User:Metawidget

Metawidget's answers to frequently asked questions

You can also find out more from Metawidget's forum profile.

What is the origin of your username?

I thought it sounded cool, and as a happy little cog who makes little computer cogs go 'round I thought it was fitting.

That, and I am proud holder of an associated domain name.

How did you get to spacefem.com?

Assorted quizzes over a few months... then I found the forums, needed to procrastinate instead of writing an essay about Strawberry Hill and its influence on goth subculture, and a beautiful friendship was born.

Where is your user pic from, and what does it mean to you?

I was walking up St. Urbain street in the cool mid-autumn drizzle to have some lunch with my love, and we saw this chair and traffic cone sitting out in the parking lane, positioned just so. I thought "art!" and took a picture or two (some with her on the chair, some without), then a guy leaned out a nearby window, wondering what we were doing photographing his little blockade of a parking space so that he'd have a place for the moving van to go.

The world is a magical place when you explore it with your beloved and a camera.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I am currently working in health statistics at Statistics Canada. I'm not convinced that I'm grown up yet, though. I kind of accept that I might wind up doing any number of other random things, though. I suspect I'll always be something of a generalist or interdisciplinary glue.

Over time, I've wanted to be an astronaut, an architect, an engineer, a graphic designer, a propagandist, a politician, a counsellor and an AI researcher.

I'm more certain about un-jobbish things: I want to be (in no particular order) a father, a husband, a good person, healthy, happy, with a nice un-manicured backyard and generally thriving.

What general things should we know about you?

I am getting a degree in mathematics and an education in being a generalist. I am a boy in love with a girl, with some first-hand sense of what it means to be queer. I like grammar, technology, pretty things, food, drink, my family (both biological and assembled), my cat, politics, people in general, getting inside heads, being wise, being rash and putzing around the forums here.

I speak English, French, and a bunch of geek dialects in both. I am a benevolent atheist with Discordian, Pastafarian and Invisible Pink Unicorn leanings. I am socially liberal, vehemently secularist, and fiscally careful.

I get involved in lots of stuff and am more likely to be overwhelmed and borked than just bored if you find me doing nothing for an afternoon.

How do you generally stand on political issues?

I'm basically an anti-deficit lefty: socially libertarian, pro-public-education, pro-science, pro-academic-funding, pro-choice, sex-positive� fiscally I don't mind middling to high taxes to support a good state apparatus so long as we're not borrowing from our kids as well.

I can't stand theocrats and identity politics.

I tend to get involved in politics at the little committee level� health and safety, media, academic programs�

What do you feel is your greatest achievement in life?

I think my best research work so far was done a few years ago at Statistics Canada in data quality and delineation. It felt useful and in-depth and fun.

I think the best decision I've made was taking the plunge with my current beloved, but it's hard to frame that as so much of an achievement as something crazy and wonderful and lucky.

Describe any animals you live with.

I live with Noisette the small, crazy cat (kind of a tortoiseshell kind of critter) and Pixel the larger, stripey, differently-crazy cat (sort of an Ernie to Noisette's Bert). I have lived with rats, dogs, other cats, goldfish and a newt in the past.

What are your favorite books of all time?

Like Pierce, Hitchhiker's Guide and Earthsea. Also, Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, Ingram's The Science of Everyday Life, and Russell's The Sparrow and Children of God.

What do you like/not like to wear?

I dress pretty practically: in the winter that means plain cargos, shirt, sweater, highly visible orange vest, coat, gloves, hat, scarf� In the summer, it's those same plain cargos with a t-shirt. I can dress up when necessary (or unnecessary but fun), I like vests and

A lot of my stuff is used and/or repaired, but when I get new stuff I try to get nice new stuff: MEC, Simon's, smaller shops around Montreal. I get sentimental about clothes and wear stuff that reminds me of people and places I like, like my blue hoodie and KALX t-shirt from my girlfriend, or my scarf from my mom and sister. Overall, I look a little scruffy and handmade but with a nod to dignified.

What is your gender?

Boy.

list every job you've ever had, in any particular order

Clustered up thematically:

Teaching assistant in mathematics
Teaching assistant in new media
Math tutor
Technology instructor

Research assistant
Statistical methodologist
On-site computer techie

Board member
Tribunal panelist

Web designer
Translator
Illustrator

Barista
Ice cream vendor

Office assistant

Babysitter

Farmhand

What do you like about yourself?

I like that I'm a bit of a knowledge sponge, and so know a little about a lot, as well as being pretty competent in my areas of expertise.

What's your major?

In undergrad, I double-majored in communication studies and mathematics/statistics. My M.Sc. was in mathematics, geometry and abstract algebra to be exact.

What part of the world do you live in? Do you like it?

Gatineau (Hull), Quebec, Canada.

Near the capital with all its pretty architecture and civil servants (including me). I live with my wife in a house, on a dead-end street, close to a nature park, the local bike trail network, a good bakery, three levels of school, a grocery store and a friendly bike mechanic. We have a little vegetable garden in the back. We don't need to own a car. The weather is the variety pack of stifling heat and heaps of snow that the Eastern Time Zone part of Canada tends to get. I kind of like it. Hull feels a bit more small-towny than Ottawa, which suits me fine.

Describe yourself in four flattering words (obituary-style):

Resourceful - Generalist - Benevolent - Hawt

What is your religious identification/lack thereof?

Atheist, heathen, infidel, Discordian.

I have Christian (at Nazarene and Anglican churches, duties included singing, plate-passing, discussion-discussing, congregant-dating (once) praying, striving and failing) on my C.V., but I have no expected return date.

Care to list your body mods?

One porcelain crown on an incisor, patching up from a bike accident, and a few fillings.

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