User:Mathieugp

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This user
fr Cet utilisateur a pour langue maternelle le français.
en-3 This user is able to contribute with an advanced level of English.
28 This Wikipedian is 28 years, 6 months, and 7 days old
on June 11, 2008.
4 This Wikipedian joined Wikipedia 4 years, 7 months, and 9 days ago
as of June 11, 2008.
This user supports the use of wind power, solar power, and electric vehicles.
This user supports public transit.
This user supports recycling.


= This user supports the Make Trade Fair campaign.
This user supports the United Nations.
This male user supports feminism.
This user supports the independence of Quebec.
This user supports the independence of Scotland.
This user supports the independence of Wales.
This user supports the independence of Catalonia.
This user supports the independence of Tibet.
This user supports the independence of the Basque Country.
This user contributes using Ubuntu.
This user contributes with GNOME.
This user contributes using GNU.
This user abhors poutine.

Hello everyone. Welcome to my own little page!

Contents

[edit] Me & where I am from

I live in the arrondissement of Ville-Marie in the metropolis of Montréal, metropolis located on the island of the same name, island which one can find by sailing up the St-Laurent river, river which is the grandiose artery of my native soil, La Québécoisie. Unfortunately, more than four centuries after its genesis, my beautiful homeland is still not completely free at the political level, therefore it is very possible that you know of my corner of the Earth solely under its illegitimate but official designation of "Province of Quebec".

The said province is historically a former French colony which, in 1760, fell into the hands of the English aristocracies of birth and wealth, then annexed, manu militari, to the neighbouring British province in 1840, and finally absorbed, in 1867, into the Dominion of Canada, a pseudo-federal union of the British American colonies. In 1931, by the Statute of Westminster, the British Dominion of North America gained its independence from the United Kingdom and, by doing so, short-circuited the normal decolonization process of my country and substituted it a process of neocolonialism, one which, believe it or not, is partly financed by my own taxes!

I am a computer technologist by formation. I am particularly interested in free software which I adopted because of its compatibility with my vision of what the social relations should be in the production and distribution of software and also because I see a great value in the free sharing of knowledge in the world community.

At the philosophical level, I am a self-proclaimed free thinker and humanist and I intent to remain that way until someone can demonstrate me, in a convincing manner, that I am mistaken for wanting to seek the truth by myself and with others, using the weak instrument of human reason.

I still play some false notes here and there on the violin, but I love playing and I will not give up!

So far, my main contributions to this encyclopedia have had something to do with Quebec's history, culture, language & politics or with free software. I am very much interested in knowledge in general, so you can expect to see me contribute to a wide array of subjects.

In addition to contributing to the English language Wikipedia, I contribute to the French language Wikipedia and ultimately I will try to make sure that everything I contribute to en.wikipedia.org is also in fr.wikipedia.org and vice versa. This is going to be good translation practice.

[edit] Quotations that I like for one reason or another

  • "The truth belongs to those who seek it, not to those who claim to own it." - Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794), in Discours sur les conventions nationales, april 1791 (Original French: La vérité appartient à ceux qui la cherchent et non point à ceux qui prétendent la détenir.)
  • "Between the strong and the weak, between the rich and the poor, between the master and the servant, it is liberty which oppresses and law that frees." - Henri Lacordaire (1802-1861), in 52e Conférence de Notre-Dame, 1848. (Original French: Entre le fort et le faible, entre le riche et le pauvre, entre le maître et le serviteur, c'est la liberté qui opprime et la loi qui libère.)
  • "Logic which alone can give us certainty is the instrument of demonstration : intuition is the instrument of invention." - Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) in The Value of Science, 1905 (Original French: La logique qui peut seule donner la certitude est l'instrument de la démonstration : l'intuition est l'instrument de l'invention)

[edit] Maxims of my own

  • "Beware of the one who has and the time and the audacity to invent maxims."
  • "The really useful encyclopaedia is the one which shows us as much of what we know as what still evades us."
  • "The Creator, in His infinite consistency, gave man legs to chase his prey, hands to cut the stone of the lance, words to coordinate the hunt, a little intelligence to defend himself in a hostile world and finally a conscience to torment him each day and make his life impossible."

[edit] Awards

I award you this LibertyBellstar for your dedication to Quebec's independence.Mezek 01:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Languages