User:Matthew Stannard
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- Go to my Talk page
- Email me on mstclair87@hotmail.com with wikipedia in Subject Line
- "Who needs life when you've got Wikipedia?" Ollie
- Interested in doubt vs belief vs certainty
- Making contributions on behalf of Derek St Clair-Stannard, Byron scholar
- See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1958237.stm
- standalone54 on MySpace
- Stumbler
- "Does all this wisdom make us any wiser?" - John Weak
Contents |
[edit] Hacktivism
[edit] Politics
- Me (born 1954): Economic Left/Right: -1.62, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.00
- Guy, eldest son, (born 1982): Economic Left/Right: -0.88, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.46
- Chloe, daughter, (born 1989): Economic Left/Right: -1.63, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.74
- See [1]
[edit] The Office
I once worked for a successful growing organisation. It introduced management ideas, including staff appraisals. My boss, who was a philospophy graduate and an avowed atheist, took me into his office for my first appraisal. He praised me for working hard, but told me off for my disconcerting tendency, which others had remarked on, of causing senior management to question their most fundamental beliefs. Looking for a let out I mentioned that this presumably wasn't a problem for him since, as an atheist, he wouldn't have any fundamental beliefs. He replied,'There you are - you're doing it again.'
[edit] The Home
Yet another teenage party was arranged at my house at New Year. I celebrated at a friend's house and returned some while after midnight. People here seemed to be enjoying themselves, but one lad was sitting on the stairs brandishing an eight-inch kitchen knife. He explained that it was to ward off prospective gate-crashers. I persuaded him that it would probably not be necessary and he gave the knife back. Later there was a report that another guest was going round the house smashing glasses with a hammer. When I found him he refused to hand it over, claiming it was his and that he had brought it with him. I made him leave and told him he was not welcome at my house. After the party, I couldn't find my collection of back-up disks, a loss that I will feel painfully for a long time.
When I was seventeen, I had parties and my friends respected my parents' home. Someone told me recently that these days, another person's private house is a tempting place for youngsters to misbehave because there's no video surveillance, no security guards, etc., unlike most other places they frequent. So they exploit with alacrity any opportunity to vent their frustrations without fear of retribution.
[edit] Work
... I signed the non-disclosure clause.
Not long ago I had an email from a colleague inviting me, along with other team members, to join him after work to celebrate the end of Ramadan. I replied that I would be happy to celebrate the fact that I was not celebrating the end of Ramadan, since I am not a Muslim. Anther non-Muslim team member expressed dismay that I should have made such a reply, but the one who invited us, a delightful fellow, did not seem in the least put out, and we enjoyed a drink together, each of us celebrating in our own way.
[edit] Play
I have a good friend named Bharat Patel. He is fond of cricket. His name is an anagram of "alpha batter" and, what is more serendipitous, is also an anagram of "alphabet art".
If one person can see clearly for 15 miles from the top of a tower, how far can 10 people see clearly for? If a guy with a telescope comes along and with it can see clearly for 20 miles, whose views would you prefer about what's out there: the 10 people who, between them, can only see for 15 miles, or the one guy who can see for 20 miles?
[edit] Dualities
There are two types of people:
- the type of people who divide the world into two types of people and the type who don't.
- There are those who follow the maxim that a mind expanded with a new idea never contracts to its original size, and there are those who are like doors that only open outwards - the more you push the faster they remain shut.
- All humanity is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable, and those who move! -Benjamin Franklin
- There are relativists (who believe that your truth and my truth might be different) and there are absolutists (who believe that there is only truth).
- There are opportunists and there are planners
- Failures are divided into two classes - those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought. John Charles Salak
- Some people change when they see the light, others when they feel the heat. Caroline Schoeder
[edit] Quotes
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." Albert Einstein
[edit] Stumble Upon Links
- Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton) http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/EinsteinQuotes.html
- http://yoke.cc/handart.htm
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