User:Matt Britt

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Attention: As of 2007-05-22, Matt Britt has ceased editing Wikipedia indefinitely. Matt has found himself utterly frustrated with the politics, the proliferation of nonsense that distracts from creating an encyclopedia, the broken and counterproductive prevailing interpretations and applications of several well-intended policies, the politics, the total lack of initiative to make tough decisions needed to keep things on track, the sheer impossibility of finding consensus in highly polarized debates, and especially the politics. This page is preserved only for nostalgic purposes. If you would like to contact him, you are encouraged to do so via email as messages left on his talk page may not be seen by him. You may also be interested in his seldom-updated blog... Maybe.


If you can't see The Answer in this image, you see what I see and are mildly upset by it.
If you can't see The Answer in this image, you see what I see and are mildly upset by it.

Matt Britt (talk contribs blocks protects deletions moves rights nomination)—a.k.a mattb and in a former life uberpenguin— is a simple Internet denizen and an administrator on the English Wikipedia (this one). He is an electrical engineering undergraduate (specializing in analog electronics, microelectronics, and electromagnetics) at Georgia Tech, though he has often informed others that he would have probably been better off as a history or English literature major. Nevertheless, he is involved in semiconductor device research with wide bandgap materials like gallium nitride in S.-C. Shen's group developing high speed and high power HBTs, HEMTs, and even some MEMS. He considers himself an "operating system enthusiast", whatever that means. His favorite OSes running are OS/400, QNX, Free/OpenBSD, ITRON, and Plan 9. Matt laments that MTRON was never properly implemented, as TRON was a design so far ahead of its time that nobody seems to remember it now. Matt further laments that nearly nobody else laments with him. He thoroughly believes that Wikipedia is one of the most interesting ideas since the proverbial sliced bread, though he maintains a constant love/hate relationship with it. His edits on Wikipedia are mostly concerned with computer architecture, semiconductor devices, and other random miscellany. The keen observer might spot him poking his head into articles regarding his interests from another life, the aforementioned history and literature.

This is Matt.  Matt wears a bunny suit.
This is Matt. Matt wears a bunny suit.

Matt likes music rather a lot. He doesn't have any favorite band, song, or even genre (if you press him, he'll probably say something about the gritty real sound of the Chicago blues and blues-rock). Following are a few artists that he recommends (bolded artists are very special to his heart). Perhaps you have heard of some of them?

Air, Alias & Tarsier, Apocalyptica, Beck (really hit-and-miss, though), The Black Keys, Cake, Carlos Santana, Charles Mingus, Coldplay, Collective Soul, Cornelius, Cut Chemist, Cymande, Daft Punk, The Doors, Dizzy Gillespie, Django Reinhardt, The Flaming Lips' later albums (The Soft Bulletin and beyond), Flower Travellin' Band, Frank Sinatra, Galactic, Gnarls Barkley, Herbie Hancock, Ima Robot, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, John Lee Hooker, Kenna, KiloWatts & Vanek, Kraftwerk, Lead Belly, Lemon Jelly, Medeski Martin & Wood (also with Scofield), Ludwig van Beethoven, Miles Davis, Mr. Scruff, Muddy Waters, the pillows, Pixies, The Postal Service (not really Death Cab, though), Rodrigo y Gabriela, Sergei Rachmaninov, Radiohead, Sonny Rollins, Sigur Rós, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Thelonious Monk, Under Byen, VAST (also hit-and-miss), WIZO, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Yo-Yo Ma, Yoko Kanno

He is usually haunted by a Krokodil.

Matt wholeheartedly objects to over-fancified user pages containing approximately 1.2 bajillion templates. Wikipedia is not MySpace. Userboxes are stupid, but blood feuds over deleting them are stupider.

Matt believes that you should not simply "do whatever". He also feels that Wikipedia should not be a reference to fictional worlds, but knows that changing the status quo is practically impossible. Matt's views on reliable sources are nicely stated by Axel Boldt in his essay on the subject.

Matt likes to refer to himself in the third person.

Matt may be contacted via email if you'd like to ask a question unrelated to Wikipedia. Inquiries related to his contributions or comments should be directed to his talk page. He can also be found via OSCAR/TOC as IrenicPenguin. Additionally, he often hangs around on Freenode and can be found in #wikipedia as uberpenguin.

Significant contributions

Images

Some images that Matt was involved with:

To do

Recognition

I, Wulf, hereby award you this Technology Barnstar, for excellent work on CVG and general computer related articles.
I, Wulf, hereby award you this Technology Barnstar, for excellent work on CVG and general computer related articles.
The RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
I give you this barnstar for your good reverts. Nate | Talk Esperanza! 23:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)