to read the novels. I enjoy Kellerman's "Peter and Rina" mysteries, Kemmelman's "Rabbi did X on Y" novels, and anything written by Lawrence Saunders. I live for PBS's Mystery! theater. I'm a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, although I don't understand how anyone can think that Basil Rathbone's and Nigel Bruce's portrayal was anything other than garbage. My favorite portrayal of Holmes is by Rupert Everett. He was born to play Holmes (and Ian Hart was a phenomenal Watson, too!)

My Book is Published!

I have coauthored a new book entitled "The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse", with my friend Norm Matloff who teaches CS at UC Davis (and has his own set of very useful webpages). I can't believe the book is finally done! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! It was almost as hard finishing this book as it was finishing my dissertation! ;-) The book is published by No Starch Press, and if I say so myself, is really the only good debugging book on the market. Everything I've seen pales in comparison.

I'm a member of American Mensa, which means I have a high IQ, but all that really means is that I'm very good at analogies, reasoning, and finding patterns. The truth is, I'm fairly absent minded and have an awful memory. Although my critical thinking is highly developed, I'm one of those people who can't hear and then recall a 7-digit phone number. Most people who know me are astonished at how well I've mastered many branches of mathematics, but how weak I am in arithmetic. My mind works on principles and reasoning. Anything involving rote memory leaks out of my ears. Consequently, I'm incapable of following directions while driving.

Hookay. Every homepage needs a picture of its owner.

What Pursuing a Doctorate in Physics Will Do To You.

Before	After

My beautiful and sexy fiance, Evelyn. She's hispanic -- is bilingual, and grew up in a very strongly Latino self-identified family. I find her intoxicating. I can never seem to get enough of her.

Well, that's about it for now. I'm still working on my webpage. I prolly will still be working on it 20 years from now.

contact me