Dave Hillman

wondering around and out loud...

  • My new book: Transforming the Modern World: Computing Technology from 1950 to Today is now available at Amazon Kindle.

  • Some things to think about... - If you don't understand how things work, then quit whining and figure it out. - People often want things, more so if they don't have to work for them. - Work smarter, not harder! - It's always darkest before it goes pitch black.
Located under the clear blue skies of North Carolina.
Semi, kind-of sort-of retired ... worked most of my life as a software engineer...now I spend my days figuring out things I never had time for when I was working. Taught technology (programming, web...) courses at The Johns Hopkins University for over 20 years. Would like to do more teaching. Wrote a book, magazine articles. Focused on blogging and working on a second book. USAF Veteran.
Backgound in... Artificial Intelligence including expert systems, neural networks, and LLMs. Software Engineering, both waterfall and agile. Web Stack Development, front and back. Project Management, planning and monitoring! Writing and teaching! Spoiling my granddaughter!

Personal Projects...

< Localized LLMs (L3M) >
Localized Large Language Models (LLMs or L3Ms) are computational models that mimic how text is understood and used to simulate human intelligence. Running LLMs on local machines means you're not subject to being connected all the time, have more privacy, and have the flexibility to change models as they improve. Capabilities include responding to questions, categorization, document summarization, keyword (general, name, place) extraction, definition generator, sentiment analysis, outputting to JSON. Current Focus: parallel processing with LLMs and assessing reasoning modalities for operational effectiveness.
Technologies used
  • LLMs
  • Python
  • LLM Support Libraries
  • Web Stack
< Enhanced Entity Attribute Value (EEAV) >
EEAV is a very flexible data model for capturing and exploiting data sets. It works by converting two-dimensional data tables into key-value sets. Current Focus: evaluating the ability to track changes, over time, of data without significant increasing storage, i.e., track changes at a micro-level.
Technologies used
  • Python
  • Web Stack
  • Postgres, SQLite
  • JavaScript, HTML, CSS
  • Tabulator (table viewer)

Current Software Projects

I'm currently building a set of tools that demonstrate capabilities that could standalone or operate as an integrated tool set. Media Ingest: load and extract text from video, audio, PDF, office documents and text. Parser: extract words and sentences from text input. L3M Tools Processor: apply analytic processes via Large Language Models including categorization, summarization, extraction, and sentiment analysis. Viewer: examine a complex JSON-based data structure. Presentation: Present JSON-encoded data to tabular, charts (e.g., bar, line, circle), graphs (node/edge), and maps. These tools are developed using Python, Flask, with a web-based front-end (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript/AJAX).

Transforming the Modern World: Computing Technology from 1950 to Today

My favorite class in college was "The History of Computing". I really enjoyed the narrative of how things came to be. So I wrote a book about it. I've explored different technologies from programming languages through the Internet to quantum computing. Also covered some history focusing on technology and how we deal with information in 1950 v. 2025. It's available on Amazon via Kindle.

Drop me a note!

dave@dhillman.com
Contacts
dave@dhillman.com
© Copyright 2025 Dave Hillman. All rights reserved. All registered trademarks herein are the property of Dave Hillman. All opinions are my own, even the blog.