User:Agateller

My name is Anthony. I live in Paris, France.

[edit] Background

I have several decades of widely varied technical experience in information technology. I have worked in software engineering (in a wide variety of languages—see the table at right), technical writing, technical support, cryptography, computer security, computer system admininstration, translation, computer performance measurement and enhancement, Internet protocols (particularly electronic mail), and other stuff.

I have non-trivial knowledge of quite a few other technical subjects as well, including (but not limited to) desktop publishing, photography, aviation, medicine, several flavors of hard sciences, the French language, France, Paris, France, and the English language and English language teaching.

I'm also familiar with some non-technical subjects (particularly matters relating to places in which I've lived and cultures to which I've been exposed). I take an interest in metaphysics.

I'm not a game player for the most part, but I do play chess, particularly Internet chess; I have the distinction of being one of the lowest rated players at the Internet Chess Club. I also like simulation games, including Microsoft Flight Simulator (both online and offline), The Sims 2, SimCity, and various cellular automata.

I'm almost completely uninterested in sports, history, and literary fiction (except hard science fiction). I don't watch television, listen to the radio, or read newspapers or magazines. These days I rarely have time to read books, either, but if I do, they are usually reference books.

[edit] Wikipedia Contribution Policy

I contribute to Wikipedia when I have information that does not appear to already be present in an article. I do not count myself among the self-appointed Wikipedia cops who feel compelled to police the contributions of others (I grew out of that back in my teens), but I will occasionally correct errors in spelling or objective facts (dates, names, and so on) if I spot them, as well as technical errors such as broken links and the like. I have written some small articles myself. I try to shift content towards a NPOV when I come across particularly biased articles.

[edit] Discussions

I like to engage people in discussions when I detect that they cling to opinions that they are unable to defend (opinions based on emotion, opinions adopted wholesale from others, etc.), in order to try to compel them to think for themselves. I have been involved in online debates along these lines for several decades, usually under various pseudonyms (mainly to guard against spam). I'm an extremely strong supporter of freedom of speech in all public venues, as well as civil liberties in general.

[edit] Contacts

You can contact me through my talk page here, or through e-mail (via my Web site, via Wikipedia, or by e-mailing me directly).

[edit] References

• Anthony's Home Page - My Web site