About

I'm Jim McCann. This is TCHOW, where (attempt to) I document many of the things that I do.

Research

I used to be a graduate student in the Carnegie Mellon Graphics Lab. My Carnegie Mellon research projects are documented on my research web page.

In July 2010, I defended my thesis. It was a fun thesis defense; there were both "Applause" and "Laughter" signs, pink hair, lab coats, and plenty of baked goods. (Credit for much of that is owed Ronit.) In September, I turned in the final copy of my dissertation.

I then spent time as a postdoctoral researcher at Adobe, where I (among other things) to created this interpolate extension.

Starting in October of 2012, I began to focus mainly on making games (though I'm still collaborating on a few research projects).

Contact

I'm quite widely contactable. Consider:

• IM: I'm mainly on Google Chat these days -- ix at tchow.com.
• EMail: ix at tchow.com is, again, your best bet. But I'm also likely to respond to jmccann at [cs.cmu.edu or umich.edu] or try ix at [cmu.edu or umich.edu].
• Skype: during research meetings, I may be found as ix.tchow on skype.

See Also

• For character-limited witticisms, see my account 1x on Twitter.
• For my music, head to soundcloud.
• For music with my brother, try our group soundcloud or last.fm page.

TCHOW

People often ask why my web page is called TCHOW (also, tchow, if the capitals become too glaring). The name comes from "The Chicken's House of Wacky" -- which is a fictional organization (designed by myself) that was useful to me during my formative middle- and high- school years. The mascot of the group was, of course, the Chicken, a comic character resembling death (and some far side cartoons, though not intentionally).

Very little of the original moral content of the group remains, but I keep the name (and, occasionally, the handle Chicken1, though I am more often, now, using ix).

'ix', by the way, is not a reference to one of Mallarmé's pseudonyms. It is simply a nice, snappy, and short name.