Thomas Colthurst's DeVaul.Net Home Page
Note: This page was deleted (blanked) on December 18 at 11:12pm EDT by a someone accessing the page from 165.247.239.72, user-uivfrq8.dsl.mindspring.com. It appears that this was an accident caused unitentionally by accessing the Google cache of the "edit page" dialog, and an empty post being sent by the browser.
I will work on a short-term fix to prevent "empty" posts from being sent and also look into digging a more up-to-date version of this page from local backup, though this will probably have to wait until I return to town after December 27th, 2001.
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- RichardWayne
Howdy. I used to have a (infamous?) home page at MIT, it
will be resurrected Real Soon Now, but probably not here. I also have a home page at work, http://www.d4m.bbn.com/~thomasc/, but I don't think anyone
except BBNers can access it. Thanks to HackSaw, I also now have a home page at http://www.hacksaw.org/~thomasc/ which I will soon be adding much more to.
Some more or less public information about me:
- I work at BBN (owned by Verizon["NOT ANY MORE SUCKAS]) doing speech recognition research: trying to get computers to transcribe human speech. One of the reasons I find speech recognition interesting is that it is one of the hardest AI problems we (mankind) are anywhere near to solving. Also, it involves a lot of statistics, and ever since I became a Bayesian, I've really enjoyed doing statistics. Of course, that may be an argument against Bayesianism for some of you ...
[at least it leaves your Sundays free. --Sebbo]
- My main hobbies are reading nonfiction books (mostly econ & anthropology for the past couple of months) and playing computer games (oangband & Civilization II for the most part). I recently mostly gave up playing Magic: The Gathering (having at my peak reached into the top 20 limited players in MA).
- I am a co-founder of the vegan/vegatarian Thursday Night Dinner potluck group (even though I don't eat many vegatables myself). Who knows, maybe TND's eventual claim to fame will be as the genesis of the SevenThursdays mailing list ...
- I was born and raised in San Diego, CA, yet don't know how to drive. Go figure.
- My political views at first blush seem libertarian, but at close examination are much odder. This is mostly because I am a economics expansionist: I believe that not only is neoclassical micro-economics a good tool for understanding and predicting human economic behaviour (here in Cambridge/Somerville, this itself is a controversial view), but also for understanding and predicting human political behaviour (as in James Buchanon's public choice theory), human sexual behaviour (Richard Posner's _Sex and Reason_), human cultural behaviour (Gary Becker's _Human Capital_, Marvin Harris' _Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches_, David Levy's _Economic Ideas of Ordinary People_, Posner in just about everything, but especially in say _Aging and Old Age_), et cetra, et cetra. Anyway, economic expansionism has a lot to recommend itself as a scientific methodology, but as a source of cocktail party political opinions it leaves a lot to be desired. For one thing, it is rather obscure (had you heard about it before this?), so I often find myself explaining the same theories over and over again, and no one likes to be explained to at cocktail parties. For another, it is wildly controversial, which is another way of saying that most people think it is wrong. That doesn't bug me, but it does mean that most people stop desiring to talk politics with me after a while (what astronomer wants to talk to a Flat Earther?). Finally, and this is the kicker, it a rather complicated theory that no believes is complicated, except those who believe in it. [The culprit here is neoclassical microeconomics, the theory that everyone thinks they know except those who know it.] What it all adds up to is a situation where I find your political views shallow and non-rigorous and you find my political views wrong. Any suggestions as to how to avoid this impasse are greatly appreciated ...
[Do you have a web site or some other source for information on economic expansionism? Might help some understand if they can get a good grip on it before entering the conversation.]
- Here are my scores from the "see what religion you are quiz" (see MegMuckenhoupt's page for the link):
Atheist/Agnostic...click to learn more (score=100)
Humanist ...click to learn more (score=100)
Unitarian Universalist ...click to learn more (score=93)
Theravada Buddhist ...click to learn more (score=86)
Neo-Pagan ...click to learn more (score=63)
Liberal Quaker ...click to learn more (score=60)
Mainline to Liberal Protestant...click to learn more (score=44)
Latter Day Saints...click to learn more (score=39)
Reform Judaism ...click to learn more (score=39)
Sikhism ...click to learn more (score=39)
Mainline to Conservative Protestant...click to learn more (score=34)
New Age ...click to learn more (score=32)
Christian Science ...click to learn more (score=26)
Eastern Orthodox ...click to learn more (score=26)
Hindu ...click to learn more (score=26)
Islam ...click to learn more (score=26)
Mahayana Buddhist ...click to learn more (score=26)
New Thought ...click to learn more (score=26)
Orthodox Judaism ...click to learn more (score=26)
Orthodox Quaker ...click to learn more (score=26)
Roman Catholic ...click to learn more (score=26)
Scientology ...click to learn more (score=26)
Seventh Day Adventist ...click to learn more (score=26)
Baháí ...click to learn more (score=13)
Jainism ...click to learn more (score=13)
Jehovahs Witness ...click to learn more (score=13)
ThomasColthurstWikiJournal.
-Thomas C
thomasc@alum.mit.edu
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