I'm a series of spacetime events called Richard (or Ricardo in some circles). I am a first-gen American born to Cuban and Argentine parents (español es mi lengua materna). I'm a high tech low-life, an outdoorsy great indoorsman; voice-activated, user-friendly, self-cleaning, and compostable. I'm a non-believer and an overachiever, laid-back but forward-thinking, a supercharged subversive, a hands-on footloose.
For work, I use machine learning to scale ecosystem restoration using drones. Read more here.
Contact
The best place to reach me is by text, or by email at public at richarddecal dot c-o-m. I also have a Twitter.
Outdoors
- I spend as much time as possible outdoors. I love hiking, camping, mountain biking, kayaking, and rock climbing.
Travel
- I have visited 28+ countries, done 3 major bicycle tours (Seattle ↣ San Francisco, around Taiwan, and around New Zealand), and been to 47 of 50 U.S. states.
- I’ve hitchhiked over 10,000 miles in the US, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand.
- I converted a jumbo news crew van into a tiny home and lived the van life for 2 years. It had roof solar, a fridge/freezer, and fit everything I owned!
Talks and Interviews
- Ray Summit ‘21: “How Ray and Anyscale Make it Easy to do Massive-scale ML on Aerial Imagery”
- Talk for TA3M Seattle: “How AI can be abused by surveillance states” (presentation slides)
- Interview with KOMO news in Seattle over the net neutrality debate
- For my academic/industry talks, please refer to my work page.
Volunteering
- I helped organize a Surveillance Self-Defense Workshop for Activists with TA3M Seattle.
- I organized and led a protest against Congress’s plans to end the Internet’s decentralized nature (downtown Seattle, December 2014).
- I volunteered for 1.5 months for a community in Mota Lava, Vanuatu. We brought an oil press to make virgin coconut oil.
- I volunteered for a whale monitoring survey to study how the world’s largest LPG processing center would affect the world’s largest Humpback whale calving area near James Price Point, Australia.
Art
- I was Artist in Residence at the Sir James Wallace Arts Trust for a few months in 2015. A selection of my works are in circulation around public spaces in New Zealand. Links to my Flickr below!
- I find the intersection of art and machine learning fascinating. I maintain a repository of research projects and use AI art generators.
IT
- Self-hosted services - My server runs Nextcloud, Plex, a Tor relay, an email server, a ZFS NAS, and more.
- DIY Smart Home - I made various smart-home devices: a smart mirror, automated hydroponics for my garden, a mobile filesharing mesh network, a digitial assistant, and more.
- Remote development - I am persuing the ultimate mobile ergonomic workstation. My current setup is a NReal air headset, a 5G hotspot, and a remote tunnel over Android.