User:Jrv
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Well, I suppose I should put something here. (I hate seeing my username showing up in red!)
I am a resident of Galt, California. Perhaps some day I will spruce up the basic entry that Rambot created.
I used to read quite a bit of science fiction, (but I'm not a part of fandom, yet). However, since the September 11 Terrorist Attack, I have been trying to understand what could cause a person to hijack an airplane and fly it into a building. (Bogus explanations such as Mr. Bush's, "They envy our freedom", to me indicate a serious lack of understanding.) To this end, I have channeled most of my spare time since then into studying:
- Islam and the Qur'an, trying to chase down the often-quoted but unsupported idea that "it's a terrorist religion"; (No flames, please. If you have an actual reference that supports this, I would be happy to see it.)
- The Middle East, especially the situation in Israel and Palestine;
- The curiously uninformative US media, (which got me looking at Indymedia).
I discovered Wikipedia through exposure to the Disinfopedia project started by PR Watch. Learning about wikis got me interested in the TWikiSite of Indymedia. I must admit that I find Wiki easier to edit than TWiki, mostly because I can't stand CamelCaseWords.
I still manage to spend some time reading science fiction. One of the authors I am currently interested in is Sarah Zettel. I noticed that she wasn't on the science fiction authors list, so I added her and then created the article. (It's kind of lame so far, but it's my first article. Please feel free to improve it. Thanks for your help, maveric149!)
Other stuff that I'm interested in:
- Esperanto, (the universal second language!), and the Esperanto Wikipedia
- Strategy games, especially Avalon Hill's Civilization, and wargames (one of my favorites is Car Wars)
- Zymurgy, the science/art/craft of brewing (and winemaking too, I guess, although it's really about beer!)
- Computer science, which was my major at California State University, Sacramento
- Legos, especially Lego Mindstorms